The following occurrence was considered by some as wonderful:  A father went to visit a sick Indian, to assist him when dying; the sick man was unable to speak, and had not yet made his confession.  The father urged him to utter the name of Jesus; he made a great effort, and tried to pronounce it as best he could, uttering the word, but in so broken a voice that it could hardly be understood.  The father asked him to try to say it a second time, and as soon as he pronounced it he gained the power of speech; then he made a full confession, and on the following day was sound and well.

Part of the employment of our fathers in that city was with the Sangleys from the kingdom of China; this was exchanged (and for the better) for labors among the natives of that land; and we took charge of a little settlement called Mandavi, half a legua distant from our house; they are a simple people, docile and inoffensive by nature.  Father Miguel Gomez recently sent us, in a letter, this account of a visit which he made there:  “I made inquiries, to learn who had not yet been baptized, and seventy were brought to me, besides some others whom the Bissayans call Daotangatao, which signifies, ’People who are good for nothing;’ these people are wont to reply, when we preach to them the law of God:  ’I am good for nothing at being a Christian or learning the prayers.’  I began to preach to all these people the truths of our holy faith, and the foolishness of their divatas, or idols.  Our Lord was pleased that they should learn the doctrine in a very short time, although they were old men and obstinate, and ask for holy baptism with a devotion which caused my admiration.  The day had scarcely dawned when old men and women, septuagenarians, were at the door, in order to become Christians.  I baptized sixty of these persons—­among them the most influential chief of that district, a man seventy years old, Andug by name—­and six others, infant boys.  All this has been a source of great consolation to me, and I hope in our Lord that He will vouchsafe much to those people.”

Many conversions are made in Bohol.  Chapter LXX.

From the end of the year one thousand six hundred to the spring of the year one thousand six hundred and one, that fire which the Son of God, Jesus Christ our Lord, came to earth to light, so earnestly desiring to set the world aflame, seemed to burn with great heat in the island of Bohol—­as may be seen by the letters of our fathers who at that time had gone thither.  The most interesting letter, as giving the most detailed account, is, if I am not mistaken, one from Father Valerio de Ledesma, rector of Sebu, to the father-visitor; he writes thus: