[Section ii of this chapter relates a number of miraculous occurrences in the villages of Butuàn, Linào, and Cagayàn, and their districts--miracles which were greater than the recovery of health on receiving baptism, at the reading of the gospels, or after drinking the water left in the chalice after the sacrament, all of which were very common and little regarded. Those miracles had great weight in reducing those people to the Christian faith. For instance the dato above mentioned, Putig (or Pistig) Matanda, was converted after the successful exorcism of demons that had troubled his village. It is related in this section that "for reasons that seemed fitting, the convent and church of Butuàn were moved to the beach from their previous location; but it was afterward reëstablished there, one legua from the sea upstream." One of these years also the village of Cagayàn suffered greatly from the scourge of smallpox which was formerly so common in the Philippines. Section iii treats of Spanish affairs. Section iv deals with the life of Fray Melchor de la Madre de Dios who died in the Recollect convent of Talavera de la Reyna, Spain, May 30, 1677. He was born in Nueva Segovia or Cagayan in Luzón, his father being Juan Rodrigues de Ladera. While still young his parents removed to Manila where he studied until the age of twenty the subjects of grammar, philosophy, and theology. Although he was apt, he found himself below others not so clever as himself because the pleasures of the world appealed to him too strongly. Consequently, he quit his studies in disgust, and gave himself to trade, "the occupation of which is not considered disgraceful there to people of the highest rank." But his evil courses still prevailed and during his several trips to Acapulco he succeeded only in wasting his money. Returning to Manila after his final voyage, he gave up some of his worst vices, but still kept a firm grip of the world. He must have taken up his neglected studies again, but almost nothing is known of him until he reached his thirty-third year. It is said by some that he became a priest before joining the Recollect order, but there is a lack of definite knowledge on that score. At any rate he did not abandon his rather loose way of living. In the midst of his vices he had always been greatly devoted to St. Augustine, and his conversion finally occurred on the eve of that saint. Then a vision of the saint who appeared to him caused his conversion and an enthusiasm that never left him. He became a novitiate in the Recollect convent of Manila that same year 1639 and professed in 1640. After preaching with great clearness and force in Manila which had been the scene of his excesses, he was sent as missionary to the Visayan Islands, where he worked faithfully and well. But breaking down in health because of his strenuous life in the snaring of souls, he was compelled to retire to the convent of Cebú and then to that of Manila. It being impossible for him to