Volume 32 / Book 2 — Chapter XXIX

The foundation of a church in the island of Hermosa and the holy deaths of some religious

On the fourth of February of this year father Fray Alonso del Castillo, a native of Andalucia and a son of Sancto Domingo de Sant Lucar, set sail from his convent in the islands of the Babuyanes to go to Nueva Segovia. The distance is a little more than six leguas, but the crossing is dangerous at some times. His vessel was swamped, and the father and those who were with him were all drowned. He was an abstemious and devoted religious. Father Fray Alonso lived in the islands of the Babuyanes. He was at one time tempted by a thought which was unworthy of his state as a religious, and the purity which he maintained—the devil urging him to it, and putting before him the means of carrying out the design, and the method of keeping it in secrecy during the absence of the superior. Father Fray Alonso, recognizing from whose bow this arrow had been shot, went to his superior and told him the temptation of the devil with all the details. He and the superior laid the matter before God with prayers and scourgings. The devil was unable to oppose such humility, and in a few days father Fray Alonso was able to assure the vicar that there was nothing to fear. In the following April died father Fray Ambrosio de la Madre de Dios, a native of Guatimala, a son of the convent of Sancto Domingo at Mexico. He came to the Philippinas in the year 1595, and was assigned to the province of Nueva Segovia. Without any controversy, it is he who up to the present day has most accurately learned the language there, and who was the teacher of those who understood it best. No one surpassed him in his pronunciation and his choice of words. He wrote a methodical grammar, arranged a vocabulary, translated the gospels, various examples of holy life, an explanation of the articles, the passion of our Lord, and other works highly esteemed for the elegance of the writing and the propriety of the words. He was a religious of great virtue, and our Lord wrought many miracles by his prayers. It was in response to his prayers that when the lime-kiln in Abulug fell, those upon whom it fell did not lose their lives. In Pata occurred two cases, as it seemed, of resurrection; and in Tocolana he saved the church from burning.