Note 42 — Chapter XV

Two buildings were being erected in Manila, for the temporal and the spiritual. The temporal was in the shape of a fort, which was being built. With such a possession friends feel secure, enemies fear, and one’s strength is increased. How much the spiritual edifice was growing is seen, since the number of workers was increasing, the people were becoming more and more capable of understanding what we were teaching them, and were estimating the inequality between the two beliefs. Hence it was needful that they should embrace what was good, and throw away the other as wicked and evil. The fathers kept school in the convent. They taught the boys to read and reckon. They were training some of them in the sacristy, teaching them to aid in the mass; so that, by having nearer at hand what we were teaching them, they should learn it more easily. All this was necessary in order to conquer natives, who were so hardened and so much accustomed to evil, that they regarded everything evil as good. For to such a pass can evil come, as says the prophet Isaiah: Væ qui dicitis bonum malum.42 And as the lads returned home every day with something new, which they told to their fathers and mothers, the result was that they gave the latter food for reflection, which caused the spark to course through their hearts; and as the spark was fire, and still more from God, it must strike deep and work its effect. Thus the number of Christians continued to increase. And, not less, certain hopes [204] arose that they would be multiplied daily, and extended through all those nations who were viewing events in Luzon, as being the greatest island of all, and with the most warlike inhabitants.