himself abject, he commended his most dear lady to his brethren as to rightful heirs, and commanded them to love her faithfully; and from her lap, his illustrious soul willed to depart, returning to its realm, and for his body he willed no other bier.[23] [1] The Chiassi, which flows from the hill chosen for his hermitage by St. Ubaldo. [2] The gate of Perugia, which fronts Monte Subasio, on which Assisi lies, some fifteen miles to the south. [3] Towns, southeast of Assisi, oppressed by their rulers. [4] So the name Assisi was sometimes spelled, and here with a play on ascesi (I have risen). [5] As the sun at the vernal equinox, the sacred season of the Creation and the Resurrection, rises in the due east or orient, represented in the geographical system of the time by the Ganges, so the place where this new Sun of righteousness arose should be called Orient. [6] Devoting himself to poverty against his father's will. [7] Before the Bishop of Assisi, and “in presence of his father,” he renounced his worldly possessions. [8] Christ. [9] St. Francis was born in 1182. [10] To procure suitors for her, [11] When Caesar knocked at the door of Amyclas his voice caused no alarm, because Poverty made the fisherman secure.—Lucan, Pharsalia, V. 515 ff. [12] In the hearts of those who behold them. [13] The followers of Francis imitated him in going barefoot. [14] The cord for their only girdle. [15] Perhaps, because his father was neither noble nor famous. [16] In or about 1210 Pope Innocent III. approved the Rule of St. Francis. [17] “The head of the fold:” a term of the Greek Church, designating the head of one or more monasteries. [18] In 1223, Honorius III. confirmed the sanction of the Order. [19] Probably the Sultan of Egypt, at the time of the Fifth Crusade, in 1219. [20] To the harvest of good grain in Italy. [21] Mount Alvernia. [22] The Stigmata. [23] St. Francis died in 1226. “Think now of what sort was he,[1] who was a worthy colleague to keep the bark of Peter on the deep sea to its right aim; and this was our Patriarch:[2] wherefore thou canst see that whoever follows him as he commands loads good merchandise. But his flock has become so greedy of strange food that. it cannot but be scattered over diverse meadows; and as his sheep, remote and vagabond, go farther from him, the emptier of milk they return to the fold. Truly there are some of them who fear the harm, and keep close to the shepherd; but they are so few that little cloth suffices for their cowls. Now if my words are not obscure, if thy hearing has been attentive, if thou recallest to mind that which I have said, thy wish will be content in part, because thou wilt see the plant wherefrom they are hewn,[3] and thou wilt see how the wearer of the thong reasons—'Where well one fattens if one does not stray.' [1] How holy he must have been. [2] St. Dominic.