prepared to embrace the vows of poverty | topography could fail to be struck by this and to surrender their all, but well-wish- fact, and the queer spellings of some ers pledged to support the Minorites, and places, which puzzled even Mr. Brewer, to co-operate with them when called upon, are themselves suggestive.* showing their good-will sometimes in vis- St. Francis died at Assisi on October iting the sick and needy, sometimes in 4, 1226. With his death troubles began. engaging in the work of teaching, or ac- Brother Elias, who was chosen to suc companying the preachers when advisa- ceed him as minister general of the order, ble, and bound by their engagement to had little of the great founder's spirit, and set an example of sobriety and serious- none of his genius. There was unseemly ness in their dress and manners. Up to strife and rivalry, and on the Continent it this time the word religious had been would appear that the Minorites made but applied only to such as were inmates of little way. Not so was it in England; a cloister. Now the truth dawned upon there the supply of brethren animated by men that it was possible to live the higher genuine enthusiasm and burning zeal for life even while pursuing one's ordinary the cause they had espoused was unexvocation in the busy world. The tone of ampled. Perhaps there more than any social morality must have gained enor- where else such laborers were needed, mously by the dissemination of this new perhaps too they had a fairer field. Cerdoctrine, and its acceptance among high tainly there they were truer to their first and low. It became the fashion in the up- principles than elsewhere. Outside the per classes to enrol oneself among the city walls at Lynn and York and Bristol; tertiaries, and every new enrolment was an in a filthy swamp at Norwich, through important accession to the stability, and, which the drainage of the city sluggishly indeed, to the material resources of the trickled into the river, never a foot lower Minorites; and when apparently within than its banks; in a mere barn-like struca few days of one another -no less than ture, with walls of mud, at Shrewsbury, in five gentlemen of knightly rank, of whom the "Stinking Alley" in London, the at least one, Sir Giles de Merc, had only | Minorites took up their abode, and there recently been employed as an envoy by they lived on charity, doing for the lowest the king to his brother Richard in Gas- the most menial offices, speaking to the cony, and another, Sir Henry de Walpole, poorest the words of hope, preaching to was amongst the most considerable and learned and simple such sermonswealthy men in the eastern counties, homely, fervent, and emotional as the Henry the Third spoke out his mind and world had not heard for many a day. showed that he was not too well pleased. How could such evangelists fail to win Really these friars were going on too fast their way? Before Henry III.'s reign -turning men's heads! At Lynn the was half over the predominance of the Franciscans were specially fortunate in Franciscans over Oxford was almost sutheir warden, whose austerity of life, gen-preme. At Cambridge their influence was tle manners, and profoundly sympathetic less dominant only because at Cambridge temperament obtained for him unbounded there was no commanding genius like influence. Among others Alexander de Bassingbourne * - - seneschal of Lynn for Pandulph, Bishop of Norwich, and, as such, a personage of importance, became his convert and joined the new order; but the number of Norfolk clergy and scholars who actually became friars must have been very large indeed; they were quite the picked men among the Franciscans in England. Of the first eighteen masters of Franciscan schools at Cambridge, at least ten were Norfolk men, while of the first five divinity readers at Oxford whose names have been recorded, after those of Grosseteste and Roger de Weseham, four were unmistakably East Anglians. No one familiar with Norfolk The name is again changed into Bissingburne by Eccleston, who writes it as he heard it from Norfolk people. short, Robert Grosseteste to favor and support them. St. Francis's hatred of booklearning was the one sentiment that he never was able to inspire among his followers. Almost from the first scholars, students, and men of learning were attracted by the irresistible charm of his wonderful moral persuasiveness; they gave in their adherance to him in a vague hope that by contact with his surpassing holiness virtue would go out of him, and that somehow the divine goodness which he magnified as the one thing needful would be communicated to them and supply that which was lacking in themselves; Eg.. Turnham represents the Norfolk pronunciation of Thornham. Heddele is Hadleigh, in Suffolk, spelt phonetically; Ravingham is Raveningham, Assewelle is Ashwell [cf. p. 289, Esseby for Ashby], Sloler is Sloley, Leveringfot is Letheringset. The but they could not bring themselves to the attempt to work it had ended in a believe that culture and holiness were in- miserable and scandalous failure. compatible or that nearness to God was friars came as helpers of the poor town possible only to those who were ignorant clergy, just when those clergy had begun and uninstructed. We should have ex- to give up their task as hopeless. They pected learning among the Dominicans, came as missionaries to those whom the but very soon the English Franciscans town clergy had got to regard as mere became the most learned body in Europe, pariahs. They came to strengthen the and that character they never lost till the weak hands, and to labor in a new field. suppression of the monasteries swept St. Francis was the John Wesley of the them out of the land. Before Edward I. thirteenth century, whom the Church did came to the throne, in less than fifty years not cast out. after Richard Ingworth and his little band Rome has never been afraid of fanati'anded at Dover, Robert Kilwarby, a cism. She has always known how to `ranciscan friar, had been chosen Arch- utilize her enthusiasts fired by a new idea. shop of Canterbury, and Bonaventura, The Church of England has never known general of the order, had refused the how to deal with a man of genius. From bishopric of York. In 1281 Jerome Wicklif to Frederick Robertson, from gscoli, Bonaventura's successor as Bishop Peacock to Dr. Rowland Wilnail, was elected pope, assuming the liams, the clergyman who has been in M Nicholas IV. danger of impressing his personality upon Haleyhile such giants as Alexander Anglicanism, where he has not been the amond Roger Bacon and Duns Scotus object of relentless persecution, has at be it re Minorites - all Englishmen least been regarded with timid suspicion, and Albbered and Thomas Aquinas has been shunned by all prudent men of icans, hat Magnus among the Domin- low degree, and by those of high degree amazing ven to intellectual life that has been forgotten. In the Church of thought, spinto a higher region of England there has never been a time prepared theation, and inquiry which when the enthusiast has not been treated and-by. It wy for greater things by- as a very unsafe man. Rome has found and Giotto recat Assisi that Cimabue a place for the dreamiest mystic or the spiration and did their most sublime in- noisiest ranter found a place and found the air that Stir very best, breathing a sphere of useful labor. We, with our breathed, and listerancis himself had insular prejudices, have been sticklers for ditions and memorg day by day to tra- the narrowest uniformity, and yet we have peradventure by one of the saint, told accepted, as a useful addition to the creed seen him alive or eve another who had of Christendom, one article which we ments in their childho touched his gar- have only not formulated because, perbe that there Dante watca Giotto at his the great sage Talleyrand - Surtout pas It may even haps, it came to us from a Roman bishop, work while the painter gone poet's face trop de zèle! by heart. To write the history of th mendicant orders in England would be task beyond my capacity, but no matan hope to understand the successes the failures of any great party in Churchr State until he has arrived at some comrehension, not only of the objects whichit set itself to achieve, but of its modu ope randi at the outset of its career. The friars were a great party in the Church, organized with a definite object, and pledged to carry out that object in simple reliance upon what we now call the voluntary principle. St. Francis saw, and saw much more clearly than even we of the nineteenth century see it, that the parochial system is admirable, is a perfect system for the village, that it is unsuited for the town, that in the towns The Minorites were the Low Churchicans the severely orthodox, among whom men of the thirteenth century, the Dominspiritual things were believed to be attainable only through the medium of signifi cant form. Rome knew how to yoke the two together, Xanthos and Balios champing at the bit, but always held well in hand. At the outset the two orders were so deeply impressed by the magnitude of hardly knew there was anything in which the evils they were to combat that they they were at variance. Gradually — yes, and somewhat rapidly each borrowed something from the other. The Minor. ites found they could not do without culture; the Dominicans renounced endowments; by-and-by they drew apart into separate camps, and discord proved that the old singleness of purpose and loyalty to a great cause had passed away. Imi tators arose. Reformers they all professed to be, improvers of the original idea. Augustinian Friars, Carmelites, Bethlehemites, Bonhommes, and the rest. Friars they all called themselves all pledged to the voluntary principle, all renouncing endowments, all professing to live on alms. - What keeps a spirit wholly true The rule of St. Francis was a glorious ideal; when it came to be carried into practice by creatures of flesh and blood, it to live. And yet, even as it was, its effects proved to be something to dream of, not upon the Church, nay upon the whole civanother, the mendicant orders declined, if their zeal grew cold, their simplicity of life faded, and their discipline relaxed; if they became corrupted by that very world which they promised to purify and deliver from the dominion of Mammon, this is only what has happened again and again, what must happen as long as men I have called St. Francis the John Wesley of the thirteenth century. The parallel might be drawn out in curious de-ilized world, were enormous. If, one after tail, if we compared the later history of the greater movements originated by one and the other reformer. The new order of friars were to the old ones what the Separatists among the Wesleyan body are to the Old Connection. They had their grievances, real or imagined, they loudly protested against corruption and abuses, they professed themselves anxious only to go back to first principles. But Rome absorbed them all, they became the Church's great army of volunteers, perfectly disciplined, admirably handled; their very jealousies and rivalries turned to good acWhen John Wesley offered to the Church of England precisely their successors, we would have no commerce with them; we did our best to turn them into a hostile and invading force. count. The friars were the evangelizers of the towns in England for three hundred years. When the spoliation of the religious houses was decided upon, the friars were the first upon whom the blow fell the first and the last. But when their prop erty came to be looked into, there was no more to rob but the churches in which they worshipped, the libraries in which they studied, and the houses in which they passed their lives. Rob the county hospitals to-morrow through the length and breadth of the land, or make a general scramble for the possessions of the Wesleyan body, and how many broad acres would go to the hammer? •Voluntaryism leaves little for the spoiler. As with the later history of the friars in England, so with the corruptions of the mendicant orders. though they were as great as malice or ignorance may have represented them-I am not concerned. That the Minorities of the fourteenth century were very unlike the Minorites of the thirteenth I know; that the other mendicant orders declined, I cannot doubt, The king began with the Franciscan convent of Christ Church, London, in 1532; he bestowed the Dominican convent at Norwich upon the corporation of that city on the 25th of June, 1540, are men. never. always asked for the unattainable, always In every age the prophet has pointed to a higher level than human nature could breathe in, always insisted on a measure of self-renunciation which saints in their prayers send forth the soul's lame hands to clutch — in their ecstasy of aspiration hope that they may some day arrive at. But, alas! they reached it And yet the saint and the prophet do not live in vain. They send a thrill of noble emotion through the heart of their generation, and the divine tremor does not soon subside; they gather round them the pure and generous, the lofty souls which are not all of the earth earthy. In such, at any rate, a fire is kindled by the spark that has fallen from the altar. By-and-by it is the fuel that fails; then the old fire, after smouldering for a while, goes out, and by no stirring of the dead embers can you make them flame again. You may cry as loudly as you will, Pull down the chimney that will not draw, and set up another in its place!" That you may do if you please; another fire you may have, but the new will not be as the old. AUGUSTUS Jessopp. round one of the pillars near Victoria | from him for some days. Are there no Street; the natural result being that only names of killed and wounded in the telethose in front could see what was printed gram?" on the orange-colored despatch. "Read it out!" exclaimed a voice from the background. 66 'Yes, yes, read it out!" chorussed the rest. "Pray do not press so, my good woman! What interest have you in it?" asked a broad-shouldered district inspector of a young woman who, with a child in her arms, was elbowing her way to the front. "What interest have I !" answered the woman, measuring her interlocutor with a defiant glance. My husband is in the Landwehr before Metz, and so I may well—" 66 "Room, room for the Landwehr's wife!" resounded from all sides, and immediately a lane was formed to let the woman read the telegram. A stout old gentleman with spectacles on nose, now begged for quiet, and when this was established he read out in a clear voice the despatch dated from Pont-à-Mousson, announcing that the enemy had made a sortie from Metz on the 16th, but had been driven back again into the fortress, after twelve hours' hard fighting. Heavy loss on both sides was, how- | ever, a sad ending to the glorious news. 66 Long live the army! Hurrah for Prince Frederic Charles,' "shouted the people, frantically waving their hats. The crowd was just beginning to disperse when an open carriage drove up, and the tastefully dressed occupant, or dering her coachman to stop close to the pillars, told the footman, who hastily jumped down, to tell her at once the contents of the telegram. "I can spare your servant the trouble, madame," said our grey-haired old friend, stepping towards the carriage and lifting his hat politely. "Ah, good-morning, dear doctor," cried the lady, very pleased. "I have not seen you for an age- please tell me quickly, have we gained another victory?" "General von Döring and von Wende are killed, and Von Rauch and Von Grüter are wounded," replied the doctor. "And is there nothing about Lieutenant von Rhaden?" questioned the lady in an anxious tone. "No, madame, your husband is not mentioned," answered the doctor, smiling good-naturedly at her naive question. "Then I must telegraph at once. Will you, please, see about the telegram for me, dear doctor? I shall have no peace till I know whether my husband is all right. We are close to my house, pray help me in my forlorn state." The doctor bowed assent and strode after the carriage, which stopped at No. 30, Victoria Street. "Who was that interesting-looking lady?" asked a bystander of the district inspector. "You are surely not of this place?" returned that dignified official. "No, I am from Danzig. "Ah! I thought you must be a foreigner, else you would have known 'our Pauline,'" saying which he strode off, not deigning to bestow any further information. Somewhat taken aback, the stranger turned to go, when a gentlemanly man, who had heard his question, stepped up to him and said: "That little lady with the spirituelle face and speaking eyes, is the prima donna of our Opera, Madame Pauline Lucca, the wife of Baron von Rhaden, who is now away with the army. She enjoys, and deservedly so, the greatest popularity here, and is always spoken of as our Pauline' by both high and low." With many thanks for the information vouchsafed, the stranger continued his route. Madame Lucca had scarcely entered her door, when the porter placed a telegram in her hands. Hastily tearing it open she read: "Lieutenant von Rhaden is wounded, but not dangerously." The doctor answered laughingly: "That we have won, you might have been certain of, but I suppose you want to know where? Well then; a decisive battle has been fought near Metz, and the French have been driven back into the fortress; but with great loss of life on both sides." Maria-Joseph!" exclaimed the lady with an unmistakable Austrian accent. Why, that is the army corps of Prince Frederic Charles, in which my husband is! Jesses! if only nothing has hap Then speaking to herself, she continpened to Adolph! I have had no newsued excitedly: 'No, no I know my 66 66 "Ah, it is as I feared!" she exclaimed. "It was not for nothing that I dreamed three nights running about snakes! It is true the telegram says he is not danger. ously wounded, but I am sure he must want nursing; and here I am- hundreds of miles away from him!" duty and will fulfil it! John must not | The minister was not a little surprised take the horses out, I must drive off at at the request, and did all in his power to once. Where is my maid? - Editha, you dissuade her from the undertaking, pointhave just come in time. Get everything ing out that the railroads were entirely ready, we start at once. Pack some taken up with military operations, and it changes of linen in my small trunk- would be quite impossible to obtain either dresses we shall not require, as we shall horses or carriage. certainly not be asked to court. Here is some money, go at once and buy everything that will strengthen my sick husband: pigeons, chickens, meat extract, preserves; if there is any caviare, you can get a small barrel from the old Russian in Charlotte Street, and don't forget the very best cigars, and take one dozen bottles of the oldest wine in the cellar. But I must have a pass from Count Eulenberg, the minister of the interior. Quick, quick, Editha! pack everything into one box and send it off to the station. As soon as you are ready we start." "But where to?" demanded the doctor, who had been an amused spectator of this scene, "if I may be allowed the question." "Where to? Why, into the enemy's country of course! I am going to bring my husband home, to nurse him here." "But the telegram does not say where your husband is, and in the confusion now reigning round Metz, you will find it difficult to find him." "Your Excellency," she replied, "I am determined to overcome these difficulties, and no danger shall keep me back. If the railroads are unavailable, and no carriage procurable, I will find some other way. Go I must, if I saddle a cow for myself."* I "If you are determined to carry out your scheme with such energy, I really must see what I can do to help you. will have your pass made out in both French and German, and will beg all officials to meet your wishes in every possible way." "Your Excellency, I thank you most warmly, both in my own and my husband's name. But please put it rather strongly to the officials that they should. help where they can, especially when I get into the enemy's country." Early on the morning of the 21st of August, we find Madame Lucca and her maid at the railway station, and soon they and their baggage, including the muchdiscussed commissariat hamper, were en "Then I will search Alsace and Lor-route for the seat of war. raine till I do find him." "Then you have sent your maid to buy all sorts of food, but your husband will not be able to eat meat just now." "But he must eat something!" she exclaimed. "Certainly, but only what is prescribed." "And what is that? Hospital soup, I suppose! watery bouillon! No, no! my Adolph is not accustomed to that; he must have something strong and nourishing." You are really giving yourself unnecessary expense and trouble," insisted the doctor. "If you want to take something with you, let it be compressed vegetables, condensed milk, Liebig's extract, coffee, tea, sugar; all these he can enjoy, and if you like I will go and make the necessary purchases." “Oh, doctor, I could embrace you!" "Pray do so, sans gêne,” said he laughingly, as he took his departure. Having settled her commissariat department, Madame Lucca got into her carriage, and drove to Count Eulenberg, whom she entreated to grant herself and maid a pass to the seat of war. For three hours this journey was uninterrupted, and Madame Lucca exclaimed joyfully: "You see, Editha, how easily. we are getting on, although the minister and doctor both said it would be so diffi. cult." "We have not yet reached our journey's end, madame," croaked the modern Cassandra. And almost as if confirming her words, a long, shrill whistle sounded in their ears, the train gradually slackened speed, and finally came to a dead stop at a small side station. The guards quickly opened the carriage doors, "Every one must get out; all bag. gage to be removed!" and the door of Madame Lucca's carriage was hurriedly opened by the station-master, with the words: Madame, will you have the goodness to get out?" "But why? I have made myself so excessively comfortable here." "Then I am all the more sorry to have to disturb you, but a message has just come from Saarbrücken, ordering us to wait for the train from Frankfort, carry • Her own words. |