Francis of Assisi is one of the strangest, if also one of the most beautiful figures in the history of Christendom. Protestants vie with Catholics, Karl Hase and Margaret Oliphant with Frederic Ozanam and Joseph Goerres, in depicting this devout and childlike spirit, who took poverty for his bride and set himself to realize in the utmost literalness the command to go forth to preach repentance and forgiveness of sins, taking neither scrip nor purse, and possessing no more than the absolute necessaries of human existence. At first he had no thought of founding an order, but only of helping the poor and the suffering for Christ’s sweet sake. But the divine fire of loving humility and childlike simplicity in the man drew others inevitably to his side, until there arose in his mind the sense of a great vocation to gather men into a new form of brotherhood. “Fear not,” he said to his earliest disciples, “in that ye seem few and simple-minded. Preach repentance to the world, trusting in Him who hath overcome the world, that His Spirit speaks through you. You will find some to receive you and your word with joy, if still more to resist and mock you. Bear all that with patience and meekness. Take no heed for your simplicity or mine. In a short time the wise and the noble will come to preach with you before princes and people, and many will be turned to the Lord. He has shown it to me, and in mine ears there is a sound of the multitude of disciples who are to come to us out of every people. The French are on the way; the Spaniards are hurrying; the Germans and English run; and a multitude of other tongues hasten hither.” So Thomas of Celano records his words in his biography of the saint, which is the freest from exaggerations and the most trustworthy of them all.