If Francis ever made a Rule for the Third Order it must have very nearly resembled this epistle, and until this problematical document is found, the letter shows what were originally these associations of Brothers of Penitence. Everything in these long pages looks toward the development of the mystic religious life in the heart of each Christian. But even when Francis dictated them, this high view had become a Utopia, and the Third Order was only one battalion more in the armies of the papacy. We see that the epistles which we have just examined proceed definitely from a single inspiration. Whether he is leaving instructions for his successors, the ministers-general, whether he is writing to all the present and future members of his Order, to all Christians or even to the clergy,[33] Francis has only one aim, to keep on preaching after his death, and perhaps, too, by putting into writing his message of peace and love, to provide that he shall not be entirely travestied or misunderstood. Considered in connection with those sorrowful hours which saw their birth, they form a whole whose import and meaning become singularly energetic. If we would find the Franciscan spirit, it is here, in the Rule of 1221, and in the Will that we must seek for it. Neglect, and especially the storms which later overwhelmed the Order, explain the disappearance of several other documents which would cast a glimmer of poetry and joy over these sad days;[34] Francis had not forgotten his sister-friend at St. Damian. Hearing that she had been greatly disquieted by knowing him to be so ill, he desired to reassure her: he still deceived himself as to his condition, and wrote to her promising soon to go to see her. To this assurance he added some affectionate counsels, advising her and her companions not to go to extremes with their macerations. To set her an example of cheerfulness he added to this letter a Laude in the vulgar tongue which he had himself set to music.[35] In that chamber of the episcopal palace in which he was as it were imprisoned he had achieved a new victory, and it was doubtless that which inspired his joy. The Bishop of Assisi, the irritable Guido, always at war with somebody, was at this time quarrelling with the podesta of the city; nothing more was needed to excite in the little town a profound disquiet. Guido had excommunicated the podesta, and the latter had issued a prohibition against selling and buying or making any contract with ecclesiastics. The difference grew more bitter, and no one appeared to dream of attempting a reconciliation. We can the better understand Francis's grief over all this by remembering that his very first effort had been to bring peace into his native city, and that he considered the return of Italy to union and concord to be the essential aim of his apostolate. War in Assisi would be the final dissolution of his dream; the voice of events crying brutally to him, "Thou hast wasted thy life!"