your Reverence
may take pity on them. For this reason, my father, let fathers be
brought from Espana; and will your Reverence send hither even twenty,
for there will be a harvest for all of them. In Loboc and Dita in the
last few days nearly four hundred little ones have been baptized;
this has given me much consolation in the Lord, for I find great
satisfaction in these little creatures. The adults are learning the
doctrine with such fervor that even until midnight the sound of their
voices is incessant. We have received information that enemies are
coming to attack this island, and the people are therefore greatly
disturbed. Would to God that we might be made captives for His love,
and might die for pure love of Him!" All this is from Father Gabriel
Sanchez.

The enemies whom the father here mentions are Indians from the island
of Mindanao which lies near the islands of Terrenate and Maluco, where
the doctrine of Mahoma is professed. In the year one thousand six
hundred that people collected an armed fleet of sixty small vessels,
which descended upon these islands subject to the government of Manila,
and wrought much damage. They laid waste the island of Bantayan and
the river of Panai, and burned the churches. Then they coasted along
other islands, robbing and murdering, and finally carried away as
captives one thousand two hundred souls. But it pleased our Lord that
when they came to this island of Bohol, where our fathers reside, they
should inflict no considerable losses, nor did they burn our church
and house--which they could have done with impunity, for all the
people fled to the mountains. Yet they passed on without stopping,
as Father Gabriel relates in part of his letter of November 16,
which runs as follows:

"In order that your Reverence may aid us in rendering thanks to our
Lord for a great act of mercy which He has shown us, your Reverence,
as father-visitor, should know that on the twenty-sixth of October in
this year, 1600, the enemy attacked Baclayun just after our fathers
had gone thence to Sebu, summoned thither by holy obedience; for the
father rector had sent in haste for the three of us who were in the
island, and lo! the enemy were there. As evidence of the value of holy
obedience, and to show how it exempts from dangers, as well as another
token of mercy--the enemy committed scarcely any ravages in Bohol,
considering what was in their power to do. Their approach was made
known three or four