to be dragging along his body and his bowels. The words which the church sings of the holy old Simeon are not inappropriate, Senex puerum portabat; puer autem senem regebat. [57] This same God whose name he, as His vassal, desired to carry to all regions, directed him and strengthened him, so that he undertook enterprises so far beyond the strength of one bowed with years and infirmities. In this period of his life he began to learn the language of this province, accomplishing his purpose in three months, and beginning to preach to the natives in it. He went to attend them in their spiritual needs whenever they summoned him, however far away he was, without heeding rain, or sun, or difficult roads. Though very compassionate to all, he was rigorous to himself alone, and that throughout his life. Every night he took a rigorous discipline; and never after he entered the order did he eat meat, except in case of grave necessity. He did not complain of his food when it was scanty or ill prepared, in sickness or in health. To the fasts of the order he added others. After the festival of the Resurrection he added another Lent up to Whitsunday, and another afterwards to the day of our father St. Dominic, so that the whole year was to him fasting and Lent. On Wednesdays, Fridays, and Saturdays throughout the year, and on the eves of the festivals of Christ our Lord, of the Virgin his most holy Mother, and of our father St. Dominic, and of the saints of the order, he fasted on bread and water. As a result he possessed that which follows such fasting--a heroic degree of chastity. Finally the last illness of his life came upon him, being occasioned by a fall from a precipice, while he was in the work of his ministry. During the whole time of his illness, his companion could not persuade him to accept a sheet of very coarse cotton, or to permit his bed to be changed. On the bed which he had in health, which was a frame of cane-work covered with a patched blanket, he desired to await the hour of his death. Before his death he made a general confession, covering his whole life from the time before he reached years of discretion. Though his confession covered so many years, it lasted about a quarter of an hour. After he had most devoutly received the other sacraments, he died in the Lord, March 30, 1633. The following provincial chapter, in giving notice to the province of his happy death, said: "In the province of Ytui father Fray Thomas Gutierrez ended his days, an aged priest and father, most observant of the rules of the order, severe to himself and most gentle to others. He labored in this province for the good of souls for the space of five and thirty years, with such devotion that the very Indians, by whom he was most beloved, held and regarded him as pious and a saint. This aroused the ill-will of the devil, who appeared to him while he was at prayer; and the wicked enemy was able to arouse in him great fear and terror, but not to harm him,