Carranza's teaching, perhaps, contributed to make the Gospel attractive to younger minds at Valladolid. At first they showed some timidity; but the cruel death of one of the most earnest Spanish Christians inspired them, about the middle of the century, with more zeal and courage. Among the disciples of Carranza was Don Domingo de Roxas, son of the marquis of Poza--a name rendered illustrious by a great poet--and whose mother was a daughter of the count of Selinas. This young man, who was destined by his parents for the church, was amiable, upright, a lover of truth, keenly susceptible and impressible, endowed likewise with courage, but not with that immovable firmness which belongs to powerful characters. He listened with enthusiasm to the lectures of Carranza, who in certain cases made use of the phrases of the reformers, while condemning their doctrines. The same was afterwards done by the Council of Trent, to which Carranza was sent as delegate by Charles the Fifth. He used to say that man, since his fall, could not be justified by the power of nature; but that he is justified by Jesus Christ. To these assertions, however, he added explanations which weakened them. 'The moral power of man,' he said, 'is indeed diminished but not destroyed; he is able to incline himself to righteousness, and faith justifies only so far as charity is added to it.' Ere long Domingo showed less timidity than his master. He laid aside every thing that weakened the doctrine and embraced the pure faith drawn from the Word of God. At the same time that he listened to Carranza he was reading Luther and Melanchthon, and he thought their doctrines more evangelical and more powerful than those of his master. The professor trembled lest his disciple should become a heretic and should raise up others. What to Roxas appeared a friendly light, seemed to Carranza the signal of a conflagration. In vain he endeavored to prove to young de Roxas the mass and purgatory. The latter, understanding that the truth was the property of all, communicated it to those around him. He put into circulation the works of the reformers; he composed others himself. Among the latter was an 'Exposition of the Faith.' By these means he gained over to the Gospel several inhabitants of Valladolid. He encountered opposition on the part of some members of his own family; but he found access to others, as well as to several noble houses of Castile.[181] [Sidenote: AUGUSTINE CAZALLA.]