whenever his father cursed him. Francis then said to Bernardo: "Believe
me, my father, that God can give me, and indeed has given me, another
father, from whom I receive blessings for your curses."

His brother Angelo, a young man full of the love of the world, also
mocked him, and turned him into ridicule. Seeing him one day in church
shivering with cold in his poor hermit's dress, and praying devoutly,
he said to one of his friends: "Go and ask him to sell you a little
of his sweat!" Francis replied, "I do not choose to sell my sweat to
men; I can sell it at a better price to God." If all Christians thought
thus, they would not suffer much pain for the world, which pays so
ill, and they would do much for God, who rewards so magnificently.

The pauper of Jesus Christ gained many other victories over himself
in the quest he had taken upon himself for the building of St. Damian.
He suffered with admirable patience the persecution of some worldly
persons, who treated him as a fool, and insulted him in a thousand
ways. Every time that it happened to him to blush when he met any of
his acquaintances or friends, he reprimanded himself as if he had
committed some great fault; he humbled himself the more, and begged
for alms more submissively, to take down all influence of pride. One
day when he was begging for oil for two lamps which he wished to keep
constantly burning before the crucifix, from which the miraculous voice
had been heard, he went into a house where some persons of his
acquaintance were collected together for gaming. Their sight struck
him, and gave him a feeling of shame which induced him to retire. He
had scarcely left the door, when, thinking on what he had done, he
considered himself guilty of a great want of firmness, and he
immediately returned to the place where they were at play, he
acknowledged his fault before all present, and begged boldly for the