Page:The Lady Poverty - a XIII. century allegory (IA ladypovertyxiiic00giovrich).pdf/218

 scorn of the world. But was ever Italian peasant so utterly degraded as are many of the victims of modern industrialism? Poverty with Francis was the mother of spiritual freedom; poverty in the London slum is synonymous with hard materialism and irreligion. Was ever contrast greater? And yet Francis has made evident to us that beneath the squalor and degradation of the modern city, there is a spiritual possibility,