In 1224 nine Franciscans came to England--the very first to come here. Four of them went straight {34} to London. There the poorer people lived on the marshy land near the Thames, huddled together in huts built of mud and wattle; and in such homes there must have been plenty of sickness and misery. For a short time the four Grey Friars lived on Cornhill. Perhaps they thought they had no right to live in so pleasant a place when there was such great misery down by the river; certainly, soon so many people came about them that this first home was too small for them. Now, a London citizen had some property "in Stynkyng Lane and in the parish of St. Nicholas Shambles." Do you know what shambles are? In them animals are killed for food; they cannot be nice places to live in. This property the citizen gave to the Friars, and there they made their new home. By their good deeds they must very quickly have won the respect of the Londoners, for some gave them more lands, and others helped in building a church and monastery for them. This monastery was close to the place where the London General Post Office now stands. In those days the monasteries did most of the work which is now done by schools, libraries, hospitals, hotels, and workhouses; no doubt the Franciscans did their full share of it in London. But as the years passed on and the first monks died, the younger men who took their places became less strict in keeping the rules of St. Francis; many people gave money and lands to the Order, and it became rich and great, and changed very much. Before a hundred years had passed away, in place of their first church, a new one had been built for them, one of the grandest in the {35} land; its floor and pillars were all of marble. St. Francis told his followers that they needed no books but a Prayer-Book; before long the Grey Friars not only had books, but two hundred years after they settled in London Richard Whittington gave them a library. They no longer gave all their time to caring for the poor and wretched, for we hear of some of them teaching at Oxford and Cambridge; indeed, one of the most learned men of the age, Roger Bacon, was a Grey Friar. Thus the years passed on until Henry VIII. became King. Do you remember how he treated the monks of the Charter House? I have no such story to tell you of the Grey Friars, for they gave up to the King their monastery and all they possessed when he called on them to do so.