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]

16o4-I605] CHIRINO'S RELATION

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fervor and contrition wherewith they make their
confessions, and the rigor with which they scourge
themselves and do penance. One of those Indian
women made her confession with so abundant tears
and signs of true contrition, that the father who confessed her was greatly aroused and moved thereat,
and afterward related that the feelings of devotion
caused by those so fervent tears and true contrition
remained with him for many days; and that when
he wished to humiliate himself or enliven his piety
he had only to remember what he had beheld in
that Indian woman. For it is vastly different to but
talk of contrition for sins, and to contemplate its
vivid image and reality in a soul. Another woman
came to the confessional and, without noticing the
multitude of people in the church, began her confession, and continued it with so many tears and such
grief for her sins that she could with difficulty
speak. She was thereupon seized with a great longing to do penance, and desired to go at once through
the streets of the city, publicly scourging herself, as
many do here [in Europe] throughout Lent, in the
early part of the night. A young man in the confessional experienced such horror at his sins that, incensed against himself, and without informing the
father, he scourged himself through the streets with
such severity that he fell down as one dead, and was
considered as such. He came later to our house to
confess his offenses, and was as disfigured as if he were
recovering from a severe illness; but, not content
with the former scourging, he desired to inflict on
himself another - for, as he said, his heart was transfixed, as by a nail, with grief for his sins. The father,
however, commanded him to cease for the present,