Chapter LVIII
Other voyages and sufferings of father Fray Diego Aduarte under the direction of his superiors and for the preaching of the gospel.
[This chapter contains an account of the unsuccessful expedition to Camboxa undertaken by Don Luis Perez Das Mariñas, as narrated in book i, chapters xlix and l, of this history. In that narrative, given by father Fray Diego, he breaks off in the account of his own experience at the point where he was separated from the rest of the company, having gone to Macan to be cured of his illness while the others returned to Manila.]
He was not able to remain very long in Macan because many Chinese mandarins frequently came to that city, and to the convent where father Fray Diego was, since the city is in China itself; and it did not seem to him that he was safe from the inspector. As there was no opportunity for him to make a voyage in any other direction, he set out for Malaca, a city of India about as far from Manila as Macan is. As we shall see, he went away partly that that ship and all in it might not perish. They set sail in the middle of January; and as they were crossing from the gulf of Haynao to the coast of Cochinchina, Champa, and Camboja, there was a furious storm at the same place where he had met a storm two years before, and on the same night, between the eighth and ninth of February. [This stripped the ship of its rigging, and threw them into great distress; however, as it was strong and steered well, it soon righted itself and reached Malaca. Here father Fray Diego remained, and the vessel sailed again for Goa, but came back again after struggling for forty days with heavy seas and unfavorable winds. Having lost this opportunity it was obliged to winter there, and departed with the next monsoon, in the middle of the following December. In it there went three Portuguese religious of our order, taking with them father Fray Diego, who, because of his poverty, was not provided with ship-stores. After they had passed the famous island of Zeilan (i.e., Ceylon), and were in latitude six, they encountered so heavy a sea that they were driven back to the equator, under the lee of the Maldive Islands, where a ship never lands. Caught in that archipelago of reefs and atolls, the Portuguese are long delayed before they can make their way out. At last they reach the harbor of Kocchi in India, “after having spent five months in sailing four hundred leguas;” and, if they had arrived a few hours later, could not have entered the port over the bar, although they emptied the ship. Father Fray Diego waited in India for the season when he could voyage to España.] He was not idle, but was occupied with many devout exercises, which he had continued even when he was at sea. Yet this was not what he most desired, and not what was most suitable to his wishes, and to his calling as a religious. Hence when he found himself in convents of devoted religious, his spirit was greatly rejoiced; and he strove there to lay up some provision of devotion for the long voyage, in the service of God and of these new conversions, which he proposed to undertake to España for preachers. He visited first the Christians converted by the apostle St. Thomas, whose Christianity has endured from his time to the present in India, and is now purged from its errors, which it incurred only for lack of Catholic preachers. There are in that country matters to arouse great devotion, and anyone who was so devout as father Fray Diego could not go that way without visiting them, even at the cost of many days of journey and hardship. This was not in vain, but brought with it much spiritual reward. He embarked January 15, 1603, in the “San Roque,” a very large ship with four decks and two quarter-decks. They had favorable weather to the latitude of Cape de Buena Esperança [i.e., of Good Hope]; and thus a long vacation from hardships was provided for father Fray Diego, who had been inured to suffering them in the service of Him who was his comfort in them. [But here they encountered first calms, and then fearful tempests, which almost wrecked the ship; and, to save their lives, they were compelled to lighten the ship, casting into the sea pepper and rich stuffs valued at fifty thousand ducados. Finally, they passed the Cape of Good Hope on May 12. The rest of the voyage was peaceful, save that they encountered a storm off the coast of Portugal; but they escaped from this and landed at Vigo, which is in Galicia, September 17, after having passed eight months in navigation. They all went barefoot to church to give thanks to the Lord, who had delivered them from so many and such great perils; and father Fray Diego went to visit the church of the apostle of España,[64] which is fourteen leguas from there, because it would not have been proper to miss this devotion on account of so short a journey.]
Chapter LIX
Other journeys of father Fray Diego in the service of the Lord, for the advancement of the conversions of these tribes.
After all these hardships and perils, which were suffered with such great patience, father Fray Diego went to the court of España—not to gain honor or wealth, or rent, or any other temporal thing; but because of love of the Lord, for His glory, the extension of the gospel, and the salvation of these tribes. Since he had already passed through so many difficulties, divine Providence did not see fit that he should find them there, where there are ordinarily so many; and the royal Council immediately gave him permission and direction to convey a number of religious to this province at his Majesty’s expense, that they might there carry on the excellent work which had been begun by the religious of this order, and that they might continue to draw heathen from the darkness of unbelief to the light of the gospel. Father Fray Diego was not of a character to regard himself as exhausted, although he had so many reasons to be so; and therefore, without more delay, he traversed the [ecclesiastical] provinces of España, Aragon, and Andalucia, seeking for laborers for this part of the vineyard of the church, or this new vine in it. [As this was a work of God, He moved the hearts of many good religious to volunteer to undertake this arduous enterprise. They were greatly influenced by hearing from father Fray Diego and others of the great need and lack of religious in this province, to accomplish the vast work with which it is charged; and of the good done by our order in these regions, which follows the primitive order in the strict observance of the rule, and which is like the primitive church in the conversion of the peoples. This company embarked near the first of July, 1605; and, after suffering the ordinary discomforts of two long voyages following so closely one after the other, they reached Manila the next year, six having died in the voyages and journeys. One of these was father Fray Pedro Valverde, a student in the college of San Gregorio, a son of San Pablo at Cordova, and a religious of superior virtue. He died as the vessel was just beginning to come among the islands, and was buried in an Indian hamlet near the port of Ybalon. Some years afterward, when the father provincial sent a religious for his bones, he found the body still entire, without a foul odor or any decay, just as if it had been newly buried; but neither the Indians nor their encomendero would permit him to take it away, keeping possession of it as a holy body. The day after they arrived, the superior gave them their assignments throughout all the province because of the great need of religious; and many were sent to Nueva Segovia.] Ere long, many of the religious wrote to him thanking him for having brought them to so devoted a province, where they had so much opportunity to serve God and to do good to their fellow-men. In particular, father Fray Matheo de la Villa, a son of Sant Esteban at Salamanca, wrote to him. He was in a large village, the whole population of which was composed of heathen who desired to become Christians. He taught them what they desired much, and he desired more. He wrote that on Holy Saturday he had been obliged to baptize six hundred of them in a church which they themselves were making; and that he now understood the language of the natives sufficiently, though he had been only six months learning it. In spite of this diligence, they were not able to attend to this great spiritual harvest, for the laborers were few; and so, though new and old were apportioned, there were not enough, although they did all in their power, for many villages of heathen who begged for them with great urgency. The provincial, grieved by this, and seeing that he had no answer to make except that he would pray God to bring religious from España, wrote to father Fray Francisco de Sant Joseph, whom he had left in Manila as vicar-provincial, and to the other religious, an account of affairs. In particular he told them that the Indian chiefs from inland had come to him begging him, on their knees and in tears, to give them a religious to teach them the way to heaven; and that one of them had offered to make a village of two thousand inhabitants and the other of nine hundred, in order that the religious might with greater ease give them Christian instruction. The Indians in their heathen condition live in farmsteads and tiny hamlets, where it is very difficult to teach them; and it is impossible that teaching shall enlighten them, because of the inability of the religious to care for and attend to so many small villages. Hence, to make good Christians of them, it is necessary to gather them in larger villages. At the beginning, there was great difficulty in causing the Indians to leave their ancient abodes; though by the help of God, and of that spirit of gentleness and kindness which He gives to His disciples, the religious overcame it. These heathen Indians were so eager to have teachers that, unlike the rest, they did not wait to be asked; but, to succeed in obtaining religious, themselves offered by anticipation to remove this difficulty, which is generally so great. The provincial wrote, in addition, that if the ministers at Manila should be reduced somewhat in number he could send someone, or someone could go, to help in this extreme need, to which he could not give aid from there. Father Fray Francisco de Sant Joseph called together the fathers who formed the council; and they, after considering the case, found only one religious who could go. This was father Fray Jacintho de Sant Jeronimo. Because of this father Fray Francisco de Sant Joseph—as one who always thought of himself that he did little, and that he would be little missed—set out with this religious at the time of his embarcation, without consulting anyone else. In this he acted as superior, which he then was. After he had sailed eight leguas, he wrote to the religious of Manila that he was going to supply this lack, since it seemed to him that he would not be much missed here. But the father-provincial did not approve, because he knew that for the Indians about Manila, whose language he understood admirably, he was a St. Paul. On this account he was called, even by the religious of other orders, “the apostle of the Indians.” For the Spaniards he was a second St. John Chrisostom in preaching and life; and hence the provincial was not slow in sending him back to his former post.
The position of prior of the principal convent in the province of Manila was vacant, and the religious in it unanimously elected father Fray Diego as their superior. He declined the position as long as he could, and accepted it only when he was compelled to do so by the rule of strict obedience. He filled the position remarkably well, though he did not hold it long; for in the following year the vessels from Nueva España brought news of the death of father Fray Domingo de Nieva, who had gone in the preceding year as procurator of this province in España. He had left the cares of this life to enjoy the quiet which, because of his great virtue and charity, the Lord had kept for him in heaven. Since it was very necessary for the province to have someone in España to send them religious—for without this supply the province could not be maintained—they immediately arranged to send another; and no one was found so suitable as father Fray Diego. He was accordingly asked to return and begin his labors anew by embarking for España, where he was to act as the procurator of this province in all matters, and was especially to provide them with religious.... Notwithstanding the hardships and dangers of that voyage, his love to God and the province, and his perception of the need which forced them to do this, outweighed these other considerations; and he immediately prepared himself for the departure which was at hand. With only three woolen tunics in place of shirts, and the ship-stores for the first voyage, without a real or anything else for the remainder of the journey, he embarked in the middle of July, having remained in Manila not quite a full year. They had good weather until they reached the latitude of Japon, and from there such furious winds as lifted the sea up to the sky.... Since they had come from so hot a climate as that of this country, and had so suddenly entered this other, which was so cold, they could not fail to suffer from many diseases. Many died on this voyage, among them the commander and the master of the ship, and a rich merchant who was a passenger. He, perceiving father Fray Diego’s holy way of life, his great virtue, poverty, contempt for temporal things, devotion toward God, and charity toward his fellow-men, gave him all his wealth, which amounted to seventy thousand pesos, that he alone, at his own pleasure, without being obliged to render account to anyone, might distribute the whole of it in pious works. He told him that, though he had no heirs to whom he was obliged to leave anything, he had some poor relatives in Portugal (whence he had come), and he charged him to aid them. Father Fray Diego gave so much attention to the fulfilment of his wish that he went in person to Portugal solely for this purpose, sought with great care for the relatives of the deceased, relieved their necessities, and left them all in good circumstances, considering their estate, and very content. He also fulfilled the rest of the desires of the testator in accordance with the trust given him, without applying to himself or to any relative of his more than the trouble and the reward from God, which would not be small. [Father Fray Diego went on to España, and thence to Francia, that he might for his province, and personally, yield obedience to the most reverend general of the order, at that time Fray Agustin Galamino, a holy man, who as such took particular delight in hearing what father Fray Diego related as an eyewitness of the devotion of the province of the Philippinas and of the great services which it wrought for the Lord in the conversions of these idolatrous tribes. The pious general gave him all the documents necessary for taking religious thither; and father Fray Diego was about to return with the documents, that he might not lose a moment in the execution of his trust, the great importance of which he perceived. But his superior obliged him to remain for the general chapter, which was to be held in the middle of the year in Paris (in which he was a definitor)—to the great regret of father Fray Diego at losing all this time from the affairs of the province of which he thought so much. For ten years he filled this office of procurator for the province in España, setting an admirable example to lay and religious, who saw him always humble, devout, and in poverty, and putting forward no claims for himself, either within or without the order. This made him freely able to express his judgment with holy and religious liberty before the royal Council and to the president and members of it. They all looked upon him with special respect. He aided in sending the religious brought to this province by father Fray Alonso Navarete, who afterward was a holy martyr, the first one of our order to suffer in Japon, and the one who opened the door of martyrdom for so many as afterward followed his good example. He later sent another shipload, with father Fray Jacintho Calvo; and the same father Fray Diego, after sending these first two, afterward set out to bring other religious with him. But, when he arrived in Mexico, he received letters from the provincial of this province, desiring him to return to España and continue his functions as procurator-general in it. Here he could be of use only as one man; there he could do the work of many, by sending so many good religious. He went back to the labor which he had desired to give up; and abandoning a life of contemplation in a cell, for which he was eager, he returned to the publicity of tribunals, and the distraction of journeys, from which he desired to flee. At all times, however, he was instant in prayer, and in other devout exercises. As a reward for this care, he received from the Lord success in the business which he undertook, a successful despatch of it being furthered by his prayer—which, it seemed, would have taken off his attention from his business and interfered with it. In spite of all this experience of the pleasure of the Lord in this exercise, he still desired to retire and to prepare himself for a holy death; and he constantly begged the superior of this province to send him a successor, that he might return to it.]