The Little Flowers and the Life of St. Francis, with the...

therein, not to their outward adornments. He willed that such as they had should be few and in common, and those such as were suitable to the necessities of the brethren. In beds and beddings a plentiful poverty did so abound that he who had a tattered rag over his straw did hold the same for a feather-bed.

He taught his brethren, moreover, to make their dwellings after a sorry sort, and would that their cabins should be of wood, not stone, and these constructed and built after a mean pattern; and not only did he hate arrogance in their houses, but he did exceedingly abhor much or choice furnishing thereof. He had no liking for aught in tables or vessels that was of worldly seeming, and whereby remembrance of the world might be recalled; so as that all things might point toward poverty as their end and intent, and all things chant songs of pilgrimage and exile.