man his just measure in due season.” Such briefly is the precept of Evangelical Poverty--a precept which has no direct connection with any theory of social economics, but is based upon the fundamental law of religion, that only the poor in spirit are spiritually free and capable of citizenship in the realm of eternal life. Assuredly to us who live our lives upon the pulse of a great industrial empire, this message of the Poverello comes with a distinctness not to be passed unheeded. As a race we are a prosperous people, and money-making is our first preoccupation. Luxuries are easily within our grasp; cheap luxuries, perhaps, which is all the worse, for that very cheapness is a snare blinding us to the fact that what we indulge in is a luxury. In money-making and luxury lie the elemental dangers to our spiritual life. “Money,” says Cardinal Newman, “is a sort of creation, and gives the acquirer, even more than the possessor, an imagination of his own power, and tends to make him idolise himself. Again, what we have hardly won we are unwilling to part with; so that a man who has himself made his wealth will commonly be penurious, or, at least, will not part with it except in exchange for what will reflect credit on himself or increase his importance. Even when his conduct is most disinterested and amiable (as in spending for the comfort of those who depend on him), still this indulgence of self, of pride, and worldliness insinuates itself.” And he adds: “If such be the effect of the pursuit of gain on an individual, doubtless it will be the same on a nation; and if the peril be so great in the one case, why should it be less in the other?”[34] The enduring strength of a nation, as of an individual, depends upon moral fibre and spiritual vision. If these be destroyed no nation can long remain save as a warning to the nations that shall come. Undoubtedly there are strong tendencies amongst us towards the worship of wealth and its attendant luxuries and towards a selfish accumulation of wealth beyond all possible needs, tendencies which acquire strength with the growth of empire and trade. Well for us is it that at this time Francis of Assisi is becoming widely known. To all who revolt against the vulgar materialism which dominates so much of our present life, Francis of Assisi is as a prophet sent by God. Standing against the dark background of Avarice and Luxury which had already infested the growing commercial centres of the mediæval world, he throws the light of his own clear personality into the dark corners of our own life.