Note 82 — Chapter XLIII

It appears that in the year 1629 the orders were moved to send religious to Japón at their own cost. These were the Dominican fathers, the Franciscans, our Recollects, and those of our own order. They furnished the expenses on shares, built a champan, hired sailors, and paid a pilot. But that expedition could not have been for the best, for the Lord proceeded to defeat it, by allowing their champan to be wrecked. Afterward, although they bought another in China (or rather in Ilocos), it had no better success. Ours spent more than five hundred pesos. The father reader, Fray Pedro de Quesada,82 and father Fray Agustín de Chauru went. The sufferings of the religious from storms, rains, roads, and famines would not be believed. It seems that they can say with St. Paul: Omnia superamus propter eum qui dilexit nos.83 They had to return because their superiors thus ordered, for in any other way they would not have done it; as they know very well how to suffer with Christ and for Christ, whose hardships were sweet to them, as to another St. Paul: Mihi autem absit gloriari nisi in cruce Domini nostri Jesu Christi.84