he consulted the assembly as to the penance it was
meet to impose on the guilty Brother.

Some were for having him put in prison or suspended in an iron cage from
the Church steeple, while others advised he should be chained up for a
madman.

And Fra Giovanni, beaming with satisfaction, told them:

"You are very right, my Brethren; I deserve these punishments, and worse
ones still. I am good for nothing but foolishly to waste and squander
the goods of God and of my Order."

And Brother Marcian, who was a man of great sternness both of life and
doctrine, cried:

"Hear him! he talks like a hypocrite; that honeyed voice of his issues
from a whited sepulchre."

And Fra Giovanni said again:

"Brother Marcian, I am indeed capable of every infamy--but for God's
good help."

Meantime the General was pondering over the strange behaviour of Fra
Giovanni, and he besought the Holy Spirit to inspire the judgment he was
to give. And lo! as he prayed, his anger was changed into admiration. He
had known St. Francis in the days when that Angel of Heaven, born of a
woman, was a sojourner in this world, and the ensample of the favourite
follower of Christ had taught him the love of spiritual perfection.

So his soul was enlightened, and he recognized in the works of Fra
Giovanni a divine innocency and beauty.

"My brethren," he said at length, "far from blaming our Brother, let us
admire the grace he receives so abundantly from God. In very truth he is
a better man than we. What he has done, he has done in imitation of
Jesus Christ, who 'suffered the little children to come unto Him,' and
let the Roman soldiers strip Him of His garments."

Then he thus addressed the kneeling Fra Giovanni:

"This, Brother, is the penance I lay upon you. In the name of that holy
obedience you owe St. Francis, I command you go forth into the country,
and the first beggar you meet, beg him to strip you of your tunic. Then,
when he has left you naked, you must come back into the city, and play
in the Public Square With the little children."

Having so said, the General of the Order came down from his chair of
state, and, raising Fra Giovanni from the ground, fell on his own knees
before him and kissed his feet. Then, turning to the assembled Monks, he
said to them:

"In very truth, my Brethren, this man is the good God's plaything."

II

THE LAMP

In those days the truth was revealed to Fra Giovanni that the riches of
this world come