Chapter CXLVI. How he would have great clerks coming to the Order expropriate themselves

194. So Francis once said that when a great clerk joined the Order he ought in some sort to resign even his learning, in order that, having stript himself of such a possession, he might offer himself naked to the arms of the Crucified. "Learning," he said, "makes many men indocile, not suffering a certain stiffness of theirs to be bent by the discipline of humility. Wherefore I would have a lettered man first of all make this petition to me: ' See, brother, I have lived long in the world, and have never truly known my God. Give me, I pray thee, a place removed from the turmoil of the world where I may grieve over my past years, and where, gathering together the scattered energies of my heart, I may reform my soul for better things.' What, think you, would the man become who should make such a beginning? Verily he would go forth to all things with the strength of a lion unchained, and the blessed juice which he had tasted at the beginning would increase in him with continual profit. Such a man might at last be confidently assigned to the true ministry of the word, because he would pour forth that which was boiling within him."

Pious teaching indeed! For what so necessary for one returning from a very different sphere, as to banish and purge away by exercises in humility the inveterate and deep-seated affections of the world? [Surely] who-soever should enter into the school of perfection would quickly attain to perfection.