THE CHURCH UNDER INNOCENT III 449 disinherited him, only aided him in accomplishing his pur- pose. Francis would not keep even the clothes on his back, ibut entered upon his new life in a discarded and worthless igarment. He had a hard time of it at first. He was hooted jat and pelted with missiles in the city streets, and when he wandered outside the walls he met some robbers. When he informed them that he was "the herald of a great king," they stripped him naked and threw him into a snowdrift. JBut even this treatment failed to cool his religious ardor. |He repaired some ruined chapels in the neighborhood, [tended the loathsome lepers, and preached in the simplest style to any one who would listen to him, — even, we are
- told, to the birds who were not afraid as he walked among
them and reminded them how thankful they should be to jGod their creator. Francis was as cheerful in his rags as he had been in the ^uxury of his father's house; a new inspiration had come to him and he was full of love for all mankind and even for forces in nature such as "brother fire"; finally, despite his pare feet and patched garment, he remained a true gentle- man. He threw away all the outward trappings of civiliza- tion, abandoning learning as well as property, and cleanli- ness as well as clothes ; but he did it in order to get back to liature, to touch our common humanity, and to see God. What the modern city dweller tries to get by "roughing it" ■n the woods in the summer, what other men in the Middle iges had sought to find by secluding themselves in monas-
- eries, Francis sought by going into the world about him.
Sometimes the ambitious youth of to-day, in order to learn nore thoroughly the business in which he proposes to en- gage, "begins at the bottom" in foundry or factory or reight train. Francis began at the bottom in order to learn ^od's business. The men of his age appreciated his worth tnd he was made a saint two years after his death, whereas Dominic had to wait thirteen years, and the great pope, nnocent, has not been canonized yet. Such a personality soon drew followers, and they went orth from Assisi two by two to spread the gospel. Some-
