Why His Old Clothes Are Kept

The clothes he laid aside are handed over to the steward’s care and kept until the brothers, through various kinds of temptations and trials, can recognize the worth of his progress, his life and his endurance. If they see that he can go on in it as time passes, and remain in the fervor with which he began, they give those clothes away to the poor. But if they find that he has been guilty of any fault of grumbling, or even of the smallest piece of disobedience, they strip him of the monastery’s clothing in which he had been dressed, put him back into his old garments, which had been taken from him and stored, and send him away. For it is not right for him to go away in the clothes he received, nor do they allow anyone to go on wearing them once they have seen him grow cold toward the rule of their way of life. For this reason no one is given the chance of leaving openly. Either he escapes like a runaway slave, taking advantage of the thickest darkness of night, or he is judged unworthy of this order and way of life, lays aside the monastery’s clothing, and is expelled in shame and disgrace before all the brothers.