The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume 30 of 55

As a result of the continued preaching to the Chinese, the number of them converted and baptized increased from year to year. Since after this they were not permitted to return to their own country, they married and settled down in this one, so that the population of Christians in Baybay belonging to this nation was greatly increased. It accordingly became necessary to buy another large site, in order to extend this village – which, though it is immediately contiguous to the other, has a separate name, and is somewhat divided from it by a river which passes between them. This village is called Minondoc. This site was bought to be given to the new Christians, as in fact it was given, by Don Luis Perez das Mariñas,45 knight of the Habit of Alcantara, and former governor of these islands, a man of superior virtue, who lived in this same village among the Chinese, setting them an admirable example as a man who had the name and did the works of sainthood. In this location of Minondoc it was necessary to build another church, much larger than the one they had at Baybay (which was very small, and did not accommodate all the congregation). From time to time it has been increased in size and is now a most beautiful church, very capacious, very well lighted, very pleasant, very strong, and very attractive. It is built wholly of stone, being thirty-eight brazas in length, and more than eight in width, and eight and one-half high. It has fifty large windows, which add much to its beauty. Its size is now so great that it is the largest church in the village; and since it will not accommodate all the congregation at one time, they go to it twice on every Sunday and feast-day. Sermons are delivered at each of the masses, in two languages – one in Chinese, and the other in the language of the natives of this country, for the wives of the Chinamen and other Indians who live in this town. There are then four sermons delivered every Sunday, two in Chinese, and two in the language of these Indians; although, that they may not be too heavy a burden, each address lasts not more than half an hour. The Chinese have always given this church of theirs the name of St. Gabriel, after that of their hospital, in admiration of the miracle of his lot having been drawn out three times in succession as patron of the hospital, as has been said. They desire not to fail to deserve the favor of this most holy archangel, whom the Lord has given them with His own hand as their especial advocate; and they therefore celebrate in his honor every year very joyful and devout feasts. Throughout the year the divine offices are performed in this church with great solemnity and grandeur, many of these Chinese affording their assistance, with very large contributions toward everything necessary for the adornment of the church and the divine services. There have been in this town many Chinese of very exemplary lives. Juan de Vera was not only a very devout man, and one much given to prayer, but a man who caused all those of his household to be the same. He always heard mass, and was very regular in his attendance at church. He adorned the church most handsomely with hangings and paintings, because he understood this art. He also, thinking only of the great results to be attained by means of holy and devout books, gave himself to the great labor necessary to establish printing in this country, where there was no journeyman who could show him the way, or give him an account of the manner of printing in Europe, which is very different from the manner of printing followed in his country of China. The Lord aided his pious intention, and he himself gave to this undertaking not only continued and excessive labor, but all the forces of his mind, which were great. In spite of the difficulties, he attained that which he desired, and was the first printer in these islands;46 and this not from avarice – for he gained much more in his business as a merchant, and readily gave up his profit – but merely to do this service to the Lord and this good to the souls of the natives. For they could not profit by holy books printed in other countries, because of their ignorance of the foreign language; nor could they have books in their own language, because there was no printing in this country, no one who made a business of it, and not even anyone who understood it. Hence this labor was very meritorious before the Lord and of great profit to these peoples. As a reward the Lord gave him a most happy death, with such joy and devotion that he began to sing praises to the Lord in a very loud voice – at one time in his Chinese language, at another in that of the Indians, at another in Spanish; for he knew them all well. There were about his bed many religious, who loved him much for his devoutness. One of them said, in a low voice, to him who was next to him, “It seems that the severity of his disease has affected his mind;” and as if this had been said aloud the sick man heard it, and answered, “Has he not lost his reason, fathers, who on any such occasion as this should think it well to do anything but what I am doing – sing praises to the Lord and give Him many thanks for having made me a Christian?” He longed for a thousand languages that he might praise Him in all; and in this devotion and fervor of spirit he died, leaving the religious not only greatly comforted but very envious of such a death. Juan de Vera had a brother somewhat younger than he; and when Juan saw that he was about to die he called him and said to him: “Brother, there is one thing which I wish to ask you to do for me, that I may die in comfort; and that is, that you will carry on this business of printing, so that the great service done by it to God may not come to an end. I know well that you are certain in this way to lose much gain; but it is of much greater importance to you to obtain a spiritual profit by printing devout books for the Indians. You may well afford to lose this temporal gain in return for that eternal one.” The brother promised, and much more than fulfilled his word; for, greatly influenced by the aforesaid holy death, the brother greatly improved his own manner of life, and began a career of especial devotion, which lasted until his death. He was made steward of our Lady, and served her with great diligence. From his own fortune he provided many rich adornments, giving to the church a large cross and silver candlesticks for the procession, besides a silver lamp for the most holy sacrament. He also contributed largely to the building of the church. He gave all these things to our Lady, in return for what he gained in his business; and he agreed with this Lady to give her a certain portion of his profits, obliging himself to this with a special vow. In return for this devotion, his merits and his gains increased, and he felt himself daily more and more under obligation; and he more and more devoutly fulfilled his office, in which he died, leaving behind him a very good name, as such a life deserved. A still greater advance in spirituality was made by Antonio Lopez, a Chinese of superior ability and judgment, very devout and charitable, and a liberal benefactor of his church. To the building of the church he gave many thousand pesos in life, and after his death left a perpetual endowment of considerable amount for its ornaments, repairs, and other needs. Because of his probity, rectitude, and disinterestedness – a rare virtue among the Chinese, who are naturally avaricious, and one which is never found by itself, but is always accompanied by all the rest in a high degree, since it is the most difficult for them – because of these good qualities, he was frequently obliged to hold the office of governor of his people. This gave them great delight, because they knew he was just and pious. Though this office is usually sought for, and even ordinarily bought for many thousand pesos, he did not desire it, even free of cost; and it was necessary to force it upon him. When finally he accepted it, being unable to resist longer, he desired to avoid all temptations to avarice; and therefore, from the very beginning, he made an offering to the church of all the profits obtained from the office. He left for himself only the labor, so that good-will to the party affected by his decisions might not make him swerve a single point from justice. When he died he left a will very Christian and very prudent, providing for many masses immediately and a perpetual chaplaincy, bestowing much alms, giving three slaves to his church, and doing many other things worthy of his Christian spirit and his advanced intelligence. There have been in this town many other persons of very great virtue, particularly women. A reference to their devotion at this point will cause a similar spirit in the readers; but, being a matter not directly connected with this history, we are obliged to omit it, that we may pass on to matters more germane to our subject. It will be sufficient to refer to one special case which happened to one woman, a Japanese by nation, married to a Chinaman. [Poor in the things of this world, they were rich in those of heaven. Each of them had the characteristics opposite to those of their race; she was without the duplicity and choleric spirit of the Japanese, and he was destitute of the avarice and loquacity of the Chinese. She in particular amazed and humiliated her confessor. Her virtue was such that she was rewarded by a vision of our Lady, who comforted her with the promise that her confessor, father Fray Thomas Mayor,47 who had expected to return to his native province of Aragon, would not leave his post in the islands.]

Chapter XXVIII

The coming of some religious, and the second visitation of father Fray Juan de Castro

As has been seen, the conversions that had been begun proceeded with great prosperity, affording even at the very beginning marvelous fruits. The Lord at the very outset favored them, as being matters peculiarly under His own care, with supernatural marvels – manifest proofs of the truths preached in them, proofs which the heathen could not resist; and hence more and more of them embraced the faith and abandoned their errors with the greatest marks of devotion. This they did with such rapidity that the few missionaries there were could not serve so many converts, scattered in so many villages. Therefore the Lord had compassion upon them, and in the year 1589 sent them reënforcements of religious, few but excellent. As their superior came father Fray Juan Chrisostomo, the man who had labored most in the establishment of this province, and who therefore greatly loved it. But the Lord had kept him in desire for it, that he might obtain the greater merit; and therefore in his first year he was not able to come, having been so infirm and weak that he could not even use his arms and hands to carry the food to his mouth, and had to depend upon others. In the second year, although he had not completely recovered, he set out on the road and almost reached the port, desiring to take ship; but was unable to do so, for lack of a vessel. These were reasons enough why a man who had been of old a missionary in Nueva España, who had great command of the language, and who was much beloved by religious and Indians, as father Fray Juan Chrisostomo was, should remain among them. Still, this result did not follow in his case, because of the great desire that he felt to do a greater service under greater difficulties in this new province, where with the utmost fervor the missionaries devoted themselves to their labor for the benefit of souls, drawing them from the darkness of their unbelief. Therefore in this year he sought for an opportunity and for some associates, and embarked for this province – although, on account of his many and severe infirmities and his great age, and on account of the fact that his life had been spent with great praise in the ministry to the Mexican Indians, he might justly have taken his ease in a country where it would have been so natural to do it as Mexico. He was joined by father Fray Francisco de la Mina,48 who had been a missionary in Nueva España for forty years, setting a noble example, and exhibiting the most finished virtue; by Fray Thomas Castellar, likewise a very devoted religious, who had been a missionary there and had labored notably in that office and in other laudable exercises, for which he received great commendation in that province; and by Fray Alonso Montero, who, though younger, had likewise been a missionary to those Indians. These two fathers were sent directly to the province of Pangasinan, where they learned the language well, and labored much and with notable results. Father Fray Francisco de la Mina went to the district of Bataan. He was so old that he could not learn the language of these Indians very well; but the good example of his life, his great virtue, and his strictness of life, qualities which were eminent in this gray-haired and venerable man, were of great profit to the natives, and gave opportunity for permitting father Fray Juan Garcia to leave this mission and go to that of Pangasinan. This was the vocation indicated for him by the Lord; and hence, by His aid, he was most useful in this tribe, and one of those who labored most and best in it. He was greatly beloved by the Indians, among whom his memory still remains; and they speak of him with great affection, which he deserved by his exemplary life and by the great devotion with which he labored for them, as will be told when his happy death is related. Father Fray Juan Chrisostomo was occupied in the conversion of the Chinese, not only because that was what was most desired by the religious, but also because his many infirmities would not permit him to go very far from the physician, and there was none in the other districts. When the father provincial had divided the new workers, as has been said, he himself would not be idle; and accordingly he set about a second visitation of his province, desiring to see that of which reports were sent to him – the favor shown by the Lord to these new conversions, in softening the hard hearts of the heathen, and in firmly rooting the faith and virtuous habits in those already converted. He received consolation enough in seeing the great things wrought by the Lord in the conversion of the Chinese – the church and the teaching that they had in Baibai, and the continual conversions in the Parian, as a result of the sermons assiduously delivered to them. But what most of all delighted his spirit was what he saw daily in the hospital of the Chinese, where he dwelt with great comfort to his soul. It delighted him greatly to hear these sick persons – who had previously not known to whom to turn in their troubles, except to their idols and devils, but who now despised these, and called in their sorrows and wretchedness upon God – invoking the most comforting name of Jesus and of His most holy mother Mary, our Lady. To her all these peoples feel such loving devotion that some of them more quickly remember this our Lady and call upon her in their necessities than God Himself – in which our Lord delights, for the honor of His most holy mother. It took from the holy old man a thousand gray hairs to see the many persons who, recovering from their sickness, asked for baptism – and much more to see those who died baptized. He was not displeased but delighted when he heard them ask for food and dainties, which he provided for them with great charity and kindness, giving them whatever they asked so long as it was not dangerous to their health. He regarded his provincialship as a happy one when he went among those who were serving the sick, not as their needy neighbors, but as taking the place of Christ, our good, who regards as a kindness to His own person everything that is done in His name to those who are so poor. Hence the good provincial went on, in happiness and devotion, serving the sick as if he were their nurse; he provided them with good beds, shared with them his robe, and as well as he could, though he did not know their language, encouraged them to patience. Lifting his eyes to heaven, he thanked the Redeemer of the world that He had so changed the hearts of this race, who in their heathen state seemed to have no heart or understanding for anything except the gaining of money, in which they seemed to place all their happiness and all their desires. Afterward, when he saw some miraculous conversions here, which have already been partly described, it was a wonderful thing to see the devout superior breaking out in lively and fervent wishes that he might see similar mercies of the Lord enjoyed by the great kingdom of China; and that the doctrine of the Catholic church, carried thither by apostolic men, might succeed in conquering in that same country those able minds by the force of its truth, and by the constant aid which truth has always received from the divine Goodness. He was sure that among the people of that kingdom, as they are more polite, having a superior political organization, and are more highly cultivated by learning, the faith would accomplish very extraordinary results. To this belief he was the more inclined because it had already wrought so much among those poor Chinese who came to the Philippinas Islands; for they are ordinarily of the lower class of their kingdom, and as such come to serve and labor for foreigners. On this account there followed in his mind a great desire to send to China religious from the number of those who understood the language, and even to accompany them, though he could not see the way to carry out his plan. He could not venture to take them thither, because of his fear of the great hardships that those would have to endure who ventured upon this undertaking. So he felt the desire only, with no further results than to commend it constantly to the Lord, to whom there is nothing impossible or difficult. He visited the district of Bataan and found it greatly improved as a result of the useful spiritual exercise introduced by the fathers. They had set up crosses at the intersections of the roads, and here the people of the neighborhood gathered every evening as they came in from their fields, which they have very near their villages. Here they recited all of the doctrine [that they had received], in order that they might be more thoroughly acquainted with it; and from day to day they became more tractable and devout, as being more fully instructed in the faith. It was for the father provincial a most delicious morsel to hear them recite not only all the prayers, but afterward all the questions which are ordinarily put in regard to the teaching of Christianity – some asking the questions and others answering them; and even offering difficulties to each other, about which they asked questions, and to which many old Christians would not know what to say. What pleased him more than anything else was the happy beginning of confessions that had been made. By these confessions, given with clearness and truth, the missionaries came to the knowledge of the great errors which had been committed by those who had previously been concerned with this mission. By this time, as a result of the great amount of teaching which had been given to this district, the Indians came to bethink themselves, and gave information to their confessors; and thus many things which needed remedying were set right, in cases which were of no less importance than salvation itself. The provincial was with great reason pleased; for all the faults which are committed, not only against the commandment of God and of His church, but against the other sacraments, are corrected and blotted out, if only this one is properly received, for our Lord has placed reparation for all of them in this sacrament of penance. But if confession is not such as it ought to be, there is no remedy; and hence everything is irredeemably lost. This truth, which holds for the whole church of God, has greater force among Indians, in whose way the devil strives to place a thousand difficulties, and fears of this sacrament. Since they do not know as much or have as much capacity as old Christians, they are more easily deceived, and it is not so easy to deliver them from such temptations. Only continual instruction by the ministers can help them to escape from these snares, as the Christians of this region escaped. With great clearness and distinctness they stated what troubled their consciences, and many evils were remedied, to the great comfort both of the penitents and of their confessors, who gave an account of this matter to their superior, and he rendered many thanks to the Lord for it. Continuing his visitation, the provincial went on to Pangasinan, where he saw and heard even greater things – since, as the obstinacy of this tribe had been greater, it was proper that God should work in it greater marvels. These had been such as to overcome nearly all their perversity, and much has been said with regard to them already. Much more is omitted; but they all wrought upon these untamed Indians marvelous effects. Not that they subjected themselves wholly to the easy yoke of the faith; rather, the Christians there were very few, but they were very good ones; and all the rest were almost convinced, by the things which they saw and heard, in favor of the gospel and its ministers. Even though they did not wholly accept the missionaries, they were not so much opposed to them as they had been in the two previous years. They were influenced by the many evident miracles wrought daily for their benefit and that of their children – so many indeed that one of the ministers, in some remarks which he made upon the events which occurred there in these first years, affirms that during the time that he spent in this province not one day passed in which the Lord did not work some miracles or new marvels. Sometimes these took the form of the healing of incurable diseases – a cure at times so sudden and unexpected that the Indians could not deny or fail to perceive it. The result was that more and more asked to be baptized, and received baptism with much faith and devotion. A good evidence of the truth of their conversion was the coming of these same new Christians to the fathers, saying: “You teach us that the vessel which is full of one liquid cannot contain another if the first is not poured out – so that if a man persists in pouring another upon that which is within, it will all go outside and be lost. This is true; we cannot deny this truth, of which we have daily experience. It follows from this that though you pour upon us baptism and the good teaching which you give us, it all comes to nothing so long as we are still full of the appliances and the vessels with which we offer sacrifices to our idols; because these things keep in our memory that which we used to do with them, so that as they are the customs in which we were born and bred, they do us much harm. Command, fathers, that all shall show where these things are; take them from the possession of those who have them, so that with all our hearts we may be Christians.” The fathers listened with great pleasure to the things said – things which had been said so many ages before by the prophet Samuel, in the spirit of God, to his own city. But considering that those who kept these objects hidden, and esteemed them highly, would not display them immediately, even though they were commanded to do so, they said to these chiefs: “The example of your leaders is that which overcomes all the difficulties there may be in the rest of the village. Do you begin, and the common people will follow you. Even if your example is not sufficient, that which you do will be a service pleasing to God; and you will render a benefit to the souls of your neighbors, if you will declare to us who they are that make use of these things or hide them. If you do not do this, your zeal and Christian resolution which you have shown to us will be useless; and the doctrine of the Lord will not be advanced among your kinsmen, much to your blame.” These arguments had so much weight that these chiefs were immediately the very first to cause to be brought thither the vessels of quila (this is a wine which they make of sugar-cane, and when it has aged for some years it has the color of our amber wine). This they esteem very highly and keep with great care, using it at their feasts in honor of their idols. They also brought a great amount of fine earthenware, which they employ only in their superstitions; with a great heap of various kinds of apparatus, as it were, consecrated and employed for their idolatries. After the consecration of these articles, they were used only by the ministers of their idols, who among them were old women – as it were, priestesses. All this they poured out, or broke, by the common consent of the village. This was on Shrove Tuesday, in Pangasinan. And thus they cast from them the remnants of their idolatry, to the great confusion of the devils, to whom all this had been dedicated. This example was followed in other villages, but not in all; for up to that time they were still almost all not yet baptized, and, as heathen, they could not bring themselves to give up their superstitions. It was therefore necessary that father Fray Pedro de Soto should spend great diligence on such things in the district of Magaldan, where he was settled; for the people there were more given to superstition than were those in the rest of the island. He instructed the persons who enjoyed the greatest influence what zeal they ought to have for the honor of the Lord; and to move them more, as they were only taking on for the first time the office of agents of virtue, he offered payment to anyone who would give him information with regard to these things, assuring the informers that the matter would never be revealed by him. As a result of this assurance and of the payment of the money, and, above all, the Lord lending His aid to this holy purpose, but few idolatries were concealed. To all those of which he knew the father strove to bring a healing remedy, without hesitating before any labor or danger for this end in venturing among this race which was so barbarous, untamed, and idolatrous, and which so hated the gospel. In this region there was one Indian chief named Lomboy. This man had fled from his villages three years, for fear of the alcalde-mayor, as the officer intended to punish him for having taken the life of his own sister, whom he had detected in sin, and for failing to consult his tribesfolk or kinsmen in the matter. This Lomboy used often to visit the churches and convents of the religious; and, simulating carelessness, looked on with great curiosity to see how they lived. He beheld their great innocence, their penitence, their continual prayer, their frequent scourging; he saw that they ate but little, labored much, went afoot from one village to another to give aid to all, without fear of the great heats and the no less dreadful storms of rain which follow each other in this country, according to the seasons; above all, he was impressed by the great uniformity displayed by the life of the fathers in all these holy exercises. He saw them so poor and so completely without covetousness that they not only did not strive for temporal gain, but shared freely the little which they had with the poor. He saw them so patient that they paid with good works for the bad deeds and the worse words which the heathen Indian did and said to them. He saw them so chaste that they did not seem to be made of flesh and blood, and seemed to be sinless in this respect. When this Indian saw and thought of all these things he said: “You know me, fathers, and you see that I am exiled for my sins. I too have noted the manner in which you live in your convents, and the way in which you treat each other. So good are your ways in all things that I cannot help seeing that the law which you preach is a good one; and therefore I have determined to bring my evil life to an end and to seek for God. Therefore I beg of you the training that is needed by my faults and my wretched conditions of my life, and I put my will wholly in yours.” The religious encouraged him to go on as he had begun, taught him, and baptized him; and his conversion was of great value, since it resulted in the baptism of many who heard him tell all these things as a witness at first hand from within the convent, from whom nothing could be concealed if anything to the contrary had existed. It kept the good provincial from many gray hairs to hear and see all these things; and he gave thanks to the Lord for the fortitude and perseverance which His grace had inspired within him in previous years, when not only the well-affected Spaniards and the religious of other orders, but even the bishop himself, had advised him to withdraw the religious from that province, where there was nothing but immeasurable labor to be done, to the great danger of their lives, while the Indians gave no hope that they would be converted. Rather, they strove with all their might to dismiss the religious from their country, offering a great quantity of gold for that purpose, so great was their obstinacy and their opposition to the gospel. To this the good superior had answered: “Then it is these bad Indians whom I wish my friars to strive to convert.” Indeed, he had even commanded them to persevere in that which they had begun, urging them on to the labor and the suffering with most efficacious arguments, full of spirit and truth. Therefore, though this conversion was a matter of great delight to all, it was so particularly to the father provincial, for it was he who had had the greatest part in it.