There is another image of our Lady, called “Consolation,” because of the great consolation that those who are afflicted find in it, when they are most exhausted.  Her devotion commenced from the time of the entrance of our Reform into the islands; and it has been continued by means of the favors that she scatters in protection of those who commend themselves to her by invoking her aid.  Our patrons had a most singular affection for her, and therefore they left a clause by which a mass was to be sung for their souls in all the festivities of the most blessed Mary.  They offered her many gold jewels and articles of richest clothing, that testified the love with which they humbly surrendered to the vassalage due to her.  Father Fray Antonio de San Augustin [38] encouraged greatly the worship and veneration of that sacred and miraculous image, and received instant pay and wages for his labor.  For when he was about to die (the candle being already in his hand), without anyone perceiving it or having hope of it he recovered his senses, and talked to those present who were watching him and assisting him, to the astonishment of all the physicians, who regarded him as a dead man.  He declared what had happened, and said that having offered in his heart his vows at the feet of the said Virgin, when he was almost dead, as was thought, he heard her near him talking to him, together with St. Nicolas de Tolentino; and she graciously revivified him, saying that he was not to die from that illness.  That was a fact, for within a few days he arose, just as if he had not been at the gates of death.

The third image that illumines and ennobles that convent is that of the famous titular saint, Nicolas de Tolentino.  He has chosen to make himself known in those remote regions as much as in the other regions of Christendom, by means of the continual prodigies and marvels that he works there.  A great volume might be written of those that have been seen in Manila alone, and a greater volume of those outside.  Suffice it to say that, because of his having appeared to the sailors in their greatest straits and troubles, they have all unanimously taken him as their patron.  The glorious saint rewards their pious devotion by lofty marvels, and does not discontinue for all that to work them very frequently on land—­for which both the Spaniards and the Indians of the Philippinas Islands venerate him as a refuge, in whom they consider their relief very sure.

Strong religious have gone out from that very strict house to combat the power of the devil, in order to remove his yoke from many souls, as we shall see in the time of reporting their deeds of valor.

[The chapter concludes with the pious deaths of Fathers Andres de San Joseph, Diego de Santa Ana, and Gaspar de la Madre de Dios, and of Brother Simon de San Augustin, all of whose bodies were buried in the Manila convent. [39]]

Chapter IX