They deserve, at our hands, the full benefit of an honest and severe Christian effort to find out and nurture truth; so long as government and political power did not control them. History next tells us of the so-called "MENDICANT ORDERS." They originated in the thirteenth century, and this establishment was productive of remarkable results. Francis of Assisi (A.D. 1226), the son of a rich merchant, renounced all his possessions, clothed himself in rags, and wandered through the world, begging, and preaching repentance. His fiery zeal procured him disciples, who, like himself, renounced their worldly possessions, fasted, prayed, tore their backs with scourges, and supplied their slender wants from voluntary alms and donations. The order of Franciscans then spread rapidly through all countries. About the same time arose the order of Dominicans, or preaching monks, founded by an illustrious and learned Spaniard, Dominicus. Their chief objects were the maintenance of the predominant faith in its considered purity, and the extinction of heretical opinions. In {89} carrying these out, they became endowed with the greatest worldly and temporal privileges, received the powerful patronage of the pope, gradually obtained the chairs in the universities, and took the lead in the murder of their fellow creatures through the inquisition. What a temptation to brawling mendicants, too lazy to earn a living, authorized to beg, and the supple tools of political leaders; and all this by a mysterious society, under the guise and pretence of the Christian religion! Laic tools for such clerical workmen! While, from the mystics of that date, valuable works have been preserved, what has been left us from these mendicant orders? Anything save the cry of blood from the earth? Aught else than servile obedience in accomplishing the mandates of those in power?