Much time and many terrible experiences were required to germinate and develop the seed the Dominicans had sown in his soul, but the day of fruition came with the peaceful preparation of a discourse suitable for the glorious feast of Pentecost, the birthday of the Church, into whose perpetual custody were committed the doctrines of Christ, to be infallibly guarded. Instead of disbursing these spiritual treasures to the humble Indians amongst whom he lived as a superior being, almost deified in their simple minds, he had profited by their labours as selfishly as the most godless layman in the island, without making an effort to gather them into one fold, under one shepherd, which, as a Christian priest, should have been his chief occupation. But if the awakening was slow, it was complete, and Las Casas was not one to shrink from following his beliefs to their logical conclusions; not only was his newly formed conviction that the treatment accorded to the Indians was a flagrant violation of all justice, and one that merited condemnation in this world and condign punishment in the next, absolute, but the first consequence following from it, and which seemed to him imperative, was that he should forthwith set the example to his fellow-colonists of freeing his serfs; the second was the devotion of all his powers to making others see the wickedness of the system by which they profited, and the terrible moral responsibility they would incur by persisting in it. He formed his determination to preach this crusade in season and out and to henceforth use every weapon in defence of the downtrodden natives. Although he treated his own Indians kindly, and he well knew that if he renounced his “encomienda” their condition would doubtless be worse under the power of their new owner than before, Las Casas perceived how impossible it would be to preach justice for the Indians while he himself held them in bondage. He went to the Governor, Diego Velasquez, and opened his mind fully on the subject, declaring that as his conscience no longer permitted him to hold his Indians in subjection, he had come to surrender them; and, admonishing the Governor of his own grave responsibility, he announced that henceforth his mission would be to preach this doctrine. He desired for the moment that his resolution should not be made public until the return to Cuba of his friend and partner, Renteria, who was at that time absent in Jamaica buying pigs and farm seeds.