Responding to his appeal, they subscribed fifteen hundred livres for the
purchase of vestments, candles, and ornaments for altars. The King gave
letters patent in favor of the mission, and the Pope gave it his formal
authorization. By this instrument the papacy in the person of Paul the
Fifth virtually repudiated the action of the papacy in the person of
Alexander the Sixth, who had proclaimed all America the exclusive
property of Spain.
The Recollets form a branch of the great Franciscan Order, founded early
in the thirteenth century by Saint Francis of Assisi. Saint, hero, or
madman, according to the point of view from which he is regarded, he
belonged to an era of the Church when the tumult of invading heresies
awakened in her defence a band of impassioned champions, widely
different from the placid saints of an earlier age. He was very young
when dreams and voices began to reveal to him his vocation, and kindle
his high-wrought nature to sevenfold heat. Self-respect, natural
affection, decency, became in his eyes but stumbling-blocks and snares.
He robbed his father to build a church; and, like so many of the Roman
Catholic saints, confounded filth with humility, exchanged clothes with
beggars, and walked the streets of Assisi in rags amid the hootings of
his townsmen.
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