St. Francis of Assisi G. K. Chesterton 1923
Contents The Problem of St. Francis
1
The World St. Francis Found
6
Francis the Fighter
14
Francis the Builder
22
Le Jongleur de Dieu
28
The Little Poor Man
36
The Three Orders
44
The Mirror of Christ
52
Miracles and Death
59
The Testament of St. Francis
67
The Problem of St. Francis A sketch of St. Francis of Assisi in modern English may be written in one of three ways. Between these the writer must make his selection; and the third way, which is adopted here, is in some respects the most difficult of all. At least, it would be the most difficult if the other two were not impossible. First, he may deal with this great and most amazing man as a figure in secular history and a model of social virtues. He may describe this divine demagogue as being, as he probably that St. Francis anticipated all that is most liberal and sympathetic in the modern mood; the love of nature; the love of animals; the sense of social compassion; the sense of the spiritual dangers of prosperity and even of property. All those things that nobody understood before Wordsworth
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