Fra Giovanni assured the Sacristan:

"Go, Brother, and enjoy your meal. I will guard the Church, as Our Lord
would have it guarded."

And so saying, he went on with his meditations. And as he knelt there
alone in prayer, a poor woman entered the Church and asked an alms of
him for the love of God.

"I have nothing," the holy man replied; "but the Altar is loaded with
ornaments, and I will go see if I cannot find something to give you." A
golden lamp hung above the Altar, decked about with silver bells.
Examining the lamp, he said to himself:

"Those little bells are but idle vanities. The true ornament of yonder
Altar is the body of St. Francis, which reposes naked under the flags
with a black stone for a pillow."

And drawing his knife from his pocket, he detached the little silver
bells, one after the other, and gave them to the poor woman.

Presently, when the Sacristan, his meal finished, returned to the
Church, Fra Giovanni, the holy man of God, said to him:

"Never trouble, my brother, about the little bells that belonged to the
lamp. I have given them away to a poor woman who had need of them."

Now Fra Giovanni did in this wise, because he knew by revelation that
all the things in this world, belonging to God, belong of rights to the