The next three years he spent in the neighbourhood of Assisi in abject poverty and want, ministering to the lepers and the outcasts of society.
Instead of regarding these as only ministering to the construction of the bulky portions, the living protoplasts take the first place as the essential portion of the tree, and all the other features are important mainly as ministering to their individual well-being and to their multiplication.
The standard of life of the ordinary well-to-do middle class in England, for example, includes not only food, clothing and shelter of a kind different in many respects from that of a similar class in other countries and of other classes in England, but a highly complicated mechanism, both public and private, for ministering to these primary needs, habits of social intercourse, educational and sanitary organization, recreative arrangements and many other elements.
Alexius may almost be compared to a magician, who has uttered a charm to summon a ministering spirit, and is surrounded on the instant by legions of demons.
Other ministering angels are Geush Urvan ("the genius and defender of animals"), and Sraosha, the genius of obedience and faithful hearing.