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dicted places, and with closed doors. They received special indulgences on the 2d of August, the day which commemorated the founding of the fraternity. But as the most important of all their favors, they were exempted from the control of the ordinary bishops. Wherever, for any reason, they wished to extend their influence, they had only to plant a cloister, and then declaring their independence of priest and bishop, to go forth preaching, hearing confessions, and granting absolution, accountable meanwhile to the general of their order alone. When it is remembered that, at this period the nomination of the bishops had fallen generally under the control of the secular princes, it will be difficult to exaggerate the influence, in behalf of the church, of a Society that was so perfectly organized, so devoted to its work, so numerous in its membership, and so completely under the control of the Supreme Pontiff.

The effect of these extraordinary privileges was not only to enlarge the influence of the Society, but also to introduce into its organization new and various elements. In the days of Francis, a vast majority of his votaries had come from the lower walks of life. But as the sphere of action was enlarged the fraternity began to hold out attractions to the ambitious as well as to the saintly. At first the doorkeepers had been instructed to pratice the closest scrutiny, but within twenty years from the reception of the favors alluded to, the doors were thrown wide open, and the porters were discharged. Ten years later Franciscans were to be seen not only in the cloister, the camp, and the market, but also in the universities, before the tribunals, and on the throne. They had begun by prefer. ing the "fervor of ignorance" to the "ostentation of learning," but before the end of a century their spirit had been completely transformed. Ugolino and Jerome of Arcoli, generals of the Order, had climbed into the papal throne, and the followers of Francis were vying with the learned men of every faith and order for the mastery in the proudest universities of Europe. While Thomas Aquinas, the pride of the Dominicans, was developing his "Sum of Theology" to future Kings and Popes, at Paris, the great Franciscan Roger Bacon was experimenting with, and describing certain mysterious combina

tions of an explosive nature that were afterwards to play so important a part in the drama of modern civilization. And it was not a generation later that the still greater Franciscan Duns Scotus gathered about his chair at Oxford thirty thousaad students, and, dying at the early age of thirty-four, left behind him a record of mental productiveness which the distinguished historian of Latin Christianity has characterized as perhaps the most wonderful fact in the intellectual history of our race.

Thus the Order of St. Francis increased rapidly in members, and still more rapidly in influence. In less than fifty years after the death of their patron they could boast of 8,000 cloisters and more than 200,000 monks, exclusive of the countless number of the Order of Penitence. And yet the great secret of their power was not so much in their numbers, as in the fact that, like the Jesuits after them, they occupied all positions in society from the highest to the lowest, and were obedient, even unto death, to the will of a single master.

It could hardly be possible for an Order founded upon the severe discipline of the Franciscans to exist for any considerable time without developing differences of opinion as to whether their early vows should be rigidly enforced. Even in the first years of the fraternity the founder had reason to rebuke what he deemed the extravagance of his followers. But neither his prayers nor his irony could hold all the members to their pristine severity. What was at first a mere want of harmony came, ere long, to be a painful discord. Two factions were thus created and as time advanced the breach grew wider and wider. After the death of Francis the extraordinary privileges granted to his followers strengthened the dissenting party by offering an encouraging field to men who were more remarkable for their ambition than for their piety. And such a struggle as was now inaugurated between the asceticism of Francis on the one hand and the natural demands of humanity on the other could have but one issue. If the latter were once allowed to enter the contest, they would of course be victorious, and that at no very distant day. And such was the fact. The right of opinion was allowed, and the result was that "the reasoning party" so rapidly outgrew "the devotional party" that there remained nothing for Franciscanism to do

but to abandon St. Francis, or to be hopelessly riven asunder. It can hardly be deemed strange that the former course was adopted. But, be that as it may, St. Francis and his hard bride Poverty were thus early divided in the affections of their children. Though the offspring continued to revere the name, and worship at the shrine of the father, it was scarcely a half century before they had become utterly faithless to the memory of the mother.

This departure from the stern asceticism of Francis bore its natural fruit. So long as men and women were willing to endure great privations for the sake of the church, they were invulnerable to the attacks of ridicule. But in setting aside. their self-sacrifice they threw away their only weapon of selfdefence. Saints instantly began to denounce, and satirists to scoff. In less than forty years after the death of Francis, St. Bonaventura, as general of the Order, felt called upon to adminster the severest and most sweeping reproofs. He charged them with an indolence that was opening a path to every vice; with a rapacity that made them a burden to every place that they approached; with habits of importunity that made them more dreaded than a band of robbers; with sumptuous methods of life that brought the Order into great discredit; and with those forbidden intimacies which brought scandal and reproach against all who bore the name. Nor is it probable that this picture was overwrought. There is in the fourteenth century scarcely an important writer either of prose or poetry, who might not be summoned to show that the characteristics which in the early days of the Order had been its power and its glory, had been so far transformed that its members were now almost as remarkable for their vices as their predecessors had been for their virtues. And the formidable list of charges preferred by such men as St. Bonaventura and Matthew Paris, and echoed by such as Dante and Chaucer, have been quite enough, to array against the Franciscans a prejudice that is well nigh universal. Those charges, doubtless in their time for the most part just, echoed and re-echoed these six hundred years, have well nigh unfitted mankind to judge of the true character of the Society in the days of its infancy and purity. But if we go back to the very beginning of the thirteenth century,

and then, after contemplating the corruptions that everywhere threatened to overthrow the spiritual power of the church, advance to the age of Duns Scotus and Robert Grostete and Roger Bacon, it will be possible to appreciate the nature and the extent of the reform wrought by the mendicant Friars. That they were able to effect a permanent change in the direction of the ecclesiastical current would perhaps be too much to assert. But it cannot be successfully denied that in the days of their vigor and purity they did accomplish something to help a struggling humanity grope its way out of the darkness of the Middle Ages. In an age of irresponsible tyranny, they became the protectors of the weak and the vindicators of the innocent. In the midst of unbridled license, they were the advocates of domestic virtues, and the exemplars of ecclesiastical purity. Sworn to avoid every corruption, and to encourage every virtue, Francis and his followers went forth to convert a degenerate church and to reform a corrupted society. The Pulpit and the Mission have been well called the two most efficient means of regenerating humanity. Of these the Franciscans had almost exclusive control for three-fourths of a century, and the reformation which they were able to effect was the most thorough and wide spread known to the church before the advent of Martin Luther.

ARTICLE II.-IS THERE A PROBATION BETWEEN DEATH AND THE JUDGMENT?

THE adherents of this view are not so numerous, or so pronounced in their peculiar notions, as to have taken to themselves a specific name. They are rather, persons who mean to be orthodox Christians, who eschew the doctrine of universal recovery. They would relieve their minds of the severity of the orthodox tenet, which makes character formed in this life the arbiter of destiny for ever, while at the same time, they hold to the doctrine of eternal punishment for those who shall come to the Judgment unregenerate.

This theory does not set aside the reality of a Day of Judgment when the future condition of all men will be irreversibly pronounced. It does not set aside the idea that Christ will then cease from his mediatorial work and assume his prerogative of Kingship. It does not alter the condition of salvation, repentance, and faith. It claims that it does not interfere with the legitimate working of the atonement. It simply teaches that during the intermediate state between death and the judgment, while Christ is performing the work of redemption among those who are alive upon the earth, He may still be carrying on the same process among departed souls, and that persons dying impenitent may yet repent, believe on Christ, be forgiven, and be put in possession of eternal life.

This view differs from that of the Romanists as to the intermediate state, in this, that with them, whatever there is of purification and discipline in Purgatory is limited to those who have begun to be saints. Catholics would offer prayers and penances only for those who die within the pale of their Church; while those who hold the other doctrine would be encouraged to offer prayer and exercise hope in behalf of any who had died in their sins.

The literature of this theory is meagre. The sentiment is rather a floating one, expressed here and there as a hope or a conviction. Lady Byron announced it to Mrs. Stowe concern

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