Kitobni o'qish: «The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume 31, 1640», sahifa 10

Chapter LVIII
The election as provincial of father Fray Miguel de San Jacintho and the coming of religious

On May 9, 1604, father Fray Juan de Santo Thomas having completed his term as provincial, there was elected in his place father Fray Miguel de San Jacintho, a religious of much prudence, great virtue, and a mind greatly inclined to goodness, and one who loved and honored those who were good. He exhibited in the course of his office great talent in governing, watching over the order with great care, and filling his office with much affability and simplicity, which caused the religious to love him, and to feel particular satisfaction in him because they had shown so much wisdom in appointing him as superior of the province, out of all the many candidates who had been put forward at that election. His excellent and prudent manner of governing was not displayed on this occasion for the first time; for he had previously exhibited his high abilities in such offices when he was elected by his associates as their superior on the journey from España, that position having been vacated by the death in Mexico of father Fray Alonso Delgado, who had come as their vicar. In spite of the youth of father Fray Miguel, he filled this office so much to the satisfaction of all that they regarded themselves as fortunate in having found a superior who looked out so carefully for the advantage of every one without ever forgetting the general good of the order – which, as being more universal, takes precedence and commands higher esteem. In the affairs of the voyage, which are many and full of difficulty, he conducted himself so well and anticipated them with such accuracy that it seemed as if all of his life had been spent in the office of conducting religious. This is a function that calls for many diverse qualities, difficult to find united in a single person unless he is a man of so superior a nature as was father Fray Miguel. When he arrived in the province, they sent him to the district of Nueva Segovia. Here he was one of the first missionaries and founders of this conversion; and was one of the best and most careful, most beloved by the Indians, and most devoted to his duties as a religious, who had ever been in that province. He suffered all the hardships and necessities, the poverty and the lack of sustenance, which have been recounted. From them, although he was a man of strong constitution and fitted to endure much, the want and the lack of food resulted in causing severe pains of the stomach. This evidently resulted from hunger, for as soon as he had a moderate amount of food he was well; but this happened seldom, and most of the time they had nothing to eat but some wild herbs which they gathered in the fields, and which were more suited to purge their stomachs than to sustain their lives. Hence in jest father Fray Gaspar Zarfate, who was his associate, said to him that he was greatly in doubt whether they were properly keeping the fasts prescribed by the constitutions, because they ate the same thing for supper in the evening as for dinner at noon; for, as they had nothing else, they ate quilites at noon for dinner, and quilites at night for supper. There were received at this chapter the church and house of Nuestra Señora del Rosario [i. e., “Our Lady of the Rosary”] in the kingdom of Satzuma in Japon; and, in the province of Nueva Segovia, those of San Vicente in Tocolano, San Miguel in Nasiping, San Pedro in Tuguegarao, San Raymundo in Lobo, Sancta Ynes de Monte Policiano in Pia, Santa Cathalina de Sena in Nabunanga (which is now in the village of Yguig), and Nuestra Señora de la Asuncion [“Our Lady of the Assumption”] in Talama. These were all villages which had been waiting for religious; and as the bishop of that region, Don Fray Diego de Soria, a religious of the order and of this province, had written that he was about to come back to it with a large following of religious, the new provincial was encouraged to take the charge of so many new churches and villages which were so much in need of teaching, for they had never had any, and were nearly all heathen. The good bishop did not fail of his promise. He had been one of the first and most prominent founders of this province, had seen and passed through the great sufferings which the establishment of it required, and had likewise had his share in the great harvest which the religious had reaped in these regions. He therefore loved it much, and strove with all his might to increase it; and hence, when he was about to come to his bishopric, he endeavored to bring with him a goodly number of excellent religious. The vicar in charge of them was father Fray Bernabe de Reliegos, a son of the distinguished convent of San Pablo at Valladolid, where in the course of time he went after some years to die, leaving the religious highly edified by his happy death, which was to be expected from his very devoted life. The example which they gave on the way from their convents to Sevilla was such that it highly edified the people of the towns through which they passed. The religious who set out from San Pablo at Valladolid were four in number, and they made their way to the port on foot, asking alms and sustaining themselves solely by what the Lord gave to them as to His poor. Although on some occasions they suffered from need because there was no one to give them sufficient alms, they never made use of the money which the superior had sent them for the journey – esteeming more highly that which was given them for the love of God, and putting aside the shame which begging alms at the doors brings with it. They came to a small hamlet in the Sierra Morena, and, though they went two by two to search for lodgings, they found none, and still less did they find any food. Hence in their need, which was great because they had gone on foot, they went to find the alcalde, to lay their necessities before him. After he had several times refused to see them, he at last admitted them at night, and sent them to a house with orders that they should receive the friars. A gentleman from Baeca was there, who, seeing that they were poor, had compassion upon them and sent a page to invite them to eat dinner, although he had already dined before the religious could reach the house. They thanked him for these alms, but declined them, saying that the alcalde of the town had provided for their dinner and lodging; and the gentleman sent them forty reals in charity, saying that he did not send them more because he was journeying on business to the court, where the expenses were so great that they left him no more with which he could help the friars, as he wished to do. That the Lord permits such needs is not due to His lack of power or of love, and He ordinarily makes up for them with similar or greater recompenses. In Baylen they went around the town two by two, and when they had all come together, without obtaining more than two or three cuartos in alms, night came upon them without any inn or lodging. A man was following their path who had noticed what happened to them, and he offered them his house. They thanked him, and accepted his charity; but the house was nothing but a poor peddler’s shed, three brazas long and two wide, and, that he might take them in, he sent his wife that night to sleep elsewhere. But a house of charity could not fail to be large and spacious, and hence the religious rested in it with much satisfaction and joy. In the morning the Lord paid the charitable host for the lodging; for the conde, learning of what had happened, called him to appear in presence of the religious, thanked him for what he had done, and, promising him his favor for the future, forced a man who had done our host some wrong, some days before, to recompense him for it immediately. Thus he went away happier than if it had been a feast day, though this is not the principal pay for such works, for they earn glory in the sight of God. All the religious reached Sevilla, and set sail on St. John’s day in a small vessel to go to Cadiz and take ship. At noon they were at a considerable distance from land, and the master of the ship was very inattentive. The religious saw three vessels with lateen sails following them, and were amused at these because they had never seen that kind of sail before. This called the attention of the master, and he went up and looked at them. Seeing that they were Moorish vessels, he trimmed his sails, and turning the helm, set out to run ashore. When he succeeded, he said: “Some saint is sailing in this boat, on whose account our Lord has delivered us today from falling into the hands of Moors; for it is they who were chasing us with their light sails and swift boats, from which it was impossible that this heavy bark with its heavy load should have escaped, if some superior power had not been watching over us by some saint who has been traveling with your Reverences.” On the following day it was learned that at that very same place some people who had taken the same voyage had been captured, wherefore they saw themselves obliged anew to render most humble thanks to the Lord for His singular mercy and kindness. They went on board the ships; and when the fleet was sailing in the gulf which on account of its restlessness and the many waves which are always there, is called Golfo de las Yeguas [i. e., “Gulf of the Mares”], two sailors fell overboard from the flagship – an accident which often happens when they are working in confusion at a critical moment. The flagship – not being able to help them, since it was carried on and separated from them by the wind – gave a signal, by discharging a piece, to the ships that followed it that they should try to pick up the men. As none of the other ships was able to go to their help, that one on which were the bishop and the religious hove to; but, on account of the excitement of the moment, they failed to do so with proper caution and prudence. The rudder was brought over with all the sails up so that the head of the ship was brought down dangerously, and the whole bow as far back as the foremast went under water. That there might not be one accident only, the violence of the wind and the burden of the sails and the force of the waves jerked the tiller [pinçote] from those who were at the helm, and swung it across fast under the biscuit hatchway, leaving the ship without means to steer it when that was most needed. The hatchway was closed, and no key was to be found. The ship was going to the bottom, being submerged in the water, and the waves, which were like mountains, were beating on its sides, so that the mariners in alarm were shouting, “We are lost, we are going to the bottom and cannot help ourselves, for want of a rudder and direction.” “Let us turn,” said the bishop, “to our Mother and Lady, the mother of God, and let us promise to fast in her honor for three days on bread and water if by her help we may receive our lives.” The religious did so, and, falling down in prayer, they supplicated her for aid; and instantly – a proper work for the divine pity and that of the Mother of Compassion – the tiller, or stem of the rudder, came out, of itself, from the hole into which it had gone. This was contrary to the common expectation in the ordinary course of similar cases; for the hole was very small, and therefore it was very difficult for anything which had once entered it to be brought back again. Four men quickly caught it, and, bringing it across with great strength, turned the ship back into its course. The seamen were in amazement at this extraordinary event; and, as they had had experience in like cases, they regarded it as the favor and benefit of our Lady who had been invoked by her afflicted and unhappy chaplains. Therefore to her the religions rendered devout and humble thanks, and with great joy fulfilled the vow which they had made.

On its voyage the fleet touched at the island of Guadalupe for wood and water. This island was inhabited by a barbarous and inhuman race, bare of any sort of clothing, and (what is worse) bare of any sort of pity; for they had no pity upon those who, without doing them any harm, came there to get water which would be wasted in the sea, and wood for which they had no use whatsoever. There were in the fleet the Marqués de Montes Claros, going to be viceroy of Nueva España, and, as commander, Don Fulgencio de Meneses y Toledo; and on the eve of our father St. Dominic, twenty-five soldiers having gone ashore as a guard with an ensign in command, all those on board the fleet went ashore and mass was said as the religious had desired. After that, the religious and all the rest went to wash their clothes and to bathe themselves, of which there was great need. The sailors went to get wood and water. Being all more widely scattered than was proper, they failed to keep a proper lookout, when they ought to have been more on their guard against the peril which menaced them. The islanders, taking advantage of the opportunity to carry out their evil purpose, came down close to them, being hidden in the thick undergrowth of the mountain. They began to shoot arrows at the Spaniards when the Spaniards were not keeping a lookout, and when they themselves had the advantage. This they did so rapidly and in such numbers that it seemed as if it rained arrows. When the Indians were perceived many were already wounded, and much blood had been shed. The surprise and confusion threw the crew into a panic, and huddling together in a frightened group they fled, each man striving to put himself in safety – one leaping into the boat to go back to the ship; another throwing himself into the sea, which was then regarded as more pitiful than the land; still another hiding himself among the trees and letting the savages pass as they shot their arrows at those whom they found ahead of them, and letting them pick up as spoils the clothes which he had been washing, or which were now being dried after the washing. Those who could do least to resist the attack of the islanders were the religious; and hence many of them fell wounded and others dead, for it was easier to draw their souls from them than to draw out the arrows. Three of them hid themselves in a thicket, where the Lord delivered them from a shower of arrows which were shot after them as they went to hide. Holding a little [image of] Christ in their hands, they begged him earnestly that he would blind the savages that they might not see them and might pass them by. The Lord heard them, and thus, though the islanders saw them hide themselves and shot many arrows after them, yet the arrows did not strike them; and the Indians, who are keener than mastiffs in discovering people, could not find them, though they passed the place where they were.

The wounded were: father Fray Juan Luis de Guete, a son of the convent of Preachers in Valencia, in whose spine an arrow was fastened, being stopped by the bone; father Fray Juan Naya, a son of the convent of San Pedro Martyr at Calatayud, who escaped with a wound in his arm where an arrow had passed through it; and father Fray Jacintho Calvo, who was struck twice. He was a son of the convent of La Peña de Francia, where in course of time he hung up one of the arrows. The wounds were not so penetrating as to take their lives; but they made the fathers very happy because here, with this blessed beginning, they had begun to shed their blood for the Lord who had redeemed them with His own, and for the gospel which they were going to preach in His service. The religious who died there were six. They were so picked and selected among all the rest that, as they were the cream of all the others, it was plain that that which the islanders had done en masse was, so far as concerned the Lord, a most particular providence of His who had directed the arrows against the best and the ripest of the religious that they might be offered as early fruit on the table of the supreme Father, as something in which one may safely assert that He takes much pleasure. Three of these holy martyrs were children of the most religious convent of Preachers in Valencia, which, as it is so prolific in saints, naturally had here the greater share. The first was father Fray Juan de Moratalla, a native of Murcia, a religious of noble example, great mortification, silence, modesty, and composure. [He was devoted to prayer and solitude, and to the good of others. The second was father Fray Vicente Palao Valenciano, a religious very precise in his observance of the rules, and such as a priest ought to be. The third was Fray Juan Martinez, a priest, an Aragonese, a religious of purest and holiest life. The fourth was Fray Juan Cano, a native of Burgo de Osma, a son of San Pablo de Valladolid, young in age, old in virtue. The fifth religious was Fray Pedro Moreno, a deacon, a native of Villalba, a son of the royal convent of Sancta Cruz at Segovia, and a member of the most illustrious college of San Gregorio at Valladolid. He was devoted to prayer and to silent meditation. At his death the Lord wrought a miracle by enabling him to make his way to the seashore, where he died in prayer, and was afterward found beneath the water in the attitude of prayer. The sixth religious was Fray Jacintho de Cistenes, a son of the convent at Valencia, and a native of that noble city. He was young in age but venerable for his virtue. The Lord had revealed to him that he should die on the day of St. Lawrence, as he actually did, after suffering for some time from his mortal wound.³⁹]

Chapter LIX
The erection of some churches, which took place at this time

The religious who were coming to the province, although they had been diminished in number by the savages of Guadalupe, were of great use. They were fourteen in number, and, that they might immediately begin that which they had sought over so many seas and through so many hardships, they were assigned to their duties. The newly-elected provincial took with him four for the province of Nueva Segovia, where at that time the conversions were going on rapidly, because the country was large and nearly all the inhabitants were heathen. When they reached the cape known as Cabo del Bojeador, a place which is ordinarily a difficult one, the provincial saw that a small cloud which covered the peaks of some mountains near there was moving toward the sea, which began to be unquiet and rough. The pilot thought it best that the sails should be lowered somewhat, in order better to resist the attack of the wind and the waves which threatened them. While he was striving to do this, the tempest anticipated him; and the wind came with such force that wind and wave turned the vessel on its side, and the water entered over the sides of the ship. It was necessary for the religious to put their hands to the oars, while the rest went to work, with great difficulty, to get in the sails – nothing being left but the courses, in order to make it possible to steer. Although the amount of sail was so small, the wind was so powerful that, lifting the vessel on one side, it forced the other under the water. The religious repeated the exorcisms against the tempest, upon which it subsided a little; but when the exorcism was completed it came back with as much force as at first, almost capsizing the vessel, and making it ship water. When the exorcism was renewed, the tempest moderated itself anew; but when the exorcism was completed, its fury returned as before. Thus they perceived that this tempest was not merely a tempest of wind and of waves, but was aided by the devil – who at the words of the exorcism lost his strength, and as soon as that ceased received it again, to hinder the ministers of the gospel. Four times they repeated the exorcism, and four times the same thing happened, upon which the father provincial, recognizing the author of this evil, said: “Since I see that ministers are to be given to the villages of the heathen, and that the devil, who unjustly keeps them under his tyranny, is about to be banished from them, I promise to build a church under the patronage of the guardian angels, that they may aid us against this cursed enemy who is so clearly making war against us.” As soon as he had made this promise, it seemed that the guardian angels took upon themselves the protection of the fragata; for the tornado began to disappear, and they continued their voyage. On the following day they rounded the cape, by rowing against a slight contrary wind which had arisen; and when this wind had quieted down, the fragata came to some billows where a number of opposing currents met. The waves were so high that the little boat put its side under water. A religious threw into the sea some relics of St. Raymond, repeating the glories of the saint, and the sea was immediately calmed – just as when water boils too violently in the kettle, and a little water is poured into it; and by the kindness of the saint a fair wind was given to them, with which they continued their voyage.

When they reached Nueva Segovia, a minister was provided for the village of Nasiping, which had been accepted ten years before, but for which it had been impossible previously to provide a minister because the supply of them was so scanty. Even now there was so much requiring the attention of the religious, and they were so few, that half a miracle was necessary for the missionary to be given. Father Fray Francisco de la Cruz, or Jurado,⁴⁰ was taken dangerously ill. He was a religious of much virtue, of whom they had great hopes. The father provincial, fearing to lose him, promised to give a minister to Nasiping if the sick man recovered. Father Fray Francisco recovered, and the provincial fulfilled his vow and named the church after St. Michael. This village is on the banks of the great river [i. e., of Cagayán], five or six leguas higher up than the city of the Spaniards. In the year 1625, twenty-one years after it received ministers, there had been baptized in it more than three thousand four hundred persons, as is certified by the baptismal records; and, in addition to this, many were baptized in sickness who, because of their immediate death, were not entered on the records. To this village there came an Indian from Tuguegarao, which is distant two days’ journey by water. He very earnestly desired the religious to confess him, and to give him the other holy sacraments. The religious confessed him and gave him the communion, more that he might assist his devotion than because he supposed he was in danger. He had come on foot and seemed strong, so that it seemed that he was very far from being in such a state of necessity; but after he had received the sacrament he died. This was something at which the religious wondered, and which aroused in him great devotion and joy when with his eyes he saw so plainly the power of divine predestination, carried out in ways so hidden and mysterious. Father Fray Pedro Muriel,⁴¹ who is still living, has testified as an eye-witness that when he was minister in that village, in the year 1631, the locusts were more in number than the natives had ever seen before. In the fields of that village they were in such numbers that they spread over a space three leguas in length and a quarter of a legua in breadth, covering the earth and the trees so that the ground could not be seen, so thickly did they cover it; and they ravaged the fields as if they had been burnt. [The Indians did what they could to frighten away the locusts, but in vain; and the Lord heard the prayers of one of the Indians that He would drive away the locusts during the night. At dawn, when he expected to find all of his fields desolated, he found that just half of them had been eaten, and that all the rest had been left. The Lord showed a similar grace to a poor woman who prayed for His aid in protecting her field of maize.]

In this same year, 1604, the provincial sent three religious to the estuary of Lobo and the country of Ytabes,⁴² in the province of Nueva Segovia. All those Indians are heathen; and though by nature they are very tractable and easy to deal with, simple and free from malice, and concerned with nothing but their agriculture, still the outrages of those who took tribute from them were so great that they enraged the natives and obliged them to take up arms, to the great loss of the Spaniards. As they were few and the multitude of the Indians many, the few, although they were very courageous, came to their death by the hands of the many; or, rather, the unjust came to death by the hands of divine justice, which in this way was pleased to chastise and end their injustices. And as we very seldom reckon rightly, the chastisement which God wrought by the hands of these Indians was attributed by the Spaniards to the courage and valor of this tribe; and thus they were very fearful of them until the holy gospel declared by the Dominican religious changed them from bloodthirsty wolves to gentle sheep – the Lord aiding by manifest miracles to give credit to His faith and to His ministers, to the end that they might be able to do that which without this or similar assistance from the Lord it would have been impossible to achieve. One of the three religious who entered these heathen villages to undertake their conversion said, in giving an account of what happened: “Since the hand of the Lord has been so plainly succoring these Indians by the hands of those religious who dwelt among them, their reformation has been great and marvelous. They have gone from one extreme to the other, almost without any intermediate stage, since the religious took them under their care. Before that they were so free, so completely without God or law, without king or any person to respect, that they gave themselves up freely to their desires and their passions. Evidence of this is found in those wars which they were continually waging among themselves, without plan or order; and in the drunkenness and the outrages of which they were guilty, without regard to God or man. He who was most esteemed among them was the greatest drunkard, because, as he was the richest, he could obtain the most liquor. He who slew the greatest number of men was regarded as superior to all the rest. They married and unmarried daily, with one or many wives. In a word, they were a barbarous race, given up to all sorts of shameless conduct. In spite of all this, when the missionary came among them they were as docile as if they had during all their lives been learning to obey, which is something very difficult even in religious orders. This was true, although the religious instantly laid a general interdict upon all their ancient vices; obliged them to consort solely with their lawful wives; even forced many to abandon their land and their old villages, that they might come where teaching was given them; and, in a word, compelled them to enter all at once, and in a body, into ordered ways of living, in matters both divine and human. They had not a thought of opposing a single command; and this has been achieved without stripes or penalties, but simply by kindness and gentleness. The result has been that those who did not understand anything except killing, and drinking till they could not stand, and running without any restraint after every sort of vice, now never think of doing these things – as I have seen in these first three villages in this district of Ytabes. The day we went among them we found all the men lying about the streets, dead drunk; since that day there has not been one drunk enough to lose his senses. The same reformation has been achieved in all other matters, for they were not compelled to do all this by fear of the Spaniards. Quite otherwise; the Spaniards regarded these Indians as so indomitable and intrepid that, for fear of them, they did not dare go up the river as far as their villages; but after the religious went among them, they were gathered into large villages that they might be more easily instructed in the faith, having been previously scattered among many small ones, like so many farmsteads [in Spain]. There were three villages thus formed: one of about five hundred tributes, named Taban, the church of which was called San Raymundo; and the other two of more than a thousand tributes each – one called Pia, its church Santa Ynes de Monte Policiano, afterwards known as San Domingo; and the last one, named Tuao, the church of which was dedicated to the holy guardian angels because of the incident referred to above. Thus all those people were brought together and united, to reduce them to settlements, and to a civilized mode of life and government; and to the church; but this result was obtained at no small cost to the religious. Of three of them, two immediately fell very sick, and the third still more so, for he died as a result of the illness. This was father Fray Luis de Yllescas, a son of the convent of Sancto Domingo at Mexico, a very humble religious, very obedient and beloved by all. He received the holy sacraments for his departure with great devotion; and went away to enjoy, as may be presumed, the reward of his labors, which had been many in a short time. Yet neither this death nor the failure of health in the rest caused them to withdraw their hands from the work upon which they had begun. On the contrary, the great good which they beheld, wrought by the Lord among these Indians, served as medicines and remedies for the ills from which they suffered; and for their convalescence, though they had no worldly luxuries, that fruit was much better which, more and more every day, was borne by this new plant of the church. From it they recovered health, strength, and new courage to carry on the work which they had begun. To give them still greater spirit, the Lord came to them working miracles. The first mass which was celebrated in the village of Pia took place on St. Bartholomew’s day, the twenty-fourth of August. [Before the end of the month, a sick person who wished to be baptised beheld some fierce and abominable forms which dissuaded him from baptism, and reminded him of the rights and customs of his ancestors, charging him not to change the faith in which his fathers and grandfathers had lived. These dreadful forms were driven away by three persons, clad in black cloaks with white garments beneath. The sick man was often asked if he knew these three persons who had delivered him, and he said “no.” When he was asked if they were religious of our order he also said “no,” because he had never seen any of the religious wearing their cloaks. He always declared that he had been awake and not asleep; and the narrative was accepted as certain. At one time, a religious who was himself in poor health was left in charge of thirteen newly-converted Christians, who were all confined to their beds by sickness. Being unable to give them the care which he desired, he placed upon the abdomen of each of them a little roasted rice-bran, very hot, begging the Lord to make up by His pity for the lack of medicine. When he came back the next day to visit them, all but two were well, and had gone to work in the field; and the others soon recovered. The same treatment given by another Indian or by the sick man to himself had no effect; and thus it is plain that the healing was due to the desire of the Lord to honor and to give authority to the hand which applied the remedy. The Indians themselves observed that, after they had religious, far fewer died than before they had them. In their ancient days of superstition, when a man fell sick he generally died, because he was treated only by the witchcraft of the aniteras, whose sole purpose was to get gold from the sick persons by false promises. The sorcerers did them no good and indeed rather harmed them, since cures came from our worst enemy, the devil; while now the Lord was giving them, by means of the religious, health that was health indeed. One of the religious in this region, father Fray Juan Naya,⁴³ fell ill, and grew worse so rapidly that he was given up as a consumptive. By the advice of another religious, he made a vow to our Lady to serve in that province among the heathen, if she should be pleased to grant him sufficient health for him to carry on this work. He made the vow for seven consecutive years from the day of the Visitation, July 2, 1605. During all this time he had his health; but at the end of the seven years he was attacked by a very severe and dangerous illness, which left him when he renewed his vow for four years more. Similar experiences have been frequent among the religious. It has even happened to some who were not very devoted to this work, and who desired to go to other provinces where the Lord might be served with less severity and with somewhat greater comfort, that they have been afflicted with diseases, which gave place to miraculous health as soon as they made vows to remain and minister to the Indians whom they wished to leave. In this region the Lord manifested His goodness and gave authority to his ministers, curing a sick woman who was at the point of death, by means of the sacrament of holy baptism. In this same village it happened to father Fray Juan Naya that a poisonous snake entered his shoe without any evil effect. An Indian in this same village called upon God in his illness, and, when it did not seem good to the divine Providence to heal him, he called upon the devil whom he had previously served. The Lord punished him with dreadful visions, from which he was delivered upon praying to the Lord for His protection; and he was finally cured, after making his confession. A child was miraculously healed in the town of Pia at the time when father Fray Juan Sancta Ana was vicar there. A woman who did not seem to be dangerously ill prayed so earnestly to be baptized that the father granted her wish. She died almost immediately after, the Lord having shown her a marvelous kindness in causing the religious to baptize her immediately.]