The great Innocent knitted his brows; he knew well that his noisy triumphs, which echoed over the Tagus, the Thames, the Rhine, and the Golden Horn, were of no avail, if heretics sapped and mined the Church within. It seemed as if the great ecclesiastical fabric, to which he had given the devotion of a life, was tottering from corner-stone to apex; when, one day, a cardinal came to him and said, "I have found a most perfect man, who wishes to live according to the Holy Gospel, and to observe evangelical perfection in all things. I believe that through him the Lord intends to reform His Holy Church in all the world." Innocent was interested, and bade the man be brought before him. This man was Francis Bernadone, known to us as St. Francis, the leader of a small band of Umbrian pilgrims from Assisi, who asked permission to follow literally the example of Jesus Christ. The Pope hesitated. To the cardinals, men of the world, this young man and his pilgrims were fools and their faith nonsense. "But," argued a believer, "if you assert that it is novel, irrational, impossible to observe the perfection of the Gospel, and to take a vow to do so, are you not guilty of blasphemy against Christ, the author of the Gospel?" Thinking the matter over, the Pope dreamed a dream. He beheld the Church of St. John Lateran, the episcopal church of the bishops of Rome, leaning in ruin and about to fall, when a monk, poor and mean in appearance, bent under it and propped it with his back. Innocent awoke and said to himself, "This Francis is the holy monk by whose help the Church of God shall be lifted up and stand again." So he said to Francis and his followers, "Go brethren, God be with you. Preach repentance to all as He shall give you inspiration. And when Almighty God shall have made you multiply in numbers and in grace, come back to us, and we will entrust you with greater things." So St. Francis, "true servant of God and faithful follower of Jesus Christ," went about his ministry with the blessing of the Church. To the people of Assisi, of Umbria, and afterwards of all Central Italy, his life was a revelation of Christianity. He imparted the gospel anew, as fresh as when it had first been given under the Syrian stars. He embodied peace, gentleness, courtesy, and self-sacrifice. It is not too much to say that he saved the Catholic Church, and put off the Protestant Reformation for three hundred years. His example and influence raised the standard of conduct within the Church; and his love, his devotion, his insistence on the essential parts of Christ's teaching, and his dislike of worldly pomps, deprived heresy of all its weapons. He satisfied the widespread religious hunger better than heresy did. He was so characteristically Italian, and his ministry throws so much light on the state of Italy at the opening of the thirteenth century, that it is worth while to dwell for a few pages on his doings.