Publisher's Synopsis
Excerpt from Monumenta Franciscana, Vol. 2: Being a Further Collection of Original Documents Respecting the Franciscan Order in England
The ground on which the Church was ordained to work was already doubly occupied. The secular priest and the monk had worked out a 777/06z208 rivendi, albeit an indifferent one. What would be the effect of introducing a third element dissimilar in every way to both? If the friar should posture as a living reproof to the golden ease and spiritual indolence of the monk and to the ignorance and uncanonical life of the parish priest, would the reproof be taken in the spirit of Christian humility? Some kind of fermentation must result from the infusion even of a quickening leaven into the body spiritual, and that fer mentation must pass Off favourably; the body cooling down after a passing fever, or serious symptoms of moral blood-poisoning might only too easily supervene. Clearly then it was a matter for cautious treatment, this idea of sending forth a swarm of missionaries to teach and preach and tend the sick and the outcasts, and gain the sympathy Of the poor man by being as poor as himself. If the great ideal were attained and sustained all would be well, but if the friar should be launched on a course of spiritual rivalry, if he should gradually acquire the vices of his clerical surroundings, and a coarser contamination from those he was sent to assist.
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