Part 11

So that when Mary still remained below She mounted up with Christ upon the cross! But that too darkly I may not proceed, Francis and Poverty for these two lovers Take thou henceforward in my speech diffuse. Their concord and their joyous semblances The love, the wonder, and the sweet regard, They made to be the cause of holy thoughts.

Francis and Poverty--these lovers seem strange indeed to twentieth-century eyes. An age when philanthropy strives for the abolition of poverty and invites enlightened self-interest to its aid cannot readily understand one who welcomed poverty as a blessed condition. “No man,” said a disciple of St. Francis, “was ever so covetous of wealth as he of poverty.”

We hear St. Francis discoursing with brother Leo concerning perfect bliss. It lies not in knowledge or power or even in the ability to convert the infidels to the Holy Faith. “When we shall come to St. Mary of the Angels dripping with rain and tormented with cold and hunger, and we shall knock at the door, and the porter shall say, ‘Who are ye?’ and we shall answer, ‘We are your brethren,’ and he shall say, ‘You lie, you are two knaves that go about deceiving the people and stealing from the poor’--if, when he leaves us in the cold and wet we shall patiently endure, and say within ourselves, ‘Perhaps the porter reads us aright,’ then, O brother Leo, thou mayest say, ‘Herein lies perfect bliss.’”

We hear the passionate prayer, “O Lord Jesus, point out to me the ways of poverty which were so dear to thee. O Jesus, who chosest to be poor, the favor I ask of thee is to give me the privilege of poverty and to be enriched by thy blessing.”

This was not the temper of ordinary asceticism. St. Francis was in temper more an Epicurean than a Stoic. He was a lover of pleasure and was not content with any kind of pleasure short of what he conceived to be the highest. The ascetic was interested primarily in the salvation of his own soul. Wealth and comfort were the temptations of the devil to cheat him of his future reward. The hermit accepted poverty as the hard road to Heaven; to St. Francis it was Heaven itself.

“Property is robbery,” he would have said, but not in the sense in which a modern communist would use the words. It is the robbery not of one’s neighbor but of one’s self. We take for granted that wealth is a good thing and poverty an evil. No, St. Francis would say, there is no good thing but what is good for the soul. It is good to be humble, sympathetic, and thankful. It is good to be conscious of God’s presence everywhere and to be close to the lowliest of his creatures. The means of this grace are nearer to the peasant than to the prince. There are some things that wealth buys. The rich man has his comforts, his sheltered home, his group of friends and dependents, his servants and his wide estates; his is the meekness that inherits the earth.

St. Francis found joy in the sacrifices and austerities which to others were so painful. The predominant note is that of gladness. In the midst of his penances he is light-hearted. He interpreted more literally than we do the words, “Take no thought for the morrow.” Some things are possible in Umbria and Galilee that seem wildly impracticable under the fickle skies of New England. The sober prose of religion may be translated into all languages and verified by all human experience, but there is an idyllic poetry of religion that belongs only to the climate where that poetry had birth. “The Little Flowers of St. Francis” grew out of the same kindly soil and under the same friendly skies that nourished the lilies that Jesus loved.

St. Francis always wore his halo with an easy grace. In spite of his scourgings and fastings he was blithe and debonair. He was saint-errant, as full of romance as any knight-errant of them all. He was a lover of spiritual adventure, and delighted to attempt the impossible.

To St. Francis voluntary poverty meant spiritual freedom. The preacher was no longer dependent on powerful patrons or rich parishioners or even on the fickle multitudes. The missionary did not need a missionary board. He did not have to wait for a church building to be erected and a pulpit to be prepared. Even a hermitage was a superfluity. “The true hermit,” said St. Francis, “carries his cell about with him.” And so he and his disciples preached and asked no man’s leave. Through all the byways of Italy they wandered, proclaiming that God was in the fields as well as in the churches. Entering a village Brother Francis would say, “Love God and repent, good people. Love God and do penance.” And Brother Egidio would say, “Yes, good people, do as Brother Francis says, for he says what is right.”

And if there were no people to preach to there were always our sisters, the birds, and now and then there was a wicked wolf who would yield to moral suasion. We smile at this way of preaching to every creature, but it is as we smile at the idiosyncrasies of one we love.

Many a preacher who has confined his preaching to human kind has put less good sense into his sermons and shown less insight into the causes of sin than did Francis in his discourse to the wolf of Gubbio. The inhabitants who had suffered from his depredations hated him for his wolfish iniquities. The saint saw that the cause of the evil was economic rather than moral. He was a right-minded wolf; the trouble was that he was hungry. St. Francis entered into a covenant of peace with him.

“‘Brother Wolf, inasmuch as it pleases you to make and keep this peace, I promise you that so long as you shall live you shall not suffer hunger, forasmuch as I am aware that hunger has caused your every crime. But since I have got for you this grace, I require, Brother Wolf, your promise never again to do harm to any human being, neither to any beast. Do you promise?’ And St. Francis stretching forth his hand, the wolf uplifted his right paw and gave him the pledge of faith as best he could.”

It was in the same spirit that St. Francis went forth on his mission to the Sultan. The Crusaders had gone forth to destroy the infidels. Francis, in the simplicity of his heart, thought the better way would be to convert them. Neither way proved to be altogether effective, but certainly the latter plan was the more Christian.

In the history of preaching there have been many vicissitudes. Sometimes the preacher has been a philosopher, sometimes an advocate, sometimes he has adopted the tone of a man of business. In the preaching of St. Francis we are taken back to the time of the wandering minstrels.

“So great was the sweetness and consolation of his spirit that he called for Brother Pacificus whom the world entitled the King of Verse and Courteous Doctor of Song, and desired to send him with the other friars to go together through the world, preaching and singing the “Praises of the Lord.” And he desired that he among them who was the best preacher should first preach to the people, and when the sermon was ended all the others should sing together the “Praises of the Lord,” as the Lord’s minstrels; and at the end he desired the preacher should say to the people, ‘We are the Lord’s minstrels, and the reward we ask of you is that you turn to true repentance.’”

No wonder that the people loved Brother Francis when he brought religion to them in such a fashion, and that there would gather around him

A crowd of shepherds with as sunburnt looks As may be read of in Arcadian books.

With all his saintly austerities St. Francis was always a gentleman. Even the most admiring biographers cannot hide his humanness. The Lives of the Saints do not contain many such incidents as that in the chapter in “The Mirror of Perfection” entitled “How he comforted a Sick Friar by eating Grapes with Him.” It was a little thing to do, but I am sure that St. Dominic would never have thought of it. The friar had been overdoing the mortification of the flesh, and had fallen ill. “Blessed Francis said to himself: ‘If that friar would eat ripe grapes in the morning I believe he would be cured!’ And as he thought so he did. Rising early in the morning, he called the friar secretly, and took him to a vineyard near the place, and choosing a vine that had good grapes fit for eating, he sat down by the vine with the friar and began to eat grapes, that the friar should not be ashamed of eating alone.... And all the days of his life this friar remembered the pity and compassion shown him by the blessed Father, and would relate what had happened to the other friars.”

It was an age of miracles, but St. Francis never allowed them to clutter up his little world. They must keep their place. When Brother Peter died in great sanctity, he was immediately worshiped as a saint. Great crowds came to his tomb, and many miracles were wrought. This was well, but there must be a measure in all things. So one day St. Francis went to the door of the tomb, and his most persuasive voice said, “Brother Peter, in your lifetime you gave perfect obedience. Know that your brethren are disturbed by the crowds that come to your tomb. I command you, by holy obedience, that you work no more miracles.” And from that day Brother Peter abstained from any interference with the order of nature.

A true son of the Church, yet because of the unworldliness of his nature Francis from the first transcended the sphere of ecclesiasticism, and lived in the freedom of the spirit. In an age when ritualism was triumphant he chose an unsacerdotal ministry. At a time when the highest piety was supposed to manifest itself in the building and adornment of churches, he insisted on the higher grace of charity. When a case of need was presented to him, he said: “Sell the ornaments on the altar of the Blessed Virgin. Be assured that she would be more pleased to have her altar without adornment than to see the gospel of her Son any longer set at naught.”

Pope Innocent had many who came with ambitious plans. There were always monks who desired to be abbots, and priests who desired to be bishops. But one day Brother Francis came desiring that he and certain poor brethren might be allowed to live according to the rule of the gospel. They were not content to be poor after the conventional fashion of the great monastic institutions, where corporate wealth was married to individual poverty. Their poverty should be real. Almost everything had been organized around a treasury. They would like to organize brotherly kindness, patience, humility, and love according to their own laws.

And the request was made so simply that Pope Innocent could do nothing but grant it, though it made his own ambitions stand out in startling contrast.

* * * * *

The life of St. Francis was very mediæval, which was but another way of saying that its idealism was not balanced by the scientific temper. Men in those days delighted in paradoxes, and were contented with no half measures. His experience was different from ours. He did not confront the poverty of the slums of our great cities. It was the poverty of Umbria. It was a poverty that was acquainted with hunger and which wore coarse garments, but it had the freedom of the fields and the open roads. We have problems to solve with which he was unacquainted.

Yet there is something in his daring paradox which attracts us. Beneath all its extravagance there is a vitality in the joyous worship of My Lady Poverty. For what is worship? It is, literally, worth-ship. It is the recognition of intrinsic values. It is just here that the modern man is beginning to be distrustful of himself. He has been marvelously successful in obtaining his desires, but has he desired the best things? In the height of his achievement he cannot help asking, “After all, is it worth what it has cost?”

Things turn out differently from what had been expected. A life devoted to personal gain is likely to be disappointing. A whole community which has no other means of estimating worth than the increase in wealth is still more disappointing. It has no proper means of government. A plutocracy is but another name for moral anarchy. Special interests become intolerably domineering and override the common good. In a society where everything is measured by money, where is the limitation to despotism? What is to prevent the rich man from buying up his neighbors and using all their talents to serve his own narrow purposes? He is able to pay for the best food and drink and shelter. Why may he not bend to his will the best human ability?

The answer comes from the iconoclasts, who strike boldly at the idols of the market-place. They have something that is not for sale, and they can afford to laugh at the highest bidders. They are not asking favors. They are likely to be inexperienced in the ways of the world, but the world fears them as it fears all forces which it cannot understand. They cannot be cajoled or threatened, for they have learned that it is possible to be happy and poor.

My Lady Poverty has still her worshipers. She has long been honored by the devotion of true artists. The man of science gravely acknowledges her, and confesses without shame that he is too busy to make money. There are statesmen who are the despair of the party managers because when the question comes, “What can we do for you?” they answer “Nothing.” Every now and then there occurs that disconcerting phenomenon which we call genius. It upsets all calculations and refuses to respond to the law of supply and demand. The second best may be bought, but the very best is given away. Now and then, too, out of our conventional gentilities there comes an ideal gentleman. He would adorn the most exclusive circles, were it not that he has a passion for the best society, and he has learned that the best society is never exclusive. He takes the part of the uttermost man, and finds his joy in the companionship of those who are aspiring and struggling. And there is the increasing number of the nature-lovers who enter into the religious feelings which St. Francis voiced in “The Song of the Creatures.” They love one who could worship out of doors, and speak familiarly of Master Sun and Brother Wind and Sister Water. As they sit around their campfires they join heartily in the praise of Brother Fire. “He is jocund, robust, and strong and bright.”

They love to read again the story of how St. Francis and Brother Masseo stopped at noon under a tree where there was a broad smooth stone to serve as a table for their simple meal. Close by was a spring of cold water.

“What a treasure we have here!” cried Francis in delight.

“Father,” answered Brother Masseo, “how can you talk so when we have no tablecloth or knife or cup!”

Brother Masseo voices the opinion of the majority, but there are increasing numbers of true Franciscans. St. Francis is the patron saint of those who believe in Nature as well as in Grace. In spite of all his austerities he is endeared to us because he represented the bohemianism of piety.

AS HE SEES HIMSELF

The exercises of Commencement Day had been unusually interesting, though prolonged. I had attended them all. I had listened to the wisdom of the selected members of the graduating class, and afterwards to the less dignified but more optimistic remarks of the old graduates. The general impression that I received was that though the country had been in danger, the worst was over.

Returning home I found a caller waiting for me in the library. He was a rather handsome man in his way, but a close observer might have noticed a certain shiftiness in his eyes and hard lines about his mouth, and perhaps other signs of a misspent life. Not being a close observer, I did not notice any of these things. He struck me as an ordinary person with whom it might be a pleasure to talk. I was somewhat surprised at his first remark, which was made by way of introduction.

“I am,” he said, “well known to the police, and am said to be the most dangerous criminal of my class now at large. I am an expert forger and have served time in four prisons.”

His frank statement was preliminary to the request for a temporary loan that would enable him to complete the work of reformation, that was endangered by a lack of funds. It was late in the day, and before acceding to his request it was necessary that there should be some investigation, so I asked him to call on the morrow.

“I have been at the Commencement exercises all day,” I said, “and am not in a condition to be of much help to you just now; but if you would like to stay a while and chat, I should be glad.”

He welcomed the suggestion, and, now that the matter of business had been postponed, he was at his ease. In a friendly way he made me acquainted with the general theory of forging and check-raising,--at least so far as it is intelligible to the lay mind. His criticism of prison management was acute, and he pointed out the seamy side of the plans of the reformers. I listened with docility to his story of the under world. He was a well-educated man with an appreciation of good literature, which was a characteristic, he informed me, of most forgers. He was especially interested in sociology, and had all its best phrases at his tongue’s end. He attributed all his misfortunes to Society. For one thing I listened in vain,--the admission that in some respects he might himself have been remiss. The idea of reciprocal obligation did not seem to have any place in his philosophy. As delicately as I could I tried to turn the conversation from the sin of Society, which I readily acknowledged, to the less obvious point of personal responsibility. Granting that Society was imperfectly organized, that juries were ignorant, and judges lacking in the quality of mercy, and prison wardens harsh, and chaplains too simple-minded, were there not faults on the other side that it might be profitable to correct? It was of no use to try to induce such currents of thought; they were quickly short-circuited.

At last I said, “You have told me what you did before you concluded to reform. I am curious to know how, in those days, you looked at things. Was there anything which you wouldn’t have done, not because you were afraid of the law, but because you felt it would be wrong?”

“Yes,” he said, “there is one thing I never would do, because it always seemed low down. I never would steal.”

It was evident that further discussion would be unprofitable without definition of terms. I found that by stealing he meant petty larceny, which he abhorred. In our condemnation of the sneak thief and the pickpocket we were on common ground. His feeling of reprobation was, if anything, more intense than that which I felt at the time. He alluded to the umbrellas and other portable articles he had noticed in the hallway. Any one who would take advantage of an unsuspecting householder by purloining such things was a degenerate. He had no dealings with such moral imbeciles.

It seemed to me that I might press the analogy which instantly occurred to me between “stealing” and forgery.

“Do they not,” I said, “seem to you to amount to very much the same thing?”

I had struck a wrong note. Analogies are ticklish things to handle, for things which are alike in certain respects are apt to be quite different in other respects. His mind was intent on the differences. The sneak thief, he told me, is a vulgar fellow of no education. The forger and the check-raiser are experts. They are playing a game. Their wits are pitted against the wits of the men who are paid high salaries for detecting them. They belong to quite different spheres. If we are looking for analogies we should look up and not down.

“You wanted to know,” he said, “what was the difference between stealing and check-raising. Now, let me ask you a question. What’s the difference between check-raising and some of those big financial operations we’ve all been reading about? Suppose I have a check for five dollars, and I put my brains into it and I manipulate it so that I can pass it off for five hundred. I shove it in to the cashier and he takes it. Before he finds out his mistake, I have made myself scarce. What’s the difference between that transaction and what the ‘big fellows’ on the street are doing?” He mentioned several names that I had not thought of in that connection.

“The difference,” said I, “is--” Then it occurred to me that it was a subject to which I should give further thought. So we postponed the conversation till he should call again--which he never did.

* * * * *

I may be doing injustice to my friend the forger, but he gave me the impression that he considered himself to be, on the whole, a rather admirable character. His proposed change of business seemed to be rather a concession to the prejudices of the legal profession than the result of any personal scruple. As he saw himself he was a man of idealistic temper whose ideals conflicted with social usage. Society was all the time getting into his way, and in the inevitable collisions he had usually the worst of it. He regretted this, but he bore no malice. By the time a man has reached middle life and accumulated a good deal of experience he takes the world as he finds it.

He had encased himself in a moral system which was self-consistent and which explained to his own satisfaction all that had happened to him. One thing fitted into another, and there was no room for self-reproach.

* * * * *

Many attempts have been made to depict the character of an accomplished scamp. But Gil Blas and Roderick Random and Jonathan Wild the Great are after all seen from the outside. The author may attempt to do them justice, but there is a vein of irony that reveals a judgment of his own. They lack the essential element of incorrigibility, which is that the scamp does not suspect himself, has not found himself out.

No novelist has ever been able to give such a portraiture of a complacent criminal as was given a century ago in the autobiography of Stephen Burroughs.

Burroughs was the son of a worthy clergyman of Hanover, New Hampshire, and from the outset was looked upon as a black sheep. As a mere boy he ran away from home and joined the army, and then with equal irresponsibility deserted. He became a ship’s surgeon, a privateersman, then a self-ordained minister, a counterfeiter, a teacher of youth, a founder of libraries, and a miscellaneous philanthropist. He was a patriot and an optimist and an enthusiastic worker in the cause of general education. He was chock-full of fine sentiment and had a gift for its expression. He enjoyed doing good, though in his own way, and never neglected any opportunity to rebuke those who he felt were in the wrong. He had a desire to reform the world, and had no doubt of the plans which he elaborated. He was capable on occasions of acts of magnanimity, which, while not appreciated by the public, gave him great pleasure in the retrospect. The intervals between his various enterprises were spent in New England jails. These experiences only deepened his love of liberty, which was one of the passions of his life.

Burroughs had a happy disposition that enabled him to get a measure of satisfaction out of all the vicissitudes of his life. He had learned neither to worry nor to repine. He was not troubled by the harsh judgments of his fellow men, for he had learned to find his happiness in the approbation of his own conscience.