About the same time another great begging order was founded by Francis, who was born in 1182 at Assisi, a town in the Italian duchy of Spoleto. The stories as to his early days are very strange; indeed, it would seem that, when he was struck with a religious idea, he could not carry it out without such oddities of behaviour as in most people would look like signs of a mind not altogether right. When Francis heard in church our Lord's charge to His apostles, that they should go forth without money in their purses, or a staff, or scrip, or shoes, or changes of raiment (_St. Matt._ x. 9, 10), he went before the bishop of Assisi, and, stripping off all his other clothes, he set forth to preach repentance without having anything on him but a rough gray woollen frock, with a rope tied round his waist. He fancied that he was called by a vision to repair a certain church; and he set about gathering the money for this purpose by singing and begging in the streets. He felt an especial charity for lepers, who, on account of their loathsome disease, were shut out from the company of men, and were subject to miseries of many kinds; and, although many hospitals had already been founded in various countries for these unfortunate people, the kindness which Francis showed to them had a great effect in lightening their lot, so far as human fellow-feeling could do so. Francis wished his followers to study humility in all ways. They were to seek to be despised, and were told to be uneasy if they met with usage of any other kind. They were not to let themselves be called _brethren_ but _little brethren_; they must try to be reckoned as less than any other persons. They were especially to be on their guard against the pride of learning; and, in order to preserve them from the danger of this, Francis would hardly allow them even a book of the Psalms. But, in truth, all these things might really be turned the opposite way, and in making such studied shows of humility it was quite possible that the Franciscans might fall under the temptations of pride. Francis was very fond of animals, which he treated as reasonable creatures, speaking to them by the names of brothers and sisters. He used to call his own body _brother ass_, on account of the heavy burdens and the hard usage which it had to bear. He kept a sheep in church, and it is said that the creature, without any training, used to take part in the services by kneeling and bleating at proper times. He preached to flocks of birds on the duty of thanking their Maker for His goodness to them; nay, he preached to fishes, to worms, and even to flowers.