The sentiment manifested in these cases continued to be displayed in later ages. Thus, St. Gregory the Great assures us that a certain young boy, though he had enrolled himself as a monk, was unable to repress his love for his parents, and one night stole out secretly to visit them. But the judgment of God soon marked the enormity of the offence. On coming back to the monastery, he died that very day, and when he was buried, the earth refused to receive so heinous a criminal. His body was repeatedly thrown up from the grave, and it was only suffered to rest in peace when St. Benedict had laid the Sacrament upon its breast.(301) One nun revealed, it is said, after death, that she had been condemned for three days to the fires of purgatory, because she had loved her mother too much.(302) Of another saint it is recorded that his benevolence was such that he was never known to be hard or inhuman to any one except his relations.(303) St. Romuald, the founder of the Camaldolites, counted his father among his spiritual children, and on one occasion punished him by flagellation.(304) The first nun whom St. Francis of Assisi enrolled was a beautiful girl of Assisi named Clara Scifi, with whom he had for some time carried on a clandestine correspondence, and whose flight from her father’s home he both counselled and planned.(305) As the first enthusiasm of asceticism died away, what was lost in influence by the father was gained by the priest. The confessional made this personage the confidant in the most delicate secrets of domestic life. The supremacy of authority, of sympathy, and sometimes even of affection, passed away beyond the domestic circle, and, by establishing an absolute authority over the most secret thoughts and feelings of nervous and credulous women, the priests laid the foundation of the empire of the world.