were very small and poor. Then father Fray Diego held a council of the religious and said to them: "It would be well to cast lots, to see to which of each of these four villages your Reverences are to go." They answered: "There is no reason for depending on uncertain lots, for he is always sure of a happy lot who is under the rule of obedience. Dispose of us, your Reverence, as seems best to you; for without any reply we will each of us go very contentedly wherever the direction of our superior bids us go." Father Fray Diego was pleased to hear so wise a response, and one so proper from vowed religious; and named father Fray Miguel de San Jacintho [55] and father Fray Gaspar Zarfate to the church of St. Mary Magdalene in Pata; and father Fray Ambrosio de la Madre de Dios to Abulug, with brother Fray Domingo de San Blas as his companion, directing them to build or to finish the church in honor of St. Thomas Aquinas, doctor of the church. Father Fray Antonio de Soria, with another brother, went to Camalaniugan. In the city remained father Fray Diego de Soria and father Fray Thomas Castellar, who had picked up a little of the language. In addition to this, father Fray Diego went out to visit all the villages, to the great spiritual and temporal profit of the Indians. The first church of the Indians erected in this province was in the village of Pata. There was a chief in it, named Yringan, who was devoted to the Spaniards and who attached himself to the religious, being on very intimate terms with them. He was accordingly very glad to receive them in his village, which they reached on the day of the Holy Cross in September. They were overjoyed to find a cross set up in it, three braças and a half in height. When they asked the Indians how they got it, they answered that before the religious came to this province a contagious disease attacked the Indians, of which many died. It happened that at that time there was in this village a Spaniard, Juan Fernandez de Najara, a peaceful man, much beloved by the Indians. Many of them went to him to ask for a remedy for their sick. He, pitying their need, answered them, "Friends, I cannot cure you. It is God who can cure these ills. Let us trust in Him and in His only Son, who was made man and died on a cross. Let us believe that by His sign he will heal you. For this is a thing that we Christians reverence and esteem highly; and it may be that for this devotion God will pity you. Bring two pieces of wood and let us make it." He made the cross and the Indians put it up. Najara and his companions fell on their knees and celebrated the setting up of the cross by shooting off their arquebuses with the utmost devotion and reverence. The Indians, imitating them, reverenced it in their own manner. The result was miraculous, for this contagious disease immediately began so plainly to abate that the Indians could not fail to see this result, barbarians though they were. One of them,