thunderbolts, so the venerable centennarian priest. He scarcely tarried at the vice-regal court; like a flaming arrow he went to Michoacan, Zacatecas, and Durango, whose inhabitants enjoyed the last ministrations of the philosopher, theologian, humanist, and eminent preacher, whose name was Diego Ordoñez, and who, at one hundred and seventeen years of age, seated in a chair because he could not stand, died in Sombrerete, preaching to the Indians—he who had been the pride of the convent at Salamanca and the venerated oracle of theologians and inquisitors.
ANTONIO DE ROA.
Two methods were employed by him, or rather one only, in converting so untamed and rude a people. No one is ignorant, that in New Spain the worship of the Holy Cross has ever been general. Be the mountain beautiful or barren, lofty or low, the natives were accustomed to rear a cross upon it. Where roads forked they set it up, and also in the streets and plazas, that they might venerate it at every step and bow before it. With greater reason, therefore, believed Father Roa, ought the sacred emblem to be multiplied upon the rugged mountain trails, which, at first glance, had so much discouraged him.