How we introduced the Christian religion among the Indians; of their conversion and baptism; and of the different trades we taught them.
After we had abolished idolatry and other abominations from among the Indians, the Almighty blessed our endeavours and we baptized the men, women, and all the children born after the conquest, whose souls would otherwise have gone to the infernal regions. With the assistance of God, and by a good regulation of our most Christian monarch, of glorious memory, Don Carlos, and of his excellent son Don Philip, our most happy and invincible king, to whom may God grant a long life and an increase of territory, several pious monks of different orders arrived in New Spain, who travelled from place to place, preached the gospel to the inhabitants, and baptized new-born infants. By their unremitted exertions Christianity became planted in their hearts, so that the inhabitants came to the confessional once every year; and those who were better instructed in our Christian faith received the holy communion. Their churches are very richly ornamented with altars, crucifixes, candelabras, different-sized chalices, censers, and everything else required in our religious ceremonies, all of pure silver. The more wealthy townships have the vestments of choristers, the chasuble and the full canonicals of a priest, mostly of velvet damask or silk, and of various colours and manufacture. The flags which hang to the crosses are of silk, and richly ornamented with gold and pearls. The funeral crosses are covered with satin, and bear the figure of a death's head and cross bones; the funeral palls, in some townships, are also more or less splendid. The churches are likewise provided with a set of bells, have a regular band of choristers, besides flutes, dulcimers, clarions, and sackbuts, and some have even organs. I do believe there are more large and small trumpets in the province of Guatimala, where I am writing this, than in my native