Chapter LXIX. Of the prophetic utterance which he expounded at the request of a friar Preacher

103. While he was staying at Siena, one of the Order of Preachers, a spiritual man and a doctor of divinity, chanced to come there. So he visited S. Francis, and the expert and the Saint enjoyed for a long time the sweetest talk about God's word. And the divine questioned Francis concerning Ezekiel's saying, "If thou proclaim not to the wicked man his wickedness, I will require his soul at thy hand," 1 and he said: "I myself, good father, know many who to my knowledge are in mortal sin, but I do not always proclaim their wickedness to them. Will their souls, then, be required at my hand? "But when blessed Francis humbly said that he was unlearned, and that it were more expedient for him to be taught by the other than to interpret the meaning of Scripture, that humble doctor added: "Brother, though I have heard this saying expounded by several wise men, I should be glad to know how thou understandest it". Then blessed Francis said: M If the passage is of general application, I take it to mean that the servant of God ought in life and holiness so to burn within himself as to reprove all the wicked by the light of his example and the tongue of his conversation. So, I say, the brightness of his

^Ezek. III., 18. life and the perfume of his fame will; proclaim to all their wickedness." Therefore the divine, greatly edified, said to the companions of the blessed Francis as he went away: "My brethren, this man's theology, based on purity and contemplation, is a soaring eagle, while our learning crawls with its belly on the ground".