d to life, to inform the living about each place to which
men are consigned, that of the blessed and that of the damned; and
this command, he affirmed, was laid upon him under a heavy penalty;
for there are among mortals not a few who by the pretense of virtue
deceive themselves and others, and although they are looked upon as
good, yet are very far from the service of God. Then he added that
his conductor told him to bid his fellow-townsmen be of good courage,
for the church they were then engaged in building would be better and
stronger than the others. The Indian, after he had said these things,
recovered, and a general confession was appointed. He continues to
this day to show by his life and example that those things which he
reported were no dreams. The improvement of morals which has followed
in many others who heard of these things has almost entirely put an
end to pretexts for doubt and suspicions of deceit.

The prophecy, moreover, with regard to the church--that it should be
stronger than the others--has been fulfilled. A few months before, the
church of these Indians had burned down for the second time, together
with our house. The fire broke out in the following manner. Some of
the townspeople were out hunting, and, a dispute arising among the
barbarians about the hunt, they came to blows. Soon after the quarrel,
fire was thrown on our house, and destroyed the new church with almost
all the furniture. The relics of the saints and the images were in
part saved from the fire by the dexterity of the Christians. But Ours
after no long delay bent themselves to the work again, and erected
another church for themselves, at no trifling expense, and with no
small labor on the part of the Indians. This is the seventh church
erected in the ten years since the founding of the town. A further
fortune which befell an Indian woman confirmed many in the Christian
faith. She had ventured, without confessing her sins after the manner
of Christians, to receive Christ in the communion; after she went home,
she began to suffer from such agony in her throat that she thought
she should choke to death. Thus she suffered, complained, an wailed
until, having recognized the cause of her suffering, she went to the
church that very evening. She prayed and besought the father to hold
back her soul, already departing; and to succor an unhappy woman,
whose throat was burned by the host as if by a flaming torch. When
the father heard this,