But though Francis longed to associate himself in some way with the lowest classes, he could obtain no certain light upon his duty. While prostrated before the crucifix, in the dilapidated church of St. Damian, in Assisi, he heard a voice saying, "Francis, seest thou not that my house is in ruins? Go and restore it for me." Again it is said that this pointed to his great life-work of restoring spiritual power to the church, but he again accepted the message in a literal sense. Delighted to receive a command so specific, the kneeling Francis fervently responded, "With good will, Lord," and gladly entered upon the task of repairing the church of St. Damian. "Having fortified himself by the sign of the cross," he took a horse and a valuable bundle of goods belonging to his father and sold both at Falingo. Instead of turning the proceeds over to his father, Francis offered them to the priest of St. Damian, who, fearing the father's displeasure, refused to accept the stolen funds. The young zealot, "who had utter contempt for money," threw the gold on one of the windows of the church. Such is the story as gleaned from Catholic sources. The heretics, who have criticised Francis for this conduct, are answered by the following ingenious but dangerous sophistry: "It is certainly quite contrary to the ordinary law of justice for one man to take for himself the property of another; but if Almighty God, to whom all things belong, and for whom we are only stewards, is pleased to dispense with this His own law in a particular case, and to bestow what He has hitherto given to one upon another, He confers at the same time a valid title to the gift, and it is no robbery in him who has received it to act upon that title." Fearing his father's wrath, Francis hid himself in the priest's room, and contemporary authors assure us that when the irate parent entered, Francis was miraculously let into the wall. Wading (1731 A.D.) says the hollow place may still be seen in the wall.