ople and those of the
lower order, and that with happy results; for whenever Ours go where
these pupils have exerted their diligence, they find all the people
well prepared to receive baptism.

To the old Christians and some of the more intelligent adults familiar
sermons are delivered on the life of Christ and those of the saints,
and on the manner of profitably receiving communion, and notable
results are evident. On account of these pious exercises and the
uprightness of life shown by these converts, the Christian religion is
ordinarily held in such high esteem that few remain who do not desire
to be initiated into it by baptism. In Advent and at the feast of the
Nativity we baptized more than seven hundred persons. We have baptized
in all, from last year to the present date, two thousand and twenty,
or more.

To this residence are annexed, besides other charges, the care of two
great and populous districts, which give surest proof of their virtue
by clean morals and by obedience. We are informed by letters that,
at the feast of the Nativity, in one of them eight hundred infidels
pledged themselves to the Christian faith; and that the believers
do not yield to Espana in frequenting the sacraments of confession
and communion.

There was found in one little village an old man leading the life
practically of a hermit; and when our father asked him about his
manner of life, he answered so wisely that the father was greatly
surprised. Among other things he said that though his bodily life
was passed on earth, yet his soul lived in heaven. He had no dreams
at night except about the other life, and he was accustomed to see
the blessed surrounded with great splendor, and one among them who
excelled them all. And when the father gave him a picture of the Last
Judgment to look at, in which was expressed the glory of paradise,
he asked him if his dreams agreed with this picture of the blessed
life. The wonderful old man answered: "Should I see nothing but this,
my father? Much more! much more!" The father was amazed to find such
a treasure of spiritual riches laid up in this man; for he afterward
said that his meditation and the occupation of his mind would be of
nothing else than of Jesus and Mary, until he had exchanged this life
for the eternal one.

Two of Ours, happening to enter a wretched rustic hut, found a man
more than eighty years old lying upon some reeds. He was deprived
of all his senses and his whole body w