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. 44]

I700-I736]

JESUIT MISSIONS

37

fraternities attend these, and afterward visit the
altars. On Sundays there is preaching to the Cafres,
blacks, creoles, and Malabars -who through a sense
of propriety are called Morenos, although they are
dark-skinned. The sermon is in Spanish, and the
greatest difficulty of the preacher is to adapt his language to the understanding of the audience. Various poor Spaniards also attend these sermons, as
well as other people, of various shades of color, of
both sexes.
Every Sunday certain fathers are sent to preach
at the fort or castle, to the soldiers and the other men
who live there. The Christian doctrine is chanted
through the streets, and in the procession walk the
boys of the school; it ends at the royal chapel, where
some part of the catechism is explained, and a moral
sermon is preached to the soldiers who live in their
quarters in order to mount guard. The doctrine is
explained at the Puerta Real and at the Puerta del
Parian, and there is preaching in the guard-roomwhere there is a large attendance, not only of soldiers, but of the many people who, on entering or
going out from the gates, stop to hear the word of
God. Another father goes to the royal foundry, in
which the galley-slaves live, where there is such a
variety of people - mestizos, Indians of various
dialects, Cafres, negroes of different kinds, and
Sangleys or Chinese-that exceptional ability and
patience are necessary in order to make them understand. Other fathers go to the college of Santa
Isabel and the seminary of Santa Potenciana, where
they give addresses and exhortations to the students
of the former, and the women secluded in the latter.
Others go to the prisons of both the ecclesiastical and