not excessive, were too much for me, as having little strength. It was upon this occasion that the fathers of that holy order gave proof of their great charity and the great affection and fraternal feeling which they profess toward Ours; for all of them on that day, leaving their own church (which also is named Santissimo Nombre de Jesus, out of respect for the holy Child, which is deposited therein), came with their singers to our church, where they celebrated on the day before most solemn vespers, and on the day of the feast officiated and sang solemn high mass and preached a sermon--all of which I could not attend, on account of being, as I have said, ill. To grant me a further favor and charity, they chose to be my guests and partake of our poverty. It pleased God, in His mercy, to give me health, so that I might acquit myself in part of this obligation and the many others which we owe to them. Thirteen days later, which was the day on which they celebrate their feast of the most holy name of Jesus, I visited them and preached for them, and ate with them. Some days afterward, there arrived from Manila two discalced religious of the holy Order of St. Francis, who had come to embark in a vessel which was fitting out in that port for Nueva Espana. They disembarked near our house, which stands at the edge of the water; and, in acknowledgment of the debt that we also owe to that holy order and its blessed fathers--who, in so great self-abnegation and aversion to worldly things, in all seek only the things of Jesus Christ--I begged them to accept the use of our house. During their stay with me they displayed toward me the most signal charity; and I, on my part, was equally consoled and edified, until last Pentecost of the year fifteen hundred and ninety-six. At this festival they assisted me, before their departure, in the solemn baptism of two prominent Chinese, and of I know not how many others; we baptized them, with their Bissayan wives, celebrating their marriages and conferring the nuptial veils, with great solemnity and rejoicing, the whole city assembling to witness the ceremonies. The two chief men were Don Lorenco Ungac and Don Salvador Tuigam. The Chinese are not accustomed to cut their hair, which they comb and make ready every morning, and wear it fastened on the head in pleasing and graceful fashion; but when we baptize them we are in the habit of cutting it off, so that in this way we may have more certainty of their faith and perseverance. These two, before baptism, had entreated and supplicated me not to cut off their hair; and in this they were not without reason, for, as one of the suppliants himself explained to me, to wear their hair was honorable among them, and a custom of their nation, as with us the wearing of mustaches or beard. But as I did not dare to act in opposition to what the prelates and other judicious ministers and religious are accustomed to do in this matter, I announced to them