But, not consenting to erect it in spots, where, before, the Indians had adored their idols, he taught them to honor it with great love and unheard-of penances. When he went forth from his convent, he had them throw about his neck a halter, dragged by two Indians; thus, with quick step, downcast eyes, in tears, with ardent groaning, he went, meditating on the passion of the Redeemer, until he reached the spot where stood a cross. Scarcely knelt before it, the Indians, who accompanied him and knew his orders, buffeted him, spat upon him, and cruelly beat him. This was repeated as many times as there were crosses on the way--and there were many. When it is stated that this practice was constant and but the beginning of each day, one begins to have an idea of the examples, which he set to the new followers of Christ. One is stupefied to read that, arrived at the village he preached and administered the sacraments, then waited until night to make a general flagellation, which, finished, he sallied from the church, naked from the waist up and barefoot, with a halter around his neck, in order to walk around the churchyard, which was strewn with glowing brands. One can hardly believe that his strength allowed him to preach, on returning into the church, a sermon upon the torments of hell and, further, that after all this he endured the torture of boiling water, which his rough followers threw over his lacerated body. Still the idea of the sufferings, which he added to those, today, as then, inseparable from a region so wild and remote, is not complete until we know that, in Lent, he was accustomed, thrice weekly, to bathe the Hermita of Molango with his blood. In his oratory he had painted the Prayer in the Garden; and there, after his long prayers, the Indians came to beat him, while they overwhelmed him with insults. They stripped him from the waist up and violently tore away the coarse and rasping cloth which was bound closely to his flesh; they threw a halter about his neck and, in this guise, dragged him to a second oratory where was painted a Magdalene anointing the Lord’s feet. Placing him there before an Indian who, seated in his tribunal, represented Divine Justice, they accused him of being a wicked man, an ingrate, proud, perverter, and false. He replied nothing on the matter to the questions of the judge, but, after a little time, confessed his sins, ingratitude, and faults, in a loud voice. He replied as little to a new accusation, made against him with false witnesses, of the truth of which the judge declared himself convinced, and ordered that they should beat him naked, which they did, thoroughly, until the blood ran down upon the ground from his raw and quivering body. Afterward they kindled splinters of fat pine, with the sizzling resin of which they scorched him from the shoulders to the soles of his feet, and lastly they laid upon him a heavy cross, which he bore in a procession around the enclosure over a bed of glowing coals.