THE PI.ANT WORI.D 125 



a hail of stones from their slings and of lances pointed with barbs of 

 bone. It was like a passage from the Odyssey. 



Then, in contrast with this, I read of the subsequent kindness of the 

 natives to ship-wrecked sailors ; of the reception of Sanvitores, a Jesuit 

 priest who came to establish a mission among them ; how they vied with 

 each other in offering him the hospitality of their villages ; how they 

 provided the priests with homes and built for them a church ; how all 

 wished to be baptised, though the missionaries could at first only baptise 

 the infants and dying persons, it being necessary that adults in good 

 health should be first instructed in the Christian doctrine. Nothing 

 could be more interesting than the story of Sanvitore's life, the details 

 of which I have gotten from an old vellum-covered book published in 

 Madrid only fifteen years after the arrival of the missionaries at Guam.* 

 In it many miraculous occurrences are related ; but it must not be for- 

 gotten that this was an age of marvels. 



In Scotland, nine years before the arrival of Sanvitores at Guam, the 

 puritans had convicted and burned seventeen persons for the crime of 

 witchcraft ; and it was seventeen years afterwards that Cotton Mather, 

 in our own New England, wrote his " Memorable Providences relating to 

 Witchcraft and Possessions, ' ' a work which was responsible for the shedding 

 of much innocent blood and for most horrible cruelties and persecutions. 

 The Devil's influence in affairs of every-day life was recognized in many 

 countries ; and it is not surprising that it found its way to Guam. It 

 was to the power of the Evil One over the elements that the early mis- 

 sionaries attributed the adverse trade-winds, which blew constantly to the 

 westward, and prevented ships from sailing directl}^ to Guam from the 

 Philippines ; and he did many things to thwart the missionaries in their 

 work of saving souls. 



Diego Luis de Sanvitores was born in the city of Burgos, in northern 

 Spain, November 12, 1627. The history of his life tells of his miraculous 

 vocation to the Company of Jesus ; of his ordination to the priesthood at 

 the age of twenty-four ; his entrance into the college of Alcala ; his work 

 among the poor ; his call to the Indies and the supernatural occurrences 

 in which God manifested his will ; his departure from Cadiz for Mexico ; 

 the work which he accomplished in the city of Mexico ; his departure 

 from Acapulco April 5, 1662, for Manila; the interest and pity inspired 

 in his heart by the sight of the natives of Guam, where the ship touched 

 on her way to the Philippines, and of his desire to return to the Marianne 

 Islands as a missionary ; the refusal of his superiors at Manila to allow 

 him to do so ; the royal decree of the King of Spain ordering the Governor 

 of the Philippines to furnish him with a vessel and the means of reaching 



* Viday Martyrio de el venerable padre Diego Luis de Sanvitores de la Compahia de Jesus, primer 

 apostol de las islas Marianas, etc., por el padre Francisco Garcia, de la misma Compania de Jesus. 

 Madrid, 1583. 



