dying as a very poor religious.  And when death was about to seize him he left the government to our father Mentrida, and went to discuss everything with God, and to arrange his affairs with His [Divine] Majesty-which, as he was a person of great ability and [spiritual] wealth was less necessary to him than to others.  Knowing the state in which the province was, he most earnestly begged the religious to give him their word to call a chapter; for he was of the opinion that that was necessary for the peace and advancement of the province.  He insisted on the same thing with our father Mentrida, who was the one on whom the government devolved by right.  Thereupon, he very calmly gave up his soul to his Creator, leaving behind sure token that he was going straight to His presence.

Thereupon followed a period of distress in the province, not a little difficult to settle.  The government fell to our father, Mentrida.  The definitors were at variance.  Our father Mentrida had a most severe mandate from our most reverend father [general] that acted against him, namely, that the provincial who did not visit the province of Bisayas, at least once during his term was ipso facto deprived of the rights of voting and election, and the religious were ordered to obey him no longer.  Our father Mentrida had not made that visit, giving as a pretext his ill-health.  The religious argued from this that, according to that mandate, he could not govern.  To his reply that his illness was the cause of his not obeying the order, and that if God granted him health he would go, they answered that that illness, which was asthma, was always in evidence.  His adherents wished him to have the command a second time, but the others would not consent to it.  Finally the governor, Don Juan Nino de Tabora, had to intervene.  Thanks to him, the matter was adjusted, so that our father Mentrida resigned the government, which was assumed by father Fray Francisco Bonifacio, the most pacific creature that has been in Filipinas.  He has never been known directe or indirecte to have any altercation with any religious.  He has ever been unwilling to cause trouble to any one, and therefore has avoided giving it, and I believe he caused trouble to no one during his term.  The Lord cooeperated with this holy intention, giving him a triennium of great quiet.  We might say of him what Solomon said of himself:  nunc autem requiem dedit Dominus Deus meus mihi per circuitum:  et non est satan, neque occursus malus. [66]

[Here follows the relation of the awful calamities that befell certain persons, both Spaniards and natives, in consequence of their neglect and scorn of the Holy Child.  The narration is continued:]