represents the cross, showed the interior comeliness which the love
of the cross gave to his soul.

Watchfulness and affection inspired the Father with the wish to return
to Tuscany, to visit the establishments he had founded there the
preceding year, and to learn from his own inspection how they progressed
in the ways of God. The family of the Ubaldini, which is among the
most illustrious of Florence, gave him a convent which had been built
and founded by their ancestors for the religious of the Order of St.
Basil, in the sixth or seventh century, some leagues from the city,
in the middle of a wood, and which had been since occupied by hermits.
He put some of his companions into it, and returned towards the end
of October to St. Mary of the Angels, preaching, as was his custom,
in all the places he passed through. The repose he allowed himself
after so much fatigue, was that of applying himself to the instruction
of his disciples, and addressing discourses to them full of wisdom.

At the end of this year he had an attack of ague, which became quartan,
and reduced him to a great state of languor. The bishop of Assisi, who
was a most charitable prelate, and his particular friend, having heard
of his illness, came to see him, and, notwithstanding his resistance,
had him removed to his palace, where he attended to his recovery with
the charity of a pastor and the affection of a parent. His religious
came to him there to seek the light they required. They also brought
to him such postulants as presented themselves, and those who were
recommended to him (at times there were thirty or forty) by the
missionaries he had in various parts of Italy; for none were then
received who had not been examined by the founder himself. A young
gentleman from Lucca came with tears in his eyes, to entreat him to
give him the habit. "Unfortunate young man," said the Saint, "why do