At last he understood the profounder meaning of the words. It was no
temple made with hands, but the _living_ Church that needed
raising. The dust of corruption must be swept away, the dry bones be
stirred; the breath of the divine Spirit blow and reanimate them. Did
not the voice mean that? What remained but to obey?
In his journeyings through France it is hardly possible that St.
Francis should not have heard of _the poor men of Lyons_ whose
peculiar tenets at this time were arousing very general attention. It
is not improbable that he may have fallen in with one of those
translations of the New Testament into the vernacular executed by
Stephen de Emsa at the expense of Peter Waldo, and through his means
widely circulated among all classes. [Footnote: See "Facts and
Documents Illustrative of the History, Doctrine, and Rites, of the
Ancient Albigenses and Waldenses," by the Rev. S. R, Maitland,
London, 8vo., 1832, p. 127 _et seq._] Be it as it may, the words
addressed by our Lord to the seventy, when he sent them forth to
preach the kingdom of heaven, seemed to St. Francis to be written in
letters of flame. They haunted him waking and sleeping. "The lust of
gain in the spirit of Cain!" what had it done for the world or the
Church but saturate the one and the other with sordid greed? Mere
wealth had not added to the sum of human happiness.
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