Note 26 — Chapter XXVI

[After the chapter, father Fray Bernardo de Santa Catalina and the new vicar of Gabon set out for Pangasinan, taking with them as their associates father Fray Luis Gandullo and brother Fray Juan de Soria, a novice in the order. These recruits were greatly needed, and lightened the work of those who were there. In Pangasinan, being unable to attract to baptism those who were of full age, they gave their energies to obtaining children—generally failing but succeeding sometimes. At the feast of our Lady of August26 they baptized sixty, all they could get together. The Indians who promised their children often failed to let the religious have them, thus getting rid of the importunity of the fathers; or they would be perverted by heathen Indians, who abhor baptism. The fathers prayed to the Lord that they might not lose any of their number; He heard them, and a sufficient number of children were voluntarily offered to make up the total of sixty. The people came together to see what the religious would do to the children; and father Fray Pedro de Soto preached to them upon the workings of this holy sacrament, and miracles were afterward wrought in support of his words.