Francis had been a soldier and a knight only a few years before. He
could not but feel the stir of the Holy War in his veins,--the tingle
of the desire to be in it. He heard the stories of the daring of the
Crusaders; he heard of a great victory over the Saracens.
Francis, indeed, wanted Jesus Christ to conquer men more than he
wanted anything on earth; but he knew that men are only conquered by
Jesus Christ if their hearts are changed by Him.
"Even if the Saracens are put to the sword and overwhelmed, still they
are not saved," he said to himself.
As he thought these things he felt sure that he heard them calling to
him (as the Man from Macedonia had called to St. Paul)--"Come over and
help us." St. Paul had brought the story of Jesus Christ to Europe;
and had suffered prison and scourging and at last death by the
executioner's sword in doing it; must not Francis be ready to take the
same message back again from Europe to the Near East and to suffer for
it?
"I will go," he said, "but to save the Saracens, not to slay them."
He was not going out to fight, yet he had in his heart a plan that
needed him to be braver and more full of resource than any warrior
in the armies of the Crusades. He was as much a Lion-hearted hero
as Richard Coeur-de-Lion himself, and was far wiser and indeed more
powerful.
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