Chapter XLVI. How Up to his Death he would Fain have a Warden and Live in Subjection

But wishing to remain in perfect humility and subjection unto death; some time before his death he said to the Minister-General, "I would that thou shouldst commit thy rule over me to one of my fellows, to whom I may do obedience in thy place, for on account of the merit of obedience I desire that in life and in death it should ever remain with me." And from that time forward he had one of his fellows as a Warden, whom he obeyed in the stead of the Minister-General, nay, on a time he said to his fellows, "The Lord lias granted me this grace amongst others, to obey as diligently the novice who enters the Order to-day, if he were assigned to me for Warden, as he who is foremost and ancient in life and in the Order. For a subject ought to look upon his superior, not as a man, but as that God for Whose love he is subject to him." Afterwards he said, "There is no prelate in the whole world who is so much feared as the Lord would make me to be feared, if so I wished it, by my brethren. But the Lord has granted me this grace, that I wish to be content with all, as he that is least in the Order."

This also we have seen with our eyes who were with him, as also he himself testified, that when certain of the friars did not satisfy him in his necessities, or said to him some word by which a man is wont to be disturbed, straightway he went to prayer, and on his return he would remember nothing, nor ever said, "Such an one did not satisfy me," or, "Such an one said to me such a word." And thus persevering in this wise, by so much the more as he drew near to death was he solicitous to consider how he might live and die in all humility and poverty, and in all perfection of virtues*