The Philippine Islands, 1493 1898: Volume XVII, 1609 1616 by Various

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The prophecy, moreover, with regard to the church--that it should be
stronger than the others--has been fulfilled. A few months before, the
church of these Indians had burned down for the second time, together
with our house. The fire broke out in the following manner. Some of
the townspeople were out hunting, and, a dispute arising among the
barbarians about the hunt, they came to blows. Soon after the quarrel,
fire was thrown on our house, and destroyed the new church with almost
all the furniture. The relics of the saints and the images were in
part saved from the fire by the dexterity of the Christians. But Ours
after no long delay bent themselves to the work again, and erected
another church for themselves, at no trifling expense, and with no
small labor on the part of the Indians. This is the seventh church
erected in the ten years since the founding of the town. A further
fortune which befell an Indian woman confirmed many in the Christian
faith. She had ventured, without confessing her sins after the manner
of Christians, to receive Christ in the communion; after she went home,
she began to suffer from such agony in her throat that she thought
she should choke to death. Thus she suffered, complained, an wailed
until, having recognized the cause of her suffering, she went to the
church that very evening. She prayed and besought the father to hold
back her soul, already departing; and to succor an unhappy woman,
whose throat was burned by the host as if by a flaming torch. When
the father heard this, he instantly besought God, and God instantly
showed mercy. She declared her sins, and thereupon all her torment
ceased; and by this salutary remedy of confession the maladies of
many Indians have been suddenly dispelled by Ours, the name of God
or of some saint being invoked.

At the college of Zebu one of the Society, when in the town one day,
heard weeping not far away; and when he followed it he discovered a
mother bitterly lamenting the death of her new-born infant. Touched
by her grief, the father went a short distance away, and entreated
God, in the name of the Virgin Mother, to help this afflicted
woman. Instantly the child revived, without a trace of sickness left
upon him. Whether it was his senses or his soul that had left him,
it is surely to the divine goodness that his sudden revival is to be
attributed. The recitation of the Gospel of St. John has also benefited
many sick persons; but Ours have found nothing so fit for removing
the sicknesses of souls as the salutary Exercises of our blessed
Father [_i.e._, Loyola], which the very heads of each magistracy,
the sacred and the civil, have employed--not alone to private but
also to public advantage. Their example, imitated by some of those
in the higher ranks, has been followed by the same results. The rest
of the people have been marvelously stirred up by the renewed fervor
of the members of the sodalities, among other things; and by the new
confidence given them by letters from Rome received this year, to the
great delight and approval of all; which letters have much promoted
the worship of the most blessed Virgin, and have also kindled those
who are reckoned among the first in the city to accept the advice
to join a sodality. By these means cares have been turned aside,
and four bitter family quarrels, in which the very heart of life and
salvation was attacted, not without public scandal, were brought to
an end with the desired success.

Bohol Establishment

VII. The harvest of souls at Bohol has increased with the decrease
of the audacity of the enemy, and of the almost annual invasion by
the people of Mindanao. As many as a thousand have been baptized, if
children and adults are reckoned. In this number are several _bailans_,
or priests of idols; and one there was who, before his baptism, did
nothing but rage, and attack with teeth and nails those who passed by,
who came forth from the waters of the sacred font, gentle and in his
right mind. And when some Indians saw this, snatching the cause from
the fact, they went to the father and begged him to sprinkle a dying
Indian woman with the same healing waters. Our father, suspecting that
they made this request with the the purpose of enabling the woman
to avoid the trouble of learning the catechism refused, unless she
would first learn what Christians know. "Father," said they, "that
ought not to be the way in which you act; we want her baptized to
keep her alive." "And I," said one, "when I was lying near to death,
was by the command of another father sprinkled by an Indian cantor,
and as soon as I was sprinkled immediately I began to recover. Then
that madman, as you know, washed away his madness in the same font; and
this companion of mine, who was already despaired of, when he received
baptism was restored to himself and his kinsfolk." The father yielded
to all these arguments, ordered the sick woman to be carried into the
church, and after putting the questions demanded by the occasion and
the need, cleansed her with that purifying sacrament: she immediately
began to improve, and soon recovered all her former strength. Every
day several feel the healing power of this font. An equally great
miracle is that the chiefs of this tribe, who have been very ill
disposed towards us, and from whom not even the lives of Ours were
safe, have been so suddenly changed at the sight of one of our fathers
that they not only--themselves, without being urged--have submitted
to the Christian ordinances, but also seek out the barbarians,
even in the mountains, where they wander and are dispersed like
wild beasts; and partly by the exercise of their authority, partly
by persuasion, bring them down to the villages, and offer them to
the fathers for instruction and baptism. Together with these there
were once offered more than seventy idols, the spoils of the bailans,
which were publicly burnt by Ours before the uplifted cross. The same
thing has been done again and again elsewhere, especially at Jalibon,
Ingaon, Orion, and Canliron, where the joyful Indians in this manner
took vengeance upon the evil demon who had so often deceived them by
the delusions of idols. The bailans are conspicuous in this zealous
attack upon the enemy. They go so far as to scourge themselves [14]
until they draw blood, in order to atone for their sins; and thus they
who formerly opened the door to all kinds of impiety are now the means
above all others by which the rest of the bailans who still work their
impious sacrifices are led to the faith, for the art of these latter
loses its power when the others reveal the deceit. Indeed the deceit
not seldom reveals itself by their predicting that which never comes
to pass, or threatening terrors which injure no one.

VIII. The members of the Sodality of the Blessed Virgin are devoting
their attention to themselves, and striving to root out from their
souls those sins which have grown old there. There was an Indian
woman who was seized by a suitor in her bed, and who, to protect her
chastity, threw herself out of the window; there was a youth who,
being unable to keep a crowd of wanton girls out of his cottage,
so savagely scourged his own back with cords that they, alarmed at
the fierceness of the sounds, at last dispersed. There were some who,
to avoid the sin of drunkenness, entirely denied themselves the use
of wine.

Of old there were among these Indians no bowels of compassion, no
signs of family affection. Nay, parents sold their very children
for food; children did the same by their parents; and this sort of
avarice (or rather of cruelty) was still more common among kinsmen
by marriage or blood, so that they did no kindness without doing
an injury. Now, by the grace of God, all these things are reversed,
and these people delight in doing to others as they would be done by;
and on that account the hospital which has been built never wants for
necessaries, and always has some, even of high rank, who rejoice in
giving themselves to the service of the poor.

Moreover, this hospital is supported thus: during the week a basket
is placed before the doors of the church, in which every one puts
what he pleases, according to his ability, either of food or herbs,
to be carried to the hospital. On Sundays, besides, each village in
turn serves the sick, after the following manner. Those whose turn it
is go hunting boars or stags, and on the appointed day bring flesh,
boiled or roasted, with rice, or bring some equivalent food, for the
sick. Now this tribe, which is at this time so Christian, formerly
observed the custom of never going hunting without consulting their
idols. When they perceived that the fathers of Ours detested this
custom, and indeed wholly annulled it, some of them asked them what
they ought to do then when they went out on such enterprises. When they
were told that they should go to some church and beseech God through
the Virgin Mother of God to give them success in their hunting, they
did so; and at noon of that very day they killed twenty-two boars
and stags not far from the village. When they came home loaded with
their game, every one marveled greatly; and they said: "Ah, Father,
how good is the God of the Christians! The gods that we used to worship
would scarcely grant us, in return for long continued implorations,
at last two boars or stags, and most often nothing; but now the true
God after having been barely prayed to has freely given us all these
beasts in a short time." The pious example of these people having
been followed by others in another village, they too had slain five
and twenty of this kind of game within three or four hours; and they
went about shouting: "Away with you, lying bailans, who were about
to destroy us and all that we had! For us there will be henceforth
no God but Jesus Christ, who has displayed so great liberality to us
who have recently turned to Him." I might say more as to the Gospel
of St. John, the saving sign of the cross, and other mysteries of the
Christians, whose marvelous efficacy these tribes have experienced;
but I would not be prolix. Let it be enough to state that seven or
eight sick persons at least have been cured by amulets of this sort.

Establishment at Dulac, Carigara, Tinagon, and Palapag

IX. At the establishment at Dulac Ours have often had the better of
the devil, and the devil of them. They certainly believe that what has
happened can have had no other author. They had appointed the festival
of which we have spoken above; and when they were all assembled in
the church and were waiting for divine service, a messenger suddenly
appeared and announced that the Mindanaos, their ancient enemies, were
at Carigara. As soon as the Indians heard that, they poured out of the
church all together in consternation, each trying to pass the other;
and leaving the priest, for the mass was not yet finished, they fled
from the village and took refuge in the mountains. The priest, when he
had finished the divine office, and arranged his affairs as well as
time permitted, began himself to think of flight, that the shepherd
might be with his flock. However, being detained by an Indian chief,
whose wife he had been about to bury, he remained, and performed the
rites for the woman--one who had deserved well of the Christians,
and who, as her husband testified, had been visited by the Blessed
Virgin, In the mean time a messenger brought a more certain report,
to the effect that a few small villages on the island had been visited
by some five or six ships at Caragara; and that they had captured
only twenty Indians, the rest having taken refuge in flight.

They all came back then from the mountains, and in a few days the
work of many was accomplished. The number of those who confessed the
faith increased so rapidly that the long days seemed short. This, I
am sure, grieved the devil not a little; and no less did what Father
Christoforo Ximenez effected after he returned to Manila where he put
into print the catechism of Cardinal Roberto Bellarmino, translated
into the Bisayan language. [15] He went by the order of his superiors
to Alongala, then without a priest. When he had remained there up to
the beginning of Holy Week, and had made the people ready and active
in all works of piety, it happened that a certain idol-worshiper of
that island, a man of very high rank, Malacaia by name--who owned over
sixty slaves, and who was reverenced by all the Indians most highly,
even as a father--was once looking on, and wondering to see many of the
natives busied in pious works, and so seriously engaged in scourging
themselves. In amazement he said, "Shall I do that, Father?" "Do,"
replied Ximenez, "what they are doing, and scourge thyself." "Will
that scourging do me any good?" asked Malacaia. "It will do thee no
little good," answered the father. The other instantly took off his
tunic and girded himself for the work, and walking upon the stage
with the others, the Christians, he so tragically worked upon himself
that, not content with one scourge, although it was rough with little
sharp studs, he also snatched the scourge from one standing near,
and, as with a two-edged sword, fearfully smote himself upon the back
as if with thunderbolts. These scourgings reached even to the man's
soul, although at the time he knew not what he was doing; for this
noble deed was an example of great profit to others, and he himself,
moreover, received at this time the desire for baptism, for which he
is now being prepared as a catechumen.

X. The Christians taught by the fathers at the establishment at Cangara
have this in common with those at Dulac, that they receive a mighty
protection from the services of the church when duly celebrated. For
as the former, by setting up a cross in the fields and by the use
of holy water, drive the swarms of locusts from their grain, so
the latter by bearing palm-branches and seeds to the church effect
the same result. An old custom of theirs has been condemned--namely
setting up in the fields great beams, which they call _Omalagars_,
upon which they believe the souls of the dead to sit. Here fifty have
been initiated in the Christian mysteries, and more would have been
if ministers had not been wanting. Forty couples have been joined
with a more holy bond. Several persons were found by the marvelous
providence of God (for it would be impious to regard that as a chance
which was wrought for Ours, kept safe in so many perils), who, being
scattered over the mountains, so that they could have no one else,
begged for a father to whom they might confess their sins. There were
also found in a little island forty lepers loathsome with filth and
stench, unclothed, and without food, lacking everything. To all of
them first the teaching of Christ, then baptism, and finally food
and clothes were given. But one man found God sterner, who, though
warned by Ours to desist from his impious habit of swearing, yet never
obeyed. He was often wont to use an expression by which he devoted
himself to the crocodile; and not long after, being made the prey of
one, he taught others by his evil fate to do that which he had refused
to do before. As compared with his death all the more happy was that
by which Father Alfonso Roderico was taken from us. He had professed
the four vows, and was dear alike to Spaniards and to Bisayans. He
was so devoted to the good of both that he was not satisfied with the
narrow space of twenty-two years, during which he was permitted to
live among us, but at his death used the very words of St. Martin:
"Lord, if I am still needed by thy people, I do not refuse to labor."

XI. The attention of Ours at Tinagon has wisely been given to the
women, since they are more ready to take an interest in sacred things,
and are more seldom absent from the village--except when one or another
makes her escape from the hands of some procurer, preferring to pass
the nights in the forests and mountains in the midst of serpents,
rather than at home to suffer danger to her chastity among men that are
as deadly. As for the other affairs of this establishment, they may
nearly all be included under two examples, one of divine compassion,
the other of divine justice. An Indian woman was carelessly crossing
a stream, and was carried off by a ferocious crocodile. She screamed,
she cried, she prayed to God for pardon, and for only so much time
as should serve her to make her confession. Her husband, who was
not far away, ran up quickly, threw himself into the water to attack
the monster, struck it, and at last dragged his wife from its claws;
but she was so mangled and lacerated that there was no hope for her
life. What were the good people to do in a village without a priest,
and far distant from the residence where the fathers lived? The woman
was in such a condition that it was impossible to take her there before
her death. Yet a way out of all these difficulties was easily found by
the wise God of mercy, for by His guidance there came into the village,
while they were still doubting what to do, a priest of our Order, quite
unaware of what had happened. As soon as the matter was reported to
him, he went to the dying woman, consoled her in her affliction, and
sent her to Heaven, confessing and sorrowing for her sins. The other
case differs little from that which we recorded earlier as occurring
at the Carigara establishment. A fellow whom no fear or warning could
improve, and who would not control his wicked habit of swearing and
blaspheming, was one day testifying in a legal case. He devoted his
head to the crocodile, if the matter were other than as he testified,
adding that he could confirm his testimony by calling in others as
witnesses. As he was crossing a stream to summon them in behalf of
his case, he was carried off by a crocodile; and--a certain proof of
the damnation of the man--it was later discovered by the testimony
of others that he had borne false witness.

XII. At the settlement at Palapag there has been a conflict with hunger
and disease; yet the Indians have so conducted themselves that the
sick have not lacked the necessary services. Likewise Ours have made
such provision that the poor were cared for from the harvest; for at
their gate they daily served food to more than seventy persons. Their
newly-built church and their sodality make them hopeful of great
good, for their beginnings are such that six hundred of full age
have presented themselves at the sacred font for purification;
while I should reckon the number of children at eight hundred,
the greater part of whom have gone the straight way to heaven. One
of Ours was called to a little infant which was said to be sick,
to baptize it; and he refused, partly because he thought the matter
was not so pressing, partly because he wished to teach the Indians
the custom of bringing their little ones to the churches. At last,
overcome by the importunities of those who asked him, he went thither;
but when he could perceive in the child not the least sign of illness,
he was about to return without baptizing it. But when he looked at
the boy again he seemed to be silently warned by it not to deny it
that benefit. At last, when he had complied, and when everything
had been performed duly and in order, the child expired in the very
arms of its sponsor. By this event the father was rendered joyful,
but still more cautious not to think that time should be allowed any
advantage in matters of this kind; for, as he said, he would rather
suffer all the ills of sea and land if he might open heaven to this
single little boy. There have been seen other signs (not a few) of
the singular care extended by divine providence to this tribe and
Ours. Such a one was this. An Indian was wrapped in the folds of a
serpent eight feet long, but, groaning forth the saving name of Jesus,
he was released. Again: when there was a deficiency of that kind of
food which it is lawful to eat in the days of Lent, a boat on the
beach, brought by I know not whom, freely supplied fishes of a kind
not usual there. Again, when a church was on the point of falling,
the Indians were frightened out from it by a tremendous roar; and,
because the mass had not been finished, it did not fall before the
father had taken refuge in the sacristy, the chalice being safe, with
the sacred images on the abandoned altar. These things we mention,
passing over those persons to whom God has been pleased to grant good
of soul or body through Ours. To this establishment there was sent ten
years ago Francisco Simon, a lay brother; he died on the day on which
twenty years before he had entered the Society. And although through
all this interval of time he had neglected none of the things for
which a good religious may be praised, yet the nearer he approached
to death, the more content he seemed in doing them. The garden, the
kitchen, the dining-room, the sacristy, the workshops, the other places
in which he labored, he regarded somehow as sanctuaries--sometimes
saying his beads, sometimes holding colloquies with the Holy Trinity,
Christ, and our Lady the Virgin. A naturally irritable temper he
had so completely overcome by virtue and diligence that the fathers
whom he accompanied on their missions wished for no one more kindly;
they could hardly have had anyone more diligent and more ready to do
anything. But as witnesses of his virtue Francisco had not only the
priests of his home but also those of other places; for when he died
he was away among them, attending to the preparation of rice--offering
to all a good example, as he first sent to his superiors a report
of his business by letter; and, as he was to return no more, he sent
his last farewell to his companions. A place of burial was given to
him by the priest who has in charge the village of Abla in Luzon,
by whom the funeral rites also were performed most honorably, a great
multitude of Indians attending them.

The Missions at Octon and to the Malucas

XIII. In addition to our accustomed labors with the Spaniards and
Indians of Arevalo, there has been another of no small importance
with a large force of troops, who undertook an expedition to the
Malucas. No trifling benefit was carried to the foreigners by Father
Francisco Gonzalez, who had been called back thence to the town of
Zebu to take the four vows. On his journey he brought back into the
way the Indians everywhere, who were turning aside to their madness
and their idols. He reestablished Christian customs, baptized children
and adults, made stable their fickle and inconstant marriages, and
did many more things of the same kind--which, though unwritten, are
understood. The following event should not lack a pen. A man entangled
by lewd delights, but moved by the fact that he had no example among
the repentant people, or by the influence of a festival just then
announced, had settled himself to a proper life; but rising in the
middle of the night he went out from his house, and was longing for
his accustomed delights. While he was doing so, behold two specters,
very large and horribly black, wrapped in hanging cloaks, appeared to
him. The unhappy man dared to annoy them by approaching and speaking
to them. Without answering, they snatched him up and carried him high
in air, filling everything with his screams and cries, and struggling
in vain. His neighbors, awakened and following the sound of the voice,
went round the whole village without finding anything. At last at dawn
they found the man among the thick bramble-bushes on the mountains,
his body all bruised, and himself half-dead and speechless. When they
found him, they took him to our church, and the prayers of many were
offered for him, and remedies were applied. At last he recovered his
senses and his speech, and cried aloud that he had been punished by
the just judgment of God, since he had for a long time neglected
the precepts that he had received at confession, and had not done
the things becoming a Christian. He then went on to say that when
the demons carried him off, they took him to a deep black cave; and
just as they were about to hurl him down into it, he was delivered
by the intervention of God, to whom he had commended himself. Thus,
having confessed his sins, he put on a better way of living.

XIV. The member of the Society who accompanied the general of the
Philippines on the expedition to the Malucas, Father Angelo Armano,
[16] did his duty during the whole time of the voyage and the war,
not without peril on land and sea. He did with energy what could
be done in the midst of arms, the noise of artillery, the ambushes
of the enemy, and the slaughter. And surely there was great hope of
extending religion by this expedition, for the native king himself,
when detained at Manila with his son and other chiefs for five years
often used to promise the governor that if he would send a fleet to the
Malucas again, he himself would give into subjection and obedience to
his Catholic Majesty all his vassals, who are estimated at about two
hundred thousand souls. This has seemed the quickest way to liberate
the Malucan Christians from the new yoke of the Dutch heretics, by
which they are oppressed. The multitude of those who have thus far
professed the Christian faith there can be estimated only from the
Amboynans, of whom the number reaches above twenty thousand. Therefore,
although the general came back, home in glory from this expedition,
after winning a victory, yet he has expressed his grief more than once
that the welfare and salvation of all this great number of islands
and tribes should be insufficiently provided for on account of the
lack of priests; and he has affirmed that he wishes more earnestly
for nothing than that he might have the opportunity of sending forth
many of the Society of Jesus on this divine work.

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