Stoics and Saints - College of Stoic Philosophers

230 ST. FRANCIS OF ASSISI.
was any priest of their law who would accept that challenge,
nor expose himself to torments for the sake of his religion ;
he feared besides that some sedition would spring up. He
offered the saint several presents, all of which he refused.
Some days after he sent him back with a good
escort to
the Christian camp.
to Francis
/ His wider knowledge of men now suggested
the establishment of an Order, content to aim at a minor
perfection, which should lay
men and women under some
spiritual constraints, but should yet allow them to remain
in, and to transact the business of, the world. The idea
wrought, as far as numbers were concerned, with singular
success. The members were bound by an agreement rather
than a vow, and their habits of life were not so unlike
those which George Fox laid down for the Society of Friends.
He called it the Order of Penitence, and the association
spread so rapidly that during
the life of St. Francis and
his immediate successors the Franciscan cord was to be
seen on countless multitudes, in the market place, in the
universities, in the tribunals, in the camps,
and even on
the throne. After the death of Francis the Order con
tinued to increase with even greater rapidity. In 1280
there were reckoned 1500 houses of Franciscans and 90,000
friars. But long before 1280 corruption had commenced
its work. The Order rapidly rose to power and wealth and
as rapidly grew rotten.
The wandering friars begging through
Europe, losing their first inspiration, would be in the way
of all knavery, folly, and lust. There was little conservative
force in the system of the Order; when the spirit of St.
Francis died out of it we can well believe that morally
it
very rapidly decayed.
The expedition to the East is the main external event in
the latter years of the life of St. Francis. Never of a strong
constitution, and worn out by fastings and tears, he was a