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It was not so much to save the souls of men from hell, about which, indeed, there is comparatively little talk in the Fioretti, but to draw them also into the mystic circle where such angelic music was heard, that Francis of Assisi preached throughout Umbria, and even as far as the Soldan's country; and, if we interpret it rightly, the strings of that heavenly viol were the works of creation and the souls of all creatures, and the bow, whose upward movement ravished, and whose downward movement would have almost annihilated with its sweetness, that bow drawn across the vibrating world was no other than love.
This, probably, we all feel when we look at the paintings in the Church of Assisi or in the Arena Chapel at Padua. Perhaps those paintings also gain something by being in the proper place for religious art, a Church. Since the divorce of religious art from religion, it has been common to see a Crucifixion hung over a sideboard.
The central one on the left is either the twelfth subject of Assisi St. Anthony of Padua was preaching at a general chapter of the order, held at Arles, in 1224, when St. Francis appeared in the midst, his arms extended, and in an attitude of benediction." Francis rising to heaven, and springing forward, cried, 'Tarry, Father, I come with thee! and fell back dead."
Thomas Aquinas in the Dominican convent at Naples, and the Portincula of St. Francis near Assisi; and one or two great jurists so enjoyed the half-mythical reputation which led to this honour. It is probable that the great incomes and the political influence which some jurists obtained as consulting lawyers made a lasting impression on the popular imagination.
Francis of Assisi, for instance, who have ever dared to live literally in the Christian manner, have had an immeasurable effect upon the hearts and imaginations of the world. The truth is not that life cannot be so lived, but that humanity dares not take the plunge; and that is what Christ meant when He said that few would find the narrow way.
Theresa, of Spain, or Santa Chiara, of Assisi. "Why then," he asks, do the "majority of the present generation know little or nothing of so remarkable a story!" Till his biography appeared, it might have been answered that the story had never been told; now, we should have to say that, with a thousand demands upon our time, it has not been read.
Those which hover round the Cross in the fresco of the "Crucifixion" are as passionate as any angels of the Giottesque masters in Assisi. Those, again, which crowd the Stable of Bethlehem in the "Nativity" yield no point of idyllic charm to Gozzoli's in the Riccardi Chapel.
But at that time the joyous youth had not seemed to him ripe for the call of Heaven; when he found him bowed with grief, his eyes, so radiant yesterday, swimming in tears, the conviction was aroused that the Omnipotent One Himself had taken him by the hand to lead the young Swiss, to whom he gratefully wished the best blessings, into the path which the noble Saint of Assisi himself had pointed out to him, and wherein he had found a bliss for which in the world he had vainly yearned.
She will remain enshrined in my memory, and in the memory of those other travellers, as we saw her then, always young and beautiful, and always turning upon us those lovely, enquiring eyes. And, by the way, it is strange, is it not, that Miss Wycliffe should have eyes similar to those of my young guide in Assisi?
Suddenly grace rose in her and made her soul break forth; she went to confession, not daring to avow the more awful of her sins, and she communicated, thus grafting sacrilege upon her other faults. She lived, day and night tortured by remorse, and finally prayed to Saint Francis of Assisi to help her; and the next night the saint appeared to her.
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