land was delivered to our teaching, the
number of missionaries has been doubled or tripled. It is evident
that victories must generally increase in proportion to the increase
of the soldiers in the campaign, even in what concerns spiritual wars.

801. This argument has more force, if it be considered that the
evangelical laborers having increased afterward with so great profit,
they asserted that at times the greatest strength accompanied by
gigantic zeal was given up as conquered, by the continual toil
indispensable in the administration of the faithful, for to that
task was added the care of the conversion of the heathen. That toil
was so excessive that the night generally came without the fathers
having obtained a moment of rest in order to pay the debt of the
divine office. At times they had to neglect the care of their own
bodies in order to attend to the souls of their neighbors. They were
always busied in teaching the instruction to children and adults;
in administering the holy sacraments, although they had to go three
or four leguas to the places where the dying persons were; and in
penetrating the rough mountains in the center of the island, in
order to allure the heathens and apostates to the healthful bosom
of the Church. To all the above (which even now is, as it were,
a common characteristic of all our missionaries in Philipinas) is
added the extreme poverty there, and the lack of necessities that
they endured. For, the reduced product from those villages, in regard
to the ecclesiastical stipend, which was formerly insufficient to
support two or three curas with great misery, was now sufficient to
support six or more religious. Consequently, they endured it with
the greatest hardship.

Sec. III

Information of the convents which were founded in that island, and
the miracles with which God confirmed the Catholic religion which
Ours were preaching.

802. Trampling under foot, then, the above discomforts and others
which are omitted, those illustrious champions attended to the exact
fulfilment of the spiritual administration, employing themselves in
the exercise of missionaries in order to reduce the heathens to the
Catholic sheepfold. In the belief that it would be very conducive
to the extension of the Christian religion to establish convents
in the new territory which they were cultivating, they began to set
their hands to the work. The first foundation which they established
was in the village o