Page:Historical Lectures and Addresses.djvu/114

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ends of the two Orders grew similar. The Dominicans accepted poverty from the Franciscans, and the Franciscans, though grudgingly, accepted training from the Dominicans. Of course to do this was an entire blow to the whole conception which Francis had striven to set forth. Yet it was necessary. For if there was a plain duty which the Franciscans must undertake, that duty was teaching; and if they were to teach when the first enthusiasm passed away, it became obvious that they must be trained to teach. Training, which had been the very essence of the conception of Dominic, was forced on Francis sorely against his will. Once, finding a book, a breviary, in the hands of one of the brethren, Francis had exclaimed: "You do not need to read books; I am your breviary". In the same way Brother Egidius, when he heard of the Franciscans going to the University of Paris, and of their fame there, was horrified, exclaiming: "Paris, Paris, you are destroying the Order of St. Francis!" The first general of the Franciscans in England, when he went into the schools at Oxford, and heard the friars engaged in disputations, was terrified as he listened to metaphysical speculations in which the very existence of the Deity was regarded as a matter to be examined by human reason, and exclaimed: "Woe is me, simple friars enter heaven, while learned friars are disputing if there be a God".

It is obvious that the impulse which Francis gave to society was only with great difficulty reduced to a definite Rule. Properly speaking it was never reduced to a Rule at all. To some extent the Franciscans remained rebels to the end of their existence. Some