To you, dearest father (Raimondo), I say: when it is possible to you, keep a manly heart in the presence of his Holiness, without any pain or servile fear; remain first a while in your cell, in the presence of Mary and of the most holy Cross, in holy and humble prayer, in true knowledge of yourself, with living faith and will to endure; and then go (to the Pope) in security. And do what you can for the honour of God and the salvation of souls, to the point of death. Announce to him what I write you in this letter as the Holy Spirit shall guide you. I say no more. Remain in the holy and sweet grace of God. Sweet Jesus, Jesus Love. TO URBAN VI In March, 1378, Gregory died, and was succeeded by the Archbishop of Bari, who took the name of Urban VI. The sensitive, cultured, vacillating Frenchman gave place to a Neapolitan of coarse physique--a man personally virtuous, but, as history shows us, extraordinarily harsh and violent in disposition. "It seems," the Prior of the Island of Gorgona wrote with alarming candour to Catherine, "that our new Christ on earth is a terrible man." Catherine was at Florence at the time--having been sent thither by Gregory, who, however alienated from her personally, seems till the end to have valued her services. The following is the first letter from her to Urban which we possess. It is evident that she has as yet little knowledge of the new Pope at first hand. She writes to him in much the same strain as that in which she was accustomed to address his predecessor; only the sense of a new hearer inspires her, after the rather dull opening of the letter, with fresh fervour in recapitulating the sins and woes of the Church. Possibly, also, there is a little more insistence than usual on the plea that mercy temper justice, in the case of the rebellious Tuscan cities. The sensible policy for such a situation could hardly be better summed up than in her concise phrase: "Receive from a sick man what he can give you." In the Name of Jesus Christ crucified and of sweet Mary: