A.D. 1227.Ί FRANCIS THE ΜΙ.Ν0ΚΙ1Ε. for tlif Holy Lund for three days, he said that he was seized with a sudden illness, so that he touid not at the risk of his life any longer endure the roughness of the sea and an unhealthy climate, therefore he altered his course, and after three days' sail landed at the port where he had embarked ; and on this, the pilgrims from différent parts of the world, who had preceded him to the Holy Land in hopes of having him as a leader and protector in fighting the enemies of the cross, were struck with consternation at hearing that the emperor had not come, as he had promised in the passage of August, and therefore, embarking in the ships in which they had sailed to the Holy Land, they returned home to the number of about forty thousand armed men ; and this conduct of the emperor redounded much to his disgrace, and to the injury of the whole business of the crusade. It was on this account, in the opinion of many, that the Saviour of the world showed himself, as above related, to the Christians suspended on the cross, pierced with nails and sprinkled with blood, as if laying a complaint before each and every Christian, of the injury inflicted on him by the emperor. (tf the death of the brother, teho first instituted the order of the Minorites. About that time a brother of the Minorite order, named Francis, who was said to be the founder and master of that order, departed this life at Lome. This said Francis was distinguished for the nobility of his birth, but more distinguished by the correctness of his morals. He from his boyhood began to reflect on the attractions of this life and the mutability of worldly things, and constantly to consider how vain and transitory are all temporal things ; for he had learnt in books and by the theological studies which he had pursued from his childhood, till he had acquired perfect knowledge of it, how to despise the mutability of perishable things, and to pant after the heavenly kingdom. Lut. the more completely to carry out the resolves of his mind, he gave up his large paternal inheritance and all the pleasures of life, assumed the cowl and sackcloth, laid aside his shoes, mortified his flesh with watchings and fasting, and choosing a voluntary poverty, he determined to have nothing at all o f Ins own; for bodily sustenance he only took what he received from those of the faith by way of charity, end, after partaking