[35] Matthew xvii, 20.—Coco.
[36] See Vol. VI, p. 115, note 27.
[37] See Vol. VI, p. 88, note 22.
[38] See Vol. IX, p. 95, note 18.
[39] Fray Agustín de Alburquerque was a native of Castilla, and professed at the convent of Salamanca. Batangas became the theater of his missionary labors in the islands. He was definitor in 1572, prior of Tondo in 1575, and prior provincial in 1578, renouncing to the Franciscans during his term the omnimoda ecclesiastical jurisdiction. He tried to sell himself as a slave, in order that he might introduce Christianity into China. He is the author of the first or second Tagál grammar, the Franciscans claiming that the first was written by Fray Juan de Plasencia. He died in 1580. See Pérez’s Catálogo, pp. 13, 14.
[40] Fray Francisco Merino took his vows in the Augustinian province of Castilla. After his arrival in the islands he labored in the province of Iloílo until his death. Although he was proposed as one of the associates of Father Rada on the latter’s memorable journey to China in 1576, Jerónimo Marín went in his stead; while he himself accompanied Juan de Salcedo and Pedro Chaves on the Camarines expedition. He died in 1581. See Pérez’s Catálogo, p. 14.
[41] Fray Juan de Orta, born in Moguer, in the province of Huelva, professed in the convent of Mexico in 1558. He was a novice under Urdaneta. Shortly after his arrival at the islands, he learned the Bicol language, in which he evangelized with great success. A number of villages founded by him were later handed over to the care of the Franciscans. In 1575 he returned to Manila to help the prior there, where he worked zealously, having in charge also until his death (in Manila on Palm Sunday, 1577) the village of Parañaque. See Pérez’s Catálogo, p. 12.
[42] Isaiah v, 20.—Coco.
[43] This edifice is still in existence. It is the only one with a stone vault which has been constructed in the archipelago. It resisted with but little damage the series of most severe earthquakes which devastated Manila so frequently. The earthquake of 1880 split one of its towers, which the fathers of the convent afterward ordered to be pulled down. The church is the most capacious and beautiful in Manila, in spite of these circumstances. Its architect was the Augustinian lay-brother Fray Antonio Herrara, nephew or son of the famous architect who built the Escorial.—Coco.
[44] In reg., chapter viii. This is in English: “And therefore, the more fully that you shall watch over a common possession than your own, so much the more fully shall you learn how to progress.”