Note 24 — Chapter XLIX

[Chapter l mentions the intermediary chapter of May 1, 1700, and the state of the Philippine and other missions of the order. In Cagayan the missions of Zifun and those to the Mandayas are in a flourishing condition. Through the efforts of Fray Francisco de la Vega,24 the earnest work of Fray Pedro Ximenez is carried on, and the fierce dwellers of the village of Calatug are reduced to the faith. The assembly earnestly charges the missionary at Fotol to bend all his energies to the conversion of the Mandayas. Fray Vicente de el Riesgo25 is appointed to the mission of Ytugug, and he is charged with the reduction of Yogat and Paniqui; and well does he obey those injunctions. Not only does he reduce again the villages of Ytugug, Santa Rosa, and San Fernando, but also villages of Cagayan. “Besides that mission of Ytugug or Paniqui, another harvest field, no less abundant, had been discovered, in the very center of those mountains, on the side looking toward the east, in an extensive field called Zifun. There the venerable father, Fray Geronimo Ulloa, vicar of the village of Tuguegarao, filled with zeal for the reduction of those infidels, had made various raids in those mountains. That father was very fond of missions and had labored in others with zeal and fervor, and although he was now very old, and had in his charge so large a village as Tuguegarao, and was very far from those mountains, yet he was unable to restrain his zeal, and his desire for the welfare of souls. Hence burning with the ardor of youth, as soon as he was freed from the obstacles of the necessary occupations of his ministry, he entered those mountains alone in search of those straying souls in order to lure them to the flock of Christ, without stopping to consider dangers or discomforts in order that he might gain some souls for heaven.” So great is his success, and so many the souls that he reduces that the intermediary chapter gives him an associate, in order that the father may give all of his time to the mission work of Zifun.]