rise when one of the most
learned and famous young Canons came out to them, in his stately white
habit, his beautiful face lighted up with a great resolve, and asked
them if they would give him a brown habit, and make him a Friar, and
send him to the Saracen country to win a martyr's crown?

Of course, they were delighted, and promised to bring him a habit the
very next day.

Fernando had a hard job to persuade the Canons to let him go. But at
last they did; and once more he turned his back on a happy home and set
out on an unknown adventure. As he left the monastery, one of the
Canons, a great friend of his, called after him: "Go--go! You will
doubtless become a Saint!" And Fernando called back to him: "When you
hear that I am a Saint give glory to God!" for he knew very well that it
is only God Who can make a man into a Saint, and that the man's own
efforts can never do it.

It must have been a great change for Fernando to find himself in the
poor little huts belonging to the Friars, and obliged to go barefoot,
dressed in a rough habit and cord, with only scraps of food to eat,
begged from the houses of the rich. These Friars were only poor,
ignorant men--very holy, but with no learning or refinement. They did
not know Fernando was a very clever man, a scholar. Of course, he did
not tell them, but humbly took his place as the newest and least
important of the brothers, never letting them see that he missed the
wonderful library, or the beautiful music of the monastery, or the quiet
cell where he had been able to pray and work in peace. So as to start
life quite fresh, he even gave up his noble name, Fernando, and took the
name of "Antony." So now we will begin to call him St. Antony.

[Illustration: S. FRANCIS RECEIVES THE MARKS OF THE PASSION.

_See page 81._]

Of course, the one thing he kept thinking about was the quest of the
martyr's crown, and at last he got his Superiors to send him, with one
companion, to the Saracen country. But now came the greatest
disappointment of his life, for no sooner had he got there than he fell
ill. All the winter he lay between life and death, with a terrible
fever, so ill that he could do nothing. He knew that he was now so weak
that he would never be able to go and preach to the Saracens and be
martyred. He would have to go home again, a failure. This was much
harder to him than any danger or suffering, and the way he bore it,
cheerfully and patiently for the love of Chris