ed
to them a bountiful repast. We celebrated the octave of Corpus Christi
with a solemn procession, in which we bore the most blessed sacrament
through the streets, which were decorated and adorned for the occasion
with as much splendor as was possible. They laid all their riches and
gold chains on the platform; and although it was all insignificant
enough, greater was the good will and love with which they offered it.

"With the report that those two islands had been converted to the
faith, the island of Cauayan and others of Samar were led to ask
for fathers to instruct them. I repaired to Cauayan, and in fifteen
days I baptized, after some instructions and sermons, one hundred
and seventy adults, with four or five little children. I inquired
if any one yet remained to be made a Christian; they replied that
only one was left, an old woman, outside the village, but that I
need not concern myself about her, for, on account of her great
age (she must have been more than a hundred and thirty years old),
she had not sufficient understanding or judgment to penetrate into
the things of God. I had her conveyed to the village with great
care, and they brought me a clod of clay, which had only a little
perception, and hardly any understanding; sight had forsaken her,
and her hearing was very dull. She had no more power of motion than
a stone, for wherever they placed her, there she remained without
stirring. She had great-great-grandsons living, and I believe that
the descendants extended even further. I began to catechize her, or
rather to test her, to see if she had the use of reason; but for the
time I could not convince myself whether she had it or not. I had her
conveyed to the house of a worthy Christian, an Indian woman of much
judgment, by whom the old woman could make herself understood; and I
asked her to talk with the old woman very carefully about the things
of God, and to draw from her all that she could. Relying upon what
this good woman told me (she acted as my interpreter in the church,
and as catechist in her own house), I was finally persuaded that the
old woman had the use of reason; but when I began to instruct her in
the things that were absolutely necessary, the Christian woman told me
that, as for the other truths, it was morally impossible, on acount of
the old woman's limited capacity, to give her further instruction. I
then baptized her, with much consolation, being persuaded that God
had preserved he