It may perhaps seem to some a cause for offense when they shall read that these fathers left this growing grain in the blade, without protection or anyone to care for it, when there was danger that the enemy might come and sow tares in the field; but if the reader will consider how few ministers the province had, and how much they had to attend to, he cannot fail to see that they did not only what they could, but many times more--God giving them courage for that to which their natural strength, as it seemed, could not attain. Yet, even so, they were sometimes compelled guiltlessly to fail in that to which charity would have obliged them if they had been able to do it. [When the fathers informed the Mandayas of their intention, the Indians were so much grieved that the chiefs and the council resolved to keep the fathers by force if they would not remain with them willingly. Father Fray Geronimo called their attention to the fact that, as a good father, he must attend to all his sons alike. They replied that it would be enough for one to return, and the companion of father Fray Geronimo was accordingly left behind. He was but new in the ministry, and was now to be left alone in the midst of these mountains to cope with the difficulties of a new conversion. Father Fray Geronimo separated from him and the Indians with little less grief and tears, on both sides, than when St. Paul departed from the inhabitants of Ephesus. Father Fray Luis, the minister who remained behind, determined to guide himself by the instructions and the example of father Fray Geronimo. From father Fray Luis is obtained the report which follows. As it deals with matters in which he was himself concerned, it was very short, and he was greatly opposed to publishing it; but the truth of history requires us not to pass over the glory of his works. He was not to baptize any adults, however well instructed, until father Fray Geronimo returned, for fear of meeting with the impediments which are so frequent in such cases--irregularities in marriage, or the guilt of unjust enslavements and of wrongs done by the more powerful to the weaker, or any of a thousand other impediments which only those who are skilful and experienced in the ministry of new conversions can detect and settle. Father Fray Luis continued to exercise his office, and found in the Indians a wonderful hunger and thirst for the matters of the faith, and great readiness in learning it. Some Christians who were older in the faith, who had accompanied the fathers, were astonished. One of these was Don Francisco Tuliao, at present master-of-camp for the Indians of the whole province of Nueva Segovia; he had accompanied the religious, and his influence was of great importance in achieving the conversion of these people. When he saw the fervor of the Mandayas, and the ease with which they learned Christianity, though they were regarded even by the other Indians as