A blithe saint was Francis. He loved to laugh; he loved to sing; and he
loved to hear the music of laughter and of song as it rippled from the
lips of others. Every description that has come down to us lays stress
on the sunshine that played about his lofty forehead and open
countenance. The days came when, though still in the heyday of early
manhood, his handsome figure was gaunt and wasted; his fine face
furrowed with suffering and care; his virile strength exhausted by
ceaseless toil, wearisome journeyings, and exacting ministries of many
kinds. But, emaciated and worn, his face never for a moment lost its
radiance. He greeted life with a cheer and took leave of it with a
smile.
His youth was a frolic; his very sins were pleasant sins. His
winsomeness drew to him the noblest youths and fairest maidens of
Assisi. The lithe and graceful figure of Francis, with his dark,
eloquent but sparkling eyes, his wealthy shock of jet black hair, his
soft, rich, sonorous voice and his gay but faultless attire, was the
soul and center of every youthful revel. He was, as Sir James Stephen
says, foremost in every feat of arms, first in every triumph of
scholarship, and the gayest figure in every festival. 'The brightest
eyes in Assisi, dazzled by so many graces, and the most reverend brows
there, acknowledging such early wisdom, were alike bent with admiration
towards him; and all conspired to sustain his father's confidence that,
in his person, the family name would rival the proudest and most
splendid in Italy's illustrious past.' His bewitching personality, his
rollicking gaiety, his brooding thoughtfulness, his dauntless courage
and his courtly ways swept all men off their feet; he had but to lead
and they instinctively followed; he commanded and they unquestionably
obeyed. He was nick-named _the Flower of Assisi_. He loved to be happy
and to make others happy. 'Yet,' as one Roman Catholic biographer
remarks, 'he did not yet know where true happiness was to be found.' He
was twenty-four when he made that sensational discovery. He found the
source of true happiness in the last place in the world in which he
would have thought of looking for it. He found it at the Cross! And, in
perfect consistency with his youthful conduct, he spent the rest of his
days--he died at forty-four--in pointing men to the Crucified. As a
youth he had done his best to radiate laughter and song among all the
young people of Assisi; it was therefore characteristic of him that,
having discovered the fountain-head of all abiding satisfaction, he
should make it the supreme object of his maturer years to share his
sublime secret with the whole wide world.