vantage to one soul. Burning
with the most vehement desire of laying down his life for his flock, and
of suffering all things for him who died for us, he feared no dangers.
When he heard that poor Indians wandered in the mountains and deserts,
he sought them out; and to comfort, instruct, or gain one of them, he
often suffered incredible fatigues, and dangers in the wildernesses, and
boldly travelled through the haunts of lions and tigers. He spent seven
years in performing his first visitation: his second employed him four
years, but the third was shorter. He converted innumerable infidels, and
left everywhere monuments of his charity. In travelling, he either
prayed or discoursed on heavenly things. On his arrival at a place, it
was his custom to repair first to the church to pray before the altar.
To catechise the poor, he would sometimes stay two or three days in
places where he had neither bed nor any kind of food. He visited every
part of his vast diocese: and when others suggested to him the dangers
that threatened him from rocks, precipices, marshes, rivers, robbers,
{648} and savages, his answer was that Christ came from heaven to save
man, we ought not therefore to fear dangers for the sake of immortal
glory. He preached and catechised without intermission, having for this
purpose learned, in his old age, all the various languages of the
barbarous nations of that country. Even on his journeys he said mass
every day with wonderful fervor and devotion. He always made a long
meditation before and after it, and usually went to confession every
morning; though they who best knew his interior, testified, that they
were persuaded he had never in his whole life forfeited his baptismal
innocence by any mortal sin. He seemed to have God and the divine honor
alone before his eyes in all his words and actions, so as to give little
or no attention to any thing else; by which means his prayer was
perpetual. He retired in private to that exercise often in the day, and
for a long time together. In it his countenance seemed often to shine
with a divine light. The care with which he studied to disguise and
conceal his great mortifications and works of piety, was the proof of
his sincere humility. His munificence in relieving the poor of every
class, especially those who were too bashful to make their necessities
publicly known, always exhausted his revenues. The decrees of his
provincial councils are monuments of his zeal, piety,