Father Fray Andres de San Nicolas had preached the previous afternoon with great energy against the great licentiousness and shameless conduct of the passengers and the other people, who had no fear of God.  He severely censured their excesses, and the little anxiety that they showed in that time of greatest danger.  With burning words, he exhorted them to do better, representing to them their danger and begging them, finally, to confess, since they did not know what was to happen that night.  The fruit that proceeded from that sermon was large, for, his audience becoming terrified and contrite, many of them confessed, and others proposed to do the same by having their entangled consciences examined as soon as possible.  After a few hours, what is described above was experienced, whereby all thought that the good preacher had had a revelation of that event; and they could not thank our Lord sufficiently for having granted to them the company of so good religious, but more especially the company of him who preached to them of their danger—­whom they regarded as a distinguished servant of God, as he was.  Some certified afterward that that place through which the boat had passed had been a rocky islet, and that they had seen it on other voyages; and they were astonished at having escaped on that occasion with life, attributing it, beyond doubt, to a manifest miracle, which the Lord wrought at the intercession of those fathers.  They desired, therefore, to listen to their teaching daily, and especially to that of the father who announced to them what we have seen.  Consequently, not sparing themselves at all, the fathers gave in alternation their inspired discourses, which were the health and medicine of the many who were there—­the ship so conforming itself to these that it seemed a reformed convent, where before it had been a house of confusion and bluster, with soldiers, mariners, and seamen.

The same father, Fray Andres, among the continual sermons, preached a very fervent one on a certain day, and gave them to understand that he would live but a short time, and that he was not to reach the land of promise, for his faults and defects.  That happened so, for not long after, he fell sick, before sighting the islands called Ladrones.  His sickness increasing, when he was told that the islands were in sight, he arose from his bed, and looking at them, through a porthole of his cabin, immediately lay down again, saying, “Nunc moriar laetus.” [33] His weakness was already very great, and, as he had already received the holy sacraments, and was in great resignation and joy of soul, and all our fathers were present, he begged father Fray Joan de San Geronimo to have the passion of Jesus Christ our Lord read to him very slowly.  That was done, in the manner that he desired.  He, holding an image of the same crucified Lord in his hands, broke out into very glowing utterances of love, and shed many tears during those moments.  After the passion