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.]
II
Extracts from Juan de la Concepcion’s Historia
[It is thought advisable to append to the above extracts from the Historia of Pedro de San Francisco de Assis, the following extracts from Concepción’s Historia. The first extract is from vol. viii, pp. 3–16, and includes a portion of the first chapter. It treats of the transfer of the province of Zambal to the Dominicans, and the occupation of the island of Mindoro by the Recollects.]
2. Continuing with the events of this government, we must note that Don Diego de Villaroto represented in the supreme Council of the Indias that the island of Mindoro had a vast population who still retained the dense darkness of their heathen blindness; and that if the spiritual conquest of that island were given to some order, it would be easy to illumine its inhabitants with the true light. That representation was met by a royal decree, dated June 18, 1677, ordering the governor of these islands, together with the archbishop, to entrust the reduction of Mindoro to the order that should be most suitable and fitting for that ministry; and that the curas employed in that island should be appointed to chaplaincies or prebends. That royal decree was presented to the royal Audiencia of Manila by Sargento-mayor Don Sebastian de Villa-Real in October, 78. His Majesty’s fiscal offered no objection to its observance, and prompt obedience was rendered to it. It was directed to his Excellency the archbishop, then Don Fray Phelipe Pardo. That most illustrious gentleman, during the two times when he was provincial of his order or province, urged as a thing greatly to be desired and demanded by his brethren the Dominicans, that the Augustinian Recollects yield them the province of Zambales, as it was very fitting for communication with their province of Pangasinan, and of the latter with Manila, and of those religious among themselves, who could thus make their visits more comfortably, by always crossing through their own ministries, thus avoiding the voyage through the territory of others, which they regretted. Notwithstanding that those matters were discussed with great courtesy (as is the case at present) yet that was a demand that offended greatly the discalced Augustinians, who regarded the Zambals as the true sons of their spirit, and the land as watered with the blood and sweat of many of their members, and a land which, being their firstborn, was most tenderly loved. The Dominicans could never obtain their demand, although softened by exchanges, for ministries were offered in which there was even more than enough room for zeal.