Care was taken to check offenses against our Lord, and to break up vile illicit relations--some secretly, and others by other gentle means--by which many Indian women were kept in bondage. These women, in their eagerness for worldly gain and kind treatment, were gratified by certain men, who maintained them in that mode of life without fear of God. Indeed, there were two women who had killed their husbands that they might gain greater freedom in this respect. Some, too, had lived during many years in this wretched state--one ten years, another twelve, another thirteen; and still another, twenty long years. Yet God, in His infinite patience, had been waiting for them all this time, and at the end received them into His most gentle mercy. As in past years, our ordinary ministries were also exercised among the Spaniards; in particular, many general confessions were made, and friendly relations were established between certain prominent persons. Among these latter was one notable case concerning a prebendary of the cathedral of Manila--whom, for certain good reasons, I do not name; but his noble conduct on this occasion gives him sufficient fame. Knowing that another prebendary of the same church, an aged and venerable man, was offended at him, he secured an opportunity to meet him in the house of an auditor of Manila, and in the presence of several dignified persons; there, after having expressed himself in such gentle and conciliatory terms as to appease all angry feelings, he knelt at the feet of his elder, and, taking his hand, kissed it. Then they embraced each other; and thus began a very stable friendship between them, which I saw with my own eyes for many days--confirmed, months later, by their very intimate and fraternal intercourse. The progress in eradicating idolatry from Taitai, and the piety and constancy of its Christians. Chapter LIII. The pest, with its mortality, spread among all the Indians of that region, even to the villages of San Juan del Monte, Antipolo, and others. This kept our fathers busy night and day, caring not only for the welfare of souls, administering to them the holy sacraments with much fervor and concern, but for that of their bodies, aiding them with medicines and the necessary comforts--an important consideration with those people, in view of the value that they attach to kind treatment during illness and the pleasure that it gives them; indeed they often recover their health from very contentment at seeing that they are cherished and cared for. The confraternities of that village and of Manila gave no less useful aid, on this occasion, to the sick and the dead, their members taking turns in caring for the sick and attending funerals, which were usually accompanied by more than two hundred persons bearing lighted candles; these attentions were especially bestowed on the dead who had belonged to the confraternity, who were also honored by special funeral rites.