llage of Indians, and with them
the land they had owned,--some of this land being the very best on the
island.

Renteria was a quiet, thoughtful, unworldly man, humble and plain in his
ways, though of considerable learning. Las Casas seems to have been very
fond of him, though he tells us but little about him.

The two friends soon had a large house built, in which they lived
happily for a year, using the enslaved Indians to cultivate the
plantation and work the mines; for as yet neither of them had a thought
that it was wrong to hold slaves, and believed that they were doing
their duty to these natives by being kind to them and carefully
instructing them in the truths of Christianity.

CHAPTER IV

A NEW LIFE

Las Casas was the only priest on the island of Cuba, and at Pentecost
(Whitsunday) he arranged to go and preach and say mass in the new town
of Sancti Spiritus. In looking for a text, he came across some verses in
the Apocryphal book of Ecclesiasticus, which made him stop and think
whether after all he was right in making the Indians work for him as
slaves. These are the verses:

He that sacrificeth of a thing wrongfully gotten, his offering is
ridiculous, and the gifts of unjust men are not accepted.

The Most High is not pleased with the offerings of the wicked,
neither is He pacified for sin by the multitude of sacrifices.

Whoso bringeth an offering of the goods of the poor doeth as one
that killeth the son before the father's eyes.

The bread of the needy is their life; he that defraudeth them
thereof is a man of blood.

He that taketh away his neighbor's living slaveth him, and he that
defraudeth the laborer of his hire is a bloodshedder.

As Las Casas read these verses he seemed to hear the voice of God
speaking to his heart. He remembered Montesino's sermon, he thought of
all the cruelties and injustices from which the gentle, helpless Indians
suffered. At last his eyes were opened, and he saw plainly that it was
neither right to take the lands and the property of the natives nor to
hold them as slaves.

For Bartolome Las Casas to see the right was always to do it. He
resolved at once to give up his own Indians and to preach against
enslaving them. He knew very well that if he did this they might, and
probably would, fall into the hands of those who would not treat them so
kindly, but he realized that he could not preach to others