Sienna, the rival of Florence in the Middle Ages, still possessed sufficient attractions to induce a young man to follow the career of letters or of honors; but Occhino’s mind took another direction. From his earliest youth, his religious feelings had inclined him to an ascetic life, and he sought peace for his soul in exercises of devotion. ‘I believe in salvation through works,’ he said, ‘through fasting, prayer, mortifications, and vigils. With the help of God’s grace we can, by means of these practices, satisfy the justice of God, obtain pardon for our sins, and merit heaven.’[835] Erelong his private macerations proved insufficient for him, and he became a monk. Every religious society approved of by Rome was holy in his eyes; but he joined the Observantine Franciscans, because that order was reputed to be stricter than the others. The youthful Bernardino soon found, like Luther, that the life of the cloister could not satisfy his need of holiness. He was discouraged, and, renouncing the pursuit of an object which he seemed unable to attain, he turned to the study of medicine, without however, leaving the convent. Some Franciscans, having separated from the order with the intention of forming a still stricter rule, under the name of Capuchins, Occhino thought he had found what he wanted, and, having joined them, gave himself up with all his strength to voluntary humiliation and the mortification of the senses. _Eat not, touch not, taste not._ If any new and stricter laws were drawn up by the chiefs of the order, he hastened to conform to them. He threw himself blindfold into a complicated labyrinth of traditions, disciplines, fastings, mortifications, austerities, and ecstasies. And when they were over, he would ask himself whether he had gained anything? Remaining ill at ease and motionless in his cell, he would exclaim: ‘O Christ! if I am not saved now, I know not what I can do more!’ The moment was approaching when he would feel that all these macerations were but ‘running knots, which bind at first and strangle at last.’[836]