sons; there, after having
expressed himself in such gentle and conciliatory terms as to appease
all angry feelings, he knelt at the feet of his elder, and, taking
his hand, kissed it. Then they embraced each other; and thus began
a very stable friendship between them, which I saw with my own eyes
for many days--confirmed, months later, by their very intimate and
fraternal intercourse.

The progress in eradicating idolatry from Taitai, and the piety and
constancy of its Christians. Chapter LIII.

The pest, with its mortality, spread among all the Indians of that
region, even to the villages of San Juan del Monte, Antipolo, and
others. This kept our fathers busy night and day, caring not only for
the welfare of souls, administering to them the holy sacraments with
much fervor and concern, but for that of their bodies, aiding them with
medicines and the necessary comforts--an important consideration with
those people, in view of the value that they attach to kind treatment
during illness and the pleasure that it gives them; indeed they often
recover their health from very contentment at seeing that they are
cherished and cared for. The confraternities of that village and of
Manila gave no less useful aid, on this occasion, to the sick and the
dead, their members taking turns in caring for the sick and attending
funerals, which were usually accompanied by more than two hundred
persons bearing lighted candles; these attentions were especially
bestowed on the dead who had belonged to the confraternity, who were
also honored by special funeral rites.

Superstition and idolatry have been so thoroughly uprooted that there
is hardly a trace or evidence of them left; if any had remained
from former years, it was due to carelessness rather than to evil
intent, and an end was put to them this year, through the favor of
our Lord. Even the little plates and other insignificant articles
which they were wont to use in making sacrifices they brought to the
fathers, to be broken and burned. An Indian owned, growing on his land,
a very luxuriant clump of the great reeds which they call _cauayan_
[_i.e._, bamboo], which we have already described. This man came to
notify us that this clump had formerly been offered to an idol, for
whose service its canes had been cut; and he himself condemned it to
be burned to the very roots, in order that it might not sprout again,
and himself be thus reminded of an object which had been used for