the special works that He wrought to rescue them from their course of perdition. Though we must be silent in regard to the greater number, we cannot pass over some. An old Indian woman who was preparing for baptism was one day absent from the class, and the father under whose care she was, sent a boy to call her. He came back saying she was dying; and the father, running with all his might to her side, found her still breathing. He was just in time to baptize her. The preservation of her life just up to that moment astonished all, and especially the bishop Don Fray Domingo de Salaçar. Several instances are recorded, in which persons were barely kept alive up to the time of their baptism. Several cases are also preserved in which insane persons were allowed a lucid interval in which to receive the holy sacrament of baptism. On the other hand, the devil played some tricks upon the fathers. One of the most important was to deceive them as to the character of some Indian women accused of witchcraft. They were so ingenious in concealing their wickedness that the fathers refused to listen to charges against them. Their daring reached so high a point that, at the command of one of them, the devil appeared before one of the chiefs of the village, by voice but not by sight, bidding him go thence. This was told the father. The devil answered, and said to the father: "Thou shalt believe only what thou seest." At last the Lord was pleased to reveal the deceit, by the means of a sick woman in a hospital, who declares that one of these witches had punished her with this illness because of her refusing to give the witch the small fruit that she had asked for. An investigation followed, and it was discovered that they were most subtle witches; that they had wrought great evils, and had two accomplices in their work. They were punished with banishment, and therewith this country was freed of this evil remnant of its heathen condition; and, though there have been more of this sort since then, their punishment has required some less severe penalty. There have been a number of notable miracles by which the Lord gave authority to His gospel and His ministers among these Indians--though, on account of the care which the former have taken to conceal them, the particulars are not known. Still there is one miracle that is almost universal in all these regions; this is, that when the devil torments some Indian, under the influence of witches with whom he has made an agreement to torment those whom they desire to harm, he loses his power before the command of the religious. The Indians fear the witchcraft so that they do not dare deny the witches anything they ask; and thus they become masters of the property, the food, and the persons of all the Indians. The devil is driven out by the very presence of the religious, while in their absence he is kept away by merely having the sick hold a scapular. All this is accomplished