The great movement, which began at Assisi and spread throughout Europe in a very few years, can only be likened to that witnessed by the lake of Galilee. Rich citizens gave all to the poor; the peasants left the vintage and sold their oxen, to join the ever-swelling crowd of bare-footed disciples who wandered through cities and into distant lands bringing comfort and words of peace to all they met. Like a ray of brilliant sunshine St. Francis dispersed the gloom of the middle ages, teaching men that the qualities of mercy and love were to be looked for from God instead of the inflexible justice that had overshadowed a religion intended to be all light. He walked the earth with joyous steps, inviting all to come with him and see how beautiful was the world; he looked upwards, praising God in bursts of eloquent song for the rain that fed the flowers, the birds that sang to him in the woods, and the blueness of his Umbrian sky. How different from the stern, orthodox saints who passed through the loveliest valleys with downcast eyes for fear of some hidden temptation or of some interruption to their prayers! With such a founder it is hardly surprising that the order of St. Francis spread and multiplied, becoming a great world force, as great and perhaps greater than that of St. Dominic. We get an interesting picture of the change he wrought throughout Italy and of the enthusiasm he kindled among his followers in a letter of Jacques de Vitry; from this we quote at length, for, being written by a contemporary of the saint, its value is very great. "While I was at the pontifical court I saw many things which grieved me to the heart. Everyone is so preoccupied with secular and temporal things, with matters concerning kings and kingdoms, litigations and lawsuits, that it is almost impossible to talk on religious matters. "Yet I found one subject for consolation in those lands: in that many persons of either sex, rich, and living in the great world, leave all for the love of Christ and renounce the world. They are called the Friars Minor, and are held in great respect by the Pope and the Cardinals. They, on their part, care nought for things temporal, and strive hard every day to tear perishing souls from the vanities of this world and to entice them into their ranks. Thanks be to God, their labour has already borne fruit, and they have gained many souls: inasmuch as he who listens to them brings others, and thus one audience creates another. "They live according to the rule of the primitive church, of which it is written: 'The multitude of believers were as one heart and one soul.' In the day they go into the cities and the villages to gain over souls and to work; in the night they betake themselves to hermitages and solitary places and give themselves up to contemplation.