They accepted the rebuke, withdrew from his presence with perfect humility, and laid their case before the Lord in prayer. The Pope, doubtless finding that the view from the green terrace had lost its charm at this squalid incursion, retired to his apartments in the Lateran Palace, and when night fell lay down and went to sleep. And in sleep his eyes were opened to that which had been hidden from them by day. He dreamed that a tender young palm-tree sprang suddenly from the ground beneath his feet and in a moment shot up to the sky and threw out strong branches on every side, forming a vast roof of fresh verdure under which millions of men found refuge and refreshment. Then he understood that the poor mendicants who had knelt before him that day were chosen by Heaven to found an order that should cover the world with a mantle of charity; and as soon as he awoke he sent messengers in haste to seek the little brown brothers—who were sure to be found in or near the Lateran Basilica, and bring them to him. We all know the result of the interview. How the Pope lovingly received the brothers, but how strongly he protested against St. Francis’ apparent imprudence in founding his institution on a vow of absolute poverty. How St. Francis refused to be shaken in his loyalty to his loved bride, the “Lady Poverty,” and how at last the great Pope yielded to the great Saint, discerning that Heaven itself was leading him on this thorny path. So much has been written about St. Francis by heretics, unbelievers, and amateurs, from whose company he would have fled in horror, on earth, who have bespattered him with their poisonous praises, who have each and all insulted him by the lies which they invented in order to represent him as the patron of their abominable errors, that a Catholic pen almost hesitates to write his blessed name. As one good man says: “He has conquered the world, and his victory would make him weep!” But he conquered it in another way too—in the way he intended. Travel where you will, to the very ends of the earth, and you will find the brown robes, the sandalled feet, the arms held open to the poor and the suffering and the despised; you will find the Sons of St. Francis toiling in the stoniest, roughest part of the vineyard, with and of the poor, praying for all men, teaching the children, nursing the sick, baptising the babes and the heathen, burying the dead, begging, more for their poor than for themselves, from door to door, leading the hardest of lives, yet always cheery and contented, the friends of all who need them, the “gente poverella” are indeed friends who never change or fail.