If Saint Anthony is remembered today mainly as a saint to whom prayers are addressed when articles are lost, his own time had a quite different view of him. To people then, he was an inspiring preacher who could make the word of GOD live in their hearts as few other men could. Born in Lisbon, Portogal he joined a community of Augustinian cannons when he was fifteen. Deeply impressed by the heroism of the F\ranciscan friars, he decided to join the Franciscans and went to Morocco. There he became ill and on his way back to Portugal, his ship was blown off course and landed in Sicily. He then traveled to Assisi where Saint Francis was holding his last General Chapter for is Order. Anthony was then sent to a Hermitage where there he received a request for his services as a speaker. At an ordination ceremony Anthony delivered the sermon which amazed his audience by his moving address. This burs of eloquence catapulted Anthony into fame. For the rest of his life, preaching, more than anything else, was his work. His acquaintance with Holy Scripture was especially profound. Anthony's preaching career reached its height in Padua. His appearances in the pulpit became the chief evvents in the city's life. He was outspoken against usury, or the charging of excessive interest on loans of money. This was a predominat vice in Padua and had such accompanying features as squalid debtor's prisons, filled with poor people who could not meet the exorbitant demands of the moneylenders. By preaching Christian charity, Anthony was able to curb the vicious prectice. The poor, the oppressed, those most in need of charity and justice--these were the people Anthony worked for during the rest of his short life. How the practice of praying to Anthony for the return of lost articles orginated is obscure; some think it may have been inspired by a story (perhaps legandary) about a young friar who stole Anthony's psalter and, when the Saint prayed for its return, had a vision of divine retribution that frightened him into returning the book. In art Anthony is often pictured with the Infant Christ, who is said to have decended and stood upon the book the Saint was holding while he preached on the subject of Incarnation. Anthony was canonized the after his death and was declared a Doctor of the Church by Pope Pius XII in 1946.