[7] The true faith; "the seed is the word of God."--Luke, viii.
11.

[8] The authority conferred on him by Innocent III.


If such was one wheel of the chariot on which the Holy Church
defended itself and vanquished in the field its civil strife,[1]
surely the excellence of the other should be very plain to thee,
concerning which Thomas before my coming was so courteous. But
the track which the highest part of its circumference made is
derelict;[2] So that the mould is where the crust was.[3] His
household, which set forth straight with their feet upon his
footprints, are so turned round that they set the forward foot on
that behind;[4] and soon the quality of the barvest of this bad
culture shall be seen, when the tare will complain that the chest
is taken from it.[5] Yet I say, he who should search our volume
leaf by leaf might still find a page where he would read, 'I am
that which I am wont:' but it will not be from Casale nor from
Acquasparta,[6] whence such come unto the Written Rule that one
flies from it, and the other contracts it.

[1] The heresies within its own borders.

[2] The track made by St. Francis is deserted.

[3] The change of metaphor is sudden; good wine makes a crust,
bad wine mould in the cask.

[4] They go in an opposite direction from that followed by the