d he
directed that it should be restored to the Brethren after his death.

We would fain linger by the deathbed of the Saint but the almost
complete absence of details gives us no encouragement to do so. We are
not told even where he died. Was it in the convent of his Order and
surrounded by his Brethren, or elsewhere? How did he bear himself in
that final struggle? What were his sentiments? What were {110} his
last words? None of these things are recorded. Apart from general
observations concerning his virtues and his holiness we only know with
certainty that during the night of 4 July, 1274, Bonaventure passed to
his reward.

We may well imagine that death has no terror for the Saints; at the
same time, we cannot say that it has any special attraction for them.
Even our Holy Father, St. Francis, whilst unawed at the approach of
"Sister Death," seemed yet submissively to cling to life. It is a
natural and a legitimate instinct. Life is the sum total of our
temporal gifts, and its preservation is a duty we owe to the giver. It
is true, granted the immortality of the soul, and future reward, that
there is a greater good than the body's life and that to secure it we
may, and in some cases ought, to forfeit the latter. But these
circumstances are abnormal and rarely occur. In the ordinary course of
events the soul's welfare does not demand the body's death. The
interests of body and soul run on parallel lines, and so long as right
order is maintained they cannot collide. We read indeed that the
Saints, vividly realizing the happiness of Heaven and aspiring to it
with steadfast confidence, longed for death. St. Paul exclaiming: "I
wish to be dissolved and to be with Christ," is quoted as an example
of this. But the attitude thus expressed by the Apostle is not
incompatible with a natural repugnance to, and shrinking from death.
We believe this to be in {111} some degree the characteristic of all
men, saints as well as sinners.

Bonaventure's death was regarded somewhat in the light of a public
calamity. The effect it produced upon the Council of Lyons is narrated
as follows. [Footnote 47] "At this time, whilst the Council was still
sitting, the most reverend Father in Christ, the Lord Cardinal
Bonaventure of most venerable memory was laid with the holy Fathers,
filling, as we may believe, the Church Triumphant with joy at his
advent, but affecting the Church Militant with incredible grief at his
departure. For Greeks an