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SAINT  FBiNCIS  OF  ASSISI.  205

and  so  rapid,  their  increase,  that  the  political  world  be-
gan to  look  in  amazement  and  fear  on  the  work  which
had  been  accomphshed  bj  two  poor  friara.  Pierre  de
Veneis,  chancellor  to  the  impious  Frederic,  wi-ites  thus
to  his  master:  "The  Friara  Minor  and  the  Friara
Preachers  have  risen  up  i^ainat  us  in  anger.  They
publicly  reprove  our  life  and  our  conduct.  To  weaken
our  power  still  more,  and  draw  the  people  from  us,
they  have  erected  two  new  confratemitiea,  in  which
they  enroll  both  men  and  women.  ■  Crowda  are  flock-
ing into  them,  and  it  is  hard  to  find  any  one  whose
name  is  not  inscribed  in  one  or  other  society."  "Well
might  the  worldly  politician  esclaim  in  indignant
amazement,  to  see  the  power  of  royalty,  the  force  of
arms,  and  the  snares  of  heresy  and  of  proffered  bribes,
faUiag  powerless  before  these  new  and  strange  associa-
tions. Coesar  was  trembling  before  the  power  of  Peter,
and  the  Church  was  succeeding  in  a  work  which  the
world  had  in  vain  attempted.  Statesmen  were  getting
the  lesson,  which  they  cared  not  to  learn,  that  Saints,
with  all  their  unworldliness,  were  the  best  legislators ;
since  their  laws  promoted  most  effectually  the  pros-
perity of  nations,  the  administration  of  justice,  and  the
peace  of  empires.
Luchesio,  before  he  entered  the  Third  Order  of  St.
Francis,  had  ranged  himself  under  the  banner  of  the
Guelphs ;  but,  with  thousands  of  his  fellows,  he  learned
that  the  cause  of  the  Church  is  the  cause  of  God.
