A certain community having had their Superior taken from them on account of their complaints of the severity of his rule, and having a new one set over them in his place, came to Blessed Francis to pour out their grievances on the subject of their recently appointed head. They declared that he was an ignorant man. "What is to be done with you?" cried our Blessed Father, "you remind me of the frogs to whom Jupiter could not give a king who was to their taste. We ought certainly to wish to have good and capable Superiors, but still whatever they may be we must put up with them." One of the complainers was so wanting in discretion as to say that their one-eyed horse had been changed into a blind one. Blessed Francis suffered this jest to pass, merely frowning slightly, but his modest silence only unchained the tongue of another scoffer who presumed to say that an ass had been given to them instead of a horse. Then Blessed Francis spoke, and, rebuking this last speech, added in a tone of gentle remonstrance, that the first remark, though far from being respectful, was more endurable because it was a proverb and implied that a Superior had been given to them who was less capable than his predecessor, and that this was expressed in figurative terms, as David speaks of himself in relation to Almighty God in one of the Psalms when he says: _I am become as a beast before Thee._[1] "The second sarcasm, however," he added, "has nothing figurative in it, and is absolutely and grossly insulting. We must never speak of our Superiors in such a manner, however worthless they may be. Remember that God would have us obey even the vicious and froward,[2] and he that _resisteth the power resisteth the ordinance of God_." Then taking up the defence of this much-abused Superior, "Do you imagine," he said, "that it is not within the power of God to exalt in a moment one who is poor in spirit by bestowing on him the gift of intelligence? Is not He the God of knowledge? Is it not He who imparts it to men? Are not all the faithful taught of God? "The science of the Saints is the science of Salvation, and this is a knowledge more frequently given to those who are destitute of the knowledge which puffs up. In what condition think you was Saul when God raised him to the throne of Israel? "He was keeping his father's asses. On what did Jesus Christ ride triumphant on Palm Sunday? Was it not upon an ass?" Again, in his eleventh Conference, he says: "If Balaam was well instructed by an ass, we may with greater reason believe that God, Who gave you this Superior, will enable him to teach you according to His will, though it may not be according to your own."