And he and his brethren spoke aloud and freely, with sovereign florescence of poetry and boldness of truth, attacking the rich and the powerful, and daring even to denounce the priests of evil life, the debauched, simoniacal, and perjured bishops.

A long cry of relief greeted the Franciscans, the people followed them in crowds--they were the friends, the liberators of all the humble ones who suffered.

And thus, like revolutionaries, they at first so alarmed Rome, that the popes hesitated to authorise their Order.

When they at last gave way it was assuredly with the hope of using this new force for their own profit, by conquering the whole vague mass of the lowly whose covert threats have ever growled through the ages, even in the most despotic times.

And thenceforward in the sons of St.Francis the Church possessed an ever victorious army--a wandering army which spread over the roads, in the villages and through the towns, penetrating to the firesides of artisan and peasant, and gaining possession of all simple hearts.