the order to keep silence, never revealed them, and no one else ever knew them. He was seen to be growing weaker, being without strength and without health, and when he was taken to the infirmary the physicians corroborated what all knew with regard to the danger in which he was; but they were never able to find out the cause, since it was beyond the limits of their science. All this, and much more which was added to it, was necessary, and helped him much to bear the bitter hardships which in time he suffered, and which would have broken his heart. Our Lord conducted father Fray Bartholome through all his life by a way of suffering, and in suffering he ended it--as will be narrated in due time, when we reach the year of our Lord 1629, when his virtue and his abstinence will be specially treated. During his term as provincial, the province lost by death several religious of superior qualities, and suffered from several insurrections of villages. Both of these things were severely felt in a region where the religious are so few that the loss of a single one is a notable loss; and where all energy is turned toward converting souls, so that the perdition of a single one causes great sorrow. For these sufferings our Lord brought some comfort in the martyrdom of some sons of the province, and in the extension of the holy gospel to the island of Hermosa. [Among the religious who died at this time was father Fray Francisco de Cabrera, vicar of San Miguel de Nasiping; he was a native of Carmona, and a son of the convent at San Lucar, whence he was sent to pass his novitiate in Sancto Domingo at Xerez. He was stationed in Nueva Segovia and was an exemplary minister. His name is honorably mentioned on the records of the chapter in the year 1625. At the same provincial chapter honorable mention was made of father Fray Pedro Blazquez, vicar of the convent of Manavag. He was a native of Marchena in Andalucia. He assumed the habit of the order in the famous convent of San Pablo at Sevilla and was sent as a collegiate to Almagro. He left his convent of Sevilla to come to this province in 1613, and was regarded by those who accompanied him as a saint. On the fifteenth of May, 1624, died father Fray Thomas Vilar. He was a native of Castellon de la Palana in the kingdom of Valencia, where he assumed the habit. He was sent to the college of the order in Origuela, and came to the Philippinas in 1601. He was assigned to the province of Nueva Segovia, and afterwards was appointed rector of the college of Sancto Thomas at Manila. In the following November, as fathers Fray Miguel de San Jacintho (a man who was twice provincial) and Fray Diego de Toro, vicar of San Jacintho at Camalaniogan in Nueva Segovia, testify, a marvel happened in the village of Apari, [34] a port in that province in the district of Camalaniogan. A fire occurred here one night, and a sea breeze was sweeping it throughout the village,