Among them he presents Friar Juan de Zumárraga, how beautiful, how grand! Not without reason did the history of that life, so beautifully written, fly through the world, and, attracting the attention of the highest dignitaries of the Seraphic Order, to which the first Bishop of Mexico belonged, it was translated by one of them into the Tuscan and, in that idiom, circulated about the Vatican and throughout the whole Italian peninsula.
Such pious undertakings could not fail to arouse the envy of the world—and of hell. The demon, disguised as an angel of light, clothed in a religious garb, attacked him, as envy ever attacks, with bitterness, with acrimony, with implacable cruelty. What he had published was malinterpreted and what he had not written was thrown into his face; his intentions were calumniated and productions foreign to his genius were attributed to him.
The fruitful writer replied never a word, nor even attempted to defend himself. At the suggestion of a prelate he cut out one chapter, an entire chapter, from his most cherished work; a chapter which cost him long years of study and diligent labors. Nor did his sacrifices end here. On seeing that those who were most embittered against him were ministers of that Church of which he was an obedient and submissive son and which he desired to defend, he broke, forever, his learned pen. Ah, beloved members of the conferences of San Vicente, how many injuries a misguided zeal inflicts! To the unjust and uncharitable attacks of which he was the victim, we owe it that most important works upon the Mexican Church remained unfinished, that documents of the highest interest lie mouldering in dust, that your learned President General dedicated the last years of his life only to the compilation of dictionaries and to grammatical studies, which could scare no one.
The Lord has already rewarded his ardent charity, his obedience to the prelates of the Church, his readiness to forgive even those injuries which