Some of the more inquisitive of those whose gifts had been refused, stealthily followed the priests from place to place, and, unseen themselves, observed all they did. And they saw the worthy monks groping in heaps of refuse and gathering fragments of cloth, taking soiled torn rags from the branches of trees, and collecting the scraps of linen that were blown hither and thither by the wind in the grave-yards, where were buried the uncremated, those who had died of small-pox, cholera, and other dangerous and infectious diseases. When they had seen all this, they returned home and told their brethren, and all wondered greatly, but no one understood. Then those people who reverenced the priests, but whose minds held many superstitious notions, invented a theory which seemed to explain all the facts that had been observed, and which afterwards found wide acceptation amongst the people. They said that these wandering, self-denying, rag-hunting monks were of the holiest of the holy, that they had power to see into the realms of heaven and of hell, and that their chief aim and purpose in this life was to promote the future happiness of men and animals. When these priests clad themselves in the garments of one who had died, the deceased ascended into heaven. Therefore, the monks, ever living according to the faith they held, and in pursuance of their great desire to give future bliss to those who had departed, wore not the valuable gifts of the living, but the cast-off garments of the dead.