f march. One devout person
placed on the corners eighteen images of the Conception of our Lady,
with a legend reading, "Without blot of original sin." Other pious
people adorned these images with gilded ornaments and lights that burn
all night. The children continually recited before these images, in
loud voices, various couplets in praise of the Immaculate Conception,
thus fulfilling that saying of David, _ex ore infantium e lactentium_
["out of the mouths of babes and sucklings"], etc.

Concerning the persecution in Japon, I can only say that with the death
of Daytusama, who was the chief cause of the expulsion of our fathers,
[15] it was hoped that the persecution would cease or at least would
abate. On the contrary it has increased under the new administration of
his son, who is so hostile to the law of Christ our Lord that simply
because of our holy faith he has martyred one religious from each
of the four orders there. These four religious, among many others,
had gone about secretly, as in England, with great labor cultivating
that vineyard. This event occasioned much rejoicing in the hearts of
all the people of this city, the laity as well as the religious. They
talked of making fiestas and public rejoicings in thanksgiving that
our Lord had adorned the four orders that are in these islands with
four martyrs so distinguished. But in order not to further provoke to
wrath the ruler of Japon, who had ordered their death, and for other
reasons, it was thought best to suspend for the present all kinds of
fiestas. Among those who suffered this fortune or fate was a father
of our Society named Juan Bautista Tavora, a native of the island of
Tercera. He died in company with a father of San Francisco. Afterward
they martyred two others, one of Santo Domingo, and the other of San
Agustin, and in order that respect might not be paid by the Christians
to their bodies, the heathen threw them into the sea. The bodies of
the father of our Society and the father of Santo Domingo were placed
together in one box; those of the two fathers of San Francisco and San
Agustin in another. These last were afterward found, but the first
were not. The account of all that happened concerning this matter I
will place in the relation of that province [Japon] where these most
happy deaths will be related at length.

I will conclude this account with one of the most singular events
that have ever happened in the world. Although it is discredita