The people of the Philippines, their religious progress and preparation for spiritual leadership in the Far East,

84 THE PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINES

Three serpents lurked in this Garden of Eden.
The first tempted the friars. They were human, they were
in the tropics, they had absolute power, their lives were monotonous, they were celibates, they were twenty thousand miles
from the eye of Europe. The inevitable happened. Men who
had meant to be heroes found themselves enmeshed in immorality. They resorted to casuistry to condone their sins.
Gradually a new type of priesthood began to arrive from
Spain, which had heard of the moral laxity of the clergy, and
secretly longed for it.
Then the stern poverty of the early friars gradually gave
way to more comfortable conditions, and these to something
closely resembling luxury. The early lofty purity of the friars
was compromised; they began to find themselves defending
privilege. Opulence attracted a class of priests from Spain
who loved ease and power, and repelled those who sought
hardship and poverty.
The second serpent was jealousy, quickly developing into
conflict. This unhappily began almost at once. There is
nothing more unlovely than Christians quarreling for a chance
to do missionary work, yet Protestants, Catholics and heathen
seem to fall alike before that temptation.
"Five years after the founding of Manila, the city and
environs were infested with niggardly mendicant friars, whose
slothful habits placed their supercilious countrymen in ridicule
before the natives. They were tolerated but a short time in
the Islands... because the Bishop was highly jealous of
all competition against the Augustinian order to which he
belonged." 12 Thus early, strife arose between the orders.
It became impossible to know which side of a controversy was
nearer right, for both sides were so patently selfish. Nothing
could have been more lamentable than this sinking of the only
force which was holding up the ideals of Spain. Energy which
had at first been expended in herculean deeds, now turned upon
itself in disgraceful controversy. The great machine became
more and more out of order, knocking against itself, and
progress gradually slowed down.
"Foreman "The Philippine Islands," p. 55.