The state of affairs in Japon; and the martyrdom of father Fray Luis,
Fray Mincio de la Cruz, Fray Pedro de Sancta Maria, and some other
persons of the tertiary order of St. Dominic.
[Besides father Fray Luis, father Fray Francisco de Sancta Maria,
and brother Fray Bartholome Laurel, [43] his companion in the Order
of St. Francis, were captured, together with their landlords and
others in their house. The bitterness of the persecution increased,
and the ministers of the gospels went out into the fields, ascended
the mountains, and hid themselves in the caves of the earth. Father
Fray Lucas del Espiritu Sancto had no food for forty days except some
boiled roots. The Christians were forbidden to assemble, and were
brought in scores before the ministers of Satan, to recant or suffer
martyrdom. The number of the holy martyrs cannot be counted. The poor
were driven out from their houses, and were compelled to suffer the
rigors of winter, from which many of them died. The persecution came to
be so severe that this year of 1627 was adorned with martyrs. On the
sixteenth or seventeenth of August, eighteen Christians of all ages
and conditions received the palm of martyrdom, among them father Fray
Francisco de Sancta Maria. Among those executed were some children of
three and five years of age. Details are given of the martyrdoms of a
number of Japanese, with the horrible tortures which were inflicted
upon them. Father Fray Luis gave the habit to some of the Japanese
who were confined with him; and on July 29, 1627, the father and the
nine professed, and three poor women who rejoiced that the time had
come when they were to be freed from their leprosy, were executed by
burning at the stake.]