cuments
pertaining to the affairs of his high office. And this was the most
potent stimulus which constrained him to act with so much firmness
in the affairs pertaining to his ministry, as is noticeable in the
letters which he wrote thereon to the governor, and are found in
the authentic relation of his acts. In eating he was always very
sparing, not only that he might observe religious abstinence, but
because the delicate condition of his stomach could not endure the
least excess. The holy archbishop lived in extreme poverty, behaving
like the poorest religious in regard to his table, clothing, bed,
and everything else. The province supplied his clothing, of rough,
coarse frieze; and when a garment was torn he himself mended it with
his own hands, as the members of his household have often seen. He
employed the income of his see in doing good to the poor, in aiding
the missions of his diocese, and in the adornment and repair of the
churches. In the university of Santo Thomas he endowed a chair of
canonical law, on account of the need in his church for training in
this knowledge--to the end that the ecclesiastics of this archbishop
might in future be better instructed in a subject so important for
the management of the business in the ecclesiastical court; but this
foundation was not enough to be effective, on account of unexpected
accidents in the country. [159]

At last God chose to reward his labors, and his zeal in defense
of the Church; and thus, the previous storms calmed, God took him,
triumphant over impiety and injustice, from this life to that which
is eternal, with a holy and enviable death. This occurred on the last
day of December in the year 1689, when he was seventy-eight years
of age, most of these employed in the service of God our Lord. [160]
He was given honorable burial at the steps of the clergy-house of our
church of Santo Domingo at Manila: and at his funeral were present
the royal Audiencia and the ecclesiastical and secular cabildos, all
the religious orders, and the rest of this community, all bitterly
sorrowing for the loss of such a pastor and prelate. Although his
government at first ran counter to many who were discontented,
as he seemed to them excessive in his rectitude, yet finally--his
cause justified, and the truth declared by so many tribunals; and
his blameless and holy life being seen [by all]--they hailed him
unanimously as a holy prelate, and an example worthy of imitation. And