tion of the whole world, he set
in operation the maxims which his burning charity dictated to him in
regard to the extensive limits entrusted by the Lord of the vineyard of
the Philipinas for the cultivation of our holy discalced order, with
a so visible utility to the Church. In the first place he arranged
with admirable prudence that certain missionary religious should
incessantly travel through the villages of our administration, like
swift angels or like light clouds in order to preach the obligation
of their character to the Christian Indians. They were to advise them
at the same time to take the sacraments frequently, of the horror
of idolatry, of the love of the faith, of obedience to the Church,
and to the appreciable submission to the Catholic king from which
so many blessings would follow to them, and by which they would be
delivered from innumerable evils. For that purpose he assigned two
religious of the Visayan language, one of the Tagalog, and one of
the Zambal--all of the spirit that such an occupation demanded. He
ordered each one of them to make continual journeys through the large
and small settlements of the district of his language, preaching the
mission with the same formalities that they are wont to observe in
Europa. He also ordered the father priors of the respective districts
to give such fathers every aid for that apostolic ministry, both
temporal and spiritual, as such was for the service of God and the
greater purity of our Catholic faith.

718. The profits and good effects that followed that undertaking
happily instituted, and reduced to fact with rare success, cannot
be easily explained. Oh would that the lack of religious almost
transcendental in all times in that province did not prevent the
prosecution and perpetuity of so holy a custom by which unspeakable
harvests of spiritual blessings were obtained, although some temporal
riches should be spent in it. It is true that the ministers of parish
priests of our said order who live continually in the villages,
attend to those duties without avoiding any toil. But since they
always live among their parishioners, and treat them so near at
hand, and since they exercise over them a certain kind of authority,
greater than that which the curas in Espana possess, it will not be
imprudent to observe (considering human weakness, and the cowardice
of the Indians), that some will not go to confess to those said
parish priests without great fear, the