isions of saints and white-robed angels, was preparing
to be a greater teacher than them all. The words of the preacher monks
have passed away, and the world pays little heed to them now, but the
teaching of Fra Angelico, the silent lessons of his wonderful pictures,
are as fresh and clear to-day as they were in those far-off years.

Great trouble was in store for the monks of the little convent at
Fiesole, which Fra Angelico and his brother Benedetto had entered.
Fierce struggles were going on in Italy between different religious
parties, and at one time the little band of preaching monks were
obliged to leave their peaceful home at Fiesole to seek shelter in
other towns. But, as it turned out, this was good fortune for the young
painter-monk, for in those hill towns of Umbria where the brothers
sought refuge there were pictures to be studied which delighted his
eyes with their beauty, and taught him many a lesson which he could
never have learned on the quiet slopes of Fiesole.

The hill towns of Italy are very much the same to-day as they were in
those days. Long winding roads lead upwards from the plain below to the
city gates, and there on the summit of the hill the little town is
built. The tall white houses cluster close together, and the
overhanging eaves seem almost to meet across the narrow paved streets,
and always there is the great square, with the church the centre of all.

It would be almost a day's journey to follow the white road that leads
down from Perugia across the plain to the little hill town of Assisi,
and many a spring morning saw the painter-monk setting out on the
convent donkey before sunrise and returning when the sun had set. He
would thread his way up between the olive-trees until he reached the
city gates, and pass into the little town without hindrance. For the
followers of St. Francis in their brown robes would be glad to welcome
a stranger monk, though his black robe showed that he belonged to a
different order. Any one who came to see the glory of their city, the
church where their saint lay, which Giotto had covered with his
wonderful pictures, was never refused admittance.

How often then must Fra Angelico have knelt in the dim light of that
lower church of Assisi, learning his lesson on his knees, as was ever
his habit. Then home again he would wend his way, his eyes filled with
visions of those beautiful pictures, and his hand longing for the
pencil and brush, that he might add