ies beneath the high altar, the spot is unknown to any man, and the
hill-folk say that St. Francis is not dead at all, but that he lives
hidden in a secret crypt far down below the roots of wall and pillar.
Standing there, pale and upright, with the blood red in the five wounds
of his crucifixion, he waits in a heavenly trance for the sound of the
last trumpet, when the nations of the earth shall see in the clouds Him
whom they have pierced.

Long after his death it was the custom of the brethren of a certain
house of his Order to go chanting in procession at midnight once in the
year to his resting-place. But the way was long and dark; the weather
often bleak and stormy. Little by little devotion cooled, and the
friars fell away, till there remained but one old monk willing to go on
this pilgrimage. As he went into the dark and the storm, the road
among the woods and rocks grew luminous, and in place of the cross and
torches and canticles of the former days, great flocks of birds
escorted him on his way, singing and keeping him company. The little
feathered brothers and sisters had not abated in their love of the
Little Bedesman who had caressed and blessed them.

The Burning of Abbot Spiridion

Many wonderful things are told of the Abbot Spiridion, who lived a
hundred years and four and yet grew never old; neither was the
brightness of his eyes dimmed nor his hair silvered, nor was his frame
bowed and palsied with the weakness of age.

During the long years in which he ruled the abbey he had founded, he
seemed to live less in this world than in the communion of the blessed
souls of men redeemed. The whole earth was as clear to him as though
it had been of crystal, and when he raised his eyes he saw not solely
what other men saw, but the vision of all that is under the heavens.
And this vision of life was at once his trial and his consolation. For
it was an unspeakable sorrow and anguish to see on all sides the sin
and suffering and misery of creation, and often he wept bitterly when
no one dared ask him the reason of his affliction. Yet oftentimes, on
the other hand, he laughed for lightness of spirit, and bade the
brethren rejoice because of the salvation of some reprobate soul, or
the relief of one oppressed, or the bestowal of some blessing on the
servants of God.

When it happened that a brother had been sent on a journey and was long
absent, and the community was talking of him, wondering how he