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he proclaimed, "is this: to live under obedience, in chastity and with- out property so that they may follow the teachings and the footsteps of Our Lord, Jesus Christ." One who demands much of men can always win them over to his side; and so Francis' ideals spread as rapidly as does bread among the hungry. He established an Order for men in 1209, and one for women in 1212. To this there was added in 1221 a Third Order for those living in the world. In addi- tion to fostering the especial duties of charity and devotion, he brought about a memorable social renaissance. The craftsmen and workers among his tertiaries were to pay a small tax wherewith a capital was to be formed that would serve their needs, enable them to establish an industry, or make possible the purchase of a bankrupt nobleman's land.
When the politicians around Frederic II began to understand the import of this self-help to which the working population was resort- ing; when the Emperor looked upon the tertiaries as rebels like the Manicheans and the Paterena; when the Franciscan world itself pro- duced a schismatic trend which sought to declare the ideal of poverty in its full strictness a dogma; when its martyrs died by fire or sat be- hind the prison walls of the Inquisition yearning for the dawn of the day of God Francis of Assisi had long since departed from the scene of the troubles. And though men spoke of him over his grave as "the second Christ," they misused or misunderstood his words. His saintly, wholehearted desire had been to serve the Church, which through its Popes Innocent III and Gregory IX (Cardinal Ugolino) had served him and his work. His rule of 1210 began: "This is the life according to the Gospel of Jesus Christ, which Brother Francis requested the Lord Pope Innocent to allow unto him and to confirm; and the Lord Pope permitted it and confirmed it for him and the brethren whom he had and would have. Brother Francis, and who- ever after him shall be head of this association, promise obedience and loyalty to Lord Innocent, the Pope, and his successors. And all other brethren are bound in duty to obey Brother Francis and his successors."
The two great founders were not more like each other than are heart and mind. Francis, the Lover, at the end rose from earth to meet the Master whom he had seen with arms opened out wide on the Cross, and whose own Wounds he had received. The studious
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