tain is ours.' And these men are my masters,
and it is for them I hew stone. And they enjoy the fruit of my labour."

Fra Giovanni sighed:

"Surely men must be mad to believe they own a mountain."

But the quarryman replied:

"Nay! they are not mad; and the Laws of the City guarantee them their
ownership. The citizens pay them for the stones I have hewn, which are
marbles of great price."

And Fra Giovanni said:

"We must change the laws of the City and the habits of the citizens. St.
Francis, that Angel of God, has given the example and shown the way.
When he resolved, by God's command, to rebuild the ruined Church of St.
Damian, he did not set out to find the master of the quarry. He did not
say, 'Go buy me the finest marbles, and I will give you gold in
exchange.' For the holy man, who was called the son of Bernardone and
who was the true son of God, knew this, that the man who sells is the
enemy of the man who buys, and that the art of Trafficking is more
mischievous, if possible, than the art of War. Wherefore he did not
apply to the master-masons or any of them that give marble and timber
and lead in exchange for money. But he went forth into the Mountain and
gathered his load of wood and stones, and bore it himself to the spot
hallowed to the memory of the Blessed Damian. With his own hands, by
help of the mason's line, he laid the stones to form the walls; and he
made the cement to bind together the stones one to another. Finished, it
was a lowly circuit of roughly fashioned stones, the work of a weakling.
But who considers it with the eyes of the soul recognizes therein an
Angel's thought. For the mortar of this wall was not worked with the
blood of the unfortunate; this house of St. Damian was not raised with
the thirty pieces of silver paid for the blood of that Just Man, which,
rejected by Iscariot, go travelling the world ever since, passing from
hand to hand, to buy up all the injustice and all the cruelty of the
earth.

"For, alone of all others, this house is founded on Innocence,
stablished on Love, based on Charity, and alone of all others it is the
House of God.

"And I tell you verily, quarryman and brother, the poor man of Jesus
Christ, in doing these things, gave to the world an example of Justice,
and one day his foolishness shall shine forth as wisdom. For all things
in this earth are God's and we are His children; and it is meet the
children should share alike in His inheritance. That