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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island, we have not been able to succor them; and so
they remain until God shall send them a reenforcement of fathers - of whom they themselves are so desirous that they have already built us houses and
churches, before a priest has been brought to them,
or even mentioned, to my knowledge. May God,
whose plantation this is, send workmen hither, since
there is harvest enough in all this island; and when
they shall undertake to extend their labors further,
there are, near by, some little islands in extreme
spiritual want, and entirely deprived of any human
succor for their conversion. Therein might be held
some missions most acceptable to God, all the more so
because those people are so forsaken; for, as those are
insignificant little islands, no one cares for them.
Those people are on the road to hell, if we do not
succor them; and we do not- aid them for lack of
ministers. One of these islands is called Isla de
Fuegos [" Island of Fires "], and is a half day's sail
distant from here. Several times its chiefs have
come to ask that we would go thither. The people
already know how to recite the Christian doctrine,
and yet not one has been baptized there (although
they are calling for that sacrament), for there is no
one who may distribute the bread, and thus they are
perishing of spiritual hunger.
"But, to return to our island, there is great cause
to glorify our Lord in seeing the esteem with which
its people regard the Christian religion, and the
fervor with which they one and all fulfil their obligations as Christians, in confession and communion, and in their pious and general affection toward
the things of God. A week ago, there was in our
house a young man, an infidel, who had come from