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. 13]

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THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS

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confident in the Divine goodness that by next year
there will not be one man who is not baptized."
The mission held in Tanai. Chapter LXXI.
Tanai is a beautiful and thickly-settled river in
the great island called Negros, on the side which
forms a strait With the island of Sebu. This part of
the island is under the parochial care of Don Diego
Ferreira, the bishop's vicar there, and first archdeacon of the cathedral of Sebu. This priest, in his
great affection for our humble Society, and influenced by seeing the results of our fathers' labors in
those islands - aided by the demand of the natives of
Tanai themselves, who had at various times asked for
us - so urgently requested our presence there that at
last the authorities were obliged to consent. Overjoyed that they had assigned this field to Father
Gabriel Sanchez, whom he held in great esteem, the
said Don Diego went in person to Bohol with a ship,
expressly to convey Father Sanchez, and carried him
to their Tanai. What this faithful minister of Jesus
Christ accomplished there the Indians themselves
made known, and the archdeacon lauded it in various
letters, being most grateful to God and to the Society
for this service that we had rendered him. We gave
him therein no little aid in carrying his burden of
the many souls which are under his care, alone as he
is, without any other assistance or instruction than
ours. But Father Gabriel Sanchez, with his accustomed plainness, has written a more detailed account
of some particular cases, while making a report of
his labors to the superiors, as is the custom among us.
In a letter to the father-visitor, dated in November of
the year one thousand six hundred, he writes thus: