charge of the whole island for reasons which we shall now relate.

Sec. II

Being obliged to abandon the ministries of Zambales by force, our
province of Philipinas assumes possession of the ministries of Mindoro,
and obtains rare fruit with its preaching.

792. In the year 1606, that grain of mustard arrived in Manila,
and although it was small, it produced the tree of most surpassing
magnitude. I speak of our first mission which was composed at its
arrival of a small number of religious. By preaching the glory of
God and announcing the works of His power, so few men founded the
greatness of that holy province among the illuminations of blind
heathenism. It cannot be denied that by that time the sound of the
word of God had reached all the Philipinas Islands, which had been
announced by the illustrious champions who had preceded us in that
vast archipelago, to wit, the calced Augustinians, the discalced
Franciscans, the Jesuits and the Dominicans. But there cannot be
any doubt either that, notwithstanding that all the above orders had
worked in the conversion of souls, with the most heroic fervor, some
new locations in which they could enter to work were not lacking to
Ours. The harvest was great and the laborers few; and since, however
much those destined for that cultivation sweated in continual tenacity,
they could not go beyond the limited sphere of man, hence it is that
the Recollects on reaching that great vineyard at the hour of nine,
equaled in merit those who gained their day's wages from the first
hour. And in truth this will appear evident if one considers that even
now, after so many years in which the sacerdotal tuba of the apostolic
ministry has been incessantly exercised, not a few places are found
in the said islands where the individuals of all orders are employed
in living missions, and struggle with the most obstinate paganism.

793. The district where Ours first spread the gospel net was in the
mountain range called Zambales, in the middle part of which extending
from Mariveles to Bolinao they obtained fish in great numbers, as
has been told already in the preceding volumes. Those villages of
Zambales are located between ministries of the reverend Dominican
fathers. For, since the latter held along the great bay of Manila
on the side called El Partido almost at the foot of Mount Batan,
several missions contiguous to Mariveles and on the other side of
Bolinao, the best portion of the alcaldes