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]

I649-I666]

EPISCOPAL VISITATION

265

Segovia, and Arevalo had nearly 200 more. Now
the representative citizens throughout the islands do
not number 60. Then if in that time, when the
islands contained most Spaniards, there were no
secular priests, how can there be any today when
there are not 60 citizens in all the islands, while the
number of priests is steadily growing less in America,
where the Spanish settlements are large and populous and are continually increasing?
So great is the lack of the secular clergy that they
cannot even take care of the missions in their charge.
For there is no district belonging to the seculars,
especially outside of the island of Manila, that does
not need two or three priests; for most of the villages
of their jurisdiction are io, 20, or 30 leguas distant
from the chief mission station - from which, as they
find themselves alone, they do not go out to visit their
districts as a rule, except once a year. Consequently
many must necessarily die without the sacraments,
and even the children without baptism, because of
the laziness of the Indians and the little esteem in
which they hold the faith because of the lack of instruction. Even the ministers themselves run the
risk of dying without confession, and there are not
few examples of that in those islands. That occurs
because they can do no more, and have no priests
who can aid them in their ministries. In order to
have these, they must maintain them at their own
cost, in order to meet the obligations of their consciences. But the regulars in all their districts which
consist of many villages (they have three or four
priests in each district), are ever traveling unceasingly by sea and land, visiting their villages. Consequently the villages instructed by the religious are