Note 40 — Chapter IX

800. Neither can one make from this progress of the Catholic faith which was attained by the preaching of our religious, any inferences against the other laborers who began to subdue the island, or against the secular clergy, who administered it afterward. The Observant fathers, as a rule, employed there no more than one missionary or at the most two. The number of the fathers of St. Francis was no larger, and they had charge at times of the district of Balayàn as well as of Mindòro. Since the fathers of the Society had so much to attend to in so many parts, two or three of them took care of Mindòro and Marinduque. Consequently, one ought not to be surprised that so small a number of laborers did not do more, but, that they had done so much must surely astonish him who considers it thoroughly. In the same way the parish priests, who succeeded them, were very few, and since the reduced Indians occupied so extensive a coast, they had scarce enough time to administer the bread of the doctrine to the Christians, so that they had none left to penetrate into the mountains in search of the Zimarrones or of the heathen Manguiànes.40 But, on the contrary, from the time that that island was delivered to our teaching, the number of missionaries has been doubled or tripled. It is evident that victories must generally increase in proportion to the increase of the soldiers in the campaign, even in what concerns spiritual wars.