The natives who are baptized receive the faith with avidity and are excellent Christians; and they will be even better, if aided with good examples, as is incumbent upon those who have been Christians for so long.

But the actions of some of them make them so hated by the natives that the latter do not wish even to see their pictures.
_A remarkable thing._ For proof of this assertion, and in order to induce those in authority to remedy this condition of affairs, I will relate here a strange but well authenticated occurrence in these islands, and a thing thoroughly well known in them all.

In this particular island one of the chief inhabitants died a few days after his baptism.

At his death he was very contrite for the sins that he had committed against God before and after his baptism.

Afterward he appeared, by divine permission, to many persons of that island, whom he persuaded by forcible reasoning to receive baptism immediately, declaring to them, as one who had experienced it, the reward of celestial bliss, which, without any doubt, would be granted through baptism, and by living thereafter in conformity to the commandments of Christ.