The Philippine Islands, 1493-1803; explorations by early navigators, descriptions of the islands and their peoples, their history and records of the Catholic missions, as related in contemporaneous books and manuscripts, showing the political, economic, commericial and religious conditions of those islands from their earliest relations with European nations to the beginning of the nineteenth century; [Vol. 1, no. 36]

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THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS

[Vol. 36

rivaling one another in letters. They administer
many benefices and curacies in the islands of Luzon,
Luban, Mindoro, and others - besides the abovementioned curacies and chaplaincies, both within
and without Manila.
64-84. [These sections are occupied with biographical notices of the archbishops and bishops in
the various dioceses, which we here omit, intending
to present data of this sort in a later volume.]
Religious orders in Filipinas
85. The Order of St. Augustine entered the islands in the year 565; its first superior, and first prelate of all the islands was Fray Andres de Urdaneta
- a Vascongado,40 and a son of the convent and province of Mexico; he was the apostle who unfurled
the gospel banner, and he planted the faith in the
island of Zebu and others. They have in Manila a
notable convent, with fifty religious - counting novices, students, and men of mature years; it was
founded in the year 71. It is the head of eighty
other parish convents, most of them having costly
buildings; and in all these the sacraments are most
watchfully administered to more than two hundred
thousand Christians. They are located on the river
and in the environs of Manila; along the lake of Bay,
and in its mountains; throughout Pampanga, and in
Pangasinan and Ilocos; and in the islands of Pintados, whose vicar-provincial is the prior of Zebu. In
all times this order has possessed illustrious men of
distinguished virtue, and martyrs in Xapon, and
40 Vascongado: a term applied to the people or products of
the Spanish provinces of Alava, Guipuizcoa, and Vizcaya (or
Biscay).