o strip himself of all
worldly gear and possessions and give his remnant of life solely to
the preparation of a saintly death. This proposal the Warden and the
other brethren duly considered, not without satisfaction, and Angelo
was received as a penitent and a novice.

The first year of his probation he passed as a servant of the cattle
and the beasts of burden, cleansing their stables and conversing only
with them. "For," said he, "the ox and the ass knew their Lord in the
manger, but I in my castle was deaf to his voice."

The second year of his probation he laboured in the kitchen, washing
the dishes and preparing the food for the friars, but he himself ate
sparingly and only of the crusts and crumbs which the others had
despised. "For," said he, "I am less worthy than that lad who brought
the few loaves and small fishes to feed the multitude, and for me it
is enough to eat of the fragments that remain."

In all this he was so diligently humble and self-denying that in the
third year he was admitted fully to the order and given the honourable
office of sweeping and cleansing the sacred places.

In this duty Angelo showed an extraordinary devotion. Not content with
this, he soon began to practise upon himself particular and extreme
asperities and macerations. He slept only upon the ground and never
beyond an hour at one space, rising four and twenty times a day to his
prayers. He fasted thrice in the week from matins to matins, and
observed the rule of silence every six days, speaking only on the
seventh. He wore next to his naked skin a breastplate of iron, and a
small leather band with sharp points about his loins, and rings of
iron under his arms, whereby his flesh was wasted and frayed from his
bones like a worn garment with holes in it, and he bled secretly. By
reason of these things his face fell away into a dolorous sadness, and
the fame of his afflictions spread through the Friary and to other
houses where the little brothers of St. Francis were assembled.

But the inward gladness of Angelo did not increase in measure with his
outward sadness and the renown of his piety. For the ray and the flame
of divine Consolation were diminished within him, and he no longer
felt that joy which he had formerly in the cleansing of the stables,
in the washing of the dishes, and in the sweeping of the holy places,
from which he was now relieved by reason of bodily weakness. He was
tormented with the fear that his penanc