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]

1604-I605]

CHIRINO'S RELATION

95

Lord displayed to me the effects of His divine predestination, and how cujus vult miseretur, et quem
vult indurat. I was summoned to baptize an old
man who was very ill. Upon entering his house, I
found him in company with two other men, also very
aged - one, indeed, so old that he did not go from
the house, nor could he even walk. This last, hearing
me instruct the sick man, began to exert himself, and
approached us by creeping across the floor. Then,
with remarkable attention, he began to listen; and,
very opportunely, he heard the catechism. Seeing
the satisfaction which the old man and his companion
received from hearing the things of our holy faith,
I remained a long time, explaining it to them. When
I had baptized the sick man, the other began with
eagerness and devotion to ask for the sacrament, saying that he had faith in all that I had said, and was
desirous of salvation. He said that in no case ought
I to leave him without baptism, since his old age gave
him not many more days of life and those he wished
to spend as a Christian; accordingly, I baptized him.
The third old man was blind; and all the time while
I was catechizing his companions he spent in twisting some threads, and while the others were receiving
so much pleasure and their hearts becoming softened,
he was jesting and becoming more and more hardened. Taking pity on him, I tried to incline him to
conversion; but I could do nothing with him, and
his soul remained as forsaken as was his body."
How the Christian church continued to increase in
Ogmuc. Chapter LX.
Every one of these mission-fields [doctrinas] is
truly a school of celestial theology; for just as, in the