ng up the greatest number, in the sight
of his other countrymen was most esteemed and applauded. It was an
abuse of obligation that, a father or mother having died, the son
who inherited should retire from the village into the mountains and
forests until he had despoiled at least two persons of the common
light--even though it should be, as one can well judge, at the risk
of losing the light that he himself was enjoying. When they had more
children than they desired, or than they could support as they wished,
they generally buried them alive. In what pertains to political
government, they had no greater superiority than that which the most
powerful usurped in the matter of life and death over those who were
not powerful, disposing of them as they wished. Accordingly they made
them slaves for very slight reasons and occasions. When any suits
and quarrels arose in regard to criminal or civil matters, their old
men assembled, and composed these difficulties or passed sentence in
them, and no one could appeal or petition from their decisions. They
proved causes orally, examining witnesses and investigating doubts
verbally. Their laws were only traditions and very old customs, but
they observed these carefully--not so much for fear of punishment,
as because they believed that he who violated them would be instantly
killed, or at least become afflicted with the disease of leprosy,
and that another part also of his body would become corrupt.

Our three religious opposed themselves to so profound darkness as
this, with the light of the gospel, and without taking other arms than
the cross and the scourge of penance, by which all the wretchedness
and misfortunes there were changed into delights and comforts. The
suffering of great hardships was inevitable; for since those brutes
were intractable and ferocious, they did not show the fathers any
hospitality, that had any mark of reason and sense. The fathers
sought them through the thickets and fields where they were living,
and, alluring them with loving words, gave them to understand their
error and the blindness of their souls. They preached to them with
the ardor that came from their hearts of the Triune and One Lord,
who governs the universe, and told them their obligation to love Him
and to bow to the mild yoke of His law; but those people preferred to
condemn themselves forever to the pains of hell. The fathers retired
at night to some very small huts that they had made, in