Note 27 — Chapter III · Rise and Prosperity of Sulu
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The second point is that, in the Island of Mindanao, which is subject to your Majesty, and for many years has paid you tribute, the law of Mohammed has been publicly proclaimed, for somewhat more than three years, by preachers from Bruney and Ternate who have come there—some of them even, it is believed, having come from Mecca. They have erected and are now building mosques, and the boys are being circumcised, and there is a school where they are taught the Quran. I was promptly informed of this, and urged the president to supply a remedy therefor at once, in order that that pestilential fire should not spread in these islands. I could not persuade them to go, and thus the hatred of Christianity is there; and we are striving no more to remedy this than if the matter did not concern us. Such are the calamities and miseries to which we have come, and the punishments which God inflicts upon us.27