Brother Francis Less than the least

Excerpt

PREFACE.

The following pages have been written by my request with a view to making the Soldiers of The Salvation Army somewhat familiar with the life-story of one of the most remarkable men this world has ever seen.

While many and varied will be the opinions respecting the methods employed by Francis of Assisi, and while some will doubtless strongly dissent from these methods, yet I think no serious follower of Jesus Christ can do otherwise than admire the sincerity, devotion and sacrifice of the man; and further, there can be, I think, no two opinions as to his having taught and manifested to the world what it means to be possessed entirely by the Saviour's spirit.

And what did that spirit produce? Surely it was the same entire devotion of our all to the service of God and humanity which we Salvationists daily teach. The difference between our spirit and that of the subject of this Memoir is, I trust, very slight, although the manifestations of it are widely diverse. We are quite as extreme in our demands as to poverty and solitude as he was, only that we do not value these things for their own sake as he did. We daily induce persons to leave earthly possessions and prospects in order to go and seek the salvation of the poor, amongst whom their future life is to be spent; and we require our Officers to consecrate all they have to the service of the Kingdom of God right through their career, and to live always in a state of readiness to be sent away from all they have known and loved—not, indeed, to live in any cloister or hermitage, but in the solitude amidst the crowd which must ever be more or less the lot of the highest leaders of men.

The system established by Francis was not adaptable to family life, whereas it is our joy to show how as complete a devotion to the good of others can be manifested by the father or mother, who spend most of their hours in toil for the support of those dependent upon them, as by the monks and nuns of old, even when they walked in entire harmony with the rules of their various orders.

We have demonstrated that most people by the very fact of their being engaged in business, and having to fulfil the duties of family life, acquire extra power to capture for God those who are still in the ranks of worldliness and selfishness.

Nevertheless, we must always expect God to require from time to time witnesses who might step out of the ordinary path altogether in order to revolutionise the world for Him. It were better far to aspire to so high and holy a calling than to excuse in ourselves any less self-denial, any easier life than this man's boundless love to Christ constrained him to adopt.

It is most melancholy to reflect that Francis died almost broken-hearted over what he felt to be the unfaithfulness of his brethren. We believe that God has guided us to plans which, being consistent with the possibilities of modern human life, are capable of being carried out fully and always. But the vital question is the maintenance of that intense spirit of personal devotion to the good Shepherd and His lost sheep, which can alone render any such scheme of life possible....