Oscar Wilde declares that, since Christ went to the cross, the world has produced only one genuine Christian, and his name is Francis d'Assisi. Certainly he is the one saint whom all the churches have agreed to canonize; the most vividly Christlike man who has ever submitted his character to the scrutiny of public criticism. His life, as Green says in his _Short History of the English People_, his life falls like a stream of light athwart the darkness of the mediæval ages. Matthew Arnold speaks of him as a figure of most magical potency and sweetness and charm. Francis called men back to Christ and brought Christ back to men. 'All Europe woke with a start,' Sabatier affirms, 'and whatever was best in humanity leaped to follow his footsteps.' II A blithe saint was Francis. He loved to laugh; he loved to sing; and he loved to hear the music of laughter and of song as it rippled from the lips of others. Every description that has come down to us lays stress on the sunshine that played about his lofty forehead and open countenance. The days came when, though still in the heyday of early manhood, his handsome figure was gaunt and wasted; his fine face furrowed with suffering and care; his virile strength exhausted by ceaseless toil, wearisome journeyings, and exacting ministries of many kinds. But, emaciated and worn, his face never for a moment lost its radiance. He greeted life with a cheer and took leave of it with a smile. His youth was a frolic; his very sins were pleasant sins. His winsomeness drew to him the noblest youths and fairest maidens of Assisi. The lithe and graceful figure of Francis, with his dark, eloquent but sparkling eyes, his wealthy shock of jet black hair, his soft, rich, sonorous voice and his gay but faultless attire, was the soul and center of every youthful revel. He was, as Sir James Stephen says, foremost in every feat of arms, first in every triumph of scholarship, and the gayest figure in every festival. 'The brightest eyes in Assisi, dazzled by so many graces, and the most reverend brows there, acknowledging such early wisdom, were alike bent with admiration towards him; and all conspired to sustain his father's confidence that, in his person, the family name would rival the proudest and most splendid in Italy's illustrious past.' His bewitching personality, his rollicking gaiety, his brooding thoughtfulness, his dauntless courage and his courtly ways swept all men off their feet; he had but to lead and they instinctively followed; he commanded and they unquestionably obeyed. He was nick-named _the Flower of Assisi_. He loved to be happy and to make others happy. 'Yet,' as one Roman Catholic biographer remarks, 'he did not yet know where true happiness was to be found.' He was twenty-four when he made that sensational discovery. He found the source of true happiness in the last place in the world in which he would have thought of looking for it. He found it at the Cross! And, in