It is impossible to call by the name of sermons the collections of rude apostrophes which the missionaries addressed to those whom they wished to convert; at this paroxysm the thirst for martyrdom becomes the madness of suicide. Is this to say that friars Bernard, Pietro, Adjutus, Accurso, and Otho have no right to the admiration and worship with which they have been surrounded? Who would dare say so? Is not devotion always blind? That a furrow should be fecund it must have blood, it must have tears, such tears as St. Augustine has called the blood of the soul. Ah, it is a great mistake to immolate oneself, for the blood of a single man will not save the world nor even a nation; but it is a still greater mistake not to immolate oneself, for then one lets others be lost, and is oneself lost first of all. I greet you, therefore, Martyrs of Morocco; you do not regret your madness, I am sure, and if ever some righteous pedant gone astray in the groves of paradise undertakes to demonstrate to you that it would have been better worth while to remain in your own country, and found a worthy family of virtuous laborers, I fancy that Miramolin, there become your best friend, will take the trouble to refute him. You were mad, but I envy such madness, for you felt that the essential thing in this world is not to serve this ideal or that one, but with all one's soul to serve the ideal which one has chosen. When, a few months after, the story of their glorious end arrived at Assisi, Francis discerned a feeling of pride among his companions and reproached them in lively terms; he who would so have envied the lot of the martyrs felt himself humbled because God had not judged him worthy to share it. As the story was mingled with some words of eulogy of the founder of the Order, he forbade the further reading of it.[18] Immediately after the chapter he had himself undertaken a mission of the same kind as he had confided to the Brothers of Morocco, but he had proceeded in it in an entirely different manner: his was not the blind zeal which courts death in a sort of frenzy and forgets all the rest; perhaps he already felt that the persistent effort after the better, the continual immolation of self for truth, is the martyrdom of the strong. This expedition, which lasted more than a year, is mentioned by the biographers in a few lines.[19] Happily we have a number of other papers regarding it; but their silence suffices to prove the sincerity of the primitive Franciscan authors; if they had wanted to amplify the deeds of their subject, where could they have found an easier opportunity or a more marvellous theme? Francis quitted Portiuncula in the middle of June and went to Ancona, whence the Crusaders were to set sail for Egypt on St. John's Day (June 24th).