He possessed the rare faculty of keeping his mind habitually fixed upon God in the midst of external occupations. To this may be traced the very remarkable attribute of his writings whereby {65} every subject he treats of is made ultimately to converge Godwards. In his treatises "The Journey of the Mind to God," and "The Reduction of the Arts to Theology," the workings of his soul in this respect are systematized and reduced to scientific order. St. Antoninus notes this feature of Bonaventure's works when he says: "According as Bonaventure made progress in science and the knowledge of the Scriptures, so, too, he grew in the grace of devotion. For whatever he perceived with the intellect he reduced to the form of prayer and worship of God and kept meditating on it continually in his heart." Besides maintaining at all times this habitual spirit of recollection, our Saint sometimes withdrew entirely from the cares of his office and gave himself exclusively to prayer and recollection. It was on one such occasion, in the seclusion of Mount Alverna, that he conceived the idea of, and actually composed, his "Journey of the Mind to God". He tells us this himself. "On an occasion," he says, [Footnote 30] "when, after the example of the most Blessed Francis, I, a sinner, sighed for spiritual peace--I who, though unworthy in every respect, am yet his seventh successor in the general ministry of the Brethren--it happened that about the thirty-third year after his death I had withdrawn to Mount Alverna as to a quiet place where I might find {66} the peace I sought. Whilst there, as I reflected on certain elevations of the soul to God, amongst other thoughts there occurred to me the miracle which happened to Blessed Francis in this place, viz. the apparition of the Crucified Seraph. On reflection it instantly seemed to me that the vision signified the lifting up of St. Francis by contemplation and the manner in which it was accomplished." [Footnote 30: "Opera Omnia," Tom. V, Prologus, p. 295.]