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]

I5o

THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS

[Vol. 36

various orders are given; and the narrative continues:]
719.... Those holy orders, each one doing
its share, declared pitiless war against paganism, and
achieved signal victories in that war, destroying the
idols of Belial and planting solidly the health-giving
sign of the cross; so that whatever is conquered in the
islands is due to their fervent zeal. 'For they planted
the faith, and watered that land with blood so that it
might produce fruit abundantly; and God was the
cause of so wonderful an increase. The system that
they have always followed in the spiritual administration of the missions and villages which they have
formed at the cost of their sweat is the same as that
observed in America in the beginning by various
apostolic privileges. In the provincial chapters held
by each order, they appoint as superiors of the houses
established in the villages of Indians who are already
converted, those religious who are fit to exercise the
office of cura by their learning, their morals, and
other qualities. The same is also done in regard to
the residences of the active missions, where those
thus appointed continue the preaching to and conversion of the heathen, with very perceptible progress. Both the former and the latter exercise the
ministries to which they are destined, without need
of other approbation than that of the definitorswho entrust to these heads of houses the administration of the sacraments and the spiritual cultivation
of those souls, in the respective territory where the
convent is located, a superior being elected for each
convent. This is done independently of the bishops.
Likewise the definitors of each order in their meetings appoint various of the most learned and experi