from God and should be the heritage of the poor, who are
the favourite children of Jesus Christ.

Christian folk were busy celebrating the Saviour's birth; and Fra
Giovanni had come to the town of Assisi, which is set upon a
mountain-top, and from this mountain first rose the Sun of Charity.

Now the day before Christmas eve, Fra Giovanni was kneeling in prayer
before the Altar under which St. Francis sleeps in a stone coffin. And
he was meditating, dreaming how St. Francis was born in a stable, like
Jesus. And while he was pondering, the Sacristan came up to him and
asked him of his goodness to look after the Church while he ate his
supper. Church and Altar were both loaded with precious ornaments; gold
and silver were there in abundance, for the sons of St. Francis had
long fallen from their early poverty, and had received gifts from the
Queens of the Earth.

Fra Giovanni assured the Sacristan:

"Go, Brother, and enjoy your meal. I will guard the Church, as Our Lord
would have it guarded."

And so saying, he went on with his meditations. And as he knelt there
alone in prayer, a poor woman entered the Church and asked an alms of
him for the love of God.

"I have nothing," the holy man replied; "but the Altar is loaded with
ornaments, and I will go see if I cannot find something to give you." A
golden lamp hung above the Altar, decked about with silver bells.
Examining the lamp, he said to himself:

"Those little bells are but idle vanities. The true ornament of yonder
Altar is the body of St. Francis, which reposes naked under the flags
with a black stone for a pillow."

And drawing his knife from his pocket, he detached the little silver
bells, one after the other, and gave them to the poor woman.

Presently, when the Sacristan, his meal finished, returned to the
Church, Fra Giovanni, the holy man of God, said to him:

"Never trouble, my brother, about the little bells that belonged to the
lamp. I have given them away to a poor woman who had need of them."

Now Fra Giovanni did in this wise, because he knew by revelation that
all the things in this world, belonging to God, belong of rights to the
poor.

And he was blamed on earth by men whose thoughts were given over to
riches. But he was found praiseworthy in the sight of the Divine
Goodness.

III

THE SERAPHIC DOCTOR

Fra Giovanni was not proficient in the knowledge of letters, and he
rejoiced in his ignorance as being an abundant source of hum