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FELIX FAßER. 47 We know that in the early Church the chief apostles were sent to the countries of the gentiles, as Peter and John were sent from Jerusalem to Samaria (Acts vii.). Bnt now who are the men who are sent to be bishops in these remote places ? Let the senders look to it ! Brothers of the Mendicant Orders, who detest the poverty they have embraced, who pay no heed to chastity, and find obedience a burden, who loathe the observance of their Rule, and are ashamed bo wear the monkish habit—these are the men who fawn and pray and solicit the interest of princes and nobles, proffering anon infamous and simoniacal gifts, alms which they have collected with pious but lying pretexts from Christ's faithful flock, to be appointed bishops in those parts. I met once a bishop of 1 'aplins of this kind. We were detained for three days in the port of the Salines, and heard that two bishops were to come and travel with ns. And two bishops did arrive with a mounted suite and much pomp, and boarded our galley, and made themselves very disagreeable to us pilgrims, and narrowed our already narrow room. One of them was a monkjef some Mendicant Order, whom I observed more closely than the other gentleman. He was young, beardless, with a womanish faee and thoroughly effeminate manners: he wore his proper habit, but varied in colour and quality. For he had made it of precious camlet, with a train behind like a woman, and wore on his fingers many rings set with geins and round his neck a golden chain : he was always quarrelling with his attendants, for he looked down on everybody, but especially the pilgrims whom he would not allow to sit down with hiin. One of us, a priest and chaplain to a pilgrim knight, onee begged him to move a little from his seat, to make room for the knight. The bishop looked domi contemptuously on the priest, but the latter faced him, and defended against the prelate his seat and berth, for wh'ch he had paid a large sum. To whom the bishop in the hearing of all, said, "And how do yon dare, you ass, to contend with me ? Don't you know who 1 am?" The chaplain replied, "I am not an ass, but a priest: I do not despise a priest, or make light of a bishop, but 1 see before nie a proud monk and irreligious brother, with whom I shall contend for my rights to the bitter end." Whereupon the bishop made a, figo at him, as Italians do with their thumb when they wish to insult anyone. When the knight saw this he rose iip against the bishop and other young knights with him with clamour and complaint, and the bishop wisely fled aloft to the captain's cabin, and came down no more to the pilgrims' quarters. I spoke above of a certain elerk, who was Greek and Latin at the same time, and have noted many other things of the same kind, so that I wonder that the name of Christ has not been uprooted from Cyprus, lying as it does among Tnrks and Saracens. November 8. We remained in the harbour of Paphus up to the hour of vespers, when we lifted our anchor and left the port; but the wind was contrary and we beat about all that night on the coast....On the night of Sunday, November 9, we lost sight of the island (vol. in. 239—244).

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