"O God, how good art Thou, to send Thy poor man bread by the hand of one
of Thy Angels; O blessed poverty! O very glorious and most sumptuous
poverty!"

And he ate the loaf the Angel had brought, and drank the water of the
brook, and was strengthened in body and in soul. And an invisible hand
wrote on the walls of the city: "Woe, woe to the rich!"


V

THE TABLE UNDER THE FIG-TREE.

Following the example of St. Francis, his well-beloved Father, Fra
Giovanni used to visit the Hospital of Viterbo to help the lepers,
giving them to drink and washing their sores.

And if they blasphemed, he used to tell them, "You are the chosen sons
of Jesus Christ." And there were some lepers of a very humble spirit
whom he would gather together in a chamber, and with whom he took
delight as a mother does surrounded by her children.

But the Hospital walls were very thick, and daylight entered only by
narrow windows high up above the floor. The air was so fetid the lepers
could scarce live in the place at all. And Fra Giovanni noted how one of
them, by name Lucido, who showed an exemplary patience, was slowly dying
of the evil atmosphere.

Fra Giovanni loved Lucido, and would tell him: