“My brothers, my brothers, God has called me by way of simplicity and humility, and has shown me in verity this path for me and those who want to believe and follow me; so I want you to talk of no Rule to me, neither Saint Benedict nor Saint Augustine nor Saint Bernard, nor any way or form of Life whatever except that which God has mercifully pointed out and granted to me.  And God said that he wanted me to be a pauper [poverello] and an idiot—­a great fool—­in this world, and would not lead us by any other path of science than this.  But by your science and syllogisms God will confound you, and I trust in God’s warders, the devils, that through them God shall punish you, and you will yet come back to your proper station with shame, whether you will or no.”

The narration continues:  “Tunc cardinalis obstupuit valde et nihil respondit.  Et omnes fratres plurimum timuerunt.”

One feels that the reporter has not exaggerated a word; on the contrary, he softened the scandal, because in his time the Cardinal had gained his point, and Francis was dead.  One can hear Francis beginning with some restraint, and gradually carried away by passion till he lost control of himself and his language:  “’God told me, with his own words, that he meant me to be a beggar and a great fool, and would not have us on any other terms; and as for your science, I trust in God’s devils who will beat you out of it, as you deserve.’  And the Cardinal was utterly dumbfounded and answered nothing; and all the brothers were scared to death.”  The Cardinal Hugolino was a great schoolman, and Dominic was then founding the famous order in which the greatest of all doctors, Albertus Magnus, was about to begin his studies.  One can imagine that the Cardinal “obstupuit valde,” and that Dominic felt shaken in his scheme of school instruction.  For a single instant, in the flash of Francis’s passion, the whole mass of five thousand monks in a state of semi-ecstasy recoiled before the impassable gulf that opened between them and the Church.

No one was to blame—­no one ever is to blame—­because God wanted contradictory things, and man tried to carry out, as he saw them, God’s trusts.  The schoolmen saw their duty in one direction; Francis saw his in another; and, apparently, when both lines had been carried, after such fashion as might be, to their utmost results, and five hundred years had been devoted to the effort, society declared both to be failures.  Perhaps both may some day be revived, for the two paths seem to be the only roads that can exist, if man starts by taking for granted that there is an object to be reached at the end of his journey.  The Church, embracing all mankind, had no choice but to march with caution, seeking God by every possible means of intellect and study.  Francis, acting only for himself, could throw caution aside and trust implicitly in God, like the children who went on crusade.  The two poles of social and political philosophy seem