language.  They accepted their appointments resignedly, and set out for Marivelez.  They quickly found that profound darkness was opposed to their new light.  They were not dismayed by their inevitable labors.  No welcome was found among so rude and unconquerable a people.  The missionaries solicited them in the woods, where they gained their livelihood by the labor of their fields.  They spoke to them in affectionate tones; they undeceived them of their errors, which so darkened their souls.  They maintained, at their own cost, some huts where they retired for the necessary rest at night.  When they took any slight and hurried refreshment, it was for their necessary relief and rest, since the rest of their time was broken with penitential exercises.  By such unalterable and edifying procedure, they were gradually softening those hard rocks; and they already had many converts and baptized people.  The other idolaters did not regard that desertion well, and one day when the father was going on his rounds to catechise them in the woods, the pagans were awaiting him, and discharged upon him a shower of stones.  He yielded to his contusions and wounds.  He escaped with his life from this exigency, which was not little.  But he was so ill-treated that he could not recover his health, which became worse; and recognizing that it was impossible to recover it there because of the utter lack of comfort, he determined to retire to Manila, in order to die conformably with his brethren.  Some medicines were administered to him here, which he took rather to please his superior than because he had any idea that they would be of use.  The dissolution of his body rapidly progressing, he piously received the last sacraments; and, in the midst of lofty and loving acts, he passed to the eternal rest, leaving this wretched life with envy.  His two courageous companions returned also to the infirmary at Manila, for they had fallen sick from their continual troubles; and they ended their lives in so excellent and desirable a manner, the first fruits of this laborious task.

5.  So arduous an undertaking was not abandoned through fear of its danger, because those beginnings were, in the general mind, unfortunate.  It fell to the lot of father Fray Rodrigo de San Miguel, a man celebrated in the history of his holy province, especially in the voyage that he made from these islands to Basora and Caldea, in which he reduced various Armenians of the schism [62] to the obedience of the holy see, and presented their chiefs to his Holiness, Urban Eighth, who thanked him for his zeal by special favors and rewards.  He was firm in spirit and of most courageous boldness.  He took possession of that toilsome mission.  With his industry, he reduced to a civilized and Christian life the remainder of those pagans, in a location called Bagac.  There he built his church and dwelling, and there he gathered many scattered peoples.  Afterward he moved it to that of Marivelez because of the convenience