im, and walked with him for his
consolation.

A while later, the brethren laid a tree across a chasm, and St. Francis
hid himself in a more lonely place, where no one might hear him when he
cried out; and a falcon, which had its nest hard by his cell, woke him
for matins, and according as he was more weary or sickly at one time
than another, that feathered brother, having compassion on him, woke
him later or sooner, and all the long day was at hand to give him
companionship.

Here in this wild place, in September, on Holy Cross Day, early in the
morning, before the dawn whitened, St. Francis knelt with his face
turned to the dark east; and praying long and with great fervour, he
besought the Lord Christ Jesus for two graces before he died. And the
first was this, that, so far as mortal flesh might bear it, he might
feel in his body the torture which our Lord suffered in His Passion;
and the second, that he might feel in his heart the exceeding great
love for which He was willing to bear such torture.

Now even while he was praying in this wise a mighty six-winged Seraph,
burning with light unspeakable, came flying towards him; and St.
Francis saw that the Seraph bore within himself the figure of a cross,
and thereon the image of a man crucified. Two of the six wings of the
Seraph were lifted up over the head of the crucified; and two were
spread for flying; and two veiled the whole of the body on the cross.

Then as the Seraph drew nigh, the eyes of Christ the crucified looked
into the eyes of St. Francis, piercing and sweet and terrible; and St.
Francis could scarce endure the rapture and the agony with which that
look consumed him, and transfigured him, and burned into his body the
similitude of Christ's Passion. For straightway his hands and his feet
were pierced through and through with nails; and the heads of the nails
were round and black, and the points were bent backward and riveted on
the further side of hand and foot; and his right side was opened with
the deep thrust of the spear; and the gash was red and blood came
dropping from it. Terrible to bear was the ache of those wounds; and
for the nails in his feet St. Francis scarce could stand and could not
walk at all.

Such was the transfiguration of the Little Bedesman of Christ into His
visible semblance on the holy rock Alvernia.

For two years he sustained the ecstasy and anguish of that likeness,
but of his sayings and of the wonders he wrought