But this excellent and considerate husband was scarcely laid at rest in the ground before tidings of this his last will and testament reached the ears of the superior of the convent of San Nazaro, situated a little way beyond the gate of San Agabio. This same good monk was commissioned by the society to keep an eye upon testamentary donations, so that no widow should pass him by without affording at least her mite and assuming the girdle of the seraphic St. Francis.
Having been once admitted as lay sisters into their order, many of these devotees were in the habit of frequenting their congregation, and offering up prayers for the souls of their deceased friends, expressing their gratitude to the poor brethren in the shape of fine Bologna sausages and pasties, and were occasionally induced, in their zeal for imitating the good works of the blessed Fra Ginepro and other renowned saints, to endow some little chapel for the convenience of the order, where they might represent the glorious history of St. Francis, as he was seen preaching to the birds in the desert, engaged in kneading the holy bread, or at the moment when the Angel Gabriel brought him his saintly slippers.
Celebrate every Monday
The chapel once built, it was not very difficult to raise sufficient from the same quarter to defray an annual festival in honor of the saint`s holy stripes, and to celebrate every Monday a mass for the souls of all his followers who might still happen to be suffering the pains of purgatory. But as, consistent with their profession of poverty, the good brethren could not openly avail themselves of these gifts, they adopted the ingenious method of endowing their holy buildings, and holding the property as appurtenant to the sacristies, imagining they could thus as easily impose upon Heaven as upon us poor credulous mortals here below; as if their real motives, and all the envy, pride, and covetousness concealed under the large cowls of pursy monks were not fully as evident to an all-seeing eye as those vices that are more clearly aparent in the broad light of the day.
These are they who, instead of egging their bread barefoot, or preaching to the people as they ought to do wherever they appear, prefer sitting at ease in their well-stored monasteries, supplied with delicate changes of shoes and linen, some five pair of Cordova slippers, silk stockings, and sweet, dainty fare. And when they can muster sufficient exertion, or it is quite necessary for them to go abroad, they mount their mules, as elegantly attired ,as themselves, or pretty palfreys, whose paces are of the easiest, so as never to produce a feeling of fatigue.
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