to travel everywhere in a little cart which was drawn by a single
donkey, and winter and summer she went her way, enduring innumerable
hardships and privations, that her work might prosper. Sixteen convents
and fourteen monasteries were founded as the result of her efforts; and
as her sincerity and single-mindedness became more and more apparent,
she was everywhere hailed by the people as a devout and holy woman, and
was even worshipped by some as a saint on earth. Disappointment and
failure were her lot at times, and she found it difficult to maintain
the stern discipline of which she was such an ardent advocate. On one
occasion, it is said that her nuns in the convent of Saint Joseph, at
Avila, went on a strike and demanded a meat diet, which, it may be
added, she refused to grant; and a prioress at Medina answered one of
her communications in a very impertinent manner and showed other signs
of insubordination; but Teresa was calm and unruffled, in her outward
demeanor at least, and found a way by tactful management, and by a
judicious show of her authority, to settle all differences and disputes
without great difficulty. When death overtook her in 1582, miracles were
worked about her tomb, and when the vault was opened, after a period of
nine months, it is asserted that her body was uncorrupted. Removed to a
last resting place at Avila at a somewhat later date, her bones were
finally carried off by pious relic hunters, who believed them to possess
miraculous properties. In the forty years which followed her death,
Teresa was so revered throughout her native land that she was canonized
by Pope Gregory XV. in 1622. To her exalted spirit were joined a firm
judgment and a wonderful power of organization, and in placing her among
the saints she was given a merited reward for her holy labors.

The harsh intolerance which came with the Spanish Counter-Reformation
manifested itself oftentimes in acts of cruelty and oppression which are
almost beyond belief. So eager were the zealots for the triumph of pure
and unadulterated Catholicism, that no consideration whatever was shown
for the Moriscoes, or Spanish Moors, whose form of belief was Catholic,
but tinged with Moslem usages, and even women and children were made to
suffer the unreasoning persecution of the Christians. One offensive
measure after another was adopted for the discomfiture of the thrifty
sons of the Prophet, and finally, with the purpose of wiping out all
dis