To facilitate their preaching, he had tonsures conferred.
¹⁰²Thus having obtained all that they came to petition,

Variation
¹⁷⁵Its very poverty was comfort to the men that loved her:
Men for whom once it was common to live in fine and spacious
Dwellings, within this place of the most restricted conditions
Now were contained, as they rejoiced in the Lord; nor could so
Cramped a spot constrict hearts that were expanded by virtues.
But still, because the passing crowd was disturbing the peace
He had wished for them, Francis now retreating from that place,
¹⁸⁴To places not vexed by travelers' pert words,
Where habitual peace finds a home.

The Seventh Book

HOW HE TAUGHT THE BROTHERS TO PRAY;
CONFIRMATION OF THE FORMERLY APPROVED RULE;
HIS SPIRIT OF PROPHECY; HIS MANY VIRTUES.

Addition
¹⁹By the cruel cross you healed our wounds,
By your death our mortal race, praise be to you throughout
The Church and may honor be shown to you in every place!
He instructed them to praise God in all things, and to obey
The faith, so that through it all glory would be given Him.
Priests, too, in special manner, and ministers of the faith
He bade them venerate, and wherever there were churches
They came across, he wished the brothers to bow down before them.
²⁹Through these and other prayers, which implore the most high

Addition
⁵⁵Its intense flame on the eyes of those brothers in full view,
A flame that in its splendor made the night as bright as day.
They alerted one another: those awake and those who had
Been asleep, all rose: immense bewilderment gripped them all.
But empowered by this fresh light, a new light shone within them,
And they could feel its effect inwardly and outwardly.
It was while they were all looking into one another's hearts,
And all were of one accord, together in their awareness,
And all with a perception of the others' souls, they were aware
That Francis their father, under such a shape and form as this,

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