In each of these two villages there was formed a confraternity, which, besides other works of piety and devotion, practices two that act as a preservative against the two great evils of idolatry and intoxication—­which, as we have already stated, were customary in cases of sickness or death—­since in this confraternity are the people who are most prominent, most Christian, and most trustworthy in those villages.  Moreover, they take the utmost care to ascertain who in the village may be sick or dying; and they aid the families of both the sick and the dead by frequent visits—­in such cases not only exercising perfect piety and charity, but preventing the abuses, superstitions, idolatries, intoxications, dirges, music, and wailing which had been their own custom when they were pagans, as now among these others.  These confraternities have rendered Christianity in those regions most glorious, and for their good deeds are so highly esteemed that he is not considered a person of worth who is not received into one of them.  On two special occasions they made processions, in excellent order, and with great solemnity and concourse of the people, and attended mass and preaching; and very many frequented the communion.  One of these was at the foundation of a confraternity; the other was occasioned by a plague of locusts which had been devastating all those islands for two years.  In order to obtain from God a remedy for this evil, they chose the most holy Virgin Mary as their intercessor, and made a vow to celebrate the feast of her most pure conception, and to give on that occasion liberal alms as aid for the marriages of the poor and the orphans.  They fulfilled their promises, and our Lord received their humble tokens of service and showed them that He was well pleased, by turning aside the locusts from their crops, and giving them that year very abundant harvests.  All the people of the village have now directed to the church that recourse and dependence which they formerly exercised toward the ministers of the devil; and, consequently, when they experience any ill, however trifling it maybe, they summon the father to hear their confessions, or to have the gospel recited to them.  Hardly a day passes, while their sickness lasts, when they do not cause themselves to be conveyed to the church, at the time of mass; and when that is ended they approach the priest, to have him recite the gospel and sprinkle them with holy water.  Sometimes there are so many of them that, when the priest has done this for them, he is compelled to wait until they go away before he can leave the altar.  They also carry first to the church whatever grain or seeds they are about to sow, to have these blessed, in return for which they offer the priest the first-fruits of their harvests.

The leading events in the city of Santissimo Nombre de Jesus.  Chapter XXXXI.