In the following year a mission was sent to Germany, and Francis, who had been reconciled to Fra Elias, yielding up to him the active and immediate supervision of the Order, retired for rest and repose to the solitude of Monte Alverno.1 He was accompanied by the brethren, Fra Masseo, Fra Leo, and Fra Angelo, and they purposed to celebrate there the Lent of S. Michael. It is said that as he ascended the oakclad slopes, the birds from all around flocked to bid him welcome, perching upon his head, and shoulders, and arms, and carolling their loudest merriest strains. "Dearest brethren," exclaimed S. Francis, "I think our LORD JESUS CHRIST must be pleased that we should dwell in this solitary place, since our brothers and sisters, the birds, rejoice so at our coming." One morning,-shortly after he had taken up his abode on the green height, and under the shade of leafy boughs, fast mellowing with the soft red colours of autumn,-he was praying in an ecstasy of devotion, his worn and stricken frame scarcely able to endure the beatings of its striving, vehement spirit, when suddenly he saw in a vision, or as his fevered imagination supposed, in real being, a great figure as of a Seraph. It had six wings, two of which were arched over the head, two stretched as for flight, while two veiled the body; the body, as he perceived with awe and trembling, of the Crucified CHRIST. "And when he saw this," says Bonaventura, "he was greatly amazed, and mingled joy and sorrow filled his heart. For while he rejoiced at the gracious look with which he was regarded by CHRIST under the form of the Seraph, the nailing to the cross pierced his soul with the sword of grief and pity. He marvelled hugely

ground is a scenic representation of a pastoral landscape, on which all the skill of the scene-painter is expended. Shepherds guard their flocks far away, reposing under palm-trees or standing on green slopes which glow in the sunshine. The distances and perspective are admirable. The miraculous Bambino is a painted doll, swaddled in a white dress, which is crusted over with magnificent diamonds, emeralds, and rubies."-W. W. Story, Roba di Roma, i. 72, 73.

1 The Monte Alverno, or Monte della Vernia, is situated on the frontier of Tuscany, near the sources of the Arno and the Tiber. It was bestowed upon the Order by Sir Orlando of Chiusi, a Tuscan noble, who had become one of the great Preacher's most fervent disciples.

at the appearance of a vision so past finding out, knowing that the infirmity of the Passion could in no wise agree with the immortal nature of a Seraphic being.

"At length, he understood from it by the revelation of the LORD, that a vision of this kind had, by the foreknowledge of GOD, been so presented to his sight that the friend of CHRIST might know that he, not through martyrdom of the flesh, but by kindling of the spirit, was to be altogether transformed into the likeness of CHRIST Crucified.

"The vision, therefore, disappearing, left a wondrous fire in his heart, and a no less wondrous sign imprinted on his flesh. For immediately on his hands and feet began to appear the marks of nails, just as he had but shortly before seen them in the form of the Crucified One."

The biographers of Francis represent him as constantly working miracles; but none of them equal this miracle of the Stigmata wrought upon him, if the record may be trusted, under such awful circumstances. The record rests, however, as might be supposed, on no completely satisfactory testimony.

According to Bonaventura, Francis related the wonderful particulars to Fra Illuminato, but there is no proof that he related them to any other of the brethren, and even for this we have no other authority than Bonaventura. The "Tres Socii" profess to have received the account which they include in their life of their Master from their companions; while Thomas of Alano asserts that Fra Elias had seen, and Fra Ruffino touched the sacred wounds. But Ruffino himself makes no such assertion. Yet we have from Bonaventura so exact a description of the Stigmata that it is impossible to regard it as wholly imaginary :-"His hands and his feet appeared pierced through the midst with nails, the heads of the nails being seen in the insides of the hands and upper part of the feet, and the points on the reverse side. The heads of the nails in the hands and feet were round and black, and the points somewhat long and bent, as if they had been turned back. On the right side, as if it had been pierced by a lance, was the mark of a red wound, from which the sacred blood often flowed and stained his tunic." Francis endeavoured, in his great humility, to conceal these crowning proofs of his covenant

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with GOD, and the wound in his side he hid with special care; but we are assured that the curiosity of his disciples penetrated every concealment. Pope Alexander IV. publicly declared that with his own eyes he had beheld the stigmata on the saint's dead body. It became an article of the Franciscan creed, and though the rival Dominicans hinted their doubts, it became the creed of nearly all Christendom.

What then, in this rationalistic age, which reduces everything to the test of scientific proof, what shall we say about it? Was it all a delusion? The evidence is cumulative, but not wholly satisfactory,—shall we pronounce the statements of Bonaventura, and the Tres Socii, and Alano to be fictitious? Were there any marks? We incline to believe that there were; and to readers indisposed to accept the miraculous, we would suggest that they may have been self-inflicted, either deliberately, as a penance, or in one of those uncontrollable mental and spiritual ecstasies to which, during the last ten years of his life, the saint was subject. His imagination spurned the bonds of reason; the mind, acted upon by a physical condition which could not have been healthy, a condition of exhaustion induced by immense labour, an ascetic life, and intense devotional exercise,-wandered into dreams and delirious visions, the true character of which it was no longer able to determine.1

After his seclusion at Monte Averno, Francis returned to Assisi, but though he continued to work and pray as

1 "Were we to treat the story as proved and authentic, we should find ourselves plunged into a whole world of unexplored wonders, which we can neither ignore nor interpret. It is a truism to say that every great religious movement is attended by some demonstration of power, unknown and mysterious, which baffles all the explanations of philosophy. The age of miracles, we say, is past; but there are a hundred wonders, more surprising than absolute miracle, which spring up about us, whenever we endeavour to understand the history of religion in the world, and its action upon men. Signs and portents attend every crisis of that history. From Savonarola to Wesley, and from Wesley to our own day, every great spiritual awakening has been accompanied by phenomena which are quite incomprehensible, which none but the vulgar mind can attribute to trickery or imposture, and which we find it difficult enough to ascribe solely to the highly strained feeling and nervous excitement which might be supposed to be working in the hearts of its subjects. Every explanation that has ever been given of the Tongues,

before, it was evident that his energies were failing, and that the day of his departure was near at hand. He was still in the very prime of manhood, at that epoch when the body reaches its highest vigour, and the mind attains its greatest elasticity. It was not the weight of years that bowed and broke him, but the weight of the labour he had crowded into those years, and the constant spiritual excitement under which that labour had been accomplished. With some difficulty he was persuaded to take the medicine and nourishment which his condition required; Fra Elias, who attended upon him, being compelled to adjure him in the Name of JESUS CHRIST. His strength, however, continued to decline, and his eyesight giving way to such an extent as to threaten blindness, he journeyed to Rieti to consult a celebrated oculist, at the invitation of Cardinal Ugolino.

On the way he stopped at S. Damian's, to comfort and console S. Chiara. And while he was there, the night following his eyes grew worse, so that he could not even see the light; wherefore, since he was unable to depart, S. Chiara made him a little hut of rushes, that he might rest the better. But, between his physical pain, and the multitude of mice which disturbed him greatly, he was unable to gain the slightest repose, by night or day. And as his sufferings increased he began to think and to know that they were God's punishment upon his sins, and so he thanked GOD with all his heart and mouth ; and he cried with a loud voice, saying :—“ O my LORD, worthy am I of this, and of far worse. O my LORD JESUS CHRIST, Who hast shown Thy mercy on us sinners in divers pains and torments of the body, grant grace and strength to me, Thy lamb, that through no weakness or torment or pain I may fall from

of the trances of the Exstatics, of the cries and struggles of those newly brought into the Church, of all the vague mysterious wonders which attend every spiritual crisis, has failed to make them comprehensible. It is difficult to attribute to the direct interposition of GOD incidents which are really not moral incidents at all, and which have no results important enough to justify such an agency. Yet we cannot assert, without a rare amount of disbelief in human nature, and cynical disdain of our fellow-creatures, that the volition of man has had to do with these extraordinary phenomena.”—Mrs. Oliphant, S. Francis of Assisi, pp. 267, 268.

Thee." And at this prayer a voice came from heaven, saying:"Francis, answer Me: were all the earth gold, and all the seas and springs and streams balm, and all the mountains and hills and rocks precious stones; and thou hadst found another treasure more precious than these things, as gold is more precious than earth, and balm than water, and precious stones than mountains and rocks—and with this weakness that far more precious treasure were given thee, oughtest thou not to be with it well content and very light of heart?" S. Francis replied: - "LORD, I am unworthy of so precious a treasure." And the voice Divine said to him :-"Be of good cheer, Francis, for this is the treasure of life eternal, which I have in store for thee; and now from henceforth I invest thee with it, and thy weakness and affliction are but an earnest of that blessed treasure."

At Rieti the saint was welcomed by admiring crowds. The oculist pronounced that the disease of the eyes was due to excessive weeping, Francis being persuaded that whoever would attain to a life of perfection must cleanse his conscience daily with abundant tears. He was solicited to refrain from the injurious practice :-"It is not meet, Brother Physician," he exclaimed, "that for love of that light which we share here below with the flies, we should shut out the least ray of the Eternal Light which visits us from above; for the soul receives not the light for the sake of the body, but the body for the sake of the soul. I would rather lose the light of the body, therefore, than repress those tears by which the inner eyes are purified, that so they may receive GOD." The exaggeration here will be at once detected by the reader, but it was natural enough to the fervid imagination that scorned and abhorred the body as interposing, like a curtain, between the soul and its GOD. The oculist pronounced an operation necessary, that of cautery; and the saint bore it with almost more than human courage. When he saw the iron on the fire, being heated, he exclaimed, with a touch of mingled pathos and humour "O Brother Fire, before all other things the Most High hath created thee of exceeding comeliness, powerful and beauteous and useful; be thou to me, in this my hour, merciful and gentle. I beseech the Great LORD Who hath