One of our fathers desired to visit another sick man (who had, when in danger of death, been baptized by the schoolmaster of the village), but, with his many confessions and other duties, he had forgotten to do so.  Afterward, while resting, he had heard loud wailing and outcries, such as they are wont to utter for their dead; and they came to tell him that the man had died.  The father could not refrain from going to see him (although he left all the people in the church), deeply grieved that he had not seen the sick man before.  But with great confidence (although everyone said that he was already dead), he approached the unconscious sick man, and said:  “Clement” (such was his name), “dost thou hear us, my son?” He opened his eyes and said:  “Yes, Father.”  Then the father bade him invoke the most blessed name of Jesus, and the most sweet name of Mary, and aided him with some nourishment; the sick man regained consciousness, and some strength, and at the end of a few days made his confession, and died in the Lord.

Ours had been asked to visit a sick man, and, when the visit to him was ended, the father, while descending from the house, was seized with the desire to ascertain if there were any other sick person in the vicinity.  In the next house he found an old woman, an infidel, ninety years old, although not very sick; he approached her, gave her instruction, and baptized her.  On the following day, when he was setting out from the village at the same hour, his heart would not allow him to depart without first visiting his sick people.  He gained the little hut, and found therein a dead person, shrouded.  He inquired who it was and they told him that it was Ana (the name of the woman whom he had baptized the day before).  He continued his way, praising the divine Providence and judgments of God, who had thus predestined the lot of that soul.  We were informed that a sick man lay at the point of death, far out from the village.  The road thither was hard to descry in the darkness of the night, and abounded with serpents, which were continually encountered, stretched out in the road.  In addition to this, a very broad river must be passed, with rapid current and full of crocodiles—­which, when they become ravenous, rush upon anything.  Yet all these obstacles were of less importance than one soul redeemed by the blood of Jesus Christ; so the father went to visit his sick man, and, with a certain medicine, in the name of Jesus Christ our Lord, cured and comforted him.  But the marvel was that on the way he found another sick person, a woman, apparently in less danger; he baptized her, and she died immediately, while the sick man, for whom the father had undertaken all that hardship, was healed.

An Indian, finding himself in the clutches and jaws of a crocodile, covered with wounds, and almost dead, began to invoke the most holy name of Jesus, which a little before he had heard in the sermon of a father; and our Lord was pleased that the savage beast should release him.