Chapter CXXII. How he Induced the Physician to Tell him how Long he should Live

IN those days there visited him in the same palace a certain physician of Arezzo, by name Good John, who was very familiar with blessed Francis. And blessed Francis questioned him, saying, "What thinkest thou, Bembenignate, of this my infirmity of dropsy? "For he would not call him by his name; for that he would never name anybody who was called "Good," out of reverence to the Lord, Who said, There is none good but one, that is God. Likewise he would never call any one "father "or "master," nor write it in his letters, out of reverence to the Lord, Who said, And call no one man j other on earth nor be ye called masters, etc. And the physician said to him, "Brother, it shall be well with thee, by the grace of God." And blessed Francis said again, "Tell me the truth; what do you think? Fear not, since by the grace of God I am no faint-heart that I should fear death. For by the grace of the Holy Spirit, I am so made one with my Lord, that I am equally content with death as with life." Then the physician said to him openly, "Father, according to our medicine-craft thine infirmity is incurable, and I believe that either in the end of September or on the fourth of the Nones of October, thou wilt die." Then blessed Francis, lying on his bed, spread his hands out to the Lord with very great devotion and reverence, and said with great joy of mind and body, ik Welcome, my Sister Death."