those dead for the world, sent the friars, shorn and shaven, unshod, clad in sackcloth, with no shield but their faith, with no weapon but the Gospel. Among these was that notable man, who wandered through the whole Huasteca, while the Guachichiles still obstinately fought their fierce battles; so wise was he that, besides his miracle-play of The Last Judgment and Conversations, Sermons, and Tractates, all written in Aztec, he left grammars and vocabularies of that language and of the Totonaco and Huastec, as well as many other books for the instruction and admiration of missionaries, philologists and historians; so poor, that, when he died, there was nought but a rosary, some beads, a disciplina1 and a cilicio,2 left to his hosts in token of gratitude; so temperate, that he did not in the least seek those things which the appetite naturally desires, nor took pleasure in them, but ate whatever was placed before him, although bad in savor and smell; so strong that, after bearing a heavy weight of years, going on foot through wastes and wilds, in a trying climate, without any kind of comfort,—not only did he not choose to accept the rest and shelter which his brethren urged upon him, when they saw him old, asthmatic, insect-bitten to the degree that he looked like a leper, but, glorying in his natural strong constitution, again betook himself to the mountains where the warlike Chichimecs had their strongholds, to preach to them for the last time, in the name of the Crucified, a gospel of obedience and peace.
Already you know, gentlemen, that I speak of the friar, Andres de Olmos, companion of the venerable Zumárraga.
MARTYRS TO THE FAITH.
In the New, as in the Old World, in the deserts as in the cities, in the mountains as in the plains, the Gospel,—light and truth, refreshment, hope and delight at once,—has to subjugate all peoples, to soften the fierce and uncultured and to reduce to peace, order, and progress, whatever may be the language in which it be announced. By divine