as
soon after his return from Egypt, he publicly resigned from the
position of Minister General. No one seems to have been prepared for
this action beforehand.

"From this moment," he said, "I am dead to you, but here is our
brother, Peter Cantani; he it is whom both you and I will henceforth
obey."

The brethren were broken-hearted.

"What!" they said through their tears, "are we to lose our father and
become orphans?"

Then Francis stood up and prayed--

"Oh my Lord, I commend to Thee this day, this family which Thou hast
entrusted to me. My infirmities, Thou knowest, make it impossible for
me to take care of it. I put it into the hands of Ministers. If it
come to pass through their negligence, their scandals, or their too
great severity, one of the brethren perish, they will give account to
Thee at the Day of Judgment."

No entreaty or argument could get Francis to alter this decision. He
was a man in the prime of life, and, humanly speaking, he ought to
have had long years of service before him. Perhaps he felt that
already his days were numbered, and that it was only a question of a
few years at most.

As long as he lived his successors were known as Vicar-Generals. He
would only consent to preserve the title and rights of Minister
General. This arrangement had no serious results as far as Peter
Cantani's government went. He was a good man, and carried out Francis'
idea exactly, so that Francis could leave all to him, and with a clear
conscience, devote himself to visiting the centres and preaching. But,
unfortunately, Peter Cantani's reign was a brief one; he died a very
short time after his promotion to the Vicar Generalship.

[Sidenote: _Storm Clouds._]

From the death of Peter Cantani till his own death, the storm-clouds
of internal struggle gathered round Francis' path. His life was not to
be all one long, if hard worked for, success. No! life is not lived
thus; there is the dark as well as the bright in its mosaic, but it is
sad, we say in our humanity, when the dark work is done at the end.
But God, Who is the chief Workman, knows best how He wants His work
ordered; He has His eyes on the beautiful end, while we fix ours
tearfully at the unfinished, and, therefore, inexplicable pattern.

There was yet, however, one unalloyed joy in store for Francis before
he entered upon his last dark years of service, one of the greatest
social reforms the world has ever known--the establishment of the
Third