the Friars Minor, more than any other Order, follows in the way and the footsteps of the best, the most holy, and the richest, that ever was, or will be, namely, our Lord Jesus Christ Himself."
On the Remembrance of Death.
If a man had ever before his mind the remembrance of his death, and of the final judgment, and of the pains and torments of lost souls, most sure it is that he would never wish to sin, or to offend God. But if it were possible that a man should have lived from the beginning of the world until this present time, and during all the time had suffered every adversity, tribulation, pain, and affliction and sorrow: and then that he should die, and that his soul should receive the eternal, celestial recompense; what harm would all the evils he had sustained in the past do him? And in like manner: if a man had had, during the same time, consolation in the world, and then dying, his soul should receive the sentence of the eternal pains of hell: how would it comfort him, to have received all these things in the past?
An idle and slothful man once said to Brother Giles: "I tell thee, that I would fain live long in this world, and have great riches and abundance of all things, and be held in much honor." To whom Brother Giles said: " My Brother, if thou wert lord of all the world, and shouldst live in it a thousand years, in every enjoyment, delight, pleasure, and temporal consolation, tell me what reward and what merit couldst thou expect to have of this miserable flesh, which thou wouldst so greatly serve and please? But I tell thee, that if a man live well according to God, and guard himself from offending God, of a surety he shall receive from God the fulness of all good, an infinite and eternal recompense, and great abundance, and great riches, and great honor, and long, even eternal, life in the everlasting glory of Heaven: to which may this good God, our Lord and King, Jesus Christ, bring us also: to the praise of Jesus Christ, and His poor little one, Francis.
