One day, on meeting a friend on the road, they stopped to converse. On parting, the friend said, "You will pray for me?" To which Francis replied, "Willingly." Hardly was the other out of sight, when Francis said to his companion,—
"Wait a little for me; I am going to kneel down and discharge the obligation I have just contracted." This was always his habit. Instead of promising and forgetting as so many do, he never rested till he had fulfilled the promise he had made.
A Fox-skin.
During the last two years of his life he was often very weak and ailing. One cold winter, his companion, seeing that the clothes he was wearing were very thin and patched, was filled with compassion on his account. He secretly got a piece of fox-skin.
"My father," he said, showing him the skin, "you suffer very much from your liver and stomach; I beg of you let me sew this fur under your tunic. If, you will not have it all, let it at least cover your stomach."
"I will do what you wish," said Francis; "but you must sew as large a piece outside as in."
His companion couldn't see any sense in this arrangement, and objected very strongly.
"The reason is quite plain," said Francis: "The outside piece will show everybody that I allow myself this comfort." They had to give in at last, and Francis had his way.
"Oh, admirable man," writes a friend after his death; "thou hast always been the same within and without, in words and in deeds, below and above!"
A Temptation.