Here, more than anywhere else, we must beware of facile theories and hasty generalizations. The same life described by two equally truthful contemporaries may take on a very different coloring. This is especially the case if the man concerned has aroused enthusiasm and wrath, if his inmost thought, his works, have been the subject of discussion, if the very men who were commissioned to realize his ideals and carry on his work are divided, and at odds with one another. This was the case with St. Francis. In his lifetime and before his own eyes divergences manifested themselves, at first secretly, then in the light of day. In a rapture of love he went from cottage to cottage, from castle to castle, preaching absolute poverty; but that buoyant enthusiasm, that unbounded idealism, could not last long. The Order of the Brothers Minor in process of growth was open not only to a few choice spirits aflame with mystic fervor, but to all men who aspired after a religious reformation; pious laymen, monks undeceived as to the virtues of the ancient Orders, priests shocked at the vices of the secular clergy, all brought with them--unintentionally no doubt and even unconsciously--too much of their old man not by degrees to transform the institution. Francis perceived the peril several years before his death, and made every effort to avert it. Even in his dying hour we see him summoning all his powers to declare his Will once again, and as clearly as possible, and to conjure his Brothers never to touch the Rule, even under pretext of commenting upon or explaining it. Alas! four years had not rolled away when Gregory IX., at the prayer of the Brothers themselves, became the first one of a long series of pontiffs who have explained the Rule.[1] Poverty, as Francis understood it, soon became only a memory. The unexampled success of the Order brought to it not merely new recruits, but money. How refuse it when there were so many works to found? Many of the friars discovered that their master had exaggerated many things, that shades of meaning were to be observed in the Rule, for example, between counsels and precepts. The door once opened to interpretations, it became impossible to close it. The Franciscan family began to be divided into opposing parties often difficult to distinguish. At first there were a few restless, undisciplined men who grouped themselves around the older friars. The latter, in their character of first companions of the Saint, found a moral authority often greater than the official authority of the ministers and guardians. The people turned to them by instinct as to the true continuers of St. Francis's work. They were not far from right.