The slopes of San Damiano, the sites of Spello, Bevagna, Cannara; Rivo Torto, the hovering dome of the Portiuncula, the desolate uplands that lead to the Carceri; one after another, the scenes and images—­grotesque or lovely—­simple or profound—­of the vast Franciscan story rose into life under his touch, till they generated in those listening the answer of the soul of to-day to the soul of the Poverello.  Poverty, misery, and crime—­still they haunt the Umbrian villages and the Assisan streets; the shadows of them, as the north knows them, lay deep and terrible in Marion Vincent’s eyes.  But as the poet spoke the eternal protest and battle-cry of Humanity swelled up against them—­overflowed, engulfed them.  The hearts of some of his listeners burned within them.

And finally he brought them back to the famous legend of the hidden church:  deep, deep in the rock—­below the two churches that we see to-day; where St. Francis waits—­standing, with his arms raised to heaven, on fire with an eternal hope, an eternal ecstasy.

“Waits for what?” said Ferrier, under his breath, forgetting his audience a moment.  “The death of Catholicism?”

Sir James Chide gave an uneasy cough.  Ferrier, startled, looked round, threw his old friend a gesture of apology which Sir James mutely accepted.  Then Sir James got up and strolled away, his hands in his pockets, toward the farther end of the terrace.

The poet meanwhile, ignorant of this little incident, and assuming the sympathy of his audience, raised his eyebrows, smiling, as he repeated Ferrier’s words: 

“The death of Catholicism!  No, Signor!—­its second birth.”  And with a Southern play of hand and feature—­the nobility of brow and aspect turned now on this listener, now on that—­he began to describe the revival of faith in Italy.

“Ten years ago there was not faith enough in this country to make a heresy!  On the one side, a moribund organization, poisoned by a dead philosophy; on the other, negation, license, weariness—­a dumb thirst for men knew not what.  And now!—­if St. Francis were here—­in every olive garden—­in each hill town—­on the roads and the by-ways—­on the mountains—­in the plains—­his heart would greet the swelling of a new tide drawing inward to this land—­the breath of a new spring kindling the buds of life.  He would hear preached again, in the language of a new day, his own religion of love, humility, and poverty.  The new faith springs from the very heart of Catholicism, banned and persecuted as new faiths have always been; but every day it lives, it spreads!  Knowledge and science walk hand in hand with it; the future is before it.  It spreads in tales and poems, like the Franciscan message; it penetrates the priesthood; it passes like the risen body of the Lord through the walls of seminaries and episcopal palaces; through the bulwarks that surround the Vatican itself.  Tenderly, yet with an absolute courage, it puts aside old abuses, old ignorances!—­like St. Francis, it holds out its hand to a spiritual bride—­and the name of that bride is Truth!  And in his grave within the rock—­on tiptoe—­the Poverello listens—­the Poverello smiles!”