Chapter V: Part 5

So it was in a community which I fondly remember. It was not much to look at, this brand-new Nevada mining town. The main street swaggered up the gulch in a devil-may-care fashion, as if saying to the teamsters, “You may take me or leave me.” To the north it pointed to an alkali flat, and to the south to a dusty old mountain, which was immensely richer than it seemed. On the mountain side were hoisting works and hundreds of prospect holes which menaced the lives of the unwary. In the gulch were smelters which belched forth divers kinds of fumes. To the stranger they seemed to threaten wholesale asphyxiation, but to the citizen they gave the place the character of a health resort. An analysis of the air showed that it contained more chemicals than were to be found in the most famous mineral springs. Certain it was that there were enough to kill off all germs of contagious diseases. The community felt the need of no further hygienic precautions, and put its trust in its daily fumigations. No green thing was in sight, not so much as a grass blade, for the fumes were not only germicides, but also herbicides. On the main street were saloons and gambling houses, in close proximity to two or three struggling churches. There were two daily newspapers, each of which kept us informed of the other’s manifold iniquities. A narrow-gauge railroad had its terminus at the foot of the gulch. Once a day a mixed train would depart for the world that lay beyond the alkali flat. Some of the passengers would be “going below,” which meant nothing worse than a trip to California; others were promoters going East on missions of mercy to benighted capitalists. The promoter was our nearest approach to a professional philanthropist. As for the rest, the chief impression was of dust. It would roll in great billows down the gulch; it seemed as if the mountains had been pulverized. Then the wind would change and the dust billows would roll back. No matter how long it blew, there was always more where it came from.

I cannot explain to an unsympathetic reader why it was that we found life in our dusty little metropolis so charming, and why it was that we felt such pity for those who had never experienced the delights of our environment. Nor can I justify to such a reader the impulse which led a woman whose husband had died far away in New England to bring his body back to be laid to rest in the bare little cemetery amid the sage brush.

“It’s not such a homelike country as the other,” I ventured.

“No,” she answered, “it isn’t, but he liked it.”

And so did we all; and the liking was not the less real because it was an acquired taste. There was nothing in it akin to serious public spirit. It was a whimsical liking, like that of Touchstone for Audrey,--“An ill-favoured thing, sir, but mine own; a poor humour of mine, sir, to take that that no man else will.”

When several thousand people, set down in the midst of a howling wilderness, tacitly agree to consider it as the garden of the Lord, they can do much. It pleases the ephemeral community to make believe that it is permanent. The camp organizes itself into a city, with all the offices and dignities appertaining thereto. Civilization is extemporized like a game of dumb crambo. It amuses the citizens to see their beloved city going about in institutions several sizes too large for it. Nothing is taken literally. Humor is accepted not as a private possession, but as a public trust, and cultivated in a spirit of generous coöperation.

In the town were men whose education and experience had been in the great world. There were mine superintendents who a little while ago might have been in Germany or Cornwall; there were assayers and engineers fresh from the great technical schools, and “experts” full of geological lore. The mines were as rich in litigation as in silver, and there were lawyers great and small.

But all were dominated by one typical character who was accepted as the oracle of the land,--“The Honest Miner.” To him saloons were dedicated with alluring titles, such as “The Honest Miner’s Delight” and “The Honest Miner’s Rest.” At the end of the gulch was “The Honest Miner’s Last Chance,”--one which he seldom missed. The newspapers and political orators appealed to his untutored judgments as the last word of political wisdom. He occupied the position which elsewhere is held by the “Sturdy Yeoman” or the “Solid Business Man.”

The Honest Miner of the Far West is one of those typical Americans who are builders of commonwealths. His impress is upon the western half of our continent. He is a nomad, the last of a long line of adventurers to whom the delight of the new world is in its newness. Sometimes his work is permanent, but he never is quite sure. His habitual mood is one of sober satire.

I know nothing more pleasant than to sit with an old-timer who has spent years in prospecting for silver and gold, and listen to his reminiscences. Here is a philosopher indeed, one with an historic perspective. He has the experience of the Wandering Jew, without his world-weariness. He has seen the rise and fall of cities and the successive dynasties of mining kings. His life has been a mingling of society and solitude. With his pack upon his back he has wandered into desert places where no man had been since the making of the world,--at least, no man with an eye to the main chance. A few weeks later the lonely cañon has become populated with eager fortune-seekers. The camp becomes a city which to the eyes of the Honest Miner is one of the wonders of the world. A year later he revisits the scene, and it is as Tadmor in the Wilderness. He pauses to refresh his mind with ancient history, and then passes on to join in a new “excitement.” He measures time by these excitements as the Greeks measured it by Olympiads.

He loves to tell of the ups and downs of his own fortune. There is no bitterness in his memory of his failures. They relieve the record from the monotony that belongs to assured success. His successes are not less gratifying because, like all things earthly, they have had a speedy ending. A dozen times he has “struck it rich.” He has thrown away his pick and shovel and gone below to bask in the smiles of fortune. He has indulged in vague dreams of going to Europe, of looking up his family tree, and of cultivating grammar and other fine arts. Fortune continued to smile, but after a while her smile became sardonic, and with a wink she said, “Time’s up!” Then the Honest Miner would take up his pick and shovel and return to his work, neither a sadder nor a wiser man,--in fact, exactly the same kind of man he was before. That Experience is a teacher is a pedantic theory which he rejects with scorn. Experience is not a schoolmaster, Experience is a chum who likes to play practical jokes upon him. Just now he has given him a tumble and got the laugh on him. But just wait awhile! And he chuckles to himself as he thinks how he will outwit Experience.

All the traditions of the mining country confirm him in his point of view: Listen to what Experience says, and then do just the opposite. It is the unexpected that happens. The richest diggings bear the most lugubrious names. The Montanian delights to tell of the riches taken out of Last Chance Gulch. The Arizonian for years boasted of the gayety of Tombstone and the amazing prosperity of the Total Wreck Mine.

* * * * *

Certain physiologists are now telling us that the poetic praise of wine is based upon a mistake. Alcohol, they say, is not a stimulant, but a depressant. It does not stimulate the imagination so much as it depresses the critical faculty so that dullness may easily pass for wit. An idea will occur to a sober man as being rather bright, but before he has time to express it he sees that it is not so. Under the inhibition of good sense he holds his tongue and saves his reputation. But in a convivial company the inhibition is removed. Everybody says whatever is uppermost in his mind. The mice play, not because they are more lively than before, but only because the cat is away.

On first hearing this theory, it seemed to me that it was the most powerful temperance argument which could be formulated. But I am not sure but that it leaves the matter very much where it found it. After all, the man who is oppressed by the dullness of his ordinary condition would enjoy feeling brilliant, even if he were not really so.

In trying to recall any specific instances of wit and humor in my Nevada town, I am compelled to fall back on the theory of the removal of inhibition. Life was not more amusing there than elsewhere,--it only seemed so. There were no “best people” whose critical judgments inhibited the self-expression of less favored classes. Every one feeling at liberty to be himself and to express his own opinion, unfailing variety was assured. Society, being composed of all sorts and conditions of men, was in a state of perpetual effervescence. A very ordinary man, who elsewhere might have passed unnoticed in a life of drudgery, became a notable character.

There, for example, was Old Multitude, so called from the many oxen attached to the huge wagons he convoyed to the distant mines. He was a bull-whacker of the old school. His surname had long been lost in the abyss of time. Old Multitude was not looked upon as a mere individual. The public had adopted him, and he had become an institution.

When he was about to depart, a crowd would gather on the main street, as the inhabitants of a little seaport town gather to watch the departure of a ship. Old Multitude bore his honors meekly, but he was conscious that he was the chief actor in an important social function. There was nothing ill-advised in his actions, and his words were fitly chosen as he walked down the line, addressing to each beast of his multitudinous team the appropriate malediction. His wide vocabulary on such occasions contrasted strangely with his usual taciturnity. The words taken by themselves were blood-curdling enough, but as they rose and fell in mighty undulations it seemed as if he were intoning a liturgy.

And there was Old Tansy, a bit of wreckage from the times of ’49. There was a tradition that Tansy had seen better days; at least, it was hard to imagine how he could have seen worse. He lived without visible means of support, and yet he was not submerged. It pleased the community to accept Tansy as a character worth knowing in spite of his fallen fortunes. His obvious failings were always clothed in soft euphemisms. No one could say that he had ever seen him drunk, and on the other hand no one would be so rash as to assert that he had ever seen him sober. In the border land between moderate drinking and inebriety, Tansy dwelt in peace.

What most endeared Tansy to his fellows was his mild religiosity, which manifested itself in persistent church-going. He was no fair-weather Christian. There was no occasion when he would not desert his favorite saloon to take his accustomed place in the back pew of the Presbyterian church. Only once did Tansy express an opinion in regard to the services which he so assiduously attended. A minister passing through the town preached a lurid sermon on the future punishment of the wicked. He spared no materialistic imagery to make his remarks effective. At the close of the service Tansy, instead of going out, as was his custom, went forward and, grasping the minister’s hands, said in a tone of quiet satisfaction, “Parson, it done me good.”

Just what the nature of the good was he did not indicate. I suppose that there was something in the unction of the preacher that recalled memories of the past.

There was one person whom I always recall with peculiar pleasure. To see him coming over the divide in a cloud of dust was to see one of the typical forms of creation. He was known, on account of the huge pair of goggles which he wore, as “Four-Eyed Nick.” He dwelt in a cabin in the most desolate part of the mountain, and he fitted his environment perfectly. He seemed as natural a product of the soil as the sage brush, for like it he had learned to exist where there was very little water.

Great was the joy in the community when one day Four-Eyed Nick announced that he had struck pay ore and that he was about to celebrate his good fortune by getting married. Every one was intensely interested. The newspapers made an especial feature of the approaching marriage in high life. Nick was dazed by the sudden glare of publicity. Who should be invited? His generous heart rebelled against any discrimination, and he solved his problem by saying, “Come one! Come all!” He engaged every vehicle in the town to be at the disposal of such of his fellow citizens as would honor him with their presence at his nuptials.

It would have delighted the heart of Chaucer to have seen the procession of wedding guests wending their way over the ten miles of abominable mountain road to Nick’s cabin. Not on the road to Canterbury was there more variety or more hearty good fellowship. Nick had invited the town, and the town was bent on showing its appreciation of the compliment. The mayor and members of the city council, the lawyers, editors, doctors, clergymen, gamblers, mining experts, saloon-keepers, and honest miners all joined heartily in doing honor to one whom they, for the moment, agreed to consider their most distinguished fellow citizen.

No one could remain long in assured obscurity. It pleased the community to turn its search-light now upon one member and now upon another, and give him a brief experience of living in the public eye. Greatness of one sort or another was sure to be thrust upon one in the course of the year. The choicest spirits of the town were always collaborating in some work of high-grade fiction, and were on the lookout for interesting material. It would have been churlish for any one when his turn came to have refused to be a notability.

An English writer laments the fact that the schools send out thousands of persons whose imaginations have been stifled by the too prosaic discipline which they have undergone. “Why,” he says, “is it that ninety-nine persons out of a hundred lose this faculty in the earliest period of their childhood? It is simply because their bringing up has consisted in the persistent inoculation with the material facts of life, and the correspondingly persistent elimination of all imaginative ideas.”

He blames parents who give their children mechanical toys, especially if they are well made. Even a doll should not have too much verisimilitude. “It would be better to place a bundle of rags in the arms of a little girl, and tell her to imagine it to be a baby. She would, if left to herself with no other resource than her own fancy learn to exercise all her dormant powers of imagination and originality.”

That kind of education the Honest Miner has carried into mature life. He is full of imaginative ideas. The barest shanty is glorified in his eyes if it bears the sign “Palace Hotel” or “Delmonico’s.” If he cannot have the thing, he takes satisfaction in the name. Above all else, he craves variety.

The inhabitants of Gold Hill used to relate with pleasure the exploits of Sandy Bowers. When he struck an incredibly rich pocket in the mountain, Sandy built for himself a huge and expensive mansion in Washoe Valley. He imported all kinds of trees from foreign lands, none of which would grow. He filled his house with pianos, and when some one suggested sheet music he telegraphed to New York: “Send me some sheet music, one of every kind.”

It was the desire for one of every kind which induced our community, when it put off the habits of a “camp” and became a “city,” to lift into temporary prominence an elderly farmer from Pennsylvania who had drifted into Nevada without changing any of his ways. He came from York County, where he would have gone on his way unnoticed, for there were so many like him. But in the silver country he was different from the common run of fortune-seekers, therefore he was made much of. Some local Diogenes turned his lantern upon him and discovered that he was an honest man, honest in a plodding, Pennsylvania Dutch fashion. “Honest John” became a man of note. Then some one suggested that we had “in our midst a grand old man.” That was enough to make the political fortune of the honest man. He was elected to a position of power in the new city government, for every one was anxious to see what our “grand old man” would do.

He proved a thorn in the flesh of the politicians. He introduced a reign of rigid economy which made the local statesmen despair of the Republic. It was decided that the city had had too much of a good thing. The Grand Old Man should be deposed,--he should not be mayor, nor member of the council, nor any such thing.

But the municipal charter had been conceived in that generous fashion which is proper to a state where there are offices in excess of the needs of the population. The Grand Old Man discovered that there was one office which had been overlooked by the astute politicians: that of the Superintendent of Streets and Sidewalks. The streets had not been clearly differentiated from the surrounding desert, and, as for sidewalks, the citizens had been accustomed to cut across the country wherever it pleased them. The highways having been left to the kindly influence of Nature, it never occurred to any one that they should be officially superintended. The Grand Old Man cast a ballot for himself as Superintendent of Streets and Sidewalks, and when the returns were in, it was found that his name led all the rest. He was declared elected by a majority of one.

Then he began to magnify his office. He brought forth a plan of the city which had heretofore been a dead letter. He discovered streets where the wildest imagination had not supposed streets to be possible. Prominent citizens were arrested for obstructing mythical sidewalks. He was encouraged to stretch his prerogatives to the utmost, for every one was curious to see how far they would go. For six months he ruled by right of eminent domain. Leading lawyers gave it as their opinion that all rights not expressly reserved by the Federal and State governments were vested in the Grand Old Man. The Methodist minister, who was inclined to sensationalism, preached a sermon from the text in Nehemiah vi. 6: “It is reported among the heathen, and Gashmu saith it.” “Who this Gashmu was,” said the preacher, in beginning his discourse, “we do not know, but from the importance attributed to his remarks we may fairly assume that he was the Superintendent of Streets and Sidewalks in Jerusalem.”

* * * * *

Lowell describes the rough humor of the frontier, with the free and easy manners which characterize

this brown-fisted rough, this shirt-sleeved Cid,
This back-woods Charlemagne of empires new,
Whose blundering heel instinctively finds out
The goutier foot of speechless dignities,
Who, meeting Cæsar’s self, would slap his back,
Call him ‘Old Horse’ and challenge to a drink.

He had in mind the backwoodsmen whom sturdy apostles like Peter Cartwright labored with to such good purpose. But the Honest Miner, though a pioneer, is not a backwoodsman. His humor is of a different quality. He would not think of slapping Cæsar on the back and calling him “Old Horse.” It would seem more amusing to him to address some one who might properly be called “Old Horse” with titles of honor.

“Truthful James” delights in euphemism. He does not object to calling a spade a spade, but he refuses to do so in such a way as to give offense.

Which it is not my style
To produce needless pain
By statements that rile
Or that go ’gin the grain.

He is no “brown-fisted rough” who delights in swagger. There is roughness enough all about him, and it pleases him to cultivate the amenities. His gentlemanliness is often carried to excess.

The most characteristic humor of the Honest Miner consists, not in grotesque exaggeration, but in delicate understatement. What can be more considerate than the notice posted by the side of an open shaft: “Gentlemen will please not fall down this shaft, for there are men at work below.”

A Nevada minister once described to me the action of a brother minister in the early days. The minister went to a certain town where he offended the lawless element, and was threatened with physical violence if he persisted in his intention of preaching. My friend described the method by which the liberty of prophesying was asserted. “He went into the pulpit, laid his revolver on the Bible--and then he preached _extempore_.”

The manner of narration savored of the soil. The Honest Miner under such circumstances would subordinate everything to emphasis on the correct homiletical method. No matter how able the minister might be, it was evident that if he were closely confined to his notes, his delivery could not be effective.

A good woman described the way in which her minister, a young man fresh from the theological school, made one of his first parish calls. He found his parishioner, who had been extolled as one of the pillars of the church, in a state of intoxication, and he was chased out of the house and some distance down the street.

“We were sorry it happened, for it gave him an unpleasant impression of the congregation. You know Mr. ---- met with several rebuffs.”

The unconventional episode was related with all the prim propriety of “Cranford.”

The perfect democracy of a mining camp develops a certain naïve truth-telling, which has all the unexpectedness which belongs to the observations of a boy. There is no attempt to reduce everything to uniformity, or to prove any particular thesis. The gossip of a conventional village where people know each other too well is apt to be malicious. A creditable action is narrated, and then comes the inevitable “but.” The subject of conversation falls in the estimation of the hearers with a sudden thud.

The Honest Miner does not attempt to pass final judgment or to arrange his fellow men according to any sort of classification. He speaks of them as he sees them, and so virtues and failings jostle one another and take no offense. The result is a moral inconsequence which has all the effect of studied wit. This is what delights us in the characterization of Thompson of Angel’s:

Frequently drunk was Thompson, but always polite to the stranger.

As we read the line we smile, not so much at Thompson as at the society of which he was a part. We see behind him the sympathetic company at Angel’s. Here was a public with whose temper he was familiar. He could trust himself to the judgment of his peers. No misdemeanor would blind them to such virtues as he actually possessed. He could appeal to them with perfect confidence.

When you shall these unlucky deeds relate,
Speak of me as I am; nothing extenuate,
Nor set down aught in malice.

The Western mining camp is not primarily an educational institution, yet it has served a most important function in the making of Americans. The young man is fortunate who on leaving college can take a post-graduate course in a community where he can study sociology at first hand. He will learn many things, especially that human nature is not so simple as it seems, but that it has many “dips, spurs, and angles.”

A SAINT RECANONIZED

All the world loves a lover,” but all the world does not love a saint. Our hearts do not leap up when we behold a halo on the title-page, and so the lives of the heroes of the Church are frequently neglected. When the saint has been duly canonized, that is generally the end of him in popular esteem. But sometimes the ecclesiastical and secular judgments coincide and the saint is invested with human interest.

So it has been with St. Francis of Assisi,--given the highest honors in his church, he has captivated the imagination of the world. Protestants vie with Catholics in doing him honor. At no time has his name been more familiar or his legend more often repeated than in our own day. He has been recanonized.

This renewal of interest in the Franciscan legend is all the more interesting because it carries us into a region so remote from that in which we habitually dwell.

“Now it came to pass that as Francis, the servant of the Lord, was singing the praises of the Lord with joy and gladness, certain robbers fell upon him and fiercely questioned him who he was. And he answered, ‘I am the herald of the King of Heaven.’ And the robbers fell upon him with blows and cast him into a ditch, saying, ‘Lie there, thou herald of nothing!’ When they had departed Francis arose and went through the forest, singing with a loud voice the praises of the Creator.”

These words take us into another world than ours. To enter that world we must not only lay aside our easily besetting sins, but our easily besetting virtues as well. We must cast aside all the prudential virtues, we must rid our minds of all prejudice in favor of scientific charity and rationalistic schemes of philanthropy, and we must disclaim personal responsibility for the progress of modern civilization. With such impedimenta the pilgrim of thought might possibly get as far back as the sixteenth century, but it would be impossible for him to penetrate into the thirteenth. He who would do so must first drink deep of Lethe. He must put out of mind those persons and events which have been the distinctive influences of the modern world. He must forget Luther, and wash his soul clean of every trace of Calvin; every echo of the raillery of Voltaire must have died away, and his mind must have been kept unspotted from the world of Newton and of Darwin.

Above all, if he would enter into the social dreams of the thirteenth century, he must forget that he ever heard of such a science as political economy. He must renounce the old Adam and all his works,--I mean Adam Smith.

But on the other side of Lethe there are pure fountains, and dark forests where robbers lurk, and where saints are singing the high praises of God, and beyond are the “regions dim of rapture” where they are lost from the eyes of their disciples.

And it may not be in vain to turn aside from the consideration of the engrossing questions of our day, to enter into that dim world and look out upon it through the eyes of its truest saints. They were eyes blind to many things we see clearly, but they saw some things which we do not always see; at any rate they were eyes--

Beyond my knowing of them beautiful,
Beyond all knowing of them wonderful,
Beautiful in the light of holiness.

So Francis of Assisi has an especial interest for every student of Christianity and for every student of ethics. For the student of Christianity he stands as a man who, while neither a theologian nor a reformer, and having no place among the intellectual leaders of mankind, has an undisputed spiritual leadership. His place is that of the little child whom Jesus placed in the midst and of whom he said, “Of such is the kingdom of Heaven.”

For the student of ethics St. Francis is of interest because, while he had an invincible ignorance of scientific ethics, yet the real emphasis of his life and teaching was on the finest kind of ethical idealism. We are reminded of Shakespeare’s lines:--

Love is too young to know what conscience is,
Yet who knows not that conscience is born of love.

There are some characters, and St. Francis is among them, who belong so completely to their own age that we cannot take them out of their environment. The beauty of their lives is like that of some shy wild flower which will not bear transplanting. If we would enjoy it we must go where it grows. To appreciate these characters we need not critical knowledge, but imaginative sympathy.

There is an old Irish legend of a young hero who sailed to a far country and married a beautiful princess. Living there he enjoyed perpetual youth, and three centuries passed away as if they had been but three years. Then came a longing to return to his own native land. After much entreating his fair wife allowed him to return on one condition, and that was that he should not dismount from the white steed she gave him. The prince came back, but riding in youthful strength and beauty through the familiar land, at last he forgot the condition. Dismounting, his feet touched the ground, and the enchantment vanished. Suddenly he realized the passage of time. His friends, the heroes of his youth, were dead and forgotten. He was very old; his strength had withered away. The joyous paganism in which he had been bred had been driven away. He saw processions of monks and nuns, and heard the sound of church bells, and saw over all the shadow of the cross. He belonged to the old order that had passed away, now the destinies of the land were in the hands of new men.

Something of this same caution must be used by those who would see the St. Francis whom the people long ago loved and worshiped. He is the embodiment of mediæval goodness. Let us beware of disenchanting literalism, lest suddenly the radiant youth disappear and we see only the relic of an age that has passed away.

Let us not look back at St. Francis. Let us stand at the beginning of the thirteenth century and look forward. Let us share the dream of the youth who went through the forest singing the praise of God.

The transformation of worldly ambition into spiritual was never more vividly told than in the legend of St. Francis, by the Three Companions. We see Francis the gay son of Peter Bernardone, merchant of Assisi, transformed into a knight of Lady Poverty.

“Then a few years later a certain noble of the city of Assisi provided himself with warlike gear to go into Apulia to increase his profit of money and renown. Upon hearing this, Francis did aspire to go with him and to be made a knight by a certain count, Gentile by name; wherefore he made ready stuffs as costly as he could, poorer in riches than his fellow citizen, but more profuse in largesse. One night when he had given all his thoughts to bringing this to pass, and was fevered with the desire for making the journey, he was visited by the Lord, who draweth him as one eager for glory to the pinnacle of glory by a vision and uplifteth him. For while sleeping that night one appeared unto him, calling him by name, and leading him into the palace of a fair bride, very pleasant and full of knightly armor, to wit, glittering shields and other apparel hanging on the wall as it were waiting for knights to accoutre them therewithal. And while he, rejoicing greatly, marveled silently within himself what this might be, he asked whose were these arms flashing with such splendor and this so pleasant palace? And the answer was made him that the palace and all things therein were his own and his knights’. And thus awakening with joyous heart he rose early.... And so much gayer than his wont did he seem that many wondered thereat, and asked whence had he such joy, unto whom he would reply, “I know that I shall be a great prince.”

It was not the sense of sin that proved the beginning of a new life to this light-hearted Italian. It was rather the sense of a higher chivalry. Another vision came to him. A voice asked, “‘Which can do the better for thee, the lord or the servant?’

“And when he answered, ‘The lord,’ that other said again unto him, ‘Wherefore then dost thou leave the lord for the servant, and a rich lord for a poor?’... Then waking he began earnestly to ponder this vision. And just as in the first vision he had been, as it were, quite carried out of himself for his great joy, coveting worldly good fortune, so in this vision he withdrew within himself entirely, wondering at its might, and meditating so earnestly that he could sleep no more that night.”

At last the new vision took form in an enthusiastic way of life. In the church Francis heard the words of the gospels, “Take no gold nor silver nor money in your purses, nor two coats, nor shoes, nor staff.”

No further did he need to listen. Throwing away his purse, and putting on the garb of a peasant, he devoted himself henceforth not simply to the service of the poor, but to the worship of Poverty. Dante in memorable words described this lover-like devotion.

For he in youth his father’s wrath incurred
For certain Dame, to whom as unto death
The gate of pleasure no one doth unlock;

* * * * *

Then day by day more fervently he loved her.
She reft of her first husband, scorned, obscure,
One thousand and one hundred years and more,
Waited without a suitor till he came.

* * * * *

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.”