Note 7 — JESUIT MISSIONS IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY

[Fol. 13:] Father Juan de Torres, with another priest and a brother, went from the college of Manila to conduct a mission at a place which is called Cabeza de Bondoc,7 about sixty leguas from Manila, in the bishopric of Camarines—the bishop of Nueva Cazeres at that time being his illustrious Lordship Don Fray Diego de Guevara, of the Order of St. Augustine. As soon as that zealous prelate took possession of his see, he began to ask for fathers of the Society, in order that, commencing with the Indians who were already peaceable who reside in Nueva Cazeres, they might establish missions and continue their instructions in other villages which he intended to give them. But the Society, who always have showed due consideration to the other ministers in these islands, not attempting to dispossess them from their ministries—although not always have we found them respond in like spirit—thanked that illustrious prelate for his kindness, without accepting those ministries; and in order that he might see that [the cause of this action] was consideration for the ministers, and not the desire to escape from the labor, Ours consented to conduct a mission in Bondoc, the difficulty of which, and its results, are explained by that prelate in a letter which he wrote to Father Torres, in which he says: “I find that it is true, what was told to me in Manila, when I gave that mission-field to the Society, and I mention it with great consolation to myself; and that is, that it was the Holy Ghost who inspired me to give it—for I see the fruits which are steadily and evidently being gathered therein. For in so many ages it has been impossible to unite those villages, and the Indians in them were regarded as irreclaimable; and now in so short a time those villages have been united, and the Indians, [who were like] wild beasts, appear like gentle lambs. These are the works of God, who operates through the ministers of the Society—who with so much mildness, affection, and zeal are laboring for the welfare of those people.” Great hardships were suffered by those of the Society in these missions, and for several years that ministry was cared for by Ours, until it was entrusted to the secular priests.