Page:The Present State of Peru.djvu/436

380 royal university having presented a petition to that effect, he was called to the first chair of theology, which he occupied on the death of his master, father Avila, in 1601. On that occasion he afforded a remarkable instance of the retentiveness of his memory, which was so good, that what he had once read, remained deeply imprinted, insomuch that he never forgot it, or changed the smallest of the words. Being seated in the professor’s chair, in the presence of the viceroy, of the members of the royal audience, of the nobility, chapter, doctors, &c. he requested the rector to order one of the secretaries to open at random the book of the theology of St. Thomas, and name to him the question and article which should thus fortuitously present themselves. This having been done, he repeated the article literally, and commented on it for an hour, to the admiration of all present.

He continued to teach theology in the royal university of St. Mark, for the space of twenty-five years without any interruption. His studies and application were unwearied and unremitting: he employed daily from ten to twelve hours in reading and meditation. There was not a subject, however complicated and obscure, which he could not comprehend without the necessity of a re-perusal. To his eminent wisdom he united the exercise of the christian virtues, and possessed in an extraordinary degree, humility, purity, a contempt of all sublunary enjoyments, and patience. The latter enabled him to support the excruciating pains under which he laboured for upwards of fifteen years, in consequence of a fall from the top of a staircase, in fleeing from the devastations of the dreadful earthquake which occurred at Lima in the month of October 1609. He expired without a groan, on the 20th of January, 1626, in