retirement, and were so dignified in their bearing, that they spread tranquillity throughout the vessel, and accordingly their teaching was highly valued.  He lived forty years in the Society, to its great edification, and preached for fifteen years in the Filipinas with admirable results.  He suffered greatly from asthma, and consequently slept almost always in a chair.  But he did not, on this account, allow himself any recreation, or cease to eat fish alone during Lent and fast days.  It might be more accurately said that he but seldom ate at all, so great was his abstinence—­which he, moreover, sought to conceal, feigning, with much dissimulation, that he ate of everything, when in reality it was a mere pretense of eating.  He was very contrite; severe toward himself, but gentle to others; most exact in obedience, but very reserved and cautious in command; courteous and honorable in his dealings; liberal, generous, and devout.  He gave or obtained aid for many needy persons, and all esteemed him for his labors.  He was most zealous for the welfare of souls, and for the prosperity and preservation of the Filipinas, and for their settlement and aggrandizement.  We have already related what he accomplished in building.  He was the first to discover lime there, and made the first roof-tile, and erected the first building.  He sought out Chinese artists, whom he kept in his house to paint images, not only for our churches but for others, both within and without Manila.  He encouraged the encomenderos and the parish priests to provide their churches with these images, and made it most easy to procure them.  Thus almost all the churches in the islands were adorned with images, nearly all of which were of the Mother of God.  He took great interest in planting groves and in laying out gardens, and was anxious that silk should be produced in the islands, hoping thus to retain there for their benefit the money which was going to China, and thus to secure their prosperity.  To this end he planted mulberry trees, and was active in other ways, even constructing a loom, and teaching the Indians to weave in the European fashion.  He was accustomed to say that the highest form of prayer was that which most inclines one to self-mortification; and he so practiced this that his own life was a perpetual mortification.  He taught this in the house and elsewhere; and in his own exercises he could not use any other method than mortification.  His sermons were all on fear, judgment, and condemnation.  He said that this was what the world needed; and he was not mistaken, for in truth he accomplished great results through this teaching.  One of his hearers, who was once praising to me his instruction, repeated an expression which the father often used, and which had deeply impressed him:  “There [i.e., “in the other world?”] you will understand it,” he would say with wonderful truth and force.  In our household intercourse with him, he would assert that he who aspires to perfection must be convinced