Note 23 — JESUIT MISSIONS IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY

[Fol. 277:] The archbishop of Manila, Don Miguel Poblete, a pastor zealous for the good of souls, asked the father provincial of the Society to employ some of his men, now that this succor had arrived,23 in a ministry so proper for our Institute as is that of the missions; and some of them accordingly went out to look after the ranches [estancias], where usually live many vagabonds, who, as a result of their idleness and lack of any restraint, commit innumerable sinful and evil acts, and are a people greatly in need of religious instruction. In those places are found some Spaniards, various [sorts of] mestizos, negroes, Cafres, and Indians from all the islands. At the cost of many inconveniences, the ministers gathered a large harvest in the numerous confessions that were made to them, and in many licentious unions which were broken up; and, above all, light was given to those people on what they ought to believe and do in order to secure the eternal salvation of their souls. An old man eighty years of age, whose confessions were almost sacrilegious, was reached by the mission, and, wounded by his conscience, said: “Oh, if Father San Vitores” (whom perhaps he knew by reputation) “were one of the missionaries, how I could get out of this wretched condition in which I am!” And afterward, learning that Father San Vitores was going to that place, this old man cast himself at his feet, and with more tears than words made a general confession, and [thus] was set free from that abominable condition in which he found himself. Afterward the archbishop entreated that the mission should go to the mountain of Maralaya, near the lake of Bay, where a colony of highwaymen and vagrants had been gathered by the desire for freedom and the fear of punishment, secure in their lawless mode of life in the ruggedness of the mountain. The missionaries reached that place, and on the slope of the mountain established their camp, where they remained in the inclemencies of weather until a pavilion was built in which they could say mass, and a wretched hut for their shelter. There, with affection, prayer, and exercises of penance, they were able to persuade those people to come down to hear the word of God; and so efficacious was this that many were induced to return to their own villages, in order to live as Christians. Several women whom those men kept there, who had been separated from their husbands, were restored [to their families]; and among the rest the missionaries employed instruction and teaching. One man had lived in that barbarous community worse than if he were a heathen; and the only indication of his Christian faith that remained to him in so demoralized a condition was his constant devotion to the blessed Virgin—to whom he fasted every Saturday, and whom he urgently entreated that he might not die without the sacraments. That most merciful Lady heard him, for, although he had been ten times in danger of death, she had always set him free with special favor. Now he made his confession with many tears, with the firm resolve to do whatever might be necessary for his eternal salvation.