The Little Bedesman of Christ 179

reapers and vintagers in the harvest time,
and working with the field-folk in the ear-
lier season ; supping and praying with them
afterwards; sleeping, when day failed, in
barns or church porches or leper-hospitals, or
may. be in an old Etruscan tomb or in the
shelter of a jutting rock, if no better chance
befell; till at last they came to be known
and beloved in every village and feudal
castle and walled town among the hills
between Rome and Florence. At first,
indeed, they were mocked and derided and
rudely treated, but in a little while it was
seen that they were no self-seekers crazed
with vanity, but messengers of heaven, and
pure and great-hearted champions of Christ
and His poor.

In those days of luxury and rapacity and
of wild passions and ruthless bloodshed, it
was strange to see these men stripping them-
selves of wealth and power — for many of the
brethren had been rich and noble — and pro-
claiming the Gospel of the love and gentle-
ness and purity and poverty of Christ. For
not only were the brethren under vow to
possess nothing whatever in the world, and