ked to
receive extreme unction. As he had never seen that rite performed he
chose to rehearse it beforehand, and told Ruys Velasco; who was in
constant attendance upon him, to go for minute instructions on the
subject to the Archbishop of Toledo. The sacrament having been duly.
administered; the king subsequently, on the 1st September, desired to
receive it once more. The archbishop, fearing that the dying monarch's
strength would be insufficient for the repetition of the function,
informed him that the regulations of the Church required in such cases
only a compliance with certain trifling forms, as the ceremony had been
already once thoroughly carried out. But the king expressed himself as
quite determined that the sacrament should be repeated in all its parts;
that he should once more--be anointed--to use the phrase of brother
Francis Neyen--with the oil which holy athletes require in their wrestle
with death.

This was accordingly done in the presence of his son and daughter, and,
of his chief secretaries, Christopher de Moura and John de Idiaquez,
besides the Counts Chinchon, Fuensalido, and several other conspicuous
personages. He was especially desirous that his son should be present, in
order that; when he too should come to die, he might not find himself,
like his father, in ignorance of the manner in which this last sacrament
was to be performed.

When it was finished he described himself as infinitely consoled, and as
having derived even more happiness from the rite than he had dared to
anticipate.

Thenceforth he protested that he would talk no more of the world's
affairs. He had finished with all things below, and for the days or hours
still remaining to him he would keep his heart exclusively fixed upon
Heaven. Day by day as he lay on his couch of unutterable and almost
unexampled misery, his confessors and others read to him from religious
works, while with perfect gentleness he would insist that one reader
should relieve another, that none might be fatigued.

On the 11th September he dictated these words to Christopher de Moura,
who was to take them to Diego de Yepes, the confessor:--

"Father Confessor, you are in the place of God, and I protest thus before
His presence that I will do all that you declare necessary for my
salvation. Thus upon you will be the responsibility for my omissions,
because I am ready to do all."

Finding that the last hour was approaching, he informed Don Fernando de
To