ugh the potency of which father
Fray Benito lost his life, in order to obtain a better one in glory.

1123. After the above fathers, father Fray Diego de San Gabriel
entered to take up the toil with the profit of increased fruit
in the cultivation of that field. He was the amazement of charity
in regard to God because of his care for self-perfection, and in
regard to his neighbor, because of the way in which he desired his
salvation. In order that he might attain that end he pardoned no
toil, if it were fitting for the spiritual welfare of the Indians. He
showered favors upon his parishioners by trying to take them to the
kingdom of heaven. And although for this the latter loved him more,
some were not wanting among so many who persecuted him, returning
him evil for good. But like another David when they troubled him
with their injuries, the venerable father clad himself in haircloth,
humbled his soul in fasting, and occupied himself in prayer. By that
means he delighted himself in God, taking pleasure in hardships as if
they were the fountain of health. In order to induce his parishioners
to the devotion of the most holy Mary he composed and published in
the Visayan language a book of the miracles of our Lady of Carmen;
and the most sweet Virgin repaid his good zeal by liberating him
with circumstances that appeared miraculous from several shipwrecks,
and from other innumerable multitudes of dangers. On the beach of
the village of Balino a certain Indian gave him a cruel wound with a
dagger, because he checked some faults in him. The father recognized
as a favor of the Mother of Mercy, not only the fact that he was not
quite killed, as might have happened, but also the cure of the wound,
almost without medicine. But at last, as he was sailing as secretary,
which post he had obtained later, to visit those villages and others
of Visayas, a storm coming down upon him swamped the boat and he was
drowned, together with the father provincial, then our father Fray
Juan de San Andres.

1124. And now in order to conclude in a few words, a matter that we
can not even with many words consider adequately, we add that the
venerable fathers Fray Antonio de Santa Monica and Fray Thomas de San
Lucas said many times without a trace of boasting that, although they
had been many times in the doctrinas and missions, in none of them
had they found so much to suffer as in that of Masbate. Father Fray
Francisco de Santa Engarcia was twice