CHAPTER IV.
STRUGGLES AND TRIUMPH Spring of 1206-February 24, 1209 The biographies of St.Francis have preserved to us an incident which shows how great was the religious ferment even in the little city of Assisi.

A stranger was seen to go up and down the streets saying to every one he met, "Peace and welfare!" (_Pax et bonum._)[1] He thus expressed in his own way the disquietude of those hearts which could neither resign themselves to perpetual warfare nor to the disappearance of faith and love; artless echo, vibrating in response to the hopes and fears that were shaking all Europe! _"Vox clamantis in deserto!"_ it will be said.

No, for every heart-cry leaves its trace even when it seems to be uttered in empty air, and that of the Unknown of Assisi may have contributed in some measure to Francis's definitive call.
Since his abrupt return from Spoleto, life in his father's house had become daily more difficult.

Bernardone's self-love had received from his son's discomfiture such a wound as with commonplace men is never healed.

He might provide, without counting it, money to be swallowed up in dissipation, that so his son might stand on an equal footing with the young nobles; he could never resign himself to see him giving with lavish hands to every beggar in the streets.
Francis, continually plunged in reverie and spending his days in lonely wanderings in the fields, was no longer of the least use to his father.
Months passed, and the distance between the two men grew ever wider; and the gentle and loving Pica could do nothing to prevent a rupture which from this time appeared to be inevitable.