eeting and the apostolic benediction.

In nearly all religious Orders it has been wisely ordained that
those who present themselves with the purpose of observing the
regular life shall make trial of it for a certain time, during
which they also shall be tested, in order to leave neither place
nor pretext for inconsiderate steps. For these reasons we
command you by these presents to admit no one to make profession
until after one year of novitiate; we forbid that after
profession any brother shall leave the Order, and that any one
shall take back again him who has gone out from it. We also
forbid that those wearing your habit shall circulate here and
there without obedience, lest the purity of your poverty be
corrupted. If any friars have had this audacity, you will
inflict upon them ecclesiastical censures until repentance.[12]

It is surely only by a very decided euphemism that such a bull can be
considered in the light of a privilege. It was in reality the laying of
the strong hand of the papacy upon the Brothers Minor.

From this time, in the very nature of things it became impossible for
Francis to remain minister-general. He felt it himself. Heart-broken,
soul-sick, he would fain, in spite of all, have found in the energy of
his love those words, those glances which up to this time had taken the
place of rule or constitution, giving to his earliest companions the
intuition of what they ought to do and the strength to accomplish it;
but an administrator was needed at the head of this family which he
suddenly found to be so different from what it had been a few years
before, and he sadly acknowledged that he himself was not in the
slightest degree such a person.[13]

Ah, in his own conscience he well knew that the old ideal was the true,
the right one; but he drove away such thoughts as the temptations of
pride. The recent events had not taken place without in some degree
weakening his moral personality; from being continually talked to about
obedience, submission, humility, a certain obscurity had come over this
luminous soul; inspiration no longer came to it with the certainty of
other days; the prophet had begun to waver, almost to doubt of himself
and of his mission. Anxiously he searched himself to see if in the
beginning of his work there had not been some vain self-complacency. He
pictured to himself beforehand the chapter which he was about to open,
the