[At the beginning of the following August occurred the death of the venerable father Bartholome Martynez, who, being engaged in the conversion of the island of Hermosa, was unable to attend this chapter. Father Fray Bartholome was a native of a village of Raoja called El Rasillo, a hamlet of some twenty poor inhabitants. He was a son of Sant Estevan at Salamanca, and a student in the college of Sancto Thomas at Alcala. He took advantage of the opportunity of coming to this province in company with the holy Fray Alonso Navarrete. He gave his chief attention in the province to learning the Chinese language, hoping to become a missionary to the kingdom of China. He was so devoted to the Chinese that he was beside himself with anger whenever a wrong was done by a Spanish soldier to any Chinaman. As this seemed to be an impediment to the conversion, he resolved to restrain his anger, and learned, as the law of the Lord teaches us, to be angry but not to sin. It was father Fray Bartholome who built the beautiful wooden church in the Chinese Parian. The cost was above twenty thousand Castilian ducados, and it was all raised by offerings. The Lord wrought miracles by father Fray Bartholome in the building of this church, and on other occasions. On some occasions he displayed the gift of prophecy.] CHAPTER XXXVII The virtues which God granted him, and particularly some in which he excelled; his labors and death. [Father Fray Bartholome was notable for humility, patience, penances, and zeal. When he was elected provincial in 1625, he prostrated himself on the ground, and begged them to put him in jail rather than make him provincial. His habit was poor and mean, his tunics full of sweat and blood and all tattered. He would never permit the Indians to carry him across streams or to wash his feet. He subjected his body to the severest mortifications, beating himself cruelly and wearing chains of various kinds, some with sharpened links. He went always on foot, even crossing swollen streams in this way. He had so accustomed himself to abstinence that when he felt obliged to set the other religious the example of eating a little more than was habitual to him, that they might not injure their health, he suffered greatly as a result. He slept as little as he ate. He suffered greatly from asthma, but was most patient. Although he was often insulted on the expedition to Hermosa for interfering with the soldiers, he overcame all this by his great patience. The Chinese or Sangleys were devoted to the father, because of his affection for them. He gave them alms of his poverty, and was once almost drowned in the effort to rescue some heathen Chinese. In spite of the failure of his two efforts to enter China, he was not discouraged, but hoped that the way might be opened through Hermosa. In the effort to carry out the plan of sending an expedition to Hermosa, he exposed himself to dangerous storms, but was rescued by the Lord.