dormitory tremble, so that the monks, issuing thence in consternation,
cried, 'An earthquake! An earthquake!'" Here, too, he cast a young sheep
into the air, and took flight after it to the height of the trees, where
he "remained in kneeling posture, ecstatic and with extended arms, for
more than two hours, to the extraordinary marvel of the clergy who
witnessed this." This would seem to have been his outdoor record--two
hours without descent to earth.

Sometimes, furthermore, he took a passenger, if such a term can properly
be applied.

So once, while the monks were at prayers, he was observed to rise up and
run swiftly towards the Confessor of the convent, and "seizing him by
the hand, he raised him from the ground by supernatural force, and with
jubilant rapture drew him along, turning him round and round in a
_violento ballo;_ the Confessor moved by Joseph, and Joseph by God."

And what happened at Assisi is still more noteworthy, for here
was a gentleman, a suffering invalid, whom Joseph "snatched by the hair,
and, uttering his customary cry of 'oh!' raised himself from the earth,
while he drew the other after him by his hair, carrying him in this
fashion for a short while through the air, to the intensest admiration
of the spectators." The patient, whose name was Chevalier Baldassarre,
discovered, on touching earth again, that he had been cured by this
flight of a severe nervous malady which had hitherto afflicted him. . . .

Searching in the biography for some other interesting traits of Saint
Joseph of Copertino, I find, in marked contrast to his heaven-soaring
virtues, a humility of the profoundest kind. Even as a full-grown man he
retained the exhilarating, childlike nature of the pure in heart. "_La