as and its height of love to God and its neighbor, which
that Lord has given to it, who is so well able to inculcate charity,
must not be governed only by the immense zeal of its individuals in
alluring souls into the sheepfold of the Church but as well by the
continual persecutions which they have suffered in order that they
might maintain that field of Christendom in the purity of the faith,
despising their lives at each step in order to preserve it. The
lack of fear of death, by which those valiant soldiers of the God
of armies have sustained the field of battle against all the power
of the gates of hell, is doubtless one of the greatest of miracles
which divine Providence has hung in its temple in this world, to
the no small glory of these provinces of Espana, that have become
such marvels of charity through so good milk, that they consider
and have considered it an honor to suffer and even to die, in order
to defend that harassed church. Many events in confirmation of this
truth are drawn With most accurate brush in the preceding volumes
of this history. By them one may see that our brothers have left us
examples worthy of imitation by incessantly placing in practice the
highest perfection of exposing their lives to death for the assistance
and consolation of certain poor Indians, that they might encourage
them in the continual invasions of the Moros. But notwithstanding the
great skill that accompanied the painters of so idealistic canvasses,
I find in a lower degree not a few pictures worthy of immortality,
for without doubt the colors of the notices were lacking, which are
so indispensable to form the pictures in the painting of history. I
having obtained trustworthy relations of the many misfortunes that
assaulted our fields of Christendom and their directors from the
year 1640 until the present of 1668, which is under consideration, it
would not be laudable to leave such trophies buried in forgetfulness,
although the copy, which would have been most accurate if done by
the brushes of the other writers, be disfigured.

308. To continue; Don Sebastian Hurtado de Corcuera, governor of
Philipinas, thought that by building and garrisoning some strongholds
in Tolo [i.e., Jolo], an island which is given over to the perfidy
of Mahomet and is the nesting place of the robbers of the whole
archipelago, he could restrain its inhabitants by preventing them
from going to our villages with their fleets as they had done until