beach, brought by I know not whom, freely supplied fishes of a kind
not usual there. Again, when a church was on the point of falling,
the Indians were frightened out from it by a tremendous roar; and,
because the mass had not been finished, it did not fall before the
father had taken refuge in the sacristy, the chalice being safe, with
the sacred images on the abandoned altar. These things we mention,
passing over those persons to whom God has been pleased to grant good
of soul or body through Ours. To this establishment there was sent ten
years ago Francisco Simon, a lay brother; he died on the day on which
twenty years before he had entered the Society. And although through
all this interval of time he had neglected none of the things for
which a good religious may be praised, yet the nearer he approached
to death, the more content he seemed in doing them. The garden, the
kitchen, the dining-room, the sacristy, the workshops, the other places
in which he labored, he regarded somehow as sanctuaries--sometimes
saying his beads, sometimes holding colloquies with the Holy Trinity,
Christ, and our Lady the Virgin. A naturally irritable temper he
had so completely overcome by virtue and diligence that the fathers
whom he accompanied on their missions wished for no one more kindly;
they could hardly have had anyone more diligent and more ready to do
anything. But as witnesses of his virtue Francisco had not only the
priests of his home but also those of other places; for when he died
he was away among them, attending to the preparation of rice--offering
to all a good example, as he first sent to his superiors a report
of his business by letter; and, as he was to return no more, he sent
his last farewell to his companions. A place of burial was given to
him by the priest who has in charge the village of Abla in Luzon,
by whom the funeral rites also were performed most honorably, a great
multitude of Indians attending them.