§ I

Abridged relation of the persecutions of our holy faith in Philipinas, from the year 1640 to the year under consideration, 1668, and which are not mentioned in the preceding volumes.

307. He who would like to know what manner of province is ours in Philipinas and its height of love to God and its neighbor, which that Lord has given to it, who is so well able to inculcate charity, must not be governed only by the immense zeal of its individuals in alluring souls into the sheepfold of the Church but as well by the continual persecutions which they have suffered in order that they might maintain that field of Christendom in the purity of the faith, despising their lives at each step in order to preserve it. The lack of fear of death, by which those valiant soldiers of the God of armies have sustained the field of battle against all the power of the gates of hell, is doubtless one of the greatest of miracles which divine Providence has hung in its temple in this world, to the no small glory of these provinces of EspaÑa, that have become such marvels of charity through so good milk, that they consider and have considered it an honor to suffer and even to die, in order to defend that harassed church. Many events in confirmation of this truth are drawn With most accurate brush in the preceding volumes of this history. By them one may see that our brothers have left us examples worthy of imitation by incessantly placing in practice the highest perfection of exposing their lives to death for the assistance and consolation of certain poor Indians, that they might encourage them in the continual invasions of the Moros. But notwithstanding the great skill that accompanied the painters of so idealistic canvasses, I find in a lower degree not a few pictures worthy of immortality, for without doubt the colors of the notices were lacking, which are so indispensable to form the pictures in the painting of history. I having obtained trustworthy relations of the many misfortunes that assaulted our fields of Christendom and their directors from the year 1640 until the present of 1668, which is under consideration, it would not be laudable to leave such trophies buried in forgetfulness, although the copy, which would have been most accurate if done by the brushes of the other writers, be disfigured.

308. To continue; Don Sebastian Hurtado de CorcuÈra, governor of Philipinas, thought that by building and garrisoning some strongholds in TolÒ [i.e., JolÓ], an island which is given over to the perfidy of Mahomet and is the nesting place of the robbers of the whole archipelago, he could restrain its inhabitants by preventing them from going to our villages with their fleets as they had done until that time, with the sequel of innumerable depredations. He put that idea into practice in the year 1638, after the conclusion of the war with the koran, in the beginning of which when the sword was drawn the scabbard was thrown away. But neither his valor nor that diligence were sufficient for the attainment of his end. For in the year 1640, now by the Joloans themselves, and now by means of the Borneans their allies, and now by making use of their vassals who inhabited the adjacent islands, they tried to find in sea surprises some betterment of their fortune or some havoc by which to temper it. With that object they attacked missions belonging to our reformed order both boldly and treacherously in the districts of CalamiÀnes, ButuÀn, and Cagayang; and it is a fact that we always had the worst of it in those wars. They committed depredations very much to their liking, with the boldness that their greed gave them and with the severity which their hatred to the evangelical law inspired in them. The captives who were taken in our villages on that occasion numbered three hundred and more. The churches were ruined, the holy images profaned, the evangelical ministers became fugitives in the mountains, the sheep were scattered as their shepherds could not attend to them with their watchful eye, the villages were reduced to ashes, and all of those fields of Christendom became the necessary object of the most bitter lamentation.

309. They did almost the same thing in the three following years, and there was no means of taking worthy satisfaction from enemies so inhuman who, like wild and hellish beasts, destroyed a great portion of the rich patrimony of Christ which had flourished in that country under the care of our discalced order. The devastation was so general that it appears to have been presaged by heaven with very extraordinary portents. For on the fourth day of January, 1640, a volcano suddenly burst forth in the island of Sanguiz, not far from the cape of San Agustin in the island of Mindanao, which showed very rare and unusual results. For the ashes, rocks, and burning material which it cast up traveled for many leguas as far as ZebÙ. Noises like artillery were heard, which caused the Spanish garrisons to get under arms, and the day grew dark from ten in the morning, so that it seemed pitch black night. The same thing happened in another volcano in an islet opposite the bar of the river of JolÒ. There was a furious hurricane in the island of LuzÒn up toward the province of IlÒcos in the part where the IgolÒtes live. That hurricane was followed by the most frightful earthquake, and the earth swallowed up three inaccessible mountains with as many settlements which were located at the foot of the mountains, and in the space left a large lake was formed. Such was the noise at the dislocation of the huge mass of those mountains, that it was heard not only in all the Philipinas Islands and in MalÙco but also in the kingdoms of Cochinchina, China, and CambÒja, throughout a circumference of more than nine hundred leguas. So great was the persecution that it was believed to have been announced by the so great heaping together of surprises and misfortunes.9

310. But the time when the Moros gave full rein to their barbaric fury, was from the beginning of the year 1645, for then they were freed from the terror that had been caused them by CorcuÈra who had just been succeeded in the government of the islands by the master-of-camp Don Diego Fajardo. The arrival also of two ships well manned with Dutchmen at JolÒ and which had been asked for by Prince SalicÀla, the heir to the scepter, for the purpose of destroying the strongholds which the Spaniards held in the said island, gave them at that time a motive for employing greater power in their piracies. Although the commandant of those strongholds, Don Estevan de Orella Hugalde, caused the enemy to return to their factories badly the losers, and without having obtained the end of their attempt, the Joloans were able, through their protection, to launch three squadrons which filled our villages with fear and confusion. It is no new thing in that continent for the heretics to lend arms to the pagans and to the Mahometans in order to put down the Christian name. A savage end it is to pit themselves for the private ends of trade and in a religious war, on the side of the koran and of idolatry, which they themselves condemn, against the gospel, which they persecute with fury. The three fleets went out then, for their campaign, and not having anyone to oppose them, the enemy filled their boats with what they called spoils, took about two hundred captives, persecuted our religious as ever, with mortal hate, and destroyed fifteen villages, almost all of them of our spiritual administration, and they filled CalamiÀnes especially with bitterness and grief.

311. The Dutch were not content with protecting the Moros, in order that they might persecute the name of Christ, but they themselves tried to drive that name from all that archipelago. Among all the disunited members of the Spanish monarchy, which the Dutch have endeavored to cut off from it, (in order that their power might wax more formidable at the expense of another) they have ever cast their eyes on the honorable and wealthy dominion of the Philipinas Islands. That country is such for their designs and trade, that better could not be desired: both because from there they were assured of all the trade of China, JapÒn, Cochinchina, CambÒja, and the MalÙcas; and because they were guaranteed the best woods for the building of their ships that can be found on the whole round earth. For that reason, the Dutch have left no stone unturned in all times if it pertained to the maxim of their desire, as can be deduced from several passages which are to be found in the previous decades and are necessary for the intelligence of the history that is treated in them.10 The year, then, of 1646, they were seen with fifteen warships. With five of them they besieged the district of PlayahÒnda, while seven of them were stationed in the Embocadero or strait of San Bernardino, and the remaining three filled the islands of the Pintados with fear. Our villages of MasÌnloc, Iba, MarivÈlez, RomblÒn, BantÒn, and SurigÀo, suffered more harm and vexation than usual, of which the greater part touched the religious ministers.

312. Two galleons left CavÌte and fought first with five ships and twice afterwards with seven, and obtained three victories which were clearly miraculous. For they destroyed the enemy, without receiving any special damage, and the enemy were compelled to abandon their attempts for the nonce. Although father Fray Balthassar de Santa Cruz attributes all of the prodigy to Our Lady of the Rosary with sufficient foundation,11 we, while confessing the might of so holy a warrior, must suggest that St. Nicholas of Tolentino had no small part in it, whom the soldiers, persuaded by two Recollects, as is mentioned in volume 3 of this history, who served as chaplains in our small fleet, also invoked as the sworn patron of those seas.12 But under shelter of the Dutch enemy, who continued their attempts with no more success the two following years, the Moros, always emboldened, transgressed all bounds, attacking ceaselessly the villages of the Spanish dominion. For, although CorralÀt, king of MindanÀo, kept quiet during so dangerous a season for reasons of his own convenience, and had even acted as mediator so that Butria BÒngso, king of JolÒ should make peace with our arms, which was done April 14, 1646, none of all that was sufficient to give quiet to that field of Christendom. Mahometan perfidy took the pretext that the Joloan Prince SalicÀla and PaguyÀn Cachile, prince of the Guinbanos,13 and seignior of Tuptup in BornÈy, should refuse to sign the peace. With that excuse those princes, aided in secret by those kings, peopled the sea with boats and caused unspeakable damage to CalamiÀnes, CamiguÌn, and RomblÒn.

313. That was not the only fatal consequence that followed from those inhuman premises which were set by the Dutch. For if we had thitherto seen the aliens fighting against the faith, from the year 1649 the very sons of the Church worked for its destruction. The Dutch incited the Indians, already Christian and subject, to withdraw themselves from the mild yoke of Spain, the country which had drawn them from the darkness of paganism, and kept them on the road to salvation. Nor were they deaf to the voices filled with the fraud most difficult to recognize, for since they carried the agreeable sound of liberty, they secretly induced them to undergo the most tyrannical subjection; and God permitting by His secret judgments excessive flights to audacity and shamelessness for the credit of the virtuous and the crown of the just; the most cowardly of nations were seen with surprise and the nakedness of the Indians was armed against the invincible sword of the Spaniards. The insurrection began in the village of PalapÀg in the province of HibabÀo in the island of SÀmar, whence the good outcome of the first action traveling on the wings of unsteady report, found minds so ready throughout the islands of PintÀdos, that (just as if the counsel were common, and they were only awaiting the signal in order to do it), the temples were burned in many places, and sacred things profaned. The evangelical ministers fled, and the rebels retiring to the loftiest mountains, imagined that they could defend their former barbarity there.

314. Our reformed order had enough things to bewail in those revolutions; for in addition to the tragedies of Linao, which are related in volume 3,14 the villages of CagayÀng, Camiguin, HingÒog, RomblÒn, BantÒn, and CibuyÀn added wood to the fire of the sedition. If the promised help of the Dutch had come over and above the boldness of the Indians, it is inferred that what had taken so many years to conquer would have been lost in a few days. But God who always punishes as a father those who try to serve Him, measured the times so accurately, that amid the echoes of the insurrection, the proclamations of the peace which had been arranged between EspaÑa and Olanda resounded in Manila. With that the Catholic arms were freed from their chastisement, and all things returned to their pristine quiet. That was not the case with the Moros, who were then and for many years after, the perennial enemies of that afflicted field of Christianity. Barbarously blinded in their treacherous gains as if it were a thing done, they made a practice of going every year to take captives in the islands of our administration, often outraging the temples sacrilegiously and not a single one that was near the beach escaped profanation and they utterly abused everything intended for religious worship, with great scorn to the name of Christian. They cut the sacred vestments, into robes and other garments [capisayos], and they destined the ciboriums and sacred chalices to the dirty use of their wine, tobacco, and buyo.

315. But it did not so happen, I return to say. For notwithstanding that they were a terror every year from that of 1649 to 1655 because of their piracies, now in some and now in other parts, they remained without the due punishment although so sacrilegious insults demanded it so justifiably. Without fear of our arms, they overran those seas at will, trusting their security to their swiftness; for their boats were built on purpose for piracy, and ours compared to theirs of lead. It happened not once only that they were taken because of carelessness between the bars of the rivers with forces sufficient to make one consider their destruction sure; but they got out laughing on one side or the other, amid the discharge of their artillery. And the forces of Manila, ZebÙ, ZamboÀngan, and CarhÀga, which were not despicable squadrons, served no other purpose than to scare off the evil, so that the persecution might be enormously expanded. They carried their insolence so far that two small vessels with but small crews, dashed into the bay of Manila one of the above years, and almost in sight of that capital, seized a caracoa from Iloilo with the rich cargo aboard it. Then they went out haughtily, and no one could take their prize from them, or punish their arrogance. In view of this one may infer how harassed were the distant villages, and how filled with tribulations were our religious ministers, who ever occupied the most advanced and dangerous posts.

316. It even transcended the tragic representation of so doleful misfortunes, when in the year 1655 CorralÀt, king of MindanÀo, proclaimed war against the Christian name. He began his treachery by the inhuman murders of two fathers of the Society whom their rank as ambassadors, which is so greatly respected by the law of nations, did not aid. That prince was in Philipinas what Gustavus Adolphus, king of Suecia, was in Alemania, namely, the thunderbolt of Lucifer, the scourge of Catholicism, and the Attila of the evangelical ministers, who never practiced courtesy toward them except when force or some reason of state compelled him so to do. For his private convenience he had pretended that he was peaceful in public during the preceding years. But now with no other reason than his fury, he gave license to his vassals to infest the Christian villages; and they did it like a river which overflows its bed, after having rid itself of the embarrassment of its dikes. He was not content with that, but in order to give greater flights to his impiety, he excused it among the neighboring Moros under the name of a religious war; and under that title he invited to it the Borneans, Tidorans, and Joloans, so that confederated with him into one body they might unfurl the banners of the perfidious Mahomet, without stopping until they utterly destroyed the law of grace.

317. He incited so great an uprising against that straitened field of Christendom that, although the previous persecutions that the Moros had practiced against it were so inhuman, (as may be seen in the places of this history cited in the margin)15 they were all assuredly less intolerable than those which were now incited; for now fury and barbarity were carried to the extreme. That was so fierce that disinterested pens did not hesitate to compare it with the last of antichrist; so persevering, that until the year 1668, of which this history is treating, and the year when the relations which we follow end, there was not a single instant of rest; so shameless that ruin was seen almost at the very gates of Manila; and so universal that but few villages of our administration escaped being the theater of war and the lamentable object of its misfortunes. This is a brief compendium of the tragic events which happened in the Philippine church, which was surrounded on all sides by the waters of contradiction, as is the territory of those islands by the salt waves of the sea. This is a sketch of the cold winds, which, notwithstanding the heat of its climate, parched in great part the wavy exuberance of that leafy garden, so abounding in the flowers of Christianity and the mature fruits of virtue. Let us now consider with the most possible brevity, a concise sketch of the glory which was obtained by our discalced order in return for the hardships which overwhelmed its evangelical workers at so calamitous a time. We warn the reader that we shall follow no other chronological order than chance offers.

§ II

Of the hardships of our religious during these persecutions. The venerable father, Fray Antonio de San Agustin, dies at the hands of the Moros, in glorious martyrdom.

318. In the above-mentioned pillaging,16 which God permitted for so many years, the Moros were triumphant, the Catholic arms rebuffed, the Christian villages without other defense than that of heaven, and the Indians drowned in the sea of tribulations. Moreover, as the sword of the persecutor, also that of greed and vengeance, was moved by the hatred of our holy faith, the direction of its greatest force was toward the sowers of the gospel. Daily did religious who had been driven from their ministries and missions bring to Manila news of entire villages ruined, the outcries of priests who had been captured, and letters which announced the death of others. All was confusion, all lamentation, all chaos, where the enemies of God were trying to elevate their throne in the darkness upon so bloody and confused injustice. It has already been seen that our Recollects had to suffer greatly, since they occupy the vanguard of the army of God in CarhÀga and Calamianes; but that was irremediable in so disastrous a storm. The ship was seen to be buffeted hither and yon by the waves; and it was impossible that the sailors should not suffer from the buffeting. The winds were both violent and hostile; the ship could not but be dashed from one side to another. The hurricane was both furious and fierce; necessarily the pilots had to suffer greatly.

319. Our provincials called out for relief, exciting pity by the relation of their churches which had been burned and profaned; of their sheep that had been scattered, and many of them lost; and by their subjects who had been killed or captured, or at the least obliged to hide in the mountains, where deprived of all necessity, they suffered indescribable misery, traveling in the inconveniences and darkness of the night in order to fulfil their obligation as missionaries. But Manila is, as a rule, the place where least attention is paid to the wretchedness of the poor Indians and to the misfortunes of the gospel workers; for, since the citizens are busied in their Asiatic and American trade, the only thing that troubles them is any opposition to their profits. Very few are the Spaniards who risk themselves in small boats to seek profit from island to island; and consequently, they hear of misfortunes, which ought to cause the greatest horror, quietly and without any special disturbance. The passages from some islands to others being occupied and even embarrassed by Moro craft, the latter cause those who sail thither innumerable ruin; but many of the inhabitants of Manila have very little or, perhaps, no feeling. If news arrives that a religious has been killed or captured, some insolent tongue is not wanting to break out with the ballad as infamous as ancient, that the king brings us for this, namely, to suffer and die in defense of the law of God; as if it were compatible with the royal piety to abandon the defenseless ministers of Christ, however much they may expose themselves with heroic mind to endure a thousand martyrdoms. Nothing in short, matters to those people, if it do not touch their persons or interests: neither the misfortunes nor the violent deaths of their neighbors, nor the outrages of his Majesty’s vassals, nor the losses of his royal treasury in the tributes which are lessened by such confusions, because the Indians are lost by the thousand.

320. Although the captain-general tries, as a good minister, to attend to such wrongs, it is quite common that he is unable to do all that he tries; now because of the depletion of the royal treasury, whose funds do not suffice to meet the calls upon it; and now since he must proceed with the advice of the council of war in which those have many votes who understand only what pertains to the exercise of merchants, although they sign their names with military titles. If the vessels in which they are interested are in danger, all difficulties are conquered, for there is no one who does not hasten with vote and money to fit out fleets to oppose the enemy. But if not then each proposition is a labyrinth, whence he who makes it cannot unravel himself, although Ariadne gives him a thread to guide him. Hence it follows, either that squadrons are not prepared of size sufficient to warn the aggressors, or if they are prepared, they set sail when it would be better for them not to, for they only occasion the vassals new trouble. Let no one imagine that the matter of these two numbers includes imagination or lack of truth. This is proved by authentic documents in what touches the past; while so far as the present century is concerned (during which the same persecutions have been repeatedly shown), experience has given me knowledge of such injuries, when I, as procurator-general and secretary of the province of Philipinas, found that I had to solicit relief for the persecuted Indians and for the afflicted religious. It is also certain that the same thing happened in almost all the wars of which we are speaking, so that our oppressed missionaries had no other consolation than that of God, in the pains that it was indispensable for them to suffer, and which we shall now begin to relate.

321. We have already mentioned in various parts of this history, that when our Recollects arrived at the Philipinas Islands, in order to illumine them with the splendors of the faith, and to fight like well-ordained astral bodies against the sissara of the abyss, they chose with apostolic strength the most difficult districts, the islands of the most barbaric people, and the places where, if the light of the gospel had shone, it had allowed itself to be seen only in fitful gleams. Hence it is that our ministers are the most exposed to peril and danger among all those of the archipelago; for they are very distant, not only from Manila, but also among themselves from one another, and surrounded by enemies to the Christian name. Each district consists of many villages and even of distinct islands. Since all of them have a right to the bread of the doctrine, which is the only food for souls, the religious, in order to attend to that obligation, has to be in continual movement. He must travel by sea threatened by so many dangers to his life, among frights and chance; and he who considers it of value to endure them and despise them, can only form a just opinion of them. They do this without other profit than the spiritual, enduring to the uttermost penury, and the lack of necessities, in order to teach and instruct certain poor peoples whom they are alluring from the most wild barbarism in order to get them to live like men in a civilized Christian society.

321. Let one add to all the above bodily hardships the lack of one to employ himself in so great charity, to whatever serves in this life as a consolation to the spirit. For there our religious is properly a hermit, although he may live among many people. Now, it is because he is deprived of the company of his brothers, for he is almost always alone in villages that are too large, and the nearest minister is fifteen or twenty leguas away and separated by rough seas, or inaccessible mountains, which render it impossible most of the year for them to have the comfort of seeing one another, or even to have communication with one another by means of letters, in order that they might console one another in their mutual troubles. Now, it is because the Indians make them no company for the blessings that human association brings with it, but serve only for an insupportable martyrdom; for, in addition to the fatigues incumbent on them as missionaries, they must attend to all their quarrels, grudges, necessities, and troubles. For these reasons and others that cannot be expressed at present, the governor of Philipinas, Don Fausto CruzÀt y GÒngora, when addressing the king in a report, did not hesitate to affirm that the discalced Augustinians, even in times of peace, and after the subjection of the villages of their administration, suffer the same hardships as do missionaries in the lands of the infidels. His Excellency, the bishop of ZebÙ, Don Manuel Antonio de Ocio y Ocampo, was wont to say, as I have heard from his own mouth, and not only once, that if he had authority for it he would not hesitate to canonize any Recollect, who happens to lose his life among the fatigues of his calling, while completely fulfilling his obligation in the missions of those islands, as is the case with many.

323. And if this is endured in only the hardships annexed to the spiritual administration, what must it not be when the destructive tempests of the persecutions of the Moros, the greatest part of which assail our laborers, happen to come? Then there is no other relief than to flee to the mountains in order to live in passes and caves, seeking their preservation, not so much for their self-love, but because of that for others. There, through lack of food, too much heat, continual rains, and many other discomforts, they are generally so disfigured and so weak that rivaling Job, they only live because of a skin loosely stretched over their bones. How many contract incurable diseases there, who dragging along all their life with them prove themselves to be stages of the greatest pity! How many by trampling under foot evident dangers, in hastening to the consolation of their sheep, to confess the sick, to aid the dying, either gave themselves into the hands of the enemy to be the victims of their cruelty, or offered themselves a willing sacrifice to the precipices of the mountains and to the shipwrecks of the seas! How many, since the world is unworthy of their noble and Christian intercourse, and, it seems, tried to cast from itself, wander for months at a time, naked, an hungered, persecuted, followed on all sides by the shadow of death, without other consolation than that of God, in whose hands they desire to finish their lives, delivering to Him their wearied souls! And how many, finally, obtained the precious crown of martyrdom, after having coursed the sands of so many hardships, which were ended either by the edge of the sword, or by a spear-thrust, or at the spindle of hardships, or at grief at seeing holy things so outraged, or by the inundations of penalties in atrocious captivities! Mention has been made of many in the preceding volumes, but some who will serve to ornament this volume were omitted.

[In the remainder of this section are contained accounts of several who suffered the martyrdoms above mentioned in their war of the faith, and all of whom are mentioned by CombÉs in his Historia de Mindanao, who is cited at length by our author.17 The first martyr (see CombÉs, book vi, chapter xiv) is not even named by CombÉs, nor can Assis give anything more definite of him. He was captured by the Moro pirates (presumably in 1645) and taken to their home. Induced by desire for a good ransom, his captors took the father to the JolÓ fort, but no agreement could be reached. Father Juan Contreras, then chaplain of the fort, tried to aid him in effecting his escape, but in vain. The captive was thereafter treated so harshly that he became ill, and in spite of a pitiable letter, which aroused great sympathy for him in the Spanish Joloan fort, and spurred on the soldiers to beg that he be ransomed at their expense, he remained in captivity until Alejandro Lopez of the Society went to JolÓ from Zamboanga and ransomed him for 300 pesos. In 1649 (see CombÉs, book vii, chapter xii; and Santa Theresa, no. 271 ff.), the father prior of Linao in Caraga, Fray Agustin de Santa Maria, was killed by the insurgents; and in the same troubles the father prior of Camiguin, whose name is not given, was captured and maltreated. In 1658, (see CombÉs, book viii, chapter viii), the Moros caused Fray Cristobal de Santa Monica to flee, and killed Fray Antonio de las Missas, or de San Agustin (his religious name). This latter happened while San Agustin was returning from a trip to Cuyo and Calamianes as visitor. San Agustin was born in Manila, his father being Captain Francisco de las Missas, and his mother Fabiana de Villafanne, both Spaniards. He took the Recollect habit July 14, 1612. He served in several important posts, having as early as 1624 been prior of Bolinao and of CebÚ. He was sixty-six years old at the time of his death.]

[The remaining two sections of this chapter continue with the persecutions of the Moros and the deaths of various Recollects. The first, Francisco de San Joseph, was born in Jaca, Aragon, and shortly after professing (June 12, 1632) he went to the Philippines. He was soon sent to the Visayans, where he held several important posts. He suffered greatly from the Moro raids for he was compelled more than once to hide in the mountains from that fierce folk. He was elected provincial in 1653 and during his term was a vigilant worker. At the completion of his term he was sent to the village of Cuyo as associate to the prior. His death occurred in the island of RomblÓn, where he was mortally wounded by the Moros, while endeavoring to repel an attack in the fort built by the famous Padre Capitan. He published an explanation of the catechism in 1654 in Manila, and left numerous manuscript works in both Spanish and Visayan. The father reader, Fray Francisco de San Juan Bautista, was born in Alagon of rich and noble parentage. He professed in the Zaragoza convent, October 8, 1614, and went to the Philippines in 1619. He read philosophy and theology in Manila, and after the completion of a course in the arts was appointed secretary to Fray Onofre de la Madre de Dios. He served as prior of the villages of Marivelez, Cuyo, Bolinao, Calamianes, and Tandag, during his mission work there learning three languages thoroughly. He was essentially a worker and did not care to remain in either Manila or Cavite, but desired the mission fields where danger was thickest. He did not seek office, and it is related of him that he once delayed his return to the chapter meeting because he heard that there was talk of electing him provincial. Though he was twice definitor, he still sought the hardest work, laboring among both infidels and Christians. The Moros were especially vindictive to him and gave him many chances to acquire merit. Finally he fell sick on the desolate island of Paragua, and after reaching Manila through the efforts of some natives who braved the risks of the Moros, he died in that city. Another active worker was Fray Domingo de San NicolÁs, who was born at AlcalÁ de Henares. The place of his profession is unknown, but he is first met in the Philippines. He labored in the provinces of Calamianes and Visayas, performing marvels until his feet having swollen on account of the damp, he was ordered to retire to CebÚ convent. There, however, instead of resting he engaged in the work of the missions, for the laborers were few. He worked in many villages, and finally met his death in consequence of exposure from a shipwreck on the coast of Bohol, whither he had accompanied a vessel hastily fitted out to secure information concerning a recent raid by the Malanao Moros in Cagayan village. Although some of the other occupants of the boat were drowned, the friar with others was saved by the natives of Bohol, and sent back to CebÚ, where he died in a few days. Fray Bernardino de la Concepcion (whose family name was DurÁn) was born in Madrid, and took the habit in the same city, December 8, 1636. He went to the Philippines in 1651 with Fray Jacinto de San Fulgencio. His mission field was principally in the south, and he served in the villages of Bislig, Cagayan, and Caraga. His work and the necessity of opposing the Moro Mahometans so wore upon him that he became unwell, but still he persevered in his labors for lost souls. The treacherous Mindanaos won over his servant one day in Caraga, and poison was administered through the agency of the latter, who also apostatized. The attempt failed, however, but Fray Bernardino was sent to the province of Zambales for a season. There he was of great use in aiding to quell the insurrection. The quiet that ensued after their pacification not proving to the liking of this intrepid warrior of the faith he begged and obtained leave to go again to the province of Caraga. Resuming his former vigils and labors there, he again fell sick and this time died, being at the time prior of Cagayan. He could speak the Visayan, TagÁlog, and Zambal languages. Fray Carlos de Jesus, son of NicolÁs LÉconte, was born of Flemish parents. After various fortunes he went to Madrid, and although a brilliant life was offered him, for he was a scholar and fine mathematician, he took the Recollect habit in the convent of that city, January 2, 1648, being already at middle age. He also accompanied Fray Jacinto de San Fulgencio to the Philippines in 1651. He worked in Calamianes and Caraga, where his military genius as well as his missionary traits shone out. He recalls the famous Padre Capitan by his exploits, for he drilled and led the Indians as well as looked after their souls, and his name became a terror to the Moros. In the village of Busuagan, however, his native followers fled when attacked by the Moros, and Fray Carlos was forced also to take refuge in a swamp filled with brambles and thorns. For five days (the length of time that the victorious Moros stayed in Busuagan) he remained in the swamp up to his middle in water, and wounded by thorns and molested by swarms of mosquitoes. Having retired to Manila because of illness brought on by such events, his recovery found him anxious to return to his mission field. The prudence, however, of the superiors, dictated his remaining in Manila as prior of the convent of that city which was then vacant. With his old-time ardor he threw himself into the work there, but the effort was too great for one in his weakened state and another illness seizing him he passed away. The lay-brother, Fray Francisco de San Fulgencio, the son of Diego de Covarrubias, was born at Simancas. He adopted the life of a soldier, and after serving in Spain went to Nueva EspaÑa in the same capacity. Thence he went to Manila as alfÉrez of one of the companies raised for the islands. A religious life appealing to him he adopted the Recollect habit (December 17, 1620), and shortly after his arrival in Manila, he was sent to Caraga to aid the fathers who were laboring in the missions there. At the time of the insurrection, he was captured in the village of Bacoag, but after four months of almost unendurable captivity, was ransomed. After this he remained several years in Caraga, but was finally recalled to Manila. His life was most active, for he made five trips to Caraga, and three to Calamianes, with despatches or to accompany the fathers going to those posts, and often meeting with Moros on the way, was in continual danger. He was twice wounded and twice shipwrecked. His death occurred in the convent of BagungbagÀn.]

§ I

A great multitude of heathen TagabalÒyes who lived in the mountains near the district of Bislig, is converted in the island of MindanÀo by the preaching of our tireless laborers.

600. [The author draws a parallel between the capture of Jericho by the Hebrews and the evangelization of the Philippines. When God pleases, the walls of idolatry must fall.] This maxim has followed our reformed order in the Philipinas, and has been proved many times. For contending almost continuously with paganism fortified in the mountains contiguous to the districts reduced to their administration, although they were disappointed by not few fatigues, without being able to sing victory, they were at last crowned with triumphs when it appeared fitting to divine Providence. We have seen and shall see several activities that prove this truth. At the present we are offered the feats performed in the mountains of BislÌg.

601. The district of BislÌg, which is the last and most distant from Manila among those possessed there by our reformed order, is located in CarhÀga, in the island of MindanÀo and consists of five villages. These are BislÌg, which is the chief one, HinatÒan, CatÈl, BagÀngan, and CarhÀga. At its beginning the province was named from the last one, as it was then the settlement of the greatest population. Two religious only are generally designated for the spiritual administration of this district, and they have too much work in the exercise of it. For the villages are located at great distances from one another, the people are especially warlike, they are contiguous to the Moros, those irreconcilable enemies, while the sea of those districts on which they have to travel from one village to another, is extremely boisterous, rough, and at times impassable, and on its reef in the dangers already mentioned, several religious have lost their lives, as will be patent further on in this history. But, notwithstanding that the two religious assigned to those villages can scarcely attend fully to the direction of the Christian Indians, and although because of the dearth of religious from which our reformed order almost always suffers in those islands, but rarely could more subjects be employed there, those few following the maxim practiced there of one doing the work of many, they did not cease to solicit ever the conversion of the surrounding heathens, who are very numerous in those mountains.

602. There is especially so great a number of heathen Indians and barbarous nations in certain mountains that extend along the coast, from opposite CarhÀga near BislÌg (a distance of about twenty-five leguas, while it is not known how far they extend inland), that even the Christian Indians do not know them all. The nearest nation to our villages is that of the TagabalÒyes, who are so named from certain mountains which they call BaloÒy. They live amid their briers without submission to the Catholic faith or to the monarchy of EspaÑa. Those Indians are domestic, peaceable, tractable, and always allied with the Christians, whom they imitate in being irreconcilable enemies of the Moros. They are a very corpulent race, well built, of great courage and strength, and they are at the same time of good understanding, and more than half way industrious. That nation is faithful in its treaties, and constant in its promises, as they are descendants, so they pride themselves, of the Japanese, whom they resemble in complexion, countenance, and manners. Their life is quite civilized, and they show no aversion to human society. All those of the same kin, however extensive, generally live in one house, the quarters being separated according to the families. Those houses are built very high, so that there are generally two pike lengths from the ground to the first floor. The whole household make use of only one stairway, which is constructed so cunningly, that when all are inside they remove it from above, and thus they are safe from their enemies. Many of those TagabalÒyes live near the Christians, and those peoples have mutual intercourse, and visit and aid one another. They do not run away from our religious, but on the contrary like to communicate with them, and show them the greatest love and respect. Hence any ministers can live among them as safely as in a Christian village.

603. It is now seen how suitable are all these districts to induce so docile a nation to receive our holy faith. But for all that, very little progress was made in their reduction until the year 1671, and then it was that the care and the continual preaching of Ours obtained it. Besides the will of God, whose resolutions are unsearchable, there were several motives of a natural order, which made the attempts of the evangelical ministers fruitless. The first was the continual wars with the Moros. That fact scarcely permitted the Christians and even the TagabalÒyes to let their weapons out of their hands. With the din of arms the Catholic religion, always inclined to quiet and peace, can generally make but little progress. The second consisted in the little or no aid rendered in this attempt by the alcalde-mayor, the military leaders of CatÈl, and even some chiefs of the subject villages. All of the above were assured of greater profits in their trade and commerce, if those Indians were heathens than if they were Christians; and it is very old in human malice that the first objects of anxiety are the pernicious ideas of greed, and the progress of the faith is disregarded if it opposes their cupidity.

604. But the strongest reason for the failure of the desired fruit was the third. This reason is reduced, as we have already mentioned, to the fact that there were but two religious generally in the said district, and of those no one could be in residence at the villages of CatÈl or CarhÀga, the nearest ones to the said mountains, and they only went thither two or three times per year. Consequently, although they wished never so strongly to labor in the conversion of the heathen Indians, they could not obtain the fruit up to the measures of their desires. It happened almost always that the minister was detained a fortnight at most, in the said villages, the greater part of which was necessarily spent in instructing the Christians. And although, by stealing some hours from sleep, the minister employed some of them in catechizing the heathens, since his stay was so short, he could not give the work the due perfection, and left it in its beginning, as he had to go to the other villages. He charged some Christians to continue in preparing and cultivating those souls so that they might be ready on his return to receive baptism. But human weakness, united to the sloth, which almost as if native to him, accompanies the Indian, was the reason that when the religious returned after an interval of four or six months, instead of finding the work advanced, he found that which he himself had done in it lost. And idolatry always triumphed, notwithstanding that he did not cease to make vigorous war upon it.

605. Thus time rolled on, and the Church obtained very little increase in those mountains, for the three above-mentioned reasons. The order could not conquer the two first, and there was less possibility for the third. For however much the order desired to apply on its part the only means whereby the desired fruit could be obtained, namely, the assignment of a religious to reside in the said places, who should look after the reduction of the TagabalÒyes, without attending to any other thing, it was continually unable to effect that, for in Philipinas the harvest is very great and the laborers few. I have detained myself in the consideration of these obstacles, which threaten the total devastation of the heathendom of Philipinas, and are transcendental to all the holy orders, who are striving to spread the faith in the said islands. For some believe (and more than two have expressed as much to me here in EspaÑa in familiar conversation) that the reason why the heathenism of those countries has not been ended, is because the missionaries do not work with the same spirit as they did at the beginning. But they are surely deceived, for in addition to the many other reasons that may be assigned, the three above-mentioned suffice to render the most laborious efforts vain. The same tenacity, zeal, and courage of the first laborers accompanies those who have succeeded them. Let the obstacles be removed, and one will see that (as has been experienced many times) Belial having been destroyed and cut into pieces, although many render him adoration, the Catholic faith triumphs in the ark of the testament. This happened at the time of which we treat in the mountains of BislÌg.

606. The year, then, of 1671 came, in which that holy province held their chapter and father Fray Juan de San Phelipe, a native of Nueva EspaÑa, who had taken our holy habit in the convent of Manila, was elected provincial. That religious had lived for some years in BislÌg, and had known by experience how necessary it was for a missionary to live in residence near the mountains, where so great infidelity was fortified, in order to establish there the health-bringing dogmas of our Catholic religion. Scarcely was he elected superior prelate, since he had a sufficient number of subjects in order to attend to all parts, when he resolved to place one of them in residence at CatÈl, and to order such an one solemnly that he should from there procure the reduction of those heathens by all means without engaging in other cares, however useful they seemed to him. He also gave very rigorous orders to the father prior of BislÌg to the effect that whenever they could without any omission in the spiritual administration of the other villages, he or his associates should go to reside in the village of CarhÀga, and be there in residence as much as possible, all three religious concurring in that great work and aiding one another mutually for the attainment of so well conceived desires. Finally he arranged matters with so much acumen that if the lack of religious had not rendered it impossible after such ideas had been put into practice, it is probable that they would have subdued all the heathens of those mountains.

607. In August 1671 that project was begun to be put into operation; and although we have not yet been able to get detailed information of the laborers, who were employed in it, on account of which we cannot place their names in this history, we shall have the consolation of knowing that they will not be omitted from the book of life. It is certain that all three religious conspired together in bringing to the delicious net of the Church those misguided souls, and they shirked no toil that might help in their object. They made raid after raid into those mountains; one from CatÈl, one from CarhÀga, and one from BislÌg, penetrating to their highest peaks, and their deepest valleys in all their extent from the promontory of CalatÀn nearly to the cape called San Agustin. All three of them at the same time were careful to assist the Christians in the spiritual administration. They preached, catechized, attracted the people by argument, by art, by prudence. And as some truce occurred in the war with the Moros at that time, and as they obtained at the same time a very Christian alcalde-mayor who aided them and caused all his subordinates to aid them in so holy zeal, so much fruit was obtained that when the father provincial went on his visit in February 1673, he found that they had already baptized more than three hundred adults without reckoning those who had been purified in the waters of grace in sickness and had immediately died. The latter were as many as one hundred counting great and small.

608. Thus did the above-mentioned father provincial, Fray Juan de San Phelipe, write to our father vicar-general under date of July 5, of the same year. And after, on June 26, 1674, he adds that, according to the relations sent to the chapter by the father prior of BislÌg, that district had increased by two hundred tributes. This, according to the reckoning in vogue there, means eight hundred souls. They had all been allured from the mountains and from the horrors of their paganism to become inhabitants of the villages already formed, and to live in civilized intercourse among the pleasant lights of the Christian name. This well premeditated idea has since then been followed as has been possible by the successors of our father, Fray Juan de San Phelipe, whenever the small number of religious has not rendered it impossible. For in some chapters of that holy province, repeated determinations are seen to place a minister in residence at CatÈl, so that he may exercise the means conducive to that end. Hence it is that father Fray Juan Francisco de San Antonio has inserted the following narrative in his seraphic chronicle. He says: “Some of the TagabalÒyes are living now in old villages who have become Christians, and others are being reduced by the zeal and cultivation of the discalced Augustinian fathers, who hold them as inhabitants of BislÌg.”21 And it is confirmed that although the district of BislÌg was formerly one of the smallest in the number of its parishioners, it is now one of the largest in MindanÀo, and there is no other reason for its increase.

[The two following sections of this chapter detail several miraculous happenings that aided not a little in the conversion of the region inhabited by the TagabalÒyes. In 1662 when the Spaniards abandoned the island of Ternate, because of the Chinese pirate Kuesing, one of the religious images taken away with them was of the Virgin. That image was given by the governor of Ternate to the alcalde-mayor of Caraga, who in turn gave it to the garrison of CatÈl. From its position there it was known as “La Virgen de la Costa” or, the Virgin of the hill, “for costa in the language of the country, is the same as castillo [i.e., redoubt].” The influence of this image was far reaching and it distributed many blessings and favors to its devotees in times of drought, in plagues of locusts, and during epidemics, and performed other miracles that gave it lasting fame. Another image of the Christ crucified was revered in a village near BislÌg, and was later given a place in the Recollect church at Manila. It was a small ordinary image such as was used on the altar during mass. As it was very ugly and misshapen the priest determined to bury it, ordering some of the natives to perform that task. But when the hole was dug, and they went to get the image, in its place they found the most beautiful and symmetrical image that they had ever seen, and nailed to the same cross. The transformation was announced to be of divine origin, and this image was accordingly revered as miraculous; and it proved itself to be so in the future. On account of the miracles that occurred in the Caraga district the people became more devout Christians and many abandoned their ancient practices. The remainder of this chapter does not deal with Philippine matters; as do neither of the two following chapters.]

§ I

The evangelical trumpet resounds in various territories of Philipinas, and especially in the ridges of Linao, and in the mountains of CagayÀn, in the island of MindanÀo, by the means of our missionaries; and many heathens are converted to the Christian religion.

714. It has ever been a very common complaint among historians of the order, and all make it, of time the destroyer of all things and of the neglect in leaving advisory news thereof. There is no doubt that for these two reasons the memory of many valiant deeds of excellent religious, who have filled our discalced Recollect order with honors in the Philipinas Islands, who have extended the Catholic faith untiringly at the cost of unspeakable hardships, and destroyed the abominable altars of heathen blindness, have been lost. But never more than at present does that complaint appear justifiable, when we begin to treat of the progress of Christianity in the districts of LinÀo and CagayÀn, villages of the island of MindanÀo, one of the Philipinas. There was the evangelical trumpet heard by dint of members of our reformed order, with memorable fruit.... Let us pass then to mention what we have been able to bring to light from the confused memories which time excused.

715. In the year 1674, father Fray Joseph de la Trinidad, a native of Zaragoza, was elected provincial in Philipinas. That apostolic laborer had always had great zeal for the conversion of souls. Agitated by that sacred fire that burned without consuming his heart which fed it, he worked in his own person, as much as he who did most, so that all the heathens of that distant archipelago should embrace, believe, and reverence the faith of the true God, in whose name only is found salvation. For that purpose he went not only once into the highest peaks of ZambÀles, in order to illumine their darkness with the Catholic light or to lose his life in so heroic an act of charity. He desired with unspeakable anxiety to be given the opportunity to make a sacrifice of his blood by shedding it in so good warfare, in confirmation of the truth which he was preaching. “When shall I have the desirable happiness,” he exclaimed to his pious fellow countryman, San Pedro ArbuÈs, “of being made a good martyr from a bad priest by the merciful God?” That desire we see already had made him leave every fear; and consequently, without any horror of death, notwithstanding that it represented itself to him as to all, full of bitterness, he placed himself in excessive dangers, in order that he might whiten with the water of baptism the souls of the inhabitants of those ridges, so that in their darkened bodies they might obtain the beauty of grace. Thus was his practice throughout his life, not only in the above-mentioned district, but also in other places of the many which are entrusted to us in those vast territories, and if he did not effectively obtain the crown of martyrdom, yet the merited reward will not be lacking to such prowess.

716. He did that when he was not the superior prelate, but afterwards when he became provincial, he flew with his cares to undertakings of almost infinite breadth. He beheld very near the great empire of China, peopled by an incredible multitude of souls, almost all of them seated in the shadows of death, and their acute intellects ignorantly disturbed in the obscure darkness of their errors. The mission so often craved by our reformed order to those countries, was the first object of his zealous heart. He could not be satisfied with trying to send others as evangelical laborers, but he tried with the greatest seriousness to abandon the glory of the provincialate, in order that he might be employed personally in an expedition so much to divine service, and his inability to accomplish it cost him many a bitter sob. He became a sea of tears, when he thought of the distant kingdoms (also almost in sight) of JapÒn, BornÈy, SumÀtra, TunquÌn, Cochinchina, MogÒl, TartÀria, and Persia; for most of those who have their wealth and amenities live but as mortals basely deceived by their brutish worships, in order to die eternally in the more grievous life. To some of those places and especially to JapÒn, he had practical ideas of sending missionaries, and even of going thither in person, and he made the greatest efforts for that purpose. And although he did not obtain the end of his desires, because of the obstructions which the common enemy is wont to place to such works, such eagerness cannot but be praised very highly; and consequently, they will have been rewarded with great degrees of glory, because of what he was trying to communicate to the souls of others.

717. Since, then, he could not accomplish so well conceived love which extended itself to the salvation of the whole world, he set in operation the maxims which his burning charity dictated to him in regard to the extensive limits entrusted by the Lord of the vineyard of the Philipinas for the cultivation of our holy discalced order, with a so visible utility to the Church. In the first place he arranged with admirable prudence that certain missionary religious should incessantly travel through the villages of our administration, like swift angels or like light clouds in order to preach the obligation of their character to the Christian Indians. They were to advise them at the same time to take the sacraments frequently, of the horror of idolatry, of the love of the faith, of obedience to the Church, and to the appreciable submission to the Catholic king from which so many blessings would follow to them, and by which they would be delivered from innumerable evils. For that purpose he assigned two religious of the Visayan language, one of the TagÁlog, and one of the Zambal—all of the spirit that such an occupation demanded. He ordered each one of them to make continual journeys through the large and small settlements of the district of his language, preaching the mission with the same formalities that they are wont to observe in Europa. He also ordered the father priors of the respective districts to give such fathers every aid for that apostolic ministry, both temporal and spiritual, as such was for the service of God and the greater purity of our Catholic faith.

718. The profits and good effects that followed that undertaking happily instituted, and reduced to fact with rare success, cannot be easily explained. Oh would that the lack of religious almost transcendental in all times in that province did not prevent the prosecution and perpetuity of so holy a custom by which unspeakable harvests of spiritual blessings were obtained, although some temporal riches should be spent in it. It is true that the ministers of parish priests of our said order who live continually in the villages, attend to those duties without avoiding any toil. But since they always live among their parishioners, and treat them so near at hand, and since they exercise over them a certain kind of authority, greater than that which the curas in EspaÑa possess, it will not be imprudent to observe (considering human weakness, and the cowardice of the Indians), that some will not go to confess to those said parish priests without great fear, the common enemy infusing them with fears lest the parish priests perhaps will punish them for the sins that they might confess. Let us add to this that there are no other confessors on whom to rely, especially in the districts which are at some distance from Manila. Also it is almost impossible as our ministries are located, for the Indians to go from one village to another for that purpose. For these reasons, I myself have experienced, and I have heard it asserted by many curates that too many sacrilegious confessions are made, for sins are kept hidden out of shame, to the deplorable ruin of souls. All the above impediments cease undeniably so far as the missionaries are concerned. Hence one can infer the great fruit that would be gathered in spiritual matters by means of the profitable idea which was invented by our father Fray Joseph and put in practice in his time with the utmost ardor.

719. Besides that, by causing his subjects to multiply, since not in number, at least in their courage for work, the vigilant superior ordered those who were in the ministries to perform with the utmost effort what they had always done, namely, that they should not be content with directing the souls of the faithful to heaven, but should strive with might and main for the conversion of the heathen. And since the fire of love as regards God, their provincial, and their neighbors, burned with intensity in those gospel laborers, one can not imagine how greatly the activity of that fire, strengthened with the breath of the exhortation of so worthy a prelate, was increased and worked outside. We can assert without any offense to anyone else what has already been suggested in other parts of this history, namely, that our discalced religious in the Philipinas Islands, outstripped all the other religious in the so meritorious quality of suffering hardships.22 The villages most distant from Manila, those that offer less convenience for human life, those with the most ferocious people, and all surrounded by Moros, by heathens, and by other barbarous Indians, in regard to whom any confidence would be irrational, are the ones in our charge. And adding to this that one minister generally has charge of many settlements, which are at times located in distinct islands, one can easily see how many fatigues, sweatings, and how much weariness will be caused by the spiritual administration of those who are enlisted in the Catholic religion. What will all that be then, if they have to attend also to the reduction of so great a number of souls, who live lawless in idolatry in sight of the law of grace! I repeat that our Recollects, equal in their zeal to the other gospel laborers, exceed them there without difficulty in the necessary opportunities for suffering. Moreover, if our brothers have the advantage at all times in this regard of other missionaries, those of the triennium of which we are speaking, excelled themselves, for they labored more than ever in the administration of the faithful and in the conversion of the heathen.

720. But the greatest efforts that the venerable father provincial put forth, and the places where the religious assigned for that work labored with excessive fervor, were in the districts of ButuÀn and CagayÀn, which are located in the island of MindanÀo. There was a heathen Indian called Dato Pistig MatÀnda, who had been living for many years on the banks of the river ButuÀn between the villages of LinÀo and HothÌbon. He was of noble rank, a lord of vassals, and had great power and a not slight understanding, although he was corrupted with an execrable multitude of vices. He, instigated by the devil, had caused all the efforts of the evangelical ministers to return fruitless for many years; for idolatry maintained not only in the castle of his soul, but as well in all the territory of his jurisdiction, the throne which it had usurped, and the continual assaults which were made without cessation against that obstinate heart by the members of our discalced order had no effect. Several religious had endeavored to make him submit to the sweet yoke of the evangelical law, and they availed themselves with holy zeal of all the stratagems which, as incentives, generally attract the human will to reason and open the door to grace in order that it may work marvels. Especially did the holy father Fray MiguÈl de Santo ThomÀs, make use of all the means that he considered fitting to reduce the Indian chief to the true sheepfold as well as those who were strayed from it in his following, during the whole time that he graced that river by his presence. But experience proved that God reserved the triumph solicited on so many occasions for the happy epoch of which we are treating at present, for his own inscrutable reasons. At that time then the divine vocation working powerfully and mildly, and availing itself as instruments of our religious who resided in ButuÀn and in LinÀo, softened that erstwhile bronze heart and he not only received baptism, but also tried by all means to have his vassals do the same. Hence, leaving out of account a great number of children, the adults who were reËngendered in the waters of salvation and became sons of God and heirs of glory, exceeded three hundred.

721. At the same time another father, who had a residence in the village of LinÀo, notably advanced our Christian religion in places thitherto occupied by infidelity. The mountains of that territory are inhabited by a nation of Indians, heathens for the greater part called ManÒbos23—a word signifying in that language, as if we should say here, “robust and very numerous people.” When those Indians are not at war with the Spaniards, they are tractable, docile, and quite reasonable. They have the very good peculiarities of being separated not a little from the brutish life of the other mountain people thereabout; for they have regular villages, where they live in human sociability in a very well ordered civilization. Although the above qualities, as has been seen, are very apropos for receiving the faith, notwithstanding that fact, although some of them are always reduced, they are very few when one considers the untiring solicitude with which our missionaries unceasingly endeavor to procure it. The reasons for so deplorable an effect are the same as we have mentioned in regard to the conversion of the TagabalÒyes Indians. But during the provincialate of our father Fray Joseph de la Trinidad, either because those obstacles ceased, or because divine grace wished to extend its triumphs, the results were wonderful. A very great number of those ManÒbos were admitted into the Church—how many is not specified by the relations which we have been able to investigate, but we only see that they were many; for it is asserted that while the district of ButuÀn, to which LinÀo belonged, consisted before that time of about three thousand reduced souls, its Christianity increased then by about one-third, the believers thus being increased for God and the vassals for the king.

722. In the mountains of CagayÀn, shone also the light of disillusionment, without proving hateful but very agreeable to rational eyes, for it caught them well disposed. The zealous workers of our Institute, shaken with the zeal of the venerable father provincial, devoted themselves to felling that bramble thicket which was filled with buckthorns of idolatry and even with thorns hardened in the perfidious sect of Mahomet. Three religious, who glorified that district, attended to so divine an occupation, stealing for it from the rest of the moments that were left to them from the spiritual administration which was the first object of their duty. They extended their work toward the part of TagalÒan, and even penetrated inland quite near the lake of MalanÀo through all the mountains of their jurisdiction. There like divine Orpheuses they converted brutes into men by the harmonious cithara of the apostolic preaching and those who were living, in the most brutish barbarity to the Christian faith, which is so united to reason. Thus did they reduce more than one hundred tributes to the villages of the Christians. That was a total of five hundred souls who were all drawn from their infidelity or apostasy. That triumph was so much more wonderful as at that time the war of the MalanÀo Moros against the presidio of CagayÀn was more bloody, and it is verified by experience that in all contests, the Catholic faith generally advances but little amid the clash of arms. But their increases, which we have related (as obtained in the triennium of the venerable father, Fray Joseph de la Trinidad, which was concluded in April, 1677) appear from several letters written in Manila by the most excellent religious in June and July of the above-mentioned year, and directed to our father the vicar-general, Fray Francisco de San Joseph, which have been preserved in the archives of Madrid.

[Section ii of this chapter relates a number of miraculous occurrences in the villages of ButuÀn, LinÀo, and CagayÀn, and their districts—miracles which were greater than the recovery of health on receiving baptism, at the reading of the gospels, or after drinking the water left in the chalice after the sacrament, all of which were very common and little regarded. Those miracles had great weight in reducing those people to the Christian faith. For instance the dato above mentioned, Putig (or Pistig) Matanda, was converted after the successful exorcism of demons that had troubled his village. It is related in this section that “for reasons that seemed fitting, the convent and church of ButuÀn were moved to the beach from their previous location; but it was afterward reËstablished there, one legua from the sea upstream.” One of these years also the village of CagayÀn suffered greatly from the scourge of smallpox which was formerly so common in the Philippines. Section iii treats of Spanish affairs. Section iv deals with the life of Fray Melchor de la Madre de Dios who died in the Recollect convent of Talavera de la Reyna, Spain, May 30, 1677. He was born in Nueva Segovia or Cagayan in LuzÓn, his father being Juan Rodrigues de Ladera. While still young his parents removed to Manila where he studied until the age of twenty the subjects of grammar, philosophy, and theology. Although he was apt, he found himself below others not so clever as himself because the pleasures of the world appealed to him too strongly. Consequently, he quit his studies in disgust, and gave himself to trade, “the occupation of which is not considered disgraceful there to people of the highest rank.” But his evil courses still prevailed and during his several trips to Acapulco he succeeded only in wasting his money. Returning to Manila after his final voyage, he gave up some of his worst vices, but still kept a firm grip of the world. He must have taken up his neglected studies again, but almost nothing is known of him until he reached his thirty-third year. It is said by some that he became a priest before joining the Recollect order, but there is a lack of definite knowledge on that score. At any rate he did not abandon his rather loose way of living. In the midst of his vices he had always been greatly devoted to St. Augustine, and his conversion finally occurred on the eve of that saint. Then a vision of the saint who appeared to him caused his conversion and an enthusiasm that never left him. He became a novitiate in the Recollect convent of Manila that same year 1639 and professed in 1640. After preaching with great clearness and force in Manila which had been the scene of his excesses, he was sent as missionary to the Visayan Islands, where he worked faithfully and well. But breaking down in health because of his strenuous life in the snaring of souls, he was compelled to retire to the convent of CebÚ and then to that of Manila. It being impossible for him to accomplish much work longer in the Philippines because of his health, he begged and received permission to go to Spain for the remainder of his life. When he went is uncertain, but it was after 1656, for that year he was in Siargao in the province of Caraga. After his arrival at Madrid he was assigned to the convent of Talavera de la Reyna, where his memory was revered after death for his good works.]

[Chapter viii notes the twelfth general chapter of the Recollect order held at the convent at Toboso. Philippine votes were lacking, due probably to the non-arrival of delegates in time. The remainder of the chapter does not concern the Philippines.]

§ I

Description of the island of MindÒro, and considerations in regard to its spiritual conquest, which was partly obtained before our discalced order assumed its administration.

... 785. MindÒro is located in the center of the islands called Philipinas. It is surrounded by all those islands, and is encircled by them in a close band as the parts of the human body do the heart. It has a triangular shape whose three ends are three capes or promontories, one of which is called BurruncÀn and looks to the south, another looks to the north and is called DumÀli, while the third which looks to the west is called CalavÌte. In regard to its extent, Mindoro comes to be the seventh in size among all the islands of that great archipelago.24 It is about one hundred leguas in circumference. Its climate is very hot, although the continual rains somewhat temper its unendurable heat. In its rains it exceeds all the other nearby islands. However this relief bears the counterpoise of making the island but little favorable to health, because of the bad consequences of the heat accompanied by the humidity. But for all that it is a very fertile land, although unequally so because of its rough mountain ranges, and the thick forests. There are many trees of the yonote,25 and of the buri, from which sago is made, which is used for bread in some places. There are also wax, honey, the fruits of the earth, flesh, abundance of fish, and rice where the people do not neglect through laziness to plant it. That island was formerly called Mainit, but the Spaniards called it MindÒro from a village called MinÒlo which is located between the port of Galeras and the bay of IlÒg.26

786. Its inhabitants had sufficient courage to cause all their neighbors to fear them. Especially at sea were they powerful and daring as was lamented at different times by the islands of PanÀy, LuzÒn, and others, when they were attacked by the fleets of MindÒro which they completely filled with blood and fire. But at the same time they showed a very great simplicity, which was carried to so great an extreme, as is mentioned by father Fray GaspÀr de San Agustin, that when they saw the Europeans with clothes and shoes—a thing unknown among them—they imagined that that adornment was the product of nature and not placed through ingenious modesty.27 That simplicity produced in them the effect of their not applying themselves to the cultivation of the earth, but of contenting themselves with wild fruit and what they could steal as pirates, or better said, robbers. The sequel of that so far as their laziness is concerned, has lasted even to our own times; for as says father Fray Juan Francisco de San Antonio, all who have discussed the matter, agree that they are the laziest people and the most averse to work of all the inhabitants in those islands, notwithstanding that they are corpulent enough.28 However, my experience of the Philipinas obliges me to say that so blamable a peculiarity is only too common to all of them, almost without any distinction of more or less. Neither could that courage of theirs save them from subjection to EspaÑa, and if they earlier considered that subjection unfortunate in the extreme, now they regard it with the light of the faith as their greatest fortune.

787. A beginning in its conquest was made on the MambÙrao side in the year 1570 by Captain Juan de SalcÈdo.29 That conquest was completed so far as the seacoasts are concerned from the cape of BurruncÀn to that of CalavÌte at the beginning of the following year by the adelantado, MiguÈl Lopez de Legazpi. The balance of the island has been subdued gradually by dint of the evangelical laborers with the exception of the mountains which are located in its center. From that time, then, the seacoast Indians of that island have been subject to the mild yoke of the Spanish crown, and have given signs of extreme loyalty. For, although the great Chinese pirate LimaÒn attacked the Philipinas in the year 1574, in order to seize them if possible, there were some signs of insurrection in MindÒro, which was put down very quickly, even before one felt its effects which are generally very painful in popular uprisings. That good fortune was due to the moderation of the natives and to the temperance of Captain Gabriel de Ribera, who knew how to sweeten with very pleasing acts of kindness the bitter crust of justice. For that reason of the Indians being entirely well inclined to the Spaniards, the encomiendas of that great island were very desirable to the primitive conquistadors. In spiritual matters the island belongs to the archbishopric of Manila. In regard to civil matters, it is governed by a corregidor and captain of war, who generally has residence in it and extends his jurisdiction to the neighboring islands of MarindÙque and LucbÀn.

788. Let us now speak of its spiritual conquest, which is the principal object of our consideration. In the year 1543 the Observant religious, the sons of the best beloved Benjamin, our common father, San Agustin (to whom fell the first and greater part of the possession for the conversion of the heathen, so far as that archipelago is concerned) made the Philipinas Islands happy by their presence by commencing to establish their apostolic preaching;30 and later in the year 1565, they settled in order to complete what they had begun. Like stars rain-laden with the evangelical doctrine those most zealous ministers fertilized their Philipinas inheritance with their voluntary showers. So much did they do so, that when the new laborers, the sons of the seraph Francisco arrived at the field, there was scarce an island which had not produced most abundant fruit for the granaries of the Church because of the work of the first sowers; as is shown in several places of his history by father Fray GaspÀr de San Agustin;31 and that lover of truth, father Fray Francisco de San Antonio confesses it, thus honoring as he ought the Augustinian Hiermo [sic]. The island of MindÒro also shared in this good fortune. In its cultivation were employed fathers Fray Francisco de OrtÈga and Fray Diego de MÒxica. They, after having founded the village of BÀco, endured innumerable misfortunes in a painful captivity, hoping for hours for that death, which they anxiously desired in order to beautify their heads with a painful martyrdom. But in order that one might see that although the former worked above their strength, much remained to be done by their successors, I shall cite here the exact words of father Fray Gaspar de San Agustin in his Historia. “The convent,” he says, “that we had in that island [of MindÒro: added by Assis] was in the village of BÀco. Thence the religious went out to minister to the converted natives. The latter were very few and the religious suffered innumerable hardships because of the roughness of the roads and the bad climate of some regions.”32

789. The discalced sons of St. Francis (minors for their humility, but greatest [maximos] by the fires which they could cast from themselves in order to burn up the world) arrived in Manila in the year 1577. Thence like flying clouds, whose centers were filled with very active volcanoes, they were scattered through various parts of the islands. They were received with innumerable applauses of their inhabitants, who regarded them as persons who despised the riches of earth, and thought only of filling the vacant seats of glory. One of the places where their zeal for the salvation of souls was predominant was the land of MindÒro which had been ceded by the calced Augustinian fathers. There, not being content with what had been reduced, they extended the lights of the Catholic faith at the expense of great efforts, in the direction of Pola and CalavÌte. Those who labored most in those places to communicate the infinite blessing to souls were fathers Fray Estevan OrtÌz and Fray Juan de Porras, who were great leaders among the first religious of the seraphic discalced order who went to Philipinas.33 But since the fire is kept up in matter in proportion as it abounds in commensurate inclinations, various fields having been discovered in other parts which were full of combustible dry fuel most fitting to receive the heat of charity, which gives light to the beautiful body of the faith; and seeing that that rational fuel of MindÒro would not allow themselves to be burned for their good, with the quickness that was desired: they thought it advisable to abandon the little for the much, and to go first to IlÒcos and secondly to Camarines where they hoped for more abundant fruits in return for their holy zeal.

790. In the year 1580 the religious of the holy Society of Jesus arrived at the islands. They, in the manner of swift angels ennobling and glorifying those hidden plains, expanded the habitation of Japhet, in order that he might possess the famous tents of Shem. Immediately, or very near the beginning, the superior detached excellent soldiers of that spiritual troop for the island of MindÒro, so that they might with the arms of the preaching destroy the altars dedicated to Belial by giving roots to the healthgiving sign of the cross. They obtained much; for after having penetrated the roughest mountains in search of heathens and Cimarrones they founded the village of NaojÀn, with some other villages annexed to it. They enjoyed that ministry a long time with their accustomed success. The one who excelled in the missions of that island was Father Luis de Sanvictores, whose glorious memory and reputation for sanctity was conserved for many years among those Indians. They, notwithstanding the rudeness of their style, never spoke of him without praise. But that father having retired in order to begin the conquest of the islands of Ladrones (which were afterward called Marianas), where he with glorious martyrdom gave the utmost encouragement, although others followed his attempts in MindÒro with great zeal; the Society finally abandoned that island into the hands of the archbishop.34 We cannot give the exact time of their resolution or the reasons which could move so zealous fathers to it, although we regard it as certain that they did it in order to employ themselves in other places where the evangelical fruit was more plentiful.

791. His Excellency the prelate immediately formed two curacies of the entire island, which he handed over to the secular clergy so that they might aid those souls. Later as the two could not fulfil that, a third cura had to be appointed. They carefully maintained what had been conquered, a territory that included the coasts along the north side extending from Bongabong to CalavÌte. But because there were very few Christians, since it is apparent that they did not exceed four thousand, who were scattered throughout various settlements or collections of huts along a distance of eighty leguas of coast, it was not to be supposed that those missions would produce enough income for three ministers. Consequently, they had necessarily to be aided with other incomes, which were solicited from the royal treasury, and with other pious foundations. Neither was that enough, so that at times it was very difficult to find seculars to take charge of those districts. Those ministries were, it is true, scarce desirable, both because of the smallness of their stipends, because they carried with them unendurable hardships, and because of the unhealthfulness of the territory. But finally, moved, either by charity or by obedience, there was never a lack of zealous seculars who hastened with the bread of the instruction to those Indians. The curacies were consequently maintained there until the year 1679, when our discalced order took charge of the whole island for reasons which we shall now relate.

§ II

Being obliged to abandon the ministries of ZambÀles by force, our province of Philipinas assumes possession of the ministries of MindÒro, and obtains rare fruit with its preaching.

792. In the year 1606, that grain of mustard arrived in ManÌla, and although it was small, it produced the tree of most surpassing magnitude. I speak of our first mission which was composed at its arrival of a small number of religious. By preaching the glory of God and announcing the works of His power, so few men founded the greatness of that holy province among the illuminations of blind heathenism. It cannot be denied that by that time the sound of the word of God had reached all the Philipinas Islands, which had been announced by the illustrious champions who had preceded us in that vast archipelago, to wit, the calced Augustinians, the discalced Franciscans, the Jesuits and the Dominicans. But there cannot be any doubt either that, notwithstanding that all the above orders had worked in the conversion of souls, with the most heroic fervor, some new locations in which they could enter to work were not lacking to Ours. The harvest was great and the laborers few; and since, however much those destined for that cultivation sweated in continual tenacity, they could not go beyond the limited sphere of man, hence it is that the Recollects on reaching that great vineyard at the hour of nine, equaled in merit those who gained their day’s wages from the first hour. And in truth this will appear evident if one considers that even now, after so many years in which the sacerdotal tuba of the apostolic ministry has been incessantly exercised, not a few places are found in the said islands where the individuals of all orders are employed in living missions, and struggle with the most obstinate paganism.

793. The district where Ours first spread the gospel net was in the mountain range called ZambÀles, in the middle part of which extending from MarivÈles to BolinÀo they obtained fish in great numbers, as has been told already in the preceding volumes. Those villages of ZambÀles are located between ministries of the reverend Dominican fathers. For, since the latter held along the great bay of ManÌla on the side called El Partido almost at the foot of Mount BatÀn, several missions contiguous to MarivÈles and on the other side of BolinÀo, the best portion of the alcaldeship of PangasinÀn, they also included in their midst the settlements of the Zambals now reduced to a Christian and civilized life by the missionaries of the Augustinian reformed order. For that reason the Dominicans had desired and even claimed without going beyond the boundaries dictated by courtesy and good relationship that our prelates yield that territory to them, as it was suitable for the communication of the Dominicans among themselves between PangasinÀn and ManÌla and would make their visits less arduous. But since that was a very painful proposition to those who governed our discalced order, namely, the abandonment of certain Indians who were the firstborn of their spirit, and a land watered by the blood of so many martyrs, the claim could never be made effectual, however much it was smoothed over by the name of exchange, our province being offered other ministries, in which was shown clearly the zeal of its individual members.

794. The one who made the greatest efforts in this direction was father Fray Phelipe Pardo, both times that he held the Dominican provincialate in the years 1662 and 1673. Although all of his efforts were then frustrated, he obtained great headway by them to obtain his purposes later. For May 30, 1676, his Majesty presented him for the office of archbishop of ManÌla. Thereupon he formed the notion that the new marks of the ecclesiastical dignity would be sufficient to add authority to argument. For, because of the respect to his person, surely worthy of the greatest promotion, we did not dare to condemn his attempt as unjust; and more even, when he obtained it, making amends to our reformed order for the wrong we received by a recompense which was fully justifiable in his eyes. A chance offered him a suitable occasion for his project in the following manner. Don Diego de Villatoro represented to the Council of the Indias that the island of MindÒro was filled with innumerable heathens all sunk in the darkness of their paganism; and that if its conquest were entrusted to any order, it would be very easy to illumine its inhabitants with the light of the faith. Therefore a royal decree was despatched, under date of Madrid, June 18, 1677, ordering the governor of the islands, together with the archbishop, to entrust the reduction of MindÒro to the order which appeared best fitted for it, before all things settling the curas who resided there in prebends or chaplaincies. That decree was presented to the royal Audiencia of ManÌla by Sargento-mayor Don Sebastian de Villarreal, October 31, 78, and since his Majesty’s fiscal had nothing to oppose, it was obeyed without delay, and it was sent for fulfilment to the said archbishop, December 14 of the same year. On that account, his Excellency formed the idea of taking ZambÀles from us in order to augment his order and give the island of MindÒro to our discalced order.

795. He began, then, to discuss the matter without the loss of any time, and he did not stop until his designs were obtained, notwithstanding that he had to conquer innumerable difficulties. For, in the first place, our provincial, then father Fray Joseph de San NicolÀs, opposed it very strongly. The latter alleged that it would be a violation of the municipal constitutions of the Recollects to abandon the ministries of ZambÀles, for the constitutions expressly stated that none of the convents once possessed should be abandoned except under certain conditions, which were not present in the case under consideration. Besides that the Indian natives of MindÒro, both Christians and infidels, scarcely knew that there was a question of giving them minister religious and begged Jesuit fathers with great instance, for they preserved yet the affection that they had conceived for them, since the time that the latter had procured for them with their preaching at the cost of many dangers their greatest welfare, omitting no means that could conduce to their withdrawal from the darkness of their paganism. And when the Zambals heard that the Recollect fathers were to be taken from their villages, in order to surrender them to the Dominicans, they declared almost in violent uproar that they would not allow such a change under any consideration, for they were unable to tolerate, because of the love which they professed for their spiritual ministers, to be forever deprived of their company, by which they had obtained so great progress in the Catholic faith.

796. But the archbishop found means in the hidden recesses of his prudence by which to conquer such obstacles. For in unison with Don Juan de Vargas Hurtado, governor and captain-general of the islands, he softened the provincial, Fray Joseph de San NicolÀs, and obliged him to agree to the exchange. He quieted the natives of MindÒro by means of their corregidor, so that they might receive the ministers of our discalced order, and availing himself of the services of the alcalde-mayor of PangasinÀn, he silenced the Zambal Indians so that they should take the privation of their Recollects gracefully, and lower the head to the admission of the Dominican fathers. Thereupon, the sea of opposition having been calmed, and after the three seculars who were administering to MindÒro had been assigned fitting competencies, which were provided for them in ManÌla, an act of the royal Audiencia provided that our reformed order should be entrusted with the administration of the said island, with absolute clauses which established it in the said royal decree, and without the least respect the abandonment of the Zambal missions. Then immediately preceding the juridical surrender of them, which was signed by the above-mentioned father provincial, although it was protested by only the father lector, Fray Joseph de la Assumpcion, and father Fray Francisco de la Madre de Dios, a second act was passed by which the missions were assigned to the fathers of St. Dominic. Thus did the archbishop have a complete victory.

797. By virtue of those decrees, which were announced to our provincial, April 17, 1679, that holy province was dispossessed of all the Zambal mountain range, which then contained eleven villages. They were also dispossessed of the missions which father Fray Joseph de la Trinidad was then fomenting in the nearby mountains by the far-reaching fruits of his apostolic preaching, as we have mentioned worthily in another place.35 The individual members of the province of Santo Rosario hastened to take charge of the ministries and missions of the Zambals which had been surrendered to them by Ours without the least disturbance being observed publicly, although almost all of those governed by the said Father Trinidad threatened violence. Those juridical measures, with what was done in ManÌla, served much later for the recovery of ZambÀles without the loss of the new possessions of MindÒro. The necessary papers were also despatched directed to the corregidor of MindÒro, ordering him to deliver the ministries of that island to the discalced Augustinians. Without loss of time, the father definitor, Fray Diego de la Madre de Dios, assumed charge of the district of BÀco, while the bachelor Don Joseph de Roxas who possessed it left it. The curacy of CalavÌte was taken possession of by father Fray Diego de la Resurreccion, who took the place of Licentiate Don Juan Pedrosa. The parish of NaoyÀn was taken charge of by the father definitor, Fray Eugenio de los Santos, the bachelor, Don Martin Diaz, being removed. All that was concluded before the end of the year 1679 without disturbance, lawsuits, or dissensions.

798. The above-mentioned religious were accompanied by three others of whose names we are ignorant. Immediately did that holy squadron commence to announce the testimony of Christ, with sermons founded on the manifestation of virtue, spirit, and example, and not on illusory persuasion which is built on naught but words, which are confirmatory of human wisdom. They considered especially that they had to give strict account of those souls whose direction had just been given them. Consequently, they watched over their flock, hastening to their sheep with the right food, without avoiding the greatest fatigue. Hence could one recognize the great good fortune of the island of MindÒro, for in the territory where three seculars at most, and generally only two, lived formerly, six evangelical laborers had enough to do. They were later increased to eight, and that number was never or but rarely decreased. Each of them on his part produced most abundant fruits at that time, and under all circumstances the same has been obtained. For although the common enemy diffused much discord during the first tasks of their apostolic labor in order thereby to choke the pure grain of the divine word by making use therefor of a man, namely, Admiral Don Joseph de Chaves, encomendero of almost the entire island, at last by Ours exercising their innate prudence and their unalterable patience, the grace of God was triumphant, while the attempts of Satan were a mockery.

799. Father Fray Juan Francisco de San Antonio remarked very forcibly of our discalced religious that, “although they were the last gospel laborers in Philipinas, they have competed in their apostolic zeal with the first laborers in the fruits that they gathered from their labors in the reduction of the most barbarous islanders.”36 And the father master, Fray Joseph Sicardo, adds very fittingly, that “our discalced religious having received the great island of MindÒro, increased the Christianity of its natives by means of so zealous ministers.”37 Then, as appears from juridical instruments before me, although the Christians throughout the island when our reformed order assumed charge of it did not exceed four thousand, in the year 1692 they already exceeded the number of eight thousand, and in the year 1716 arrived to the number of twelve thousand. It is a fact that the persecution by the Moros happening afterward (of which something was said incidentally in volume three,38 and which will in due time add much to this history) the number of believers was greatly lessened; for some retired to other islands, where the war was not so cruel, others were taken to JolÒ in dire captivity, and others surrendered their lives to so great a weight of misfortune. Notwithstanding that, in the year 1738, when father Fray Juan Francisco de San Antonio printed his first volume, it appeared by trustworthy documents that Ours administered seven thousand five hundred and fifty-two souls in the various villages, visitas, missions, and rancherÍas in that island.39 Hence, one may infer that our zealous brothers have labored there especially in destroying paganism and reducing the many ZimarrÒnes or apostates who, having thrown off all obedience, had built themselves forts in those mountains. And if not few of both classes remain obstinate, it does not proceed certainly from any omission that has been found in our zealous workers, but from other causes which are already suggested in other parts of this present volume.

800. Neither can one make from this progress of the Catholic faith which was attained by the preaching of our religious, any inferences against the other laborers who began to subdue the island, or against the secular clergy, who administered it afterward. The Observant fathers, as a rule, employed there no more than one missionary or at the most two. The number of the fathers of St. Francis was no larger, and they had charge at times of the district of BalayÀn as well as of MindÒro. Since the fathers of the Society had so much to attend to in so many parts, two or three of them took care of MindÒro and Marinduque. Consequently, one ought not to be surprised that so small a number of laborers did not do more, but, that they had done so much must surely astonish him who considers it thoroughly. In the same way the parish priests, who succeeded them, were very few, and since the reduced Indians occupied so extensive a coast, they had scarce enough time to administer the bread of the doctrine to the Christians, so that they had none left to penetrate into the mountains in search of the Zimarrones or of the heathen ManguiÀnes.40 But, on the contrary, from the time that that island was delivered to our teaching, the number of missionaries has been doubled or tripled. It is evident that victories must generally increase in proportion to the increase of the soldiers in the campaign, even in what concerns spiritual wars.

801. This argument has more force, if it be considered that the evangelical laborers having increased afterward with so great profit, they asserted that at times the greatest strength accompanied by gigantic zeal was given up as conquered, by the continual toil indispensable in the administration of the faithful, for to that task was added the care of the conversion of the heathen. That toil was so excessive that the night generally came without the fathers having obtained a moment of rest in order to pay the debt of the divine office. At times they had to neglect the care of their own bodies in order to attend to the souls of their neighbors. They were always busied in teaching the instruction to children and adults; in administering the holy sacraments, although they had to go three or four leguas to the places where the dying persons were; and in penetrating the rough mountains in the center of the island, in order to allure the heathens and apostates to the healthful bosom of the Church. To all the above (which even now is, as it were, a common characteristic of all our missionaries in Philipinas) is added the extreme poverty there, and the lack of necessities that they endured. For, the reduced product from those villages, in regard to the ecclesiastical stipend, which was formerly insufficient to support two or three curas with great misery, was now sufficient to support six or more religious. Consequently, they endured it with the greatest hardship.

§ III

Information of the convents which were founded in that island, and the miracles with which God confirmed the Catholic religion which Ours were preaching.

802. Trampling under foot, then, the above discomforts and others which are omitted, those illustrious champions attended to the exact fulfilment of the spiritual administration, employing themselves in the exercise of missionaries in order to reduce the heathens to the Catholic sheepfold. In the belief that it would be very conducive to the extension of the Christian religion to establish convents in the new territory which they were cultivating, they began to set their hands to the work. The first foundation which they established was in the village of BÀco, where the corregidor was residing at that time, although that convent was later moved to CalapÀn. Two religious were placed there in residence, and they looked after the spiritual administration in several rancherÍas. Those rancherÍas have increased with the lapse of time to a great number of Christians, and have become villages that are not to be despised, having been formed anew by the zeal of our apostolic laborers. The villages comprehended in that district in the year 1733 are the following: CalapÀn, which is the chief one, where the convent is located; BÀco, SubÀn, Ilog, MinÒlo, and CamorÒn, which are annexed villages or visitas, as they are called there. Our church of CalapÀn is enriched with an image of Christ our Lord, which represents Him in His infancy; and on that account it is called the convent of Santo NiÑo [i.e., Holy Child]. That image is conspicuous in continual miracles and is the consolation of all the Indians of MindÒro. For a long history might be written by only relating the marvels which the divine power has worked by it; now giving health to many sick unto death; now freeing villages from locusts which were destroying the fields, now succoring not a few boats which driven by violent storms were running down the Marinduque coast, whose sailors were in the greatest danger of being drowned in the water, or the ship of grounding on the shoals of the land.

803. [One miracle is related of a Recollect in CalapÀn who having acquired two hundred pesos determined to send it home to Spain to his mother who was very poor, without saying anything to the provincial as he was in duty bound to do. Being very observant in his outward duties, he said mass before the image just previous to sending the money to America on a ship which appeared opportunely, but the image turned its back on him. Thereupon, being convicted of sin, he burst into tears, and was thereafter free from such temptations.]

804. The above case happened years after when the convent was established in CalapÀn. Let us now examine other marvels, which happened at BÀco, near the beginning, which were of great use for the extension of the Catholic name. The father definitor, Fray Diego de la Madre de Dios, who was the founder of that house, was surely a holy man, and was venerated as such in ManÌla. Notwithstanding that, however, a corregidor took to persecuting him by word and deed. The servant of God bore the personal insults with great patience, although it pained him to the soul to see that the corregidor’s contempt was resulting in prejudice to the Catholic religion. He practiced several secret efforts ordered by charity in order to restrain the corregidor’s tongue, but seeing that they were insufficient, generally chided in a sermon the evil employment of sacrilegious mouths which, taking the gospel laborers as the object of their detractions, prevent the fruit of their preaching, although they should aid in the attainment of so holy an end. The chief culprit was present, toward whom without naming him the father directed his aim; and since, after one has once left the hand of God, he precipitates himself easily from one abyss to another (angered by the pain which was caused him by the medicine, which was being applied prudently in order to cure him of his pain and indiscreetly abusing the authority which resided in his person), he rose in anger, with the determination to impose silence on the father who (if he was talking) it was, for his own [i. e., the corregidor’s] good. “Sacrilegious preacher” he exclaimed, but when he attempted to continue his face was suddenly twisted, and he could not utter a word, and he was extremely disfigured and was attacked by most intense pains. He was taken to his house, where the venerable father attended him, and by his only making the sign of the cross above the corregidor’s mouth the patient was restored to his former state of health in body, while in soul he was completely changed. The courage to make public penitence for his public crimes, and to return his credit entirely to so holy a religious did not fail him.

805. [The same father although very sick with fever did not hesitate, aided by spiritual forces, to go to a distance to administer to a sick person who had urgently requested his presence—a fact that conduced not a little to the conversion of the natives round about.]

806 [and 807]. The second convent was founded in the village of NaojÀn by the father definitor, Fray Eugenio de los Santos, and St. Nicholas of Tolentino was assigned it as titular. Besides the said principal village, it had in its charge six annexed villages of visitas, namely, PÒla, PinamalayÀn, Balente, SumÀgay, Maliguo, and BongÀbong. However, with the change of the district of MangÀrin, of which we shall speak later, there was some variation in the distribution of those settlements. That ministry is one of the first in authority in the island, because of the great number of parishioners to which it has increased, because a great multitude of heathen ManguiÀnes who have been converted to our holy faith, have gone thither to live, as well as a not small number of apostate Christians, who were wandering at liberty through those mountains. All that was obtained by the preaching of our laborers by whose efforts three of the said villages were reËstablished. [Two prodigies or miraculous occurrences which are related aided in the christianizing of this convent.]

808 [and 809]. Another and third convent was established in the convent of CalavÌte by the efforts of father Fray Diego de la Resurreccion, and its titular was Nuestra SeÑora del Populo [i.e., Our Lady of the People]. It has the annexed villages of DÒngon, Santa Cruz, MambÙrao, TubÌli, and Santo ThomÀs. Of those settlements, those that are on the coast which extends from CalavÌte to MangÀrin, have been founded for the most part by dint of the zeal of our religious. They formerly had many Christians, although at present they have suffered a remarkable diminution because of the persecutions of the Moros which we have already mentioned. [An epidemic that was raging throughout this district when the convent was founded was checked miraculously. In the same district, a heathen Manguian chief who had opposed the new faith surrendered to the personal solicitation of Fray Diego de la Resurreccion, and became a good Christian, and afterward aided in the conversion of many others. The district was miraculously cleared of the pest of locusts which were destroying all the fields.]

810 [and 811]. The fourth convent was erected in the village of MangÀrin under the advocacy of our father, St. Augustine. Its prior also governed the villages of GuÀsig, ManÀol, IlÌlin, and BulalÀcao. However, the provincial chapter of 1737 ordered that house removed to BongÀbong, for reasons that they considered most sufficient, namely, because MangÀrin was ruined by the continual invasions of the Moros, and because of its poor temperature, which put an end to the health of almost all the religious. For that reason, the distribution of the annexed villages of NaojÀn, MangÀrin, and CalavÌte in another manner was inevitable, so that the correct administration of the doctrina might be more promptly administered. But the convents above mentioned always were left standing, and serve as plazas de armas, where those soldiers of Jesus take refuge in order to go out in the island to war against the armies of Satan. It can be stated confidently that the district of which we have been speaking, has been conquered by our reformed order; for when we entered MindÒro, scarcely was the name of Christ known there, while at present there are many souls there who follow the banners of the cross, and all the power of hell, incited by Mahometan infidelity, has not availed to destroy the deep roots of its faith. On the contrary we have wondered greatly at the power of the divine grace in those neophytes, for after their belief has been proved many times, as gold in the crucible, in the fire of the most raging persecution it has gone up [a number of] carats in value and purity. [This district was also the scene of a miracle or prodigy that showed the force of God and the faith.]

812. Besides the above-mentioned convents, a mission was begun some years later in the mountains of MindÒro for the purpose of reducing the ManguiÀnes heathen. Although many of them had been converted, allured by the zeal of various religious, still not a few remained in the darkness of paganism for lack of ministers, who could busy themselves without any other occupation in busying themselves in illumining them with the evangelical light. That was so abundant a field that it could keep many laborers busy. Thus the project was formed by the province to keep at least three subjects busy in it, so that each one, so far as he might be able, might put his hand to the plough, and without turning back, cultivate so extensive a land, which was capable of producing an infinite amount of fruit for the table of glory. But since the missionaries maintain themselves there at the cost of the royal treasury, which is almost always in a state of too great exhaustion, so well conceived a desire had to be satisfied with one single preacher, whom the superior government assigned for that purpose, although the province assigns others at its own expense, when its too great poverty does not prevent, or the lack of men, so usual there. The residence of those missionaries in the village of Ilog was determined upon and a suitable convent was established there. From that place, entering the mountains frequently, they began to fell their rational thickets, in order to fertilize them with the waters of irrigation of the divine grace, so that the seed of their apostolic preaching might be received. By means of the laborious eagerness of the sowers who have succeeded them, a great portion of that arid desert has been transformed into the most charming garden. When I left Philipinas in the year 1738, it still existed as a most fruitful mission and there were well founded hopes that if Apollos water the plants established by Paul, it will receive the most abundant increase from God.41

813. [The way was blazed also in the mountain mission with miraculous occurrences that proclaimed the true God.] It appears impossible that their inhabitants should not come to know God and should not run breathless after the odoriferous delicacias of His goodness. There is still much to do in this regard, for a great number of infidels still live in the said mountains, and if thirty missionaries were assigned there, they would not lack employment. But let us praise God for what has been accomplished, petitioning Him to crown so memorable beginnings with a good end.

[The fourth section of this chapter does not treat of the Philippines.]

§ I

Relation of the anxiety which our province of Philipinas has always had to extend its apostolic preaching to China; and the great effort made in 1682 for that purpose.

[The story of the Recollect attempt to evangelize in China is one of failure, notwithstanding the earnest efforts made by that order to send laborers to that empire. Shortly after the closing of Japanese ports to all missionaries in 1640, the Philippine Recollects began to work up the foreign mission field, but it was not until 1650 that they were able to present memorials to the Roman court, which proved unavailing as the Italians and French were already on the ground in many of the Asiatic countries. In 1667 the father provincial, Fray Juan de la Madre de Dios, received decrees in blank ordering him to send laborers to China, but the royal treasury was in no position to aid them, and the wars both in the islands and in China also prevented the proposed spiritual invasion. Many other mandatory decrees from the king met the same fate, but in the chapter of 1680, the order determined to make the mission if they had to supply all the funds themselves. Three men were told off to study the language in order to prepare for the work in China, and in 1682, one did actually get as far as Macan, but the opposition of the civil authorities there proved the deathknell to all hopes at that time. Again in 1701, and in 1704, abortive attempts were made to enter the great empire, the last being coeval with the arrival of the apostolic visitor Cardinal Tournon.]

[The second section of this chapter treats of Spanish matters.]

§ I

Of the missions of our religious who reached Philipinas during the years of these three decades, and in especial of the mission which made its voyage this year 1683 to the not small luster of the Catholic religion.

... 908. The third volume has already related that a mission left EspaÑa in the year 1660 in charge of father Fray Eugenio de los Santos.47 He brought in that mission, however, only eighteen choir religious and two lay brothers whose names I have been unable to ascertain, as the instruments with which I would have to do so have not come to me from EspaÑa. They all reached Mexico in the above-mentioned year and since because of various accidents that happened during the voyage, in the islands and in the port of Cavite no ships came from Philipinas to Nueva EspaÑa, either that year or the two following, the mission had to stay in the said city all that time incurring the expenses and fatal consequences that one can understand. In the year 1662 the viceroy of Mexico despatched a boat to the islands to get a report of their condition, for there was fear that they had been invaded by enemies. One of those missionaries ventured in that boat, and arriving at Manila it caused not a little rejoicing to the inhabitants there. The next year ships from Philipinas were seen in the port of Acapulco, and as a consequence fourteen religious took passage in them and arrived at Manila in August 1663, and not in 1684 as was wrongly reported in volume three. The five others remained in Nueva EspaÑa, but they afterwards reached their destination and all served in those fields of Christendom where they were of great use.

909. Father Fray Christoval de Santa Monica, after having been provincial of Philipinas, to which dignity he was elected in the year 1656, was appointed in 63, to come to EspaÑa in order to collect and lead a mission. He came then, having received on the way not a few favors from St. Nicholas of Tolentino—favors which he received under the appreciable quality of miracles, but which we cannot specify for lack of documents. He negotiated in Madrid as successfully as could be desired, and collected a mission of twenty-four religious, all generally of good qualities and with the characteristics that are desired in that province. He set sail with that valiant squadron June 16, 1666. [After various miraculous happenings on the way, the vessel reached Vera Cruz in safety, whence the passengers went across the peninsula to Acapulco. August of 1667 the Recollects all reached Manila save two who remained in Mexico for another year because of sickness.]

910. In the year 1668, the venerable father Fray Juan de la Madre de Dios, of Blancas, was elected president of Mexico in the provincial chapter of Mexico, and father Fray Agustin de Santa Monica, commissary for EspaÑa. The latter died aboard ship, and on that account, when the former arrived at Mexico, he found an order within two years to go to the court of Madrid in order to discuss some matters of not small magnitude, and to give his vote for the province in the general chapter. The authority and money for the conduction of a mission were long delayed, but at last he received them both at the end of 1674, whereupon he displayed so good zeal that he took passage with twenty-six religious in June 1675. He reached Mexico with his gospel militia, where he was ordered by the province to return to EspaÑa to conduct certain matters that could only be entrusted to his person. Thereupon, sending his accounts to Philipinas, the mission went to the islands in the year 1676 in charge of another prelate, and father Fray Juan bent his steps toward his new destiny.

911. Another father, Fray Juan de la Madre de Dios, a native of Cuenca, had gone to Philipinas in the mission of father Fray Christoval de Santa Monica; in the year 1680, that definitory appointed him commissioner to EspaÑa. He sailed the same year from the port of Cavite in the galleon named “San Telmo.” [After a voyage tempered with the mercy obtained by St. Nicholas of Tolentino, in several dangerous situations, the father arrived at Acapulco, January 22, 1681, and was detained some time in Nueva EspaÑa by the fever. Reaching Spain in November of the same year, he hastened to lay his supplications at the royal feet, and was given a decree calling for a mission of forty religious fathers and five lay brothers. “He also obtained a royal decree dated April 16 of the abovesaid year [1682] in which his Majesty continued the annual alms of one hundred and fifty pesos for the medicines which are used in our infirmary of ManÌla; and another of the thirtieth of the same month, in which he also continued the alms of two hundred and fifty pesos and a like number of fanegas of rice per year for the maintenance of the four religious of Ours who were in charge of the Indians in ManÌla.”]

914. In view of this, the edict for the mission was published by our father vicar-general. An excellent mission was collected at Sevilla for the purpose of taking passage in the fleet which was about to sail to Nueva EspaÑa in charge of General Don Diego de SaldÌvar. Thereupon the mission sailed from Cadiz on the fourth of March, 1683, and consisted of the following religious.

1. The father commissary, Fray Juan de la Madre de Dios, native of Cuenca.

2. The father vice-commissary, Fray Fernando Antonio de la Concepcion, native of Aldea del Cardo, of the bishopric of Calahorra.

3. The pensioned father reader, Fray Juan de la Concepcion, known as MoriÀna, an Andalusian.

4. Father Fray Agustin de San Juan Bautista, a native of LeganÈs near Madrid.

5. Father Fray Juan de la Encarnacion, of Talavera.

6. Father Fray Francisco del Espiritu Santo, of Xarayz in La Vera de Plasencia.

7. Father Fray Antonio de San Agustin, of Madrid.

8. Father Fray Juan de San Antonio, of AlcalÀ de Enares.

9. Father Fray Juan de San NicolÀs, of Daymiel in La Mancha.

10. Father Fray Alonso de San Agustin, of Villa de GarcÌas in Estremadura.

11. Father Fray Joseph de la Encarnacion, of La Nava del Rey.

12. Father Fray Francisco de la Ascension, of Madrid.

13. Father Fray Francisco de la Madre de Dios, of Malaga.

14. Father Fray Pablo de San Joseph, of TobÒso.

15. Father Fray Joseph de San Geronimo, of CalcÈna in AndalucÌa.

16. Father Fray Juan del Santissimo Sacramento, of LogroÑo.

17. Father Fray Vicente de San Geronimo, of LupiÑÈn, near Huesca.

18. Father Fray Sebastian de San Marcos, of TobÒso.

19. Father Fray GaspÀr de San Guillermo, of Villanueva Messia.

Brother Choristers

20. Brother Fray Alonso de la Concepcion.

21. Brother Fray Diego de San NicolÀs, of Madrid.

22. Brother Fray Antonio de la Encarnacion, of XetÀfe.

23. Brother Fray Joseph de la Madre de Dios, of TobÒso.

24. Brother Fray Juan de San Agustin, of OrÀn, Africa.

25. Brother Fray Francisco Antonio de la Madre de Dios, of Alcantara.

26. Brother Fray Francisco de Santa Maria, of Madrid.

27. Brother Fray Ignacio de San Joseph, of BuxaralÒz, Aragon.

28. Brother Fray Joachin de San NicolÀs, of AÑon, Aragon.

29. Brother Fray Joseph de Santa Getrudis, of Villafranca de PanadÈs, CathaluÑa.

30. Brother Fray Joseph de la Trinidad, of Urrea de Xalon, Aragon.

31. Brother Fray Joseph de Santa LucÌa, of Caspe, AragÓn.

32. Brother Fray Francisco de San Joseph.

33. Brother Fray Pedro de San MiguÈl, of Porcuna, kingdom of Jaen.

34. Brother Fray RaphaÈl de San Bernardo, of Berja, kingdom of Granada.

35. Brother Fray Manuel de la Concepcion, of Sevilla.

36. Brother Fray Juan de la Ascencion, of Moral, in the archbishopric of Toledo.

37. Brother Fray Alonso de San Joseph.

38. Brother Fray Juan de Santa Monica.

Lay Brothers

39. Brother Fray Pedro de la Virgen del Pilar, of Barcelona.

40. Brother Fray Agustin de Santa Monica, of Ecinacorva, Aragon.

41. Brother Fray Roque de San Lorenzo.

42. Brother Fray Joseph de Jesus.

43. Brother Fray Juan de Jesus, of Alcazar de San Juan, La Mancha.

915. All the above, minus the one named at number 22 who died at sea, and those included under numbers 9, 12, and 14, who hid in Puerto Rico, in order that they might return to their provinces, as they did do, arrived with the great good-will of the fleet, at Vera Cruz, June 1, 1683, whence they went to Mexico with all possible haste. There they comported themselves with the greatest rigor, observance, abstraction, and example, so that the hospitium appeared a desert. Thus they succeeded in obtaining the favor of the viceroy, the count of ParÈdes,48 and the venerable archbishop Don Francisco de Aguiar y Seyjas, who visited the fathers in the hospitium, and that not only once. During that winter those who had not completed their studies, continued them, and in that the father lector, Fray Juan de la Concepcion and others who were not lectors, but were worthy to be, worked with especial zeal. By the fifth of March, 1685, they began to go out in bands to Acapulco, whence they set sail April 4, in the almiranta, called “San Telmo.” They anchored in the port of SorsogÒn, in Philipinas, on the fourteenth of July, and arrived in Manila some time in August. There they were given a fine welcome and were allowed some time to rest after so long a voyage. But they afterward began another greater work in that vineyard with the fulfilment which was hoped of not resting until they obtained their reward in glory.

[Chapter iv, treating of the general chapter of 1684, notes (p. 457) that the first definitor chosen for Philipinas was father Fray Francisco de San NicolÀs, and the second definitor, Fray MiguÈl de Santa Monica; as first and second discreets (p. 458), were chosen father Fray BlÀs de la Concepcion and father Fray NicolÀs de Tolentino.]

[Most of chapter v is taken up with the life of father Fray Juan de la Madre de Dios, called also Blancas. He was born in the town of Blancas, Aragon, of honorable parentage, his family name being Garcias. From his early years of a religious turn of mind, he at length attained the height of his desires by professing (June 15, 1635) in the convent of Borja. In 1650, after having preached very acceptably at the convent of Zaragoza, he enlisted in the Philippine mission organized by father Fray Jacinto de San Fulgencio. On his arrival at Manila he preached at the convent in that city and engaged in other work (being also the confessor of the governor Sabiniano Manrique de Lara) until December, 1655. At that time his health giving out because of an accident, he went with the then father provincial, father Fray Francisco de San Joseph, to the convent at Bolinao in the Zambal district, leaving behind with the governor a folio MS. book which he had written during the preceding two years entitled Governador Christiano, entre Neophitos (Christian governor among neophytes), for spiritual guidance in all sorts of matters. In Bolinao, the change of climate and work restored the father’s health in a short time, but he remained in that place until the new provincial chapter in Manila. At that chapter he was chosen prior of the Manila convent against his wishes. Again in 1658 ill health compelled him to go to Bolinao, where he remained this time four years. His efforts to keep the natives there quiet during the times of the insurrections were of great fruit. He labored zealously in that district even visiting the schools in addition to the regular duties of a missionary. He received a number of devout women into the tertiary branch of the order. He was untiring in his efforts for both the spiritual and corporal good of his charges.]

§ V

Father Fray Juan de la Madre de Dios founds a village of Indians, converted by dint of his zeal. He is elected definitor and retires from the commerce of men to adorn himself with the perfection of his virtues.

... 984. In a site called CacaguÀyanan which means “the place of many bamboos,” six leguas or so from BolinÀo there were for years back a not small number of Indians, who had fled from the surrounding villages, and who are there called ZimarrÒnes. They having abandoned in its entirety the faith which they had received at baptism, and accompanied by many heathen, not only rendered vain the attempts of mildness and of force which had several times been practiced to reduce them to a Christian and civilized life, but either by declared war, or by means of skilful cunning, did not cease to cause constant depredations in the Catholic villages which were subject to Spanish dominion. So true is the statement contained in various parts of this history, that our ministers of Philipinas, although they dwell in mission fields already formed, go forth to living war against infidelity, and although the Christianity of ZambÀles was the first one converted by our discalced order, even there our religious have no lack of meritorious occupation. From the first time that our venerable father was in BolinÀo, he worked with his accustomed zeal in order to place those people in the pathway of their eternal salvation. He had obtained from them that the Christians should be obedient to the law, and that the heathen should leave the opaque shades of paganism, so that it was conceded to him to found a new settlement in the island of PÒro with them, with a general pardon and the accustomed privileges. Moved by so good hopes the father went to chapter, and since he had so much influence with the governor of the islands to whom the giving of such licenses pertains, he procured one for the founding of the village which he was attempting, with all the privileges that those ZimarrÒnes and idolaters could desire. But since the religious to whom it was charged, did not succeed in finding the means prescribed by prudence to unite spirits dissimilar in other regards, not only was the project not obtained, but their good-wills having been irritated, the desired attainment came to appear impossible.

985. So passed affairs, when renouncing the priorate of ManÌla, as we have said above, that gleaming sun returned to illumine the hemisphere of BolinÀo, and not being able to prevent the activity of his light, he immediately shed his reflected light even to the darkest caves where those Indians were taking refuge in the manner of wild beasts, fleeing from their own good and blindly enamored of the most unhappy freedom. Again did the father establish the compacts for their conversion. In the first step that he took in the undertaking, he made the greatest sacrifice of himself, by exposing his life to a danger which might make the most courageous man tremble, if he were less holy. For when he heard that the fugitive Christians and a great number of heathens and some Chinese idolaters were celebrating a solemn feast to the demons, in the above-mentioned place of CacaguayÀnan, he determined to go thither in person with the intrepidity suitable to his valor, and almost alone to oppose so sacrilegious worship and at the same time reduce those who paid that worship. In these ceremonies called Maganitos in the language of the country, intoxication is the most essential part of the solemnity. And since the Zambal Indians are extremely warlike, esteeming it the principal part of their nobility, unless they are illumined with the Catholic faith, to lessen with inhuman murders the species of which they consider themselves as individuals, adding to this that they consider it as an attention paid to their religion, to take away the life of any Christian who approaches their district, where they pay such adorations to their deities, then one can conjecture the great risk that beset that soldier of Jesus, when he attacked such an army of infernal furies, in order to withdraw them from a darkness so dense into the refulgent light of the Catholic religion.

986. But its good outcome deprived the action of the censure of temerity, which showed that it was governed by a special motion of the Holy Spirit, whose impulse at times trespassing the lines of what the world calls prudence, causes one to undertake projects which our finite reason qualifies as rashness. The fact is that when the venerable father arrived at the dense part of a solitary thicket in whose melancholy shades those Indians had gathered to worship as a god one who is not a god, he met them with the qualities of meek sheep, when he might have feared to find them like ferocious wolves, who would consider it a sport of their cruelty to rend him to pieces. Beyond any doubt the hand of God, who wished to preserve the life of one who despised it for His sake, was in this; for since the infernal fury with which the heathen clothe themselves on such occasions is assured, one cannot attribute their gentleness on this occasion to natural causes. That most zealous minister put his hand, then, to the double-edged sword of the preaching, and fighting with it according to his wont so skilfully, made himself master almost without any resistance of those hearts which were filled with apostasy and infidelity, setting up in them the banner of our holy Catholic faith. The complete attainment of so famous a victory was retarded somewhat, because of the outbreak of the insurrection of PangasinÀn. In him was verified what experience has always demonstrated, namely, that a very quiet disposition is needed so that the divine word may be born in souls by the faith. But at last when all the heads of that monstrous hydra were cut off, the blessed father had the happiness to obtain the fruit of his zeal by constructing a new village in the site called MangÀsin. That was the most suitable place in the island of PÒro, and was called by another name CabarrÒyan. From the beginning he counted eighty houses in it and a like number of families, all drawn from the captivity of the devil to the perfect liberty of the kingdom of Christ.

[The father preached many sermons to the Zambals in their own language, which he had begun to learn when he first went to BolinÀo, so many in fact that they formed two MS. volumes in quarto; and of them copies were made for the use of those not so well versed as himself in the Zambal tongue. In April 1662 he was chosen definitor at the provincial chapter, and lived for the three years of that office in the Manila convent. At the following chapter in 1665, father Fray Juan was elected provincial against his will. His term was one that needed his strong rule, for there were troubles with the governor, Diego Salcedo, who offered obstacles to the smooth ordering of affairs. He materially advanced his order and brought some new stability into the body which had suffered in the recent earthquakes, and the Chinese and native insurrections. At the completion of his triennium he was chosen president of the Recollect hospitium in Mexico. Setting sail for his destination, July 4, 1668, the port of Acapulco was reached only on the twenty-second of the following January, after a voyage replete with storm and sickness. Proceeding to his destination the father entered the hospitium of Mexico on the twelfth of February of the same year. In 1671, as related above, Father Juan de la Madre de Dios was ordered to cast the vote of his province in the general chapter held in Spain in 1672, and also to attend to various matters for his order. There his stay being somewhat prolonged because of lack of funds and other things he was made visitor general of certain Spanish convents, and was later elected to high officers of the order in Aragon. Returning to Nueva EspaÑa with a band of missionaries he was again sent to Spain on business of the order, but a broken arm received while on his way from Sevilla to Madrid, caused his retirement to the Zaragoza convent, where he died January 10, 1685, at the age of 68. Throughout his life, he was most humble and led an austere existence.]

[Section ii of the following chapter treats of the life of father Fray ThomÀs de San Geronimo. This father was born at the village of Yebenes, in the archbishopric of Toledo, his family name being AyÀla. He took the habit in the Madrid convent, July 28, 1646. Upon going to the Philippines he was sent to the missions of the Visayas. Devoting himself there to the study of the languages he learned several of the Visayan tongues, especially the Cebuan, “the principal Visayan tongue.” In that language he translated the catechism, which was printed at Manila in 1730; compiled an explanation of the Christian Doctrine, which was printed in 1730; and composed a vocabulary in the Cebuan tongue, and another in the dialects spoken in CagayÀn and TagalÒan. In addition he left two volumes of sermons in the vernacular of the country. He served as prior for six years in the convent of Billig, Mindanao; six years in CagayÀn, and various times at the island of Romblon, and finally in Siargao. In 1680 he was elected provincial, and served his term so faithfully and well, visiting and working assiduously, that he was reËlected in 1686 against his will. But he was destined not to fill that office again for death took him May 19, 1686. After his first term he served in the island of RomblÒn. He was a most zealous missionary. The remainder of the chapter and chapter vii following do not deal with Philippine affairs.]

§ I

Our province of Philipinas takes charge of the spiritual administration of three islands, namely, MasbÀte, TicÀo, and BurÌas, with no little luster to the Catholic religion.

... 1108. In the great archipelago of San Lazaro, as one enters the Philipinas from Marianas, the islands of LuzÒn, MindÒro, PanÀi, ZebÙ, and LÈyte form among themselves an almost perfect circle which has a circumference along the beaches from the center of about two hundred leguas encircling the above-named islands, which are very near one another. Within this circumference, toward the part of MindÒro and Panay, are located the islands of RomblÒn, and toward the part of LÈyte those of MasbÀte, TicÀo and BurÌas, which belong to the bishopric of Nueva CÀceres in ecclesiastical matters, and to the alcaldeship of Albay in political matters. MasbÀte, which is the chief island, is sixty leguas southwest of ManÌla. It lies in a latitude of about sixty degrees, has a circumference of fifty leguas, a length of nineteen, and a breadth of five or six.49 The island of TicÀo is about nine leguas long, four and one-half wide, and about twenty-three leguas in circumference.50 That of BurÌas has a circumference of twenty-six leguas, four wide and twelve long.51 MasbÀte has the reputation of having the richest gold mines that were found by the first Spaniards, and from which they benefited to a great extent. Their working has not been continued, either for lack of people suitable for this work or for other reasons which do not concern us. That of BuriÀs abounds in the palm called Buri, of whose fruit and even of whose trunk, the Indians make an extraordinary bread. That of TicÀo produces many woods, excellent for the construction of medium-sized boats. The natives of those three islands are of the same qualities as the rest of the Philipinas. However, they have become very sociable because of the almost continuous intercourse that they have with the Spaniards, on account of the many who pass on their way to other countries.

1109. Those islands were reduced to the crown of EspaÑa in 1569 by Don Luis Henriquez de Guzman, a knight of Sevilla, whose conquest made them thoroughly subject in everything to Captain AndrÈs de Ibarra. Thereupon, scarcely had the way been opened by arms, when the venerable father, Fray Alonso Ximenez, an Observant of our order, entered MasbÀte to preach the law of grace. He, as is asserted by father Fray GaspÀr de San Agustin, may be called the apostle of that island, in consideration of the great amount of his labors therein for the extension of the Catholic faith. Other apostolic workers of the same institute followed his tracks later, and they went to TicÀo and BurÌas. Consequently, in the year 1605, the province of Santo Nombre de Jesus founded a mission composed of the above three islands. The first prior appointed was father Fray Francisco Guerrero, instructor of Christian doctrine, who was of well-known zeal. But our calced fathers kept the care of their administration only until the year 1609, when the intermediary chapter resigned that district and its villages into the hands of the bishop of Nueva CÀceres, Don Pedro de Arce, in order that he might appoint secular clergy as he wished, who could attend to the Christian Indians with the bread of the doctrine.52 From that time until the year 1688, various curas had successive charge of the administration of those souls in order to teach them the road of glory. But notwithstanding that that district had only two hundred and fifty families when they took charge of it (as the above-cited Father Gaspar confesses) whose number continued to decline afterward because of the Moro invasions, one cura could in no way be maintained, and scarce could one be found to take charge of that church.

1110. Things were in this condition, then, when the most illustrious master, Don Fray AndrÈs Gonzales, who deservedly ascended to the bishopric of Nueva CÀceres from the ranks of the Order of Preachers, represented to the king on May 28, 1682 that in order that the villages of his diocese might be rightly administered spiritually, it would be indispensable to assign its curacies in another manner and give some of them into the charge of religious. In consideration of that he petitioned his Majesty to commit the approbation of the new plan considered to his governor of those islands, so that as vice-patron, he might proceed in it. The king conceded what that prelate asked by his decree dated Madrid, August 13, 1685, and his Excellency presented the new formation of districts to the governor with all its changes. By it he applied to our province all the mission of MasbÀte, and its adjacent islands, as well as the villages of IngÒzo, Catanavan, Vigo, and the rancherias contiguous, all located in the island of LuzÒn, which hitherto had belonged to the curacy of PÌriz, so that another new mission might be formed under charge of our discalced order. The governor was the admiral of galleons, Don Gabriel de Cruceleygui, knight of the habit of Santiago. By an act of November 26, 1686, he approved in toto the idea of the bishop, and, as a consequence, the assignation made to us of the above-mentioned villages, so that we might administer them as curas. However, because of several troubles that resulted, our province accepted only the mission of MasbÀte, and renounced the right that they might have had to the other villages of the island of LuzÒn, for they could be administered by the fathers of St. Francis with less trouble.

1111. The constant reasons for the acts by which the bishop assigned to us the above-mentioned district were reduced to the fact that there was but one secular priest in it, and he was insufficient for its administration. For it was proved that only four persons had died with the sacraments within the long space of four years, while those who had passed to the other life without that benediction numbered one hundred and eighteen. Add to this that the baptism of small children had been delayed many months as the parish priest did not go but very seldom to visit the distant villages. This ought not to induce inferences against the well-proved zeal of those venerable priests, that they had neglected their duties in attending to the obligations of the ministry. For since there was but one ecclesiastic in all three islands, and those islands occupy so great an extent, and the villages are so distant from one another, how could he attend to so many parishioners with the pastoral food? It is a fact that even after our religious had entered there and three or four were kept busy continually, scarce could they fully attend to all their duties as spiritual directors, without some inculpable lack being evident; and that notwithstanding that each one labored as many, for not few of them have lost their health because of the work, as we shall see hereafter. Consequently, one ought not to be surprised if those Indians were poorly administered before, for it is undeniable that one person cannot attend to so many laborious cares, as can many, although he may equal them in zeal.

1112. The bishop and governor convinced, then, in this matter, despatched the fitting provisions in November 1686 in order that our reformed branch might take charge of those souls. This plan was of great moment to the province, for the said islands, besides being the necessary passage way and very suitable station for those who voyage from ManÌla to Carhaga and ZebÙ, are the stopping place of the ships which sail from CavÌte to Acapulco and return from Nueva EspaÑa to Philipinas. It is very common for the ships to stop in their ports to get fresh supplies, and await suitable winds. On that account there originated the greatest convenience in possessing them in our custody, because of what makes for the spiritual: for the provincials, when they sail out upon their visits; for the commissioners when they come to EspaÑa for missions; for the missions themselves when they arrive at the islands; and for the multitude of our religious who journey from one part to another, employed in the holy commerce of souls. Without doubt those reasons somewhat aided the zeal with which our tireless workers in those countries have always procured the good teaching of the faithful, and the conversion of the faithless, at the cost of their own very great fatigue and of great penalties. On that account it was determined in the intermediary chapter of 1687 to accept the charge of that reasonable territory to whose labor God called them by the mouth of the bishop. And more when it was learned that, although the number of the Christians was greatly diminished, the interiors of the islands of MasbÀte and BurÌas were densely inhabited with innumerable Indians, apostates from the faith and assembled there not only from their villages, but also from other parts, in whose reduction a great service would be done to God and the king, and with this fruit the sweatings of the spiritual administration would be eased, which by themselves alone gave much to grieve over.

1113. Finally matters having been arranged, fathers Fray Juan de San Phelipe, the outgoing provincial, and Fray Juan de la Encarnacion, with another associate, of whose name we are ignorant, left Manila in May 1678 [i.e., 1688] to take charge of the above-mentioned district. They went to the village of TicÀo, where they met the cura, then Bachelor Don Christoval Carvallo, who had been notified by the suitable acts in the month of August. The latter agreed without the least repugnance to surrender the churches and his administration. He did it gracefully on September 2 of the same year in the village of Mobo, a site in the island of MasbÀte, which was, and is, the chief village of all the others, and that mission remained from that time on subject to our discalced order. The Indians received the religious with signs of the greatest rejoicing. It is a fact that they knew our holy habit some years before, because some of our gospel missionaries had stopped in their port on account of storms, when they were passing by MasbÀte on their way to their destinations, and had attended to instructing them and even administering them the sacraments. From that came the almost general joy with which the discalced Augustinians were received there; and from that reception originated the great fruit which they obtained with their preaching. The fathers endeavored to have the love shown them by the Indians increase, not being unaware that the good-will of the hearers is a very plausible disposition so that the work of the preachers may be useful. Knowing also that the good opinion of the evangelical minister gives great force to his words, in order that theirs might be increased they aimed to confirm them with works. They bore themselves as saints in private and public in order to give a good example in all things. With that method, one can believe the great number of Christians that were gathered to Catholicism in the said islands, as we shall relate later.

1114. But since it was necessary for this attainment to found some convent, they erected it that same year in the village of Mobo, which had the most inhabitants. It has Nuestra SeÑora de los Remedios [i.e., our Lady of Remedies] as titular, and a very costly church is being built which abounds in reredoses and other adornments with a sacristy provided with vestments [? jocalias] and ornaments. The house is very capacious and has all the necessary rooms and has moreover cells for the religious who generally live in it. That convent was the refuge of the gospel ministers who lived in it in suitable number to look after the Christians in spiritual matters and to allure the apostates to the bosom of the Christian religion which they had abandoned. Thence, as swift moving clouds, they went out to fertilize the other villages with the water of their doctrine and having become hunters of souls, to overrun the deserts and mountains. Although there were not more than six villages in the three islands when our discalced religious entered to administer them, in a few years they established three more where they could shelter those who were being reduced to our holy faith. And hence the workers of that mission with inexplicable toil cared for a great number of souls who dwelt in the capital of Mobo, and in its annexed villages or visitas of TicÀo, BurÌas, Balino, PalÀnog, HabuyoÀn, TagmasÙso, BuracÀn, and Limbojan. In that extensive territory not few times did God explain His mercies with repeated miracles in confirmation of the faith which Ours were preaching. Some received with baptism the health of the body, and others found themselves freed from their pains by the prayers of the ministers, accompanied by the laying on of hands. However, inasmuch as the manuscripts give us these notices without specification, we cannot name the individual miracles.

1115. A very lamentable event for the islands which happened in the year 1726, was the reason for the founding of another convent in TicÀo. It happened as follows. The galleon “Santo Christo de Burgos,” while making its voyage to Nueva EspaÑa, anchored at the port of TicÀo in order to await good weather before taking to the open sea. But it was shipwrecked there by a storm which came upon it. On board that vessel was Don Julian de Velasco, a minister assigned to the Audiencia of Mexico. He managed to obtain his spiritual improvement from that disaster so transcendental to all classes of Philipinas by the practice of good works. He did not care to return to ManÌla, although he could have done so, but remained with all his family in the said port until he could get passage the next year. Among what he was able to save of his lost possessions, he placed his first attention in seeing that the holy image of the holy Christ of Burgos which was on the ship as its titular, should not be lost; for it was his intention to place it at his own expense in some church, so that it might have public veneration for the benefit of souls. Scarcely, then, did he have that celestial treasure in his hands, when he exposed it to worship on the high altar of the church of TicÀo with ornaments suitable to his devout affection. Thereafter followed the assignment of some income so that there might be a resident evangelical minister there, both so that a chaplain might not at least be wanting to the holy image, and so that the Indians might not lack more continual teaching. For that reason, the province afterward determined to found a convent in TicÀo. To it were assigned the villages situated in the islands of TicÀo and BurÌas, and to the convent of Mobo those of the island of Masbate. The ministers were thus able to obtain more relief because their number had increased, although they still had much to do in order to attend to everything.

§ II

Relation of the progress made by Catholicism in those islands by the preaching of our laborers; and the great hardships that they suffered for that end.

1116. In the year 1724, the province of Philipinas begged the king to confirm, by special decree, the possession that had been given them in his royal name of the islands of MasbÀte. His Majesty ordered the governor of Philipinas and the bishop of Nueva CÁceres, on the eleventh of February, 1725, to make no innovation in regard to the spiritual administration of the said district until he should provide what was needful in his royal Council. He ordered them also to inform him of the progress that had been made by the faith in that territory since it had been in our charge. On that account some juridical investigations were made in ManÌla in order to inform the king with acts. By them it appeared that, although there had been only one single parish priest in all the district of MasbÀte before, since it had been placed in charge of the Recollect fathers, three religious at least had always lived there; and that, as was proved by the books of the royal treasury, in the year 1687, anterior to our possession, there were only one hundred and eighty-seven families in the whole mission, while in the year 1722, there were five hundred and eighty-five: so that in the space of thirty-four years they had increased by three hundred and ninety-eight. For that reason the governor, MarquÈs de Torrecampo, gave his king June 30, 1727, a very favorable report of our discalced order in the terms of this honorable clause. “The district of MasbÀte, in charge of the discalced Augustinians, has had an increase of 398 whole tributes through the apostolic zeal of those ministers. They, not only in that district, but also in the rest of these islands, dedicate themselves to the propagation of our holy Catholic faith with the greatest toil and with the most visible fruit.”

1117. These increases will be of greater moment if we consider that, if the families be reduced to the number of four persons each, as is customary there, the said district consisted, at the time it was given to us, of 748 souls, and in thirty-eight years it had increased to 2,340, the increase amounting to 1,592 persons. But sixteen years later (namely, the year 1738, when father Fray Juan Francisco de San Antonio printed the first volume of the history of his seraphic province of Philipinas), those increases were almost doubled.53 Then directing his pen to the end that leads to truth, he assures us that there are new villages in the island of MasbÀte with three thousand three hundred and forty-five souls; in that of TicÀo, two, with four hundred and seventy-five persons; and one in that of BurÌas, with one hundred and eighty. Whence it is inferred that three more villages were newly established: namely, in MasbÀte, those of Navangui and Baraga; and in TicÀo, that of San Jacinto, at the port so named, where the ships now stop for fresh supplies, before taking to the open sea. Also the number of souls has increased to one thousand six hundred and sixty by the impulses of the preaching of our reformed branch, aided efficaciously by divine grace. All the increase of this district since it has been in our charge has been six newly-created villages, and three thousand two hundred and fifty-two souls brought to the Catholic bosom. And we even ought to infer that many more have been converted, for by the invasions of the Moros, which are told at length in the third volume,54 the number of the Christians could not but be lessened.

1118. It only remains now to ascertain whence proceeded those Indians who so increased the above-mentioned villages. It was stated in another place in the third volume55 that there was a great number of mountain Indians in the islands of MasbÀte and BurÌas, who are there called Zimarrones. They were feared, for they lived without God, or king, and were given up to the liberties of paganism. Those were certain men, if they can be called so, who having apostatized the faith, had taken to the deserts and high places, where they defended their native barbarity at every step, against those who were trying to reduce them and to procure their own good. They had gathered there, either they or their ancestors, from the villages of the same islands, as well as from ZebÙ, Leyte, and others, to escape the punishment due them for their crimes. Consequently, they were people especially fierce. Among them were found to be many heathens, as they had been born in those places where the sound of the preaching did not penetrate. The others were still worse, as they had abandoned Christianity. They did notable damage to the villages, and they even robbed the boats that were anchored in the ports or bays, treacherously taking many lives. The matter had assumed such proportions that one could not cross those islands by their interiors; and to approach their shores was the same thing as putting in at an enemy’s port. But at present all the Zimarrones are reduced to the faith, and to the obedience of the king without any exception. Hence one can travel through the islands without the slightest risk, and boats can go thither even to the uninhabited places. From that and from no other beginnings have come the increase of that church, and there is not small praise to our reformed branch from it.

1119. That progress of the faith was preceded by many hardships that were suffered by the religious, some of which I shall state, noting that innumerable others are omitted, in order not to bore our readers by their relation, and because they resemble those that we shall relate. It has already been stated, then, that for the space of more than thirty years there was but one convent in the three islands, which was established in the village of Mobo, whence the gospel laborers went out to administer all the settlements of the district. For that purpose, it was absolutely necessary for them to sail many leguas by boisterous seas, or to travel by land in some parts by rough mountains, threatened in the one place with shipwreck and in the other by continual dangers. Since the new convent was established in the island of TicÀo, the administration is more tolerable, although it is always accompanied by indescribable fatigues. For the religious of Mobo have to sail completely about the island of MasbÀte in order to fulfil their obligations, or if they prefer to journey by land, as they are able, to one or two villages, they have to do it afoot with the greatest discomfort, through inaccessible mountains, and exposed to dangers wellnigh insupportable. The missionaries of TicÀo, besides having to coast a great part of that island have to go many times during each year to that of BurÌas, crossing the very stout currents of the sea from the rapidity of which some of the missionaries have found themselves in the utmost consternation. On the other hand, all the time that the Indians remained Zimarrones, they allowed no passage to the zealous laborers without them risking their lives to innumerable dangers; and even after they had been reduced, the Moros were a substitute for them on the outside, and inside many sorcerers, who tried, some by violence, and others by their diabolical arts, to drive thence, and even from the world, the ministers of souls. And who can tell all that they suffered from all these causes? It was so great that some religious, never more alive than when they were dead, came to die in the campaign like good soldiers.

1120. Father Fray Ildephonso de la Concepcion was one of those who sweated most in that ministry, and one of those who entered to cultivate it in its early beginnings. By the ardor of his zeal, by the example of his life, and by his apostolic preaching, he reduced many apostates to the Catholic faith. Some of them were gathered into the villages already established, and others, up to the number of eighty families, founded through his influence, another new village on the opposite coast from Mobo. Going then, from one to another part of the islands, the solicitous fisher of souls had the boat in which he journeyed swamped twice, one-half legua from shore, while another time his boat was driven by storms on some reefs and dashed to pieces; dangers in which many of those who accompanied him were lost, while the father escaped miraculously with his life after having endured a thousand anxieties. The Zimarrones, infidels, and bad Christians, given up to doing ill to whomever procured their total welfare, now as declared enemies, and again as wily friends, placed him almost continually in monstrous danger of exhaling his last breath. In order that he might visit promptly the new village which he had erected, he opened a road from Mobo to it through the interior of the island. He crossed it many times on foot, it being necessary for him to traverse very lofty mountains exposed to all the inclemencies of the weather. He suffered indescribable things for the faith, with the great hardship that his vast zeal occasioned him, and which those Indians caused him with their obstinacy. Finally he fell grievously ill, his pains originating from the penalties of the said road which he frequented several times in the course of a single month, as well as from the heat and showers which he endured when going through the mountains in search of those rational wild beasts. He died through the apostolic zeal, in the manner in which all gospel laborers ought to depart this life.

1121. Father Fray Benito de la Assumpcion, a religious who seemed born for the labors and successes of the spiritual administration, followed that laborer in the care of that vineyard. He believed that, without passing the limits of prudence, it would be very seasonable for the souls of his parishioners to reduce them to living closer together in a fewer number of villages, and he thus tried to bring it to pass. Especially did he propose to himself the plan that the Indians shortly before reduced to the new village which we have mentioned in the preceding number, should move to the capital or chief village of Mobo, for he formed the correct judgment that they would be better Christians if they had at all hours the good example of their ministers before their eyes. It is not so difficult to move a whole village in Philipinas as it would be in Europa; for the Indians build their houses without cost and easily. They also find in all parts lands suitable for their cultivation without any expense from their pockets. Yet notwithstanding that one cannot easily tell the vast labors, watches, and afflictions that come upon the religious when they attempt such reductions of the Indians. The latter desire with too great endeavor, to have their residence where they cannot be registered, in order to work with greater freedom, and excuse themselves if possible from all human subjection, and even from divine law, without caring greatly for their own spiritual interests, but each one going at will to his rancheria or field where it is not easy for the father minister to visit them or assist them with the holy sacraments during their sicknesses. For that reason all hell is conjured against the teacher of the doctrine, if he tries to place such reductions into effect, from which many spiritual interests would follow. That venerable father suffered so much with his undertaking that he caused universal wonder that it did not cost him his life, and the worst thing was that he could not see it accomplished.

1122. Not only in this, but also in other projects of known utility, did he have much to endure and much from which to gather merit. With the zeal of Elias did he relentlessly persecute divine offenses, while he at the same time loved the persons most especially. It was the same for him to discover any trace of superstition or the slightest vestige of the badly extinguished infidelity, and to fly to its destruction with all his power. Amid continual risks of losing his life, he exercised his gigantic charity for many years in directing the souls of those islands to God, without any fear of death whose scythe he saw upon him many times. The Moros with their stealthy attacks, the infidels or apostates with open malice, and the evil Christians with their subterfuges and deceits made him almost continually suffer for justice. But he worked on manfully as one who had the refuge of his life in God, and consoling his weakened heart with the divine grace he supported the persecutions from which the Lord wove him a crown. In the above-named village a chief Indian named CanamÀn irritated by the attempted reduction, and because the father checked him publicly for a certain scandalous concubinage, raised his head in open mutiny. With many followers he sought the father and persecuted him in order to deprive him of life. At that revolution the venerable religious was sorely grieved, and it was considered as a special prodigy that he could escape from so sacrilegious hands. Finally, for the same reason another Indian of the village of TicÀo (exasperated by the just reprehension and punishment which that famous minister had applied to him as an indispensable medicine for his faults) caused him to be the holocaust of his burning zeal for the good of souls, by the hidden method of poison, through the potency of which father Fray Benito lost his life, in order to obtain a better one in glory.

1123. After the above fathers, father Fray Diego de San Gabriel entered to take up the toil with the profit of increased fruit in the cultivation of that field. He was the amazement of charity in regard to God because of his care for self-perfection, and in regard to his neighbor, because of the way in which he desired his salvation. In order that he might attain that end he pardoned no toil, if it were fitting for the spiritual welfare of the Indians. He showered favors upon his parishioners by trying to take them to the kingdom of heaven. And although for this the latter loved him more, some were not wanting among so many who persecuted him, returning him evil for good. But like another David when they troubled him with their injuries, the venerable father clad himself in haircloth, humbled his soul in fasting, and occupied himself in prayer. By that means he delighted himself in God, taking pleasure in hardships as if they were the fountain of health. In order to induce his parishioners to the devotion of the most holy Mary he composed and published in the Visayan language a book of the miracles of our Lady of Carmen; and the most sweet Virgin repaid his good zeal by liberating him with circumstances that appeared miraculous from several shipwrecks, and from other innumerable multitudes of dangers. On the beach of the village of Balino a certain Indian gave him a cruel wound with a dagger, because he checked some faults in him. The father recognized as a favor of the Mother of Mercy, not only the fact that he was not quite killed, as might have happened, but also the cure of the wound, almost without medicine. But at last, as he was sailing as secretary, which post he had obtained later, to visit those villages and others of Visayas, a storm coming down upon him swamped the boat and he was drowned, together with the father provincial, then our father Fray Juan de San AndrÈs.

1124. And now in order to conclude in a few words, a matter that we can not even with many words consider adequately, we add that the venerable fathers Fray Antonio de Santa Monica and Fray ThomÀs de San Lucas said many times without a trace of boasting that, although they had been many times in the doctrinas and missions, in none of them had they found so much to suffer as in that of MasbÀte. Father Fray Francisco de Santa Engarcia was twice in imminent danger of death; first in shipwreck and later because an Indian tried to kill him, for the reason that he had tried to get him to give up a certain concubinage. But God having freed him from those dangers, allowed him to perish in another through His occult judgments. It was a fact that that father when attending to the fulfilment of his obligation gave motive that certain of the Zimarron Indians whom he was endeavoring to establish soundly in the Catholic faith gave him certain death-dealing powders in his food, which although they did not deprive him of life rendered him insensible and he became most pitiably insane. Many other religious, whom we shall not mention for various reasons, suffered so much while ministers of those islands, by shipwreck, bad weather, and persecution, that if they did not obtain the crown to which they aspired by death, they were left with their health totally lost, and lived amid continual aches and pains, until their last breath opened for them, after some years, a pathway to heaven in order that they might enjoy the reward of their well endured conflicts.

[The remaining sections of this chapter and the two final chapters of the book do not touch Philippine matters.]