il the feast of
Pentecost. This occurred on 20 May, 1274, and the place chosen for the
assembly was Lyons. The Saint presided, and having formally resigned
his office, Jerome of Ascoli, afterwards Pope Nicholas IV., was
appointed his successor. With this event Bonaventure's official
connection with the Order of St. Francis ceased. As we shall see, it
was almost coincident with his death.

The Council of Lyons was still sitting when Bonaventure was called to
his reward. He was only fifty-three years of age, but the immense
labours he had undergone and the habitual weakness of his
constitution, hastened the end.

[Illustration:
St. Bonaventure.
_From Raphael's Disputa, in the Vatican_.]

{107}

On 6 July, the fourth general session of the Council was held. The
reunion of the Greek and Latin Churches was solemnly ratified.
Bonaventure preached on the occasion. He took for his text the words
of the prophet Baruch (v. 5). "Arise, O Jerusalem, and stand on high;
and look about towards the East, and behold thy children gathered
together from the rising to the setting sun, by the word of the Holy
One rejoicing in the remembrance of God". The body of the discourse
has not come down to us, but we can well imagine that it was well
worthy of the great occasion and of the genius and sanctity of the
preacher. It was his last public utterance--the _Nunc dimittis_ of the
Church's zealous champion as he witnessed the accomplishment of the
object for which he had long so earnestly striven. He was even then
standing on the brink of the grave. The echoes of eternity were
already beginning to sound in his ears and the everlasting years to
unfold themselves before his gaze. As he heard the solemn strains of
the grand _Te Deum_ that marked the close of the great event he must
have felt that his work for God and for the Church was accomplished.
Weakened by disease and worn out by the constant strain and pressure
of business, his strength was rapidly failing. The ceaseless activity
of his great mind, his restless energy and burning zeal, had hitherto
rendered him insensible to the body's decline, but at last the limits
of endurance were reached and the end was at hand. Bonaventure
returned home from the Council, and nine days later he was dead.

The exact cause of his death is not known. One {108} writer [Footnote
44] refers to an extraordinary mortality prevailing amongst the
members of the Council. It is just possible that some sp