instruction.  I then baptized her, with much consolation, being persuaded that God had preserved her for that hour.  I am convinced that she has a very short time to live, but I trust, in the mercy of God, that in the other life she will obtain eternal blessedness through the merits of our Lord Jesus Christ, who gained it for her with His precious blood.  From Cauayan I went to a little hamlet called Cotai, where I baptized eighty-three persons.  From that place I went to Paet, where I baptized one hundred and twenty, all adults; thence to Canauan, where I baptized one hundred and forty.  According to my reckoning, then, more than five hundred persons have been baptized, all of age, besides twelve children.  What I especially value in this is the sight of the fervor and devotion with which they received baptism, their horror of sin, and their zealous desire that other neighboring peoples should become Christians.  They often take the initiative with those people, and preach to their friends with a fervor and power that astonish me.  I am also much gratified at having brought about more than eighty marriages within the church, for I suspect that the alliances formed by those people are not marriages, but rather the taking of concubines, considering the readiness with which they divorce and marry again, according to the custom of the country.

“It seems to me that the road to the conversion of those natives is now smooth and open, with the conversion of the chiefs and of the majority of the people; for the excuse which they formerly gave, saying, ‘I will become a Christian as soon as the rest do,’ has now become their incentive toward conversion, and they now say:  ’We desire to become Christians because all the rest are Christians.’  While I was passing through Canauan, one of the chiefs was enraged because a slave woman of his had become a Christian, and rebuked her angrily for it; but recently he brought her to me with all his slaves, and he, with his wife and all his family, have become Christians.  Another chief prevented his wife from hearing the divine word and becoming a Christian, which she desired most heartily to be.  Being unable to go to the church, as she was kept at home, she sent a message to the father informing him that her husband was using this violence toward her.  Orders were given to arrest him, and, this done, the woman was baptized.  But she obtained from God, as I believe, the conversion of her husband; for within a few days he returned to the church, subdued, and was baptized.  This occurred during the first mission.

“Another mission was held at Catubig; this village is farthest from the residence, for it is at the extremity of the island of Ibabao, which is very large.  The Indians are very well disposed, and among them are some Christians, who lack instruction; and all are desirous of having a father to teach them.  There are more than four thousand souls who only await the coming of ministers of the holy gospel to distribute