beg for alms--What he said to the Bishop of Assisi, on renouncing all his possessions--He predicts to the Emperor Otho the short duration of his glory--It is revealed to him that his sins are remitted--He is rapt in ecstasy, and predicts the extension of his Order--He makes several other predictions, and receives a seventh disciple--He proposes a new mission to them--The address he makes them on their preparation for, and conduct during, the mission--He returns near to Assisi, where he receives four more disciples--He assembles all his disciples--Composes a Rule, and goes to obtain the Pope's approval--He makes a marvellous conversion--He knows miraculously what will happen to him at Rome--He is at first repulsed by Pope Innocent III., but is afterwards received favorably--Difficulties on the approbation of his Rule--He overcomes them by an address he makes the Pope--The Pope approves his Rule, and accumulates favors on it--He leaves Rome with his friars for the valley of Spoleto--God provides for his necessities--He stops at a deserted church--Consults God on his mission, and returns to the cottage of Rivo-torto--His sufferings there--The instructions he gives--God shows him to his brethren under a most marvellous aspect--The church of S. Mary of the Angels is given to him--He establishes himself there with his Friars BOOK II He receives many novices--Instructs and models them--Sends them to different provinces of Italy--What he says on this occasion--He departs for Tuscany, and passes by Perugia, where he makes a prediction which is accomplished--Many young men enter his Order--They build a house for him near Cortona--His miraculous fast during Lent--He commands the devils, and they obey him--He cures many miraculously--He preaches at Florence--Makes a prediction--Preaches in various places in Tuscany--What his friars are doing in other places--He preaches the Lent at Assisi, with great fruit--He consecrates, to Jesus Christ, Clare, and, Agnes, her sister--Establishes Clare and Agnes in the Church of S. Damian--He erects a monastery there, the first one of his second Order, which he then instituted--He is troubled by a serious doubt, on which he consults his brethren--His doubt is cleared up by an oracle from heaven--He goes out to preach--Restores a blind girl to sight, and converts many worldly people--He sighs for martyrdom--Asks permission of the Pope to preach to the infidels--Makes conversions at Rome, and establishes his Order there--Returns to Assisi and leaves for the Levant--Embarks, but is obliged to put into a harbor in Sclavonia--Goes by sea to Ancona--A miracle which God performs in his favor--He converts a celebrated poet--Returns to Tuscany, and to S. Mary of the Angels--He falls sick--Wonderfully humbles himself--Tries a vocation--Falls sick again and writes to all Christians--Departs for Spain and Africa, in search of martyrdom--His miracles and other particulars of his journey--His profound humility--He raises the