America.

The President Cerrato, out of gratitude to Las Casas, made all the
provision for the return journey and the five friars set out, probably by
the same road by which Las Casas had come. In 1534, he was in Nicaragua,
where he left three of his companions in the convent of St. Paul at
Santiago, while he and Fray Luis Cancer and Fray Pedro de Angulo continued
on their way to Peru. Embarking at the port of Realejo on board a small
vessel, they were overtaken by a furious storm and such continued bad
weather that, after many days of misery and danger, the ship was obliged
to put back, and they found themselves again at their port of embarkation.

Their journey to Peru being thus frustrated, the friars returned to their
convent at Leon where, in the early days of 1534, a letter reached Las
Casas from Don Francisco Marroquin, who had recently been appointed Bishop
of Guatemala after the renunciation of Fray Domingo de Betanzos. His
diocese was vast but its clergy consisted of himself and one priest, and
in his letter he entreated Fray Bartholomew, since his journey to Peru had
been abandoned and the diocese of Nicaragua was reasonably provided with
priests, to come with his companions to Guatemala, where there was a great
field open for apostolic work and no labourers to occupy it. Las Casas at
once responded to this invitation and in Santiago de los Caballeros, the
trio of Dominicans established their convent, being joined somewhat later
by Fray Rodrigo de Ladrada who came thither from Peru.

The first essential was to learn the Guatemalan language in order to
preach and catechise the Indians, and this was the more easily
accomplished because the Bishop Marroquin was already master of it, and
undertook their instruction. It was this same bishop who published in
Mexico in 1556, a catechism of Christian Doctrine in the Utlateca tongue,
commonly called Quiche, a little book which has become extremely rare and
valuable.

CHAPTER XIV. - THE LAND OF WAR. BULL OF PAUL III. LAS CASAS IN SPAIN.
THE NEW LAWS

The next few years passed in successful missionary work, without offering
any events of particular interest in the life of Las Casas. During this
period he composed his work, _De Unico modo vocationis_, in which he
argued that Divine Providence had instituted only one way of converting
souls, viz., convince the intelligence by reasoning and win the heart by
gentleness. (46) The ground principle of all h