"This is excessive curiosity." He blamed himself severely, and was so ashamed that he went away immediately, and never more looked upon the child or spoke of the matter; and on the occasions which offered themselves for any father to make any reference to it (because it had been public), he changed the subject of conversation, without appearing to understand. [In the villages of Gabon and Magaldan, father Fray Luis succeeded in overcoming the hardness of heart of the heathen.] CHAPTER LXXII Some special favors received by father Fray Luis from the Lord, and some temptations which he suffered from the enemy. [However glorious the success of father Fray Luis in this country, he was desirous of going to Great China, the conversion of which the religious of this region had most at heart. He was taught in a vision that the conversion of China was soon to be attempted and saw also a vision of a man such as the missionaries to China ought to be. He was constant in prayer and had frequent visions which guided him in his religious life. The Lord granted him the blessing of great purity. At one time, having been careless in prayer, he was visited by the Lord with a punishment of strange trembling which went from the feet to the top of his head, and seemed as if it would shatter his bones. When the fathers of this province decided to send two to make an exploration of the great kingdom of China, father Fray Miguel de Benavides asked for the prayers of father Fray Luis--and, in particular, that the idols might fall to the earth before the presence of God. Father Fray Luis offered his prayers, and received from God the reply that he asked much. But he answered, "Thou canst do it, O Lord." It is not only favors which the Lord grants His servants; hence father Fray Luis suffered many temptations of the devil, which were permitted by the Lord that the virtues of the father might take firmer roots. At one time the devil appeared to him in the form of Christ; but father Fray Luis, not being moved by the affection which he commonly felt for holy visions, said to him, "Thou art not that which thou seemest." When father Fray Luis made the sign of the cross, the devil took the form of a great cat, fierce, black, and terrible, which by sending fire from its eyes and mouth exhibited its rage and torment. "That is your real form, I think," said the father, and without paying any further attention to him, he went on with his holy exercises. The devil strove to interfere with him in his prayer, but he was able to drive him away. He was at times tempted to be guilty of improprieties in saying mass, such as looking into the chalice, but the angels protected him. The devils at times strove to make him flee from the church where he was performing his discipline.