Chapter II: “ay De Mi, Alhama!” (9)

Recurring to the debate, Col. Jones “thought that the rulers ought to believe in God or Christ, and that, however a test may be prostituted in England, yet he thought, if our public men were to be of those who had a good standing in the church, it would be happy for the United States” (_id._ p. 119). Major Lusk “passed to the article dispensing with the qualification of a religious test, and concluded by saying that he shuddered at the idea that Roman Catholics, papists, and pagans might be introduced into office, and that popery and the Inquisition may be established in America” (_id._ p. 148). Rev. Mr. Backus said: “I now beg leave to offer a few thoughts upon some points in the Constitution proposed to us, and I shall begin with the exclusion of any religious test. Many appear to be much concerned about it; but nothing is more evident, both in reason and the Holy Scriptures, than that religion is ever a matter between God and individuals; and therefore no man or men can impose any religious test without invading the essential prerogatives of our Lord Jesus Christ. Ministers first assumed this power under the Christian name, and then Constantine approved of the practice when he adopted the profession of Christianity as an engine of state policy. And let the history of all nations be searched from that day to this, and it will appear that the imposing of religious tests hath been the greatest engine of tyranny in the world. And I rejoice to see so many gentlemen who are now giving in their rights of conscience in this great and important matter. Some serious minds discover a concern lest, if all religious tests should be excluded, the Congress would hereafter establish popery or some other tyrannical way of worship; but it is most certain that no such way of worship can be established without any religious test” (_id._ p. 149).

In the Conventions of Virginia (3 Elliot Deb., p. 204), and Connecticut (2 _ib._ p. 202), and in the South Carolina Legislature (1 _id._ p. 312), the same clause was discussed, but more briefly, and after the final ratification of the Constitution the principle of the provision seems to have been universally conceded as correct. The Georgia constitution of May 6, 1789, the first new State constitution adopted after the inauguration of the government under the Constitution of the United States, omitted the qualification that members of the General Assembly should be of the Protestant religion; the South Carolina constitution of June 3, 1790, the next adopted, omitted the same test, as also all the former provisions making the Protestant religion the State faith, and provided that “the free exercise and enjoyment of religious profession and worship, without discrimination or preference, shall for ever, hereafter, be allowed within this State to all mankind” (art. 8, sec. 1), and from this time forward it may be taken as the case that as fast as the States remodelled their constitutions of the Revolutionary era the religious-test provisions were formally omitted, and in the interim passed _sub silentio_.

The immediate cause of this universal abrogation of religious qualifications for office was, as we have seen, the sixth article of the Constitution of the United States, but beyond this were some potent operative causes. The loss of Canada was one. Dr. Ramsay, who tells us that he had access to all the official papers of the United States up to 1786, when he ceased to be a member of the Congress under the Confederation (pref. 2 _Hist. U. S._), says: “The province was evacuated with great reluctance. The Americans were not only mortified at the disappointment of their favorite scheme of annexing it as a fourteenth link in the chain of their Confederacy, but apprehended the most serious consequences from the ascendency of the British power in that quarter” (_id._ p. 71). It was felt too late that the indiscreet utterances of the Congress of 1774 respecting the Roman Catholic religion had led to this loss.

Another operative cause was the yearning desire of the early statesmen of the United States to invite and secure foreign immigration. As early as the address of Congress of Oct. 21, 1774, it was noticed that the population of Canada was “daily swelling with Catholic emigrants from Europe”; and after the peace of 1783 showed that Canada was to remain a British possession, it was seen that to impress an anti-Catholic character on the government of the United States would tend to build up that province at the expense of the United States, and that only by proffering religious as well as civil liberty could this country hope to divert that emigration to its own shores. Some of the States had already suffered, when colonies, from legalizing inequalities in religion, and that, too, had no doubt its weight; Ramsay telling us that the legal pre-eminence of the Episcopal Church, and its maintenance at the expense not only of its own members but of all other denominations in Virginia and Maryland, “deterred great numbers, especially of the Presbyterian denomination, who had emigrated from Ireland, from settling within the limits of these governments” (1 _Hist. U. S._, p. 220).

Another cause operating in favor of a removal of religious tests to office was the eminent services rendered the States in the establishment of their independence by two Catholic powers, France and Spain. It is currently supposed that it was not until after the Americans, by their capture of Burgoyne at Saratoga in 1777, had demonstrated their power that they received efficient assistance from those nations; but the contrary is the case. Before the Declaration of Independence Silas Deane was sent to France for assistance, and contemporaneous with the Declaration large supplies of money and arms were furnished by that power. Arms, clothing, and ammunition for 25,000 men and 100 field-pieces were asked by Congress, and the response of his Christian majesty was 2,000,000 livres in money and small arms, 200 field-pieces, the best in the royal arsenals, a credit for 1,000,000 livres with the clothier-general of the French forces, and the services of Monsieur Coudray, the best military engineer in the royal army, and as many of his officers as were needed (1 Pitk. _Hist. U. S._, pp. 387, 500). Spain also assisted the Americans with 1,000,000 livres as early as May, 1776 (_id._ p. 411). Still another 1,000,000 livres were added by France before the treaty of 1778; and to appreciate fully the various pecuniary aids given by this power to the United States during the struggle, the reader may well consult the treaties with that power of 1782 and 1783 (_Rev. Stats._, “Treaties,” pp. 214-9). Prior to 1778 some 3,000,000 livres were advanced, and from that time to 1782 some 18,000,000 more were granted and an endorsement given to Holland for 10,000,000 in addition. In 1783 a further grant of 6,000,000 livres was made, making 37,000,000 in all. All expenses of commissions, negotiations, etc., were borne by France and made a present to the United States, as also all the interest accrued during the entire war on the debt, and the total principal of the sums forwarded in 1776, for all of which benefactions the most lively acknowledgments were made by the United States in the treaties referred to above. Nor were French fleets and armies wanting. In July, 1778, a French squadron of twelve line-of-battle ships and four frigates reached the United States under Count d’Estaing (2 Ramsay _Hist. U. S._, p. 258). In 1779 the same commander appeared off the Georgia coast with 20 ships of the line and 11 frigates, and some 3,500 French troops, infantry and artillery; and at this time occurred the bloody assault on the British entrenchments at Savannah, where Gen. Lincoln, at the head of 600 Continentals, and d’Estaing at the head of the French infantry, charged side by side, 200 of the Americans and 637 of the French being left on the field. In July, 1780, still another French fleet arrived at Rhode Island with 6,000 troops (2 Pitk. 117). In 1781 Count de Grasse arrived with 28 ships of the line and 3,200 French troops under the Marquis de St. Simon (2 Ramsay, p. 427). In 1782 a French fleet of 34 ships of the line, having on board 5,500, rendezvoused in the West Indies to draw off the British by an attack on Jamaica, and here sustained an appalling defeat at the hands of Admiral Rodney. The French troops were so crowded on the vessels that in one ship alone 400 men were killed, and the total slaughter amounted to thousands (_id._ p. 5). In the same year we find 7,000 French regulars at Yorktown; and from the contemporary accounts the French engineers and artillery were eminently instrumental in forcing the surrender of Cornwallis, particularly Major-General du Portail, Brigadier-General Launcy, Col. Gouvion, and Capt. Rochefontaine, who were thanked and promoted by Congress and warmly commended to their sovereign (_id._ p. 438; 4 _Journ._ 290).

Nor was Spain backward in her efforts. Before the Declaration of Independence she sent the Americans 1,000,000 livres (1 Pitk. 411). In 1777 she forwarded several cargoes of naval stores, cordage, sail-cloth, anchors, etc., from Bilboa (_id._ p. 528). In 1779 she declared war against Great Britain, and carried on a campaign in Florida with such vigor as to drive out the British from that province. In 1780 an immense Spanish armament appeared in the West Indies to co-operate with the French in creating a diversion in that quarter, the combined fleet numbering thirty-six ships of the line, crowded with troops (2 Ramsay, 374). In 1782 a grander attempt was made in the same field, the combined French and Spanish navies numbering sixty ships of the line, with an immense number of frigates and smaller armed vessels, and conveying thousands of land forces. The first attempt failed by the appearance of a mortal disease which decimated the Spanish troops, and the latter by the bloody defeat of the French by Admiral Rodney. In the course of the war the Spanish navy received a terrible blow at Cape St. Vincent, though the Spanish admiral, Don Juan de Langara, fought till his flag-ship was a mere wreck and his fleet was sunk or taken. One vessel in particular, the _San Domingo_, of 70 guns and carrying 600 men, blew up, and all on board perished (_id._ p. 372).

To sustain American independence, in short, French and Spanish blood was poured out like water. The arms, the gold, the ships, the armies of the two great Catholic powers were given in unstinted measure to the United States, and on the establishment of the present polity of the republic it would have been disgraceful beyond measure to have fixed therein a stigma on the faith of those friends in time of need. In answering the congratulations of the Catholic clergy and laity on his first accession to the presidency, Gen. Washington said: “I presume that your fellow-citizens will not forget the patriotic part which you took in the accomplishment of their Revolution and the establishment of their government, or the important assistance which they received from a nation in which the Roman Catholic faith is professed” (_Cath. Al._, 1876, p. 63). Possibly, also, the demeanor of the French troops may have removed many misapprehensions and prejudices against their religion. Madison, who was an eye-witness of their march through Philadelphia, where Congress was then in session, in 1782, _en route_ to Yorktown, highly applauds their regularity and decency of conduct in his letters of that date (Mad. Papers); and speaking on the same subject Dr. Ramsay, also then in Congress, says: “The French troops marched at the same time and for the same place. In the course of this summer they passed through all the extensive settlements which lie between Newport and Yorktown. It seldom, if ever, happened before that an army led through a foreign country, at so great a distance from their own, among a people of different principles, customs, language, and religion, behaved with so much regularity. In their march to Yorktown they had to pass through 500 miles of a country abounding in fruit, and at a time when the most delicious productions of nature growing on and near the public highways presented both opportunity and temptation to gratify their appetites. Yet so complete was their discipline that in this long march scarce an instance could be produced of a peach or an apple being taken without the consent of the inhabitants” (2 _Hist. U. S._, p. 434). Allies of this character were in high favor with the American people, and most gratefully remembered at the time of the final settlement of civil government in the United States, not to speak of the influence of the Continental soldiery, who, no doubt, bore in mind their brethren in arms at Savannah and Yorktown, and recalled Washington’s general order whereby the black cockade of the American army was mounted with a white relief in honor of Catholic France (2 Ramsay, p. 358).

To conclude, then, the provisions of the Constitution of the United States bearing on religion are not mere ill-considered generalities, but positive convictions based upon long and sore experience. The prohibition of a national religion or of any governmental interference with spiritual persuasions owes its origin to the actual existence in former days of church establishments, the hierophants wherein were appointees of the political power, and the expenses whereof were compulsorily borne by those of other creeds. And the inhibition of religious tests for office arises out of the fact that the history of this country demonstrates it equally impolitic, ungrateful, and dishonest to require such qualifications in these United States.

ASSISI.

“St. Francis be my speed!”

Think of being taken into Umbria, preternatural Umbria, where every olive-sandalled mountain is full of mysterious influences, and every leaf and flower of the smiling valleys seem to breathe out some sweet old Franciscan legend, by a steam-engine bearing the name of Fulton! It was hard. Not but we have the highest respect for—nay, a certain pride in—that great inventor; still it seemed a positive grievance to find anything modern in what was to us a world of poetry and mediæval tradition. We wished, if not to gird ourselves humbly with the cord like Dante, at least to put ourselves in harmony with one of the most delicious regions in the world, where at every step the lover of the classic, of art, or of the higher mystic lore finds so much to suit his turn. The name of Fulton sounds well along the Hudson, but to hear the shriek of an engine awaken the echoes of the Apennines, and see it go plunging insensibly through the very heart of poetical Umbria, along the shores of “reedy Thrasimene,” through “the defiles fatal to Roman rashness,” was a blow difficult to recover from. It required the overpowering influences of this enchanting region, as every one will believe, to restore our equanimity.

Umbria is a mountainous region of the Ecclesiastical States that gradually ascends from the Tiber toward the Apennines, now called the Duchy of Spoleto. It is full of sweet, sunny valleys enclosed among majestic mountains, with a range of temperature that produces great variety of vegetation, from the pine and the oak to the orange and aloe, the olive and the vine. Its cliffs are crowned with sanctuaries which are resonant night and day with prayer and psalmody, or old towns, each with the remembrance of some saint whose shrine it guards with jealous care, or some artist or poet whose works have made it renowned, or some venerable classical recollection that clings to it like the vine which gives so much grace and freshness to the landscape. There is Spoleto, whose gates closed against Hannibal; Arezzo, where Petrarch was born; Cortona, with its “diadem of towers” and its legend of St. Margaret; _Perugia dolente_, which Totila only took after a seven years’ siege, and which Charlemagne placed under the sweet yoke of the Papacy; Montefalco, like a falcon’s nest on the crest of the mountain, famous for its virgin saint and its frescos of Benozzo Gozzoli; and picturesque Marni, where the Blessed Lucy when a child played with the Christorello. We pass Orvieto, with its wonderful proofs of past cultivation; the lake of Bolsena, with its isle where a queen died of hunger, and its shores verdant with the glorious pines sung by Virgil, at the foot of which Leo X., when a guest at the Farnese villa, used to gather around him the artists and poets of the day, to indulge in intellectual converse till “the azure gloom of an Italian night” gathered around them with hues that spoke of heaven.

But over all hovers especially the grand memory of St. Francis, with which the whole of this beautiful region is embalmed. Along its valleys and mountain paths he used to go with Fra Pacifico, the poet laureate of Frederick II., singing their hymns of praise, calling themselves God’s minstrels, who desired no other reward from those who gathered around them but the sincere repentance of their sins. There is the lake of Perugia, where he spent forty days alone on an island among the sad olives, fasting in imitation of our Saviour, in continual communion with God and the angels—a spot now marked by a convent whose foundations are washed by the waters of the lake. There is the blue lake of Rieti, to which, in his compassion for God’s creatures, he restored the fish alive, with the four Franciscan convents on the hills that enclose it. There is Gubbio, with the legend of the fierce wolf he tamed, to which the people erected a statue—an unquestionable proof of its truth. There is the

“Hard Rock
‘Twixt Arno and the Tiber,”

where

“He from Christ
Took the last signet which his limbs two years
Did carry.”

Above all, there is Assisi with his tomb, one of the most glorious in the world after that of Christ, around which centred all the poetry and art of the thirteenth century. We caught our first glimpse of it at Spello—Spello on its spur of red limestone—where we were shown the house of Propertius, “the poet of delicate pleasures,” in full sight of Assisi, where was born one who sang of a higher love. Assisi stands on an eminence overlooking the whole country around, and we could not take our eyes off it all the way from Spello, till, glancing towards the valley below, we saw the towers and dome of _Santa Maria degli Angeli_, which encloses the sacred Porziuncula. We were now in the very “land of wonder, of miracle, and mysterious influences,” the first glimpse of which one can never forget. Think of a railway station close by the Porziuncula! We went directly there on descending from the cars.

St. Mary of the Angels is a vast church that stands almost solitary in the plain. It is modern also, and out of keeping with the venerable traditions of the place, which was a disappointment. The old church was nearly destroyed by an earthquake in 1854. The present one is of noble proportions, however, and has been compared to the garments of a queen that now clothe the humble sanctuary of the Porziuncula which stands beneath the dome, the first thing to strike the eye on entering the church. We hastened towards it at once, to pray where St. Francis so often wept and prayed, and where so many generations since have wept, and prayed, and found grace before God. It was here Picca, his mother, often came to pray before he was born, and where his birth was announced by mysterious songs attributed to the angels. St. Francis loved this spot above all places in the world; for it was here he was called to embrace the sublime folly of the cross, and where he laid the foundations of the seraphic order. It was here, in the year 1222, he beheld Christ and his holy Mother surrounded by a multitude of angels, and prayed that all who should henceforth visit this chapel with hearts purified by contrition and confession might obtain full pardon and indulgence for all their sins. This was the origin of the celebrated indulgence of the Porziuncula, which the grave Bourdaloue regarded as one of the most authentic in the church, because granted directly by Christ himself. The treasures of the church were not dealt out so generously in those days as now, and thousands came hither from all parts of Christendom, in the middle ages, to gain this wonderful indulgence. When St. Bernardine of Siena came in the fourteenth century, he found two hundred thousand pilgrims encamped in the valley around. St. Bridget spent the whole night of one 1st of August praying in the Porziuncula; and still, when the great day of the _Perdono_ comes (it lasts from the Vespers of the 1st of August till the Vespers of the following day), thousands flock down from the mountains and come up from the extremity of southern Italy. The highway is lined with booths where eatables and religious objects are sold. Processions come with chants and prayer. The great bell of _Predicazione_, originally cast for Fra Elias, is heard all over the valley from the _Sagro Convento_, announcing the indulgence. When the church doors open, an overwhelming crowd pours in with cries, and invocations, and _vivas_ for the Madonna and St. Francis with true Italian exuberance of devotion.

The Porziuncula has wisely been left in its primitive simplicity, with the exception of the front, on which Overbeck, in 1830, painted the above-mentioned vision to St. Francis with true pre-Raphaelite simplicity. The remainder is just as it was in the time of the saint; only its rough walls have been polished by the kisses of pilgrims, and hung with pious offerings. Lamps burn continually therein as if it were a shrine.

Back of the Porziuncula is the low, dark cell St. Francis inhabited, and where he ended his days. It was here, while he was dying, two of the friars sang his Hymn of the Sun, which breathes so fully his love for everything created. And when they ceased, he himself took up the strain, to sing the sweetness of death, which he called his “sister, terrible and beautiful,” in the spirit of Job, who said to corruption: Thou art my father; to the worm: Thou art my mother and my sister.

Then we were taken into the recess where St. Francis so often chastised his body, which he regarded as his beast of burden that it behoved him to beat daily and to lead around with a halter. When dying, he is said to have begged pardon of this old companion of the way for inflicting so many stripes on it for the good of his soul. There is also the _Cappella delle Rose_ with the _Spineto_—a little court once filled with coarse brambles, but now aflush with roses. Here St. Francis, being tempted to renounce a life in which he was consumed with watchings and prayers, for his only reply threw himself among the thorns, which, tinged with his blood, were immediately changed into roses. They bloom here still, but without thorns, and their petals are stained as with blood. If transplanted elsewhere, the stains are said to fade away and the thorns to come forth again. It was twelve of these roses, six red and six white, the saint bore with him into the Porziuncula when the great _Perdono_ of the 2d of August was granted—roses that for ever will embalm the church, and that have been immortalized by artists all over Italy and Spain.

The immense convent of Observantine friars adjoining is now solitary and desolate. The Italian government has turned the inmates out of this cradle of their order, with the exception of two or three, who are left as guardians of the church. The hundreds of poor, once fed at their gates in time of need, now take revenge on the passing traveller, and fasten themselves on him with pertinacious grasp. But who can refuse a dole where St. Francis has made Poverty for ever glorious?

From St. Mary of the Angels we went winding up the hill to Assisi. Its base is clothed with the olive, the vine, and the fig, but its sides are as nude and destitute as the Bride of St. Francis. Above, on the right, rises the tall campanile of _Santa Chiara_ over the tomb of St. Clare. At the left is the fortress-like edifice of the _Sagro Convento_ on the Hill of Paradise, once known as the _Colle d’Inferno_, where St. Francis desired to be buried among malefactors. This monastery against the mountain side stands on a long line of double arches that seem hewn out of the very cliff. It is one of the most imposing and most interesting monuments in Italy, and astonishes the eye by its bold, massive, and picturesque appearance, quite in harmony with the old mediæval city. It has been called the _Sagro Convento_ ever since its consecration by Pope Innocent IV. in 1243—the Sacred Convent, _par excellence_. _Santa Chiara_ and this convent of St. Francis seem like two strongholds at the extremities of the town to protect it from danger. Between them it rises in terraces, crowned by a ruined old citadel of feudal times. The declining sun lighted up its domes, and towers, and venerable gray walls as we ascended, and made it seem to our enraptured eyes a seraphic city indeed.

Half way up the hill we came to the Spedalicchio—the ancient ’Spital where St. Francis so often came to take care of the lepers. It was here, as he was borne on a litter to the Porziuncula by the friars, a few days before his death, he begged them to stop and turn him around, not to take a last look at the city he loved—for the eyes that had wept so many tears were now blind—but to bless it with uplifted hands, in solemn, tender words that have been graven over one of the gates:

_Benedicta tu civitas a Domino, quia per te multæ animæ salvabuntur, et in te multi servi Altissimi habitabunt, et de te multi eligentur ad regnum æternum._—A city blessed of the Lord art thou, because by thee many souls shall be saved, and in thee shall dwell many servants of the Most High, and from thee many shall be chosen to reign for ever and ever!

With what emotion one enters its gates!… We drove through old, narrow, ascending streets, silent and monastic, named after the saints; past old rock-built houses of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, with the holy names of Jesus and Mary over nearly every door; flower-pots with pinks and gillyflowers in all the windows, even the poorest, or on ledges, or set in rings projecting from the walls; and women spinning under the old archways like St. Clare, who, we are told, even when wasted and enfeebled by her austerities, sat up in bed and span linen of marvellous fineness.

Our hotel was close to the _Sagro Convento_, and, though extremely fatigued, we at once hastened to the church, not to examine its treasures of art, but to pray and find repose of heart overburdened by the flood of memories that come over one in such a place as Assisi. Then we returned to our room, and sat at the window looking off at the setting sun and golden sky, and the shining dome of St. Mary of the Angels, and the broad plain where was held the famous Chapter of Mats in St. Francis’ time, with its narrow river winding through it. It was like the page of a beautiful poem laid open before us. St. Francis loved these hills clothed with the pale olive, this valley covered with harvests and the vine, the free air and azure heavens, the running stream, a fine prospect; and we sat long after the rich, glorious convent bells rang out the Ave Maria, gazing at the fair scene before us. Purple shadows began to creep up the rugged sides of the hill, the golden light faded away in the wrest, the dome over the Porziuncula grew dim, and the valley was covered with the rising mists. It was time to close the window.

We spent most of the following day in the church. It is the very inflorescence of Christian art, a great epic poem in honor of St. Francis. A pope laid the corner-stone. All Christendom sent its offerings. The most celebrated architects and painters of the time lent the aid of their genius. One would think it had grown out of the hill against which it is built. Its azure vaults starred with gold, its ribbed arches that bend low like the boughs of a gloomy forest, the delicacy of its carvings, its marble pavement, its windows with their jewelled panes, and above all its walls covered with mystic paintings that read like the very poetry of religion, need almost the tongue of angels to describe them. M. Taine says: “No one, till he has seen this unrivalled edifice, can have any idea of the art and genius of the middle ages. Taken in connection with Dante and the _Fioretti_ of St. Francis, it is the masterpiece of mystic Christianity.” It was the first Gothic church erected in Italy.[192] It is built in the form of a cross, in memory of the mysterious crucifixion of St. Francis. Its walls are of white marble, in honor of the Immaculate Virgin; and there are twelve towers of red marble, in memory of the blood shed by the Holy Apostles. It consists of two churches, one above the other, and a crypt beneath, where lies the body of St. Francis. The upper church is entered from a grassy terrace on the top of the Hill of Paradise. The lower one opens at the side into an immense court surrounded by an arcade. This under church, with its low Byzantine arches, full of the mysterious gloom and solemnity so favorable to pensive contemplation and prayer, has often been supposed typical of the self-abasement and mortified life of St. Francis. Its delicious chapels, with their struggling light, are well calculated to excite sadness, penitence, and tears. The crypt beneath, with its horrible darkness, its damp walls and death-like stillness, and its one tomb in the centre awaiting the Resurrection, is a veritable limbo; while the upper church, with its lofty, graceful, upspringing arches, all light and joy, is symbolic of the transfigured soul of the seraphic Francis in the beatitude of eternal glory.

But how can we go peering around this museum of Christian art, as if in a picture-gallery? It would be positively wicked. The knee instinctively bends before the saintly forms that people the twilight solemnity of the lower church. It was thus we gazed up at Giotto’s matchless frescos of the three monastic virtues on the arches over the high altar, which stands directly above the tomb of St. Francis—Poverty, Chastity, and Obedience—fit crown indeed for that “meek man of God.” We remember seeing them during the Forty Hours’ Devotion, when the candles lit them up wondrously; the figures came out in startling relief; the angels seemed actually hovering over the divine Host below. The most celebrated of these paintings is the _Spozalizio_ sung by Dante—the mystic espousals of St. Francis with Poverty, the lady of his choice.

“A Dame to whom none openeth pleasure’s gate
More than to death, was, ‘gainst his father’s will,
His stripling choice: and he did make her his
Before the spiritual court by nuptial bonds.”

This was not an original conception of Giotto’s or Dante’s. They only gave a more artistic expression to the popular belief. There was not a cottage in Umbria that did not believe in these espousals of St. Francis with Lady Poverty, who had, says the Divine Poet, lived more than a thousand years bereft of her first bridegroom, Christ; and it was from the lips of the poor and lowly they gathered the significant allegory. It was also before their time St. Bonaventura wrote: “St. Francis, journeying to Siena in the broad plain between Campiglia and San Quirico, was encountered by three maidens in poor raiment, exactly resembling each other in age and appearance, who saluted him with the words: ‘Welcome, Lady Poverty,’ and suddenly disappeared. The brethren not irrationally concluded that this apparition imported some mystery pertaining to St. Francis, and that by the three poor maidens were signified Poverty, Chastity, and Obedience, the sum and beauty of evangelical perfection, all of which shone with equal and consummate lustre in the man of God, though he made the privilege of poverty his chief glory.”

Dante with all his pride, and Giotto with his repugnance to poverty, even when consecrated by religion, chose one of the most democratic of subjects when they depicted these sacred espousals of St. Francis; for it was the people he identified himself with in this union. He wedded for better and worse the sorrows and misery, the misfortunes and groans, of Italy,[193] and when dying,

“To his brotherhood,
As their just heritage, he gave in charge
His dearest Lady, and enjoined their love
And faith to her.”

The church teaches that the poor are Christ’s suffering members; that it is he who is hungered and athirst in the sick and destitute; to him is every alms given. St. Francis gave his whole being to Poverty thus identified with Christ—a bride chosen only by a few elect souls in these days of luxury and self-indulgence, but in whom the Christian philosophers of the middle ages found an infinite charm. Plato represents Love with bare feet and tattered, disordered garments, to signify the forgetfulness of self that gives all and reserves nothing. It is in this sense the choice of evangelical poverty is one of the highest expressions of love to God in the Catholic Church.

“O hidden riches! O prolific good!” exclaims Dante. And no one ever understood its value more than St. Francis, the _glorioso poverello di Christo_, who was, says Bossuet, “perhaps the most desperate lover of poverty ever known in the church.”

“O Lord Jesus!” cries St. Francis, “show me the ways of thy
dear Poverty.… Take pity on me and my lady Poverty whom I
love with so much ardor. Without her I can find no peace.
And it is thou, O my God! who hast inspired this great love.
She is seated in the dust of the highway, and her friends
pass her by with contempt. Thou seest the abasement of this
queen, O Lord Jesus! who didst descend from heaven to make
her thy spouse, and through her to beget children worthy of
thee, who art perfect. She was in the humility of thy
Mother’s womb. She was at the manger. She had her part in
the great combat thou didst fight for our redemption. In thy
Passion she alone did not abandon thee. Mary, thy Mother,
remained at the foot of the cross, but Poverty ascended it
with thee.[194] She clung more closely than ever to thy
breast. It was she who lovingly prepared the rude nails that
pierced thy hands and feet; she who didst present thee with
gall when thou wast suffering from thirst.… Thou didst die
in her loving embrace.… And even then this faithful spouse
did not forsake thee. She had thy body buried in the grave
of another. She wrapped thy cold limbs in the tomb, and with
her thou didst come forth glorious. Therefore thou hast
crowned her in heaven, and chosen her to mark thy elect with
the sign of redemption. Oh! who would not choose Lady
Poverty above all other brides? O Jesus! who for our sakes
didst become poor, the grace I beg of thee is the privilege
of sharing thy poverty. I ardently desire to be enriched
with this treasure. I pray thee that I and mine may never
possess anything in the world of our own, for the glory of
thy name, but that we may only subsist, during this
miserable life, on that which is given us in alms.”

How foreign this seems to the spirit of our age; and yet it is the science of the cross, of which we need an infusion to counterbalance the general worship of Mammon. Coleridge seems to have caught a glimpse of the beauty and dignity of poverty when he wrote:

“It is a noble doctrine that teaches how slight a thing is
Poverty; what riches, nay, treasures untold, a man may
possess in the midst of it, if he does but seek them aright;
how much of the fiend’s apparent bulk is but a fog vapor of
the sickly and sophisticated mind. It is a noble endeavor
that would bring men to tread the fear of this phantom under
their firm feet, and _dare_ to be poor!”

Giotto represents St. Francis receiving his bride from the hands of Christ himself. Her head is crowned with roses and light, but her feet are bleeding from the thorns of the rough way. Her cheeks are hollow and pale, but her eyes are full of fire. Her garments are worn and in tatters, but she is beautiful with modesty and love. Hers is the tempered spiritual beauty of one who has been chastened by misfortune, but there is nothing of the degradation of human passion. It is the poverty of country life, free, modest, unabashed, but ennobled by an expression that religion alone can give. Worldlings attack her with blows, and a dog, that last friend of the poor, is barking at her with fury. Angels, beaming with joy and admiration, encircle these mysterious nuptials. Below, in one corner, are the vices of the times personified—the rapacity of the nobility, and the greed of monks who have become unmindful of their obligations. At the left is the youthful Francis sharing his mantle with a beggar, while an angel above is ascending with the garment to heaven. The central figure in the painting is the radiant form of Him who took upon himself the likeness of the poor, on whose condition he now confers fresh dignity by perpetuating a love of poverty in the person of Francis and his order. Over all are angels of sacrifice offering to God the riches that have been abandoned for the love of him.

Philosophy, poetry, and religion are all in this wonderful allegory, which has shone here nearly six hundred years as a memorial and a perpetual admonition to the followers of St. Francis.

Chastity is represented under the veiled form of a maiden who has taken refuge in the tower of a fortress, defended by a triple wall, and guarded by Innocence and Fortitude. She is kneeling in the attitude of prayer, while angels bring her a crown and a palm. Before the castle gates are depicted the divine means of purifying the human soul: Baptism, with the cardinal virtues in attendance, and an angel bearing the robe of innocence; Penance, in her hood and garb of serge, or, as some say, St. Francis receiving new members into his fold, among whom may be seen Dante in the habit of the Third Order; and angels of Expiation consigning unseemly vices to the purifying flames of a yawning gulf.

_Sancta Obedientia_, the least pleasing of these paintings, is represented by the monastic yoke placed on the shoulders of a novice. Prudence and Humility are at his side; the former, entrenched behind a barrier with mirror and compass, has two faces, one examining the past and the other considering the future. Humility is bearing a torch. The old Adam of the human heart, under the form of a centaur, is put to flight by these virtues.[195]

In the midst of these three priceless jewels is represented St. Francis radiant with holiness, in a rich deacon’s dress, on a throne of gold, and surrounded by angels who hymn his praise. Never was mortal more glorified on earth than the humble St. Francis, out of whose tomb has grown this richest flower of mediæval art.

On the wall of the left transept is a sublime painting of the Crucifixion by Pietro Cavallini—one of the most important monuments of the school of Giotto, who was one of the first to soften the representations of the awful sufferings of Christ by an expression of divine resignation and beauty of form. The Byzantine type of the twelfth century, still scrupulously adhered to, was repulsive and expressive only of the lowest stage of human suffering, as all know who have seen the green, livid figures of Christ on the cross by Margaritone, who died of grief at seeing his standard of excellence set aside and despised. Cavallini, whose piety was so fervent that he was regarded as a saint, had scruples, however, about condemning as an artist what he had knelt before in prayer, though he widely departed from the old school. Nothing could be more beautiful or pathetic than the angels in this picture, who are weeping and wringing their hands with anguish around the dying Saviour.… Among the figures below is Walter de Brienne, Duke of Athens, then (in 1342) at the head of the Florentine republic, for whom this picture was painted. He is on horseback with a jewelled cap, clothed in rich robes, and, strange to say, with a nimbus around his head, which seems to have been a symbol of power as well as sanctity in those days.

It was one of Cavallini’s Christs[196] that spoke to St. Bridget at St. Paul’s without the walls of Rome; and he was the architect of the shrine of Edward the Confessor at Westminster Abbey.

At the foot of the altar beneath the Crucifixion is buried Mary of Savoy, granddaughter of Philip II. of Spain, a member of the Third Order of St. Francis, who often came here to venerate his tomb and seek counsel of St. Joseph of Copertino, then an inmate of the _Sagro Convento_.

All the chapels of this lower church are famous for their frescos by noted artists. Simone Memmi, the friend of Petrarch, and painter of Laura, has covered one with the life of St. Martin, who, like St. Francis after him, divided his cloak with a beggar, remaining for ever a symbol of the divine words: I was naked and ye clothed me. The Maddalena Chapel is covered with the legend of the

“Redeemed Magdalene,
And that Egyptian penitent whose tears
Fretted the rock, and moistened round her cave
The thirsty desert,”

by Puccio Capana, who became so attached to Assisi that he settled there for life.

The melancholy Giottino adorned the chapel of St. Nicholas with his usual harmony of color. On the arches of the chapel of St. Louis of France a Franciscan tertiary, Adone Doni, painted the beautiful Sibyls which Raphael admired and imitated at _Santa Maria della Pace_ in Rome. Taddeo Gaddi, the godson and favorite pupil of Giotto, has also left here many touching and beautiful paintings. In fact, all the renowned artists of the day seemed to vie with each other in adorning this monument to the memory of St. Francis, and some of their works were offerings of love and gratitude. To the artistic eye they are models worthy of study, but to us pilgrims so many visions of beauty and holiness.

In the sacristy is the most authentic portrait of St. Francis in existence, by Giunta Pisano—a lank, wasted form that by no means reflects the charm the saint most certainly had to attract so many disciples around him, to say nothing of his power over the beasts of the earth and the birds of the air. Two marble staircases lead down to the sepulchral chamber where lies the body of St. Francis. This crypt, or third church, as it is sometimes called, is of recent construction, and, though not in harmony with the upper churches, is a prodigious achievement, dug as it is out of the rock on which the whole edifice rests. It is of the Doric order, and in the form of a Greek cross, and lined with precious marbles. It is dark and tomb-like, being lighted only by lamps around the bronze shrine, which stands in the very centre. The body of St. Francis had lain nearly six hundred years in the heart of the mountain, shrouded in a mystery that had given rise to many popular legends. When brought here in 1230, it was still flexible as when he was alive, and the mysterious stigmata distinctly visible. This was four years after his death. It was then shown to the people in its cypress coffin, amid the flourish of trumpets and the shouts of the multitude, and put on a magnificent car drawn by oxen which were covered with purple draperies sent by the Emperor of Constantinople, and escorted by a long procession of friars with palms and torches in their hands, chanting hymns composed by Pope Gregory IX. himself. Legates, bishops, and a multitude of clergy followed. But the car was guarded by the magistrates of Assisi, and so fearful were the people lest the body of their saint should be taken from them that, when it arrived at the _Colle d’Inferno_, they would not allow the clergy to take possession of it, but buried it themselves in the very bowels of the earth. Hence a certain mystery that always hung over the tomb.

It is related that the third night after his burial the mountain was shaken by an earthquake and surrounded by an unearthly light. The friars, hastening to the place where they knew their patriarch lay hidden, found the rock rent asunder and the saint standing on his tomb with transfigured face and eyes raised to heaven. Gregory IX. is said to have come to witness the prodigy, and left this inscription on the wall: _Ante obitum mortuus; post obitum vivens_—Before his death, dead; after death, living.

It became a popular belief that this body, which bore the impress of the Passion of Christ, would never see corruption, and that he would remain thus, ever living and praying, in the depths of his inaccessible tomb.

In 1818 Pius VII. authorized the Franciscans to search for the body of their founder. After continued excavations in the rock for fifty-two days, or rather nights (for they worked in the silence and secrecy of the night), they came to an iron grate that protected the narrow recess where lay the saint. It was then the crypt was constructed to receive the sacred body. The same old grate is before the present shrine, and the sacristan thrust his torch through the bars, that we might catch a glimpse of the remains of one

“Whose marvellous life deservedly were sung
In heights empyreal.”

Around this glorious tomb all the Franciscans of Assisi, before they were suppressed by the present Italian government, used to gather every Saturday at the vesper hour, to chant, with lighted tapers in hand, the Psalm _Voce mea ad Dominum clamavi_, sung by St. Francis when he was dying. It has been set to music by one of the friars in a grand air known as the _Transito_ because it celebrates the _transit_ of the saint to a higher life. This became one of the attractions of the place which kings and princes considered it a favor to hear, but of course it is no longer sung. Let us hope that this forced suspension is only transitory.

At the door of the crypt are the statues of Pius VII., in whose pontificate it was constructed, and Pius IX., a member of the Third Order, who has surrounded it with twelve bas-reliefs representing the life of the saint.

A long flight of stone steps leads from the lower court to the terrace before the upper church, which is grassy and starred with daisies. This church is as lofty and brilliant with light as the other is gloomy and low-browed. Cimabue and Giotto adorned its walls with paintings that are now sadly defaced, but they have a fascination no modern artist can inspire, and we linger over them as over the remembrance of some half-forgotten dream, hoping to catch a clearer view before they fade for ever away. Above are scenes from the Holy Scriptures—a glorious _Biblia Pauperum_, indeed, it must have been when fresh from the artist’s hands; and this is especially the church of the people, as the lower one is that of the friars. Below is the wondrous life of St. Francis, a poem in twenty-eight cantos, by Giotto, the painter of St. Francis _par excellence_, who never seemed weary of his favorite subject.

There are over one hundred stalls in the choir, delicately carved by Sanseverino, with curious intarsia-work representing the popes, doctors, and saints of the Franciscan Order.

The beautiful lancet windows of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries are “suffused with lessons sweet of heavenly lore,” glorious in color, which gives marvellous hues to Cimabue’s angels who hover in the arches with “varied plume and changeful vest.” The lower church is that of poor mortals who struggle with earth and grope for the light. This one depicts the glory of the saints, and is a symbol of Paradise.

Connected with the church is the _Sagro Convento_, which is entered by an arched passage lined with portraits of distinguished Franciscans. There are four large cloisters, now solitary but for the ascetic forms painted on their walls, and the silent tombs of the dead friars. Long corridors, lined with saints of the Order, lead to the narrow cells intended for the living. Two refectories were shown us, one large enough to contain two hundred and fifty persons, with _Silentium_ in great letters on the wall over the fine Cenacolo by Solimena. Opposite the latter is a Crucifixion by Adone Doni, with Jerusalem and Assisi in the background, and SS. Francis and Clare at the foot of the cross. Narrow tables extended around the room, with seats against the wall on which the _Benedicite_ is carved.

But the most striking feature of this vast monastery is the immense gallery on the western side, like an arcade on the brink of a precipice, with a torrent in the depths below. This was constructed by Sixtus IV., whose statue is at one end. It affords a grand view over the whole Umbrian valley. Montefalco, Spello, and Perugia are in full sight; below is the Porziuncula; in the distance the purple Apennines, with the glorious Italian sky over all. One needs no better book of devotion than this page of nature.

On the other side of the monastery the windows look down on the garden of the friars with charming walks on the side of the mountain amid olives and cypresses.

It was not till the second morning we began to explore Assisi. What queer old lanes, up and down hill, we passed along, the walls covered with moss and ferns out of which green lizards darted! The streets were grassy and noiseless, being mostly inaccessible to carriages. Coats-of-arms are sculptured over many of the massive old portals, accompanied, perhaps, with some religious symbol. On one was _Viva Gesu e Maria!_ Another had _Ubi Deus ibi pax_. Every few moments we came to a lovely fresco of the Madonna—too beautiful a flower to bloom on the rough highways of life. Everything was old and quaint, and in harmony with the traditions of the place; everything redolent of the middle ages and of the memory of St. Francis. Assisi is full of monuments that perpetuate some incident of his life. There is _San Francesco il Piccolo_—Little St. Francis—an oratory on the site of the stable where he was born, with the inscription:

Hoc oratorium fuit bovis et asini stabulum
In quo natus est Franciscus mundi speculum;

—This chapel was the stable of an ox and ass, wherein was born Francis, the mirror of the world.[197]

The _Chiesa Nuova_—the _New Church_, but over two hundred and sixty years old—was built by Philip III. of Spain on the site of the house of Pietro Bernardone, the father of St. Francis, and has always been under the protection of the Spanish crown. It is in the form of a Greek cross, with five domes in memory of the five mystic wounds of the saint. Over the entrance are graven the arms of Spain. A flock of white pigeons was around the door. A young friar with mild, pleasant eyes came forward in his brown habit to show us the church. Some portions of the original house of Bernardone have been preserved; among others, a low, round arch with an old door held together by iron clamps. And at the left is the low cell in which St. Francis was confined three days by his father for selling some of his goods to repair San Damiano. In it is a statue of the saint, kneeling with folded hands, before which we found flowers and a burning lamp. Around the central dome are statues of celebrated Franciscans: St. Louis of Toulouse, St. Clare, St. Diego, and St. Elizabeth of Hungary. In the presbytery is shown St. Francis’ chamber.

In the bishop’s palace is the room where St. Francis stripped off his garments in the presence of his father, and the bishop covered him with his mantle. It contains a painting of the scene.