Part 5

[Fol. 121 (sc. 120):] The Joloans having been subjected by the bravery of Don Pedro de Almonte, they began to listen to the gospel, and they went to fix their abodes in the shelter of our fort. But, [divine] grace accommodating itself to their nature, as the sect of Mahoma have always been so obstinate, it was necessary that God should display His power, in order that their eyes might be opened to the light. The fervent father Alexandro Lopez was preaching in that island, to whose labors efficacy was given by the hand of God with many prodigies. The cures which the ministers made were frequent, now with benedictions, now with St. Paul's earth, [15] in many cases of bites from poisonous serpents, or of persons to whom poison was administered. Among other cures, one was famous, that of a woman already given up as beyond hope; having given her some of St. Paul's earth, she came back from the gates of death to entire health. With this they showed more readiness to accept the [Christian] doctrine, which was increased by a singular triumph which the holy cross obtained over hell in all these islands; for, having planted this royal standard of our redemption in an island greatly infested by demons, who were continually frightening the islanders with howls and cries, it imposed upon them perpetual silence, and freed all the other [neighboring] islands from an extraordinary tyranny. For the demons were crossing from island to island, in the sea, in the shape of serpents of enormous size, and did not allow vessels to pass without first compelling their crews to render adoration to the demon in iniquitous sacrifices; but this ceased, the demon taking flight at sight of the cross. [Several incidents of miraculous events are here related.] With these occurrences God opened their eyes, in order that they might see the light and embrace baptism, and in those islands a very notable Christian church was formed; and almost all was due to the miraculous resurrection of Maria Ligo [which our author relates at length]. Many believed, and thus began a flourishing Christian community; and as ministers afterward could not be kept in Joló on account of the wars, [these converts] exiled themselves from their native land, and went to live at Samboangan, in order that they might be able to live as Christians. [This prosperous beginning is spoiled by the lawless conduct of the commandant Gaspar de Morales, which brings on hostilities with the natives, and finally his own death in a fight with them.] Father Alexandro Lopez went to announce the gospel at Pangutaran, (an island distant six leguas east from Joló), and as the people were a simple folk they received the law of Christ with readiness ... The Moros of Tuptup captured a discalced religious of St. Augustine, who, to escape from the pains of captivity, took to flight with a negro. Father Juan Contreras (who was in Joló) went out with some Lutaos in boats to rescue him, calling to him in various places from the shore; but the poor religious was so overcome with fear that, although he heard the voices and was near the beach, he did not dare to go out to our vessels, despite the encouragement of the negro; and on the following day the Joloans, encountering him, carried him back to his captivity, with blows. He wrote a letter from that place, telling the misfortunes that he was suffering; all the soldiers, and even the Lutaos, called upon the governor [of Joló], to ransom that religious at the cost of their wages, but without effect. Then Father Contreras, moved by fervent charity, went to Patical, where the fair [16] was held, and offered himself to remain as a captive among the Moros, in order that they might set free the poor religious, who was feeble and sick. Some Moros agreed to this; but the Orancaya Suil, who was the head chief of the Guimbanos, said that no one should have anything to do with that plan--at which the hopes of that afflicted religious for ransom were cut off. Seeing that he must again endure his hardships, from which death would soon result, he asked Father Contreras to confess him; the latter undertook to set out by water to furnish him that spiritual consolation, but the Lutaos would not allow him to leave the boat, even using some violence, in order not to endanger his person. All admired a charity so ardent, and, having renewed his efforts, he so urgently persuaded the governor, Juan Ruiz Maroto, to ransom him that the latter gave a thousand pesos in order to rescue the religious from captivity. Twice Father Contreras went to the fair, but the Moros did not carry the captive there with them. Afterward he was ransomed for three hundred pesos by Father Alexandro Lopez, the soldiers aiding with part of their pay a work of so great charity.

[Fol. 123:] [The Society of Jesus throughout the world celebrates the centennial anniversary of its foundation; the official order for this does not reach Manila in time, so the Jesuits there observe the proper anniversary (September 27, 1640) with solemn religious functions, besides spending a week in practicing the "spiritual exercises" and various works of charity. "On one day of the octave all the members of the Society went to the prisons, and carried to the prisoners an abundant and delicious repast. The same was done in the hospitals, to which they carried many sweetmeats to regale the sick; they made the beds, swept the halls, and carried the chamber-vessels to the river to clean them; and afterward they sprinkled the halls with scented water. Throughout the octave abundance of food was furnished at the porter's lodge to the beggars; and a free table was set for the poor Spaniards, who were served with food in abundance and neatness. It was a duty, and a very proper manner of celebrating the [virtues of the] men who have rendered the Society illustrious, to imitate them in humility, devotion, and charity."]

[Fol. 123 b:] In the Pintados Islands and other ministries Ours labored fervently in ministering to the Christians and converting the infidels. Nor was the zeal of the Society content with laboring in its own harvest-field; it had the courage to go to the ministers of the secular priests to conduct missions. Two fathers went on a mission to Mindoro and Luban, and when they were near the village their caracoa was attacked by three joangas of Borneans and Camucones. The caracoa, in order to escape from the enemies, ran ashore; and the fathers, leaving there all that they possessed--books, missal, and the clothing that they were carrying to distribute as alms to the poor Indians--took to the woods, through which they made their way to Naujan. On the road it frequently rained, and they had no change of clothing, nor any food save some buds of the wild palm-tree; they suffered weariness, hunger, and thirst, and to slake this last they drank the water which they found in the pools there. After twenty days of this so toilsome journeying they reached the chief town [of the island], their feet covered with wounds, themselves faint and worn out with hunger, and half dead from fatigue; but they were joyful and contented, because God was giving them this opportunity to suffer for love of Him. One of the fathers went back to Marinduque, where he found other troubles, no less grievous than those which had gone before; for the Camucones had robbed the church, ravaged the grain-fields, captured some Indians, and caused the rest to flee to the hills. The father felt deep compassion for them, and at the cost of much toil he again assembled the Indians and brought them back to their villages.

[Fol. 134:] In the fifth provincial congregation, which was held in the year 1635, Father Diego de Bobadilla was chosen procurator to Roma and Madrid. He embarked in the year 1637, and while he was in España the disturbances in Portugal and Cataluña occurred. The news of these events was very afflicting to this province, considering the difficulty in its securing aid. Besides the usual fields of Tagalos and Bisayas, the province occupied the new missions of Buhayen, Iligan, Basilan, and Jolo; and there were several years when it found itself with only forty priests, who with the utmost difficulty provided as best they could for needs so great. Phelipe IV--whom we may call "the Great," on account of his unconquerable, signal, and unusual patience, which God chose to prove by great and repeated misfortunes--was so zealous for the Catholic religion, its maintenance, and its progress that even in times so hard he did not grudge the grant of forty-seven missionaries for this province. He also gave orders that they should be supplied at Sevilla with a thousand and forty ducados, and at Mexico with thirteen thousand pesos--a contribution of the greatest value in those circumstances, and which could only be dictated by a heart so Catholic as that of this prince, who every day renewed the vow that he had taken that he would not make friends with the infidels, to the detriment of religion, even though it should cost him his crown and his life. On Holy Tuesday, March 31, in 1643, forty-seven Jesuits embarked at Acapulco; and on the second of April mass was sung, and communion was celebrated--not only by the missionaries, but by almost all the laymen who came in the almiranta, where was established a distribution [of their labors] as well planned as in an Observant college. For at daybreak [17] a bell was rung tor rising; there was a season of prayer; mass was said, once on working-days and twice on feast-days; the priests who did not say mass received communion every day, and the lay-brothers, students, and coadjutors two or three times a week; there was reading at meal-times; and at the approach of night the litanies were recited and the Salve sung. Every night a father went to the forecastle to explain the Christian doctrine, and ended with some brief address. When night began, the father procurator rang a little bell, in order that they might pray to God for the souls in purgatory and for those who are in mortal sin, imitating the example of St. Francis Xavier. Before the hour for retiring, the bell was rung for the examination of conscience. Every Sunday, feast-day, and Saturday, addresses were made to all the [people of the] ship.

Soon after they had embarked, a sort of wind blew which made nearly all those who were coming in the ship fall ill; and from this sickness died five Jesuits, and thirty-three laymen; and in the flagship six religious of St. Dominic and seventy [other] persons. These sick persons gave sufficient occasion for the charity of Ours, who assisted them by administering the sacraments and caring for their souls; and they even busied themselves in relieving the sick, so far as was possible, with delicacies and personal attentions. This occupation was an excellent preparation in order that the sermons and exhortations that the ministers uttered might produce the desired result--that a great reform in morals and much attendance on the sacraments might be secured. [After perils and hardships by sea, and in the overland passage from Lampon to Manila, they reach that city. "It was a very numerous mission band, who accomplished much work; and there were some of them who spent fifty and even more than sixty years in Philipinas, which is a very extraordinary thing." Five of them had died on the voyage: fathers Francisco Casela, a native of Naples, aged thirty years; Francois Boursin, a native of Arras, aged thirty-four; Georg Kocart, from Neuburg, aged twenty-eight; Gonzalo Cisneros, an Aragonese (?), aged twenty-eight; and Dominic Vaybel (probably for Waibl), a native of Constance, of the same age.] In the college of Zebu the Society labored with apostolic zeal; for, although regularly there was no one in it besides the father rector and another priest, they maintained preaching and confession, and attended to the spiritual welfare of the Spaniards, Indians, mestizos, and other people who gathered there; and God gave His blessing to our pious desires and labors. Many Indians attended the sermons that were preached in that church, even when the sermons were in Spanish.

[Fol. 152 b:] Our military forces, being set free from the nearer enemies, were employed against those more distant. Accordingly, the commander of our armada, Pedro Duran de Monforte, directed his course to the great island of Borney, where he burned many villages on that coast, and carried away forty captives; and he succeeded in making this voyage known [to navigators], and in observing the shoals, monsoons, and other difficulties. With this experience he again set out, on January 11, 1649, with fourteen vessels, his people being

## partly Indian adventurers from Pintados, partly Lutaos; and Father

Francisco Lado accompanied him. He touched at Lacaylacay; went on to Onsan, the limit of the former expedition; and went to the island of Bangui. Everywhere he found abundance of rice, swine, and goats. He plundered and destroyed several villages; burned more than three hundred vessels, among them the armed fleet which they held ready that year to infest these islands--which on account of this exploit remained for the time free from their fury and barbarity. He brought back more than two hundred captives, and ransomed some Christians. All this was done in a short time and with ease, because these affairs were undertaken with proper seriousness. As a result of this, when the governor of Samboangan, Rafael Omen, died, Pedro Duran de Monforte was appointed in his place; and the latter imitated his predecessor in his zeal for religion, in his Christian mode of life, in disinterestedness, and in an affable and mild bearing, for which he was beloved by all, while his government was peaceful and prosperous. With the opportunity afforded by these armadas, the Jesuits (who went as chaplains) began to announce the gospel in the great island of Borney, than which there is no larger island in the world. So prosperous were those beginnings that they succeeded in having seven hundred islanders baptized. Two chiefs of the neighboring islands offered vassalage to the king of Spain, and asked for gospel ministers, as Father Colin testifies; and this mission finally gave hopes that a numerous and extensive Christian church would be founded which would compensate for the losses in Japon and the Orient; but, lacking the protection of the Spanish military forces, this so beautiful hope faded away almost at its flowering. Deplorable and repeated experiences persuade us that in these latter times the Christian missions are maintained and increased only when in the shelter of Catholic arms; sad witnesses to this are Japon, India, and now China. If in these islands and America our kings did not protect religion, I believe that those regions would now be as heathen as in their former times. Experience teaches this, and the rest I regard as speculation--although the powerful arm of the Highest easily overcomes the greatest impossibilities.

[Fol. 155 b:] The testimony of the venerable Father Mastrili, and the voluntary choice of so many distinguished Jesuits and martyrs who embraced these missions with the greatest eagerness, are sufficient recommendation for them. With just reason they can be esteemed, as being among the most laborious and difficult which the Society maintains anywhere in the world. This title is deserved by the missions of Philipinas, and among them those to Mindanao and the Subanos are some of the most difficult. No one accuses this statement of being exaggerated, and still less of being arrogant, before he has examined it minutely; and then he cannot find more moderate terms [than the above] in order not to fall short of the truth. Whatever dangers, inconveniences, and privations are experienced on land are also experienced on the sea, with an [additional] sort of circumstances which renders them more grievous, and besides this there are the hardships natural and peculiar to that element; and even that which on land is chosen for convenience and relief costs on the sea inconvenience and trouble--as, for instance, sleeping, eating, and taking exercise. Every boat is a prison without chains, but more closely shut than the narrowest jail; it is a broad coffin, in which the living suffer the discomforts of death. Whoever sets foot in a boat resolutely confronts all the elements, which conspire in arms to terrify and destroy him. The water upon which he journeys, the air by which he sails, the fire by which he lives, the land which he so anxiously seeks--all are declared enemies of the traveler. The sea is, by antonomasia, the theater for [all] perils; and no one who has not been tossed upon its foaming waves can speak with justice of its dangers, just as the blind man cannot dispute about colors. A heart of steel or of diamond, say the ancients, he must have had who first boldly launched himself upon the [waters of the] gulfs, so many perils did they conceive of an element which has as many treacheries as waves. Therefore, as nearly all the missions of this province are established along the seas, on which our missionaries go about, continually on the move, these are the (or among the) most difficult, arduous and perilous that exist on the whole round globe. To this sacrifice charity gladly constrained us. Let to all this be added the nature of the country, in which earthquakes, baguios, hurricanes, storms of thunder and lightning, and tempests often occur. The winds are violent and hurtful, the season hot; the rainy season gloomy, dark and persistent; the wet soil producing many disgusting insects that are troublesome and vexatious. The care for the temporal welfare of the people--seeing that they pay their tributes to the king, and that they plant their fields in time--is an employment that is troublesome, tedious, and necessary. Nor is it a less task to take care for the provisioning of the [missionary's] own house, without having in this respect the aid which the apostles had; because the minister must rather care for his own house and for that of others, a charge which charity lays upon us. Charitas omnia sustinet [i.e., "Charity endures all things"].

Each missionary in Bisayas (or Pintados) has the care of two to five thousand souls, and even more. These commonly are divided among two or three villages, quite far apart; and throughout the year the minister is sailing from one to another, to preach to them and aid them. Among the Subanos there are not so many people [in each mission], but their little villages are more numerous. Formerly each minister had ten or twelve villages of Subanos, [each] divided on as many rivers, in the form of hamlets. There were houses round about the church or pavilion [camarin], and the rest [of the people] lived scattered in the hills, forests, and thickets. I have seen some native huts [buhios] on the peaks of the mountains, [so far away] that they could hardly be reached in half an hour from the river. Others I saw placed among the branches of the trees, in the same manner as nests. Their houses regularly are very high, with a bamboo for a ladder, which they remove at night. All this they do in order to hide themselves and be free from the frequent invasions of the Moros; and from the stratagems and treacheries of their own countrymen, who are inclined to vengeance and perfidy. Among these people we live. The rivers are full of ferocious and blood-thirsty crocodiles, which kill many persons. When I was in Dapitan there was one of these beasts in the river of Iraya, so sanguinary and fierce that no one dared to pass that river by night, on account of the ravages that it committed--leaping into the boats, and taking people out of them. In the books of those villages, I read with horror and pity: "On such a day was buried the head of N., which was all that was found, because the crocodile had torn him to pieces." The bars of the rivers are dangerous, and with the freshets and the waves some channels are easily closed and others opened, to the great risk of those who are sailing. The seas are rough, and so restless that the continual lashing of the waves on the shores, rocks, and reefs makes a sound which causes fear even in those who live inland. On that coast are headlands so difficult to double that sometimes the caracoas spend twenty or thirty days in voyages which in favorable weather require half an hour. As a result, the ministers live in great loneliness, without being able to communicate with one another--save that, when the monsoons blow, in order to make one's confession a voyage is necessary; and therefore this consolation is attained by some but few times in the year. If a fatal accident occurs to one, it is not possible to assist him with the holy sacraments--which is the greatest affliction that can be endured in the hour of death; and their only recourse is to place themselves in the hands of that Lord for whom they expose themselves to these sufferings. Even greater are the fatigues endured by the soul in the frequent occasions which disturb its patience. The feeling of indifference which is native to the country tends to undermine gradually the wall of poverty, weaken the spirit of obedience, and cool the most fervent spiritual ardor and strictness of observance. Even the blood which animates us and gives us life is mutinous, and stirs up the passions against their own master; and, aided by the noxious air of the country, the extreme solitude, and the common enemy, wages a war that is cruel, obstinate, bloody, and so pertinacious that it does not yield until the last breath of life....