Life of St. Francis of Assisi | Page 5

time his own spirit
warned him that this was only a disguised selfishness; that one saves
oneself only in saving others.
When he saw suffering, wretchedness, corruption, instead of fleeing he
stopped to bind up, to heal, feeling in his heart the surging of waves of
compassion. He not only preached love to others; he himself was
ravished with it; he sang it, and what was of greater value, he lived it.
There had indeed been preachers of love before his day, but most
generally they had appealed to the lowest selfishness. They had thought
to triumph by proving that in fact to give to others is to put one's money
out at a usurious interest. "Give to the poor," said St. Peter
Chrysologus,[5] "that you may give to yourself; give him a crumb in
order to receive a loaf; give him a shelter to receive heaven."
There was nothing like this in Francis; his charity is not selfishness, it
is love. He went, not to the whole, who need no physician, but to the
sick, the forgotten, the disdained. He dispensed the treasures of his
heart according to the need and reserved the best of himself for the
poorest and the most lost, for lepers and thieves.
The gaps in his education were of marvellous service to him. More
learned, the formal logic of the schools would have robbed him of that
flower of simplicity which is the great charm of his life; he would have
seen the whole extent of the sore of the Church, and would no doubt
have despaired of healing it. If he had known the ecclesiastical
discipline he would have felt obliged to observe it; but thanks to his
ignorance he could often violate it without knowing it,[6] and be a
heretic quite unawares.
We can now determine to what religious family St. Francis belongs.
Looking at the question from a somewhat high standpoint we see that
in the last analysis minds, like religious systems, are to be found in two
great families, standing, so to say, at the two poles of thought. These
two poles are only mathematical points, they do not exist in concrete

reality; but for all that we can set them down on the chart of
philosophic and moral ideas.
There are religions which look toward divinity and religions which
look toward man. Here again the line of demarcation between the two
families is purely ideal and artificial; they often so mingle and blend
with one another that we have much difficulty in distinguishing them,
especially in the intermediate zone in which our civilization finds its
place; but if we go toward the poles we shall find their characteristics
growing gradually distinct.
In the religions which look toward divinity all effort is concentrated on
worship, and especially on sacrifice. The end aimed at is a change in
the disposition of the gods. They are mighty kings whose support or
favor one must purchase by gifts.
Most pagan religions belong to this category and pharisaic Judaism as
well. This is also the tendency of certain Catholics of the old school for
whom the great thing is to appease God or to buy the protection of the
Virgin and the saints by means of prayers, candles, and masses.
The other religions look toward man; their effort is directed to the heart
and conscience with the purpose of transforming them. Sacrifice
disappears, or rather it changes from the exterior to the interior. God is
conceived of as a father, always ready to welcome him who comes to
him. Conversion, perfection, sanctification become the pre-eminent
religious acts. Worship and prayer cease to be incantations and become
reflection, meditation, virile effort; while in religions of the first class
the clergy have an essential part, as intermediaries between heaven and
earth, in those of the second they have none, each conscience entering
into direct relations with God.
It was reserved to the prophets of Israel to formulate, with a precision
before unknown, the starting-point of spiritual worship.
Bring no more vain offerings; I have a horror of incense, Your new
moons, your Sabbaths, and your assemblies; When you multiply
prayers I will not hearken. Your hands are full of blood, Wash you,

make you clean, Put away from before my eyes the evil of your ways,
Cease to do evil, Learn to do well.[7]
With Isaiah these vehement apostrophes are but flashes of genius, but
with Jesus the interior change becomes at once the principle and the
end of the religious life. His promises were not for those who were
right with the ceremonial law, or who offered the greatest number of
sacrifices, but for the pure in heart, for men of good will.
These considerations are not perhaps without their use in showing the
spiritual ancestry of