eir meals, in their grain-fields, and for their sick; indeed,
to drink a swallow of it they consider an efficacious remedy. In
short, all that I see in them is piety and devotion--which is all
the more precious since they are Christians so recently converted. An
old man asked on his knees for baptism, and, as it was necessary to
defer the sacrament, he said with his hands crossed upon his breast:
'Father, teach me how to invoke God, since I do not know how to
pray and thou wilt not baptize me; for I truly reverence Him in
my soul, and desire to serve Him:' Another old man--a chief, whom
all respect--who hitherto had been obdurate, has just asked me for
baptism; he is very hoary, and so old that it seems as if he could
not, from very age, utter a word. I go to his house to instruct him,
for he is too feeble to come to the church. I shall soon baptize him,
and another old man of his age; and it seems to me a certain proof
of their predestination that God should have kept them so long, and
now have inspired in them so ardent a desire to be saved. The Lord be
blessed, amen! for His marvels, who from the stones can raise sons of
God and heirs of heaven, at the time and hour that pleases Him, and by
instruments most inadequate, so that all may know that it is the work
of His power. Up to this time we have in this island three thousand
three hundred Christians, and I am confident in the Divine goodness
that by next year there will not be one man who is not baptized."

The mission held in Tanai. Chapter LXXI.

Tanai is a beautiful and thickly-settled river in the great island
called Negros, on the side which forms a strait with the island of
Sebu. This part of the island is under the parochial care of Don
Diego Ferreira, the bishop's vicar there, and first archdeacon of
the cathedral of Sebu. This priest, in his great affection for our
humble Society, and influenced by seeing the results of our fathers'
labors in those islands--aided by the demand of the natives of
Tanai themselves, who had at various times asked for us--so urgently
requested our presence there that at last the authorities were obliged
to consent. Overjoyed that they had assigned this field to Father
Gabriel Sanchez, whom he held in great esteem, the said Don Diego went
in person to Bohol with a ship, expressly to convey Father Sanchez,
and carried him to their Tanai. What this faithful minister of Jesus
Christ accomplished there the Indians themselves m