ndians. For, as we have, during the course of the year, made them
resort [to church], the chief cannot afterward conceal any of them.

Truly, when I see the duties that we are performing, and at so great
danger (for we are the object of the watchfulness and censure of
the governors and all the people of the country), if we undertake
to defend the Indians, they say that we are usurping the royal
jurisdiction--just as if we were not serving his Majesty the king,
our sovereign, with all our strength. If we make agreements with them
as fathers, in order that their suits may not last ten years, they
say that we are playing the justice. If we try to prevent offenses
to the Lord, they say that we are interested in the matter. If we
restrain the heavy trading, they say that it is to profit more. And
truly, we might say that _spectaculum facti sumus mundi, angelis et
hominibus_. [105] If love of God and our neighbor did not guide us,
of a truth there would be opportunity for some one to say "_Pereat
dies in qua natus sum, et nox in qua dictum est, 'conceptus est
homo?'_." [106] For the accusations and misrepresentations in vogue
concerning the religious are innumerable. [107] I knew a venerable
old man, by name Fray Juan de Villamayor, [108] whose head and beard
contained not one single black hair. He was prior in Aclan, where
some Spaniards of evil life then resided; and because he tried to put
an end to the offenses to the Lord, one of the Spaniards defied him,
and laying his hand upon his sword, said to him: "Come down here, my
poor little father, and I shall tell you who you are." The religious
answered him very humbly, and bade him farewell, saying that what he
was doing was in the service of the community. He said that he would
talk with him later, when he had recovered from his anger.

While father Fray Lucas de la Reina, who was one of the foremost
religious in the Bisayan province--a fine linguist, and one who added
much to the sacristies, and was very discerning in things pertaining
to the altar--was prior in the same village, he heard that a wretched
mestizo woman in his district was leading a dissolute life; for on that
occasion the encomendero Don Agustin Flores was there. This man came
at the head of a number of blinded and unruly Spaniards. The religious
had the woman seized and placed in a private house. A mestizo brother
of hers grieved so sorely over this that, trusting in the favor of
the encomendero, he trie