The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume 32, 1640. Aduarte Diego
coast; the father remains there, and labors among the heathen. In December, 1633, the preaching of the gospel is introduced into Itui, in Luzón; two Dominican friars go thither, of whose mission, and of that region and its people, some account is given, followed by a long biography of Fray Tomás Gutierrez, head of the mission. The new provincial this year is Fray Domingo Gonçalez, Aduarte’s editor; at this session of the chapter an important change is made, the abolition of the intermediate chapter. The missions are extended farther than ever before, but new workers are greatly needed. Many religious meet a martyr’s death in Japan this year, and the persecution steadily increases in severity; biographical sketches of several martyrs are given, one of whom had achieved much in Formosa. In that island arises a rebellion among the natives, who murder (1633) one of the missionaries.
Aduarte describes the mission to the Mandayas of northern Luzón, begun in 1631; it has been very successful, and many of those fierce and warlike people are now quite tamed and Christianized. The martyrdoms (in 1634) of several missionaries and Christian women in Japan, with sketches of their lives, are related. Two chapters are devoted to an account of the Dominican missions in China, which contain many devout Christians; at times, the missionaries are in danger of being slain by mobs. The Dominican mission in Formosa has not accomplished many conversions, and it has lost many devoted missionaries.
At this point ends Aduarte’s own work in this history; the remaining chapters are added by his editor, Fray Domingo Gonçalez. He relates in full the late effort made by Fray Diego Collado to divide the province of Filipinas, and to appropriate its best posts and revenues for his congregation of “Barbones.” This attempt greatly disturbs Aduarte, whose last days are saddened, and perhaps even shortened, thereby. But not long after his death this cloud passes away, and the province is restored to its former condition – a result mainly ascribed to the intervention of the Virgin Mary; and Collado’s new congregation melts away. Gonçalez then presents a long and elaborate biography of the illustrious Aduarte, which we abridge considerably, retaining especially such information about that prelate, and such account of the missions, as has not already appeared in his Historia. His virtues are recounted at length, and the many benefits which he secured for his order, for the poor and needy everywhere, and for the Indians.
Fray Gonçalez completes Aduarte’s history up to the year 1637, thus comprising the first fifty years of the history of the Philippine Dominican province. In that year, Fray Carlós Gant is elected provincial; and in Japan the last Dominican friars remaining there are martyred, of whose lives and deaths sketches are given. At the end of the book is printed a letter from Felipe IV to the Dominican provincial at Manila, ordering that the recent partition of the province be annulled, and Collado sent back to Spain.
The Editors
August, 1905.
Historia de la Provincia del
Sancto Rosario de la Orden
De Predicadores
Source: Translated from a copy of the above work in the possession of Edward E. Ayer, Chicago.
Translation: This is made by Henry B. Lathrop, of the University of Wisconsin. This volume includes chaps. lxxi–lxxviii of book i, and all of book ii – partly in synopsis.
History of the Dominican Province of the Holy Rosary
By Fray Diego Aduarte, O.P.
(Concluded)
Chapter LXXI
The arrival at Manila of father Fray Luis, his assignment to Pangasinan and the events there
[Father Fray Luis was assigned to the province of Pangasinan and went there in the company of the two other fathers who were sent to the same place. Suffering from disease as a result of exposure, he was miraculously cured. The Lord wrought miraculous conversions by means of father Fray Luis, and supported him in his sufferings and illness with visions. Being taken back to Manila for care, and fearing that he might be sent to some other province, he prayed God to renew his strength that he might return to Pangasinan. The Lord heard his prayer and he was able to return to the duties which he loved. The Lord blessed the mere word of father Fray Luis, sometimes even more than the great labors of other religious; and he took as his special charge those Indians who had been given up by others. At one time when news came that smallpox was raging in one of the villages named Bimmalay, and that many children were dying in it, father Fray Luis instantly went there to baptize as many of the children as he could. The fathers were not usually permitted to baptize the children, except in cases where it was certain that they were not going to live, and then they were permitted to do so only as a result of prayers and importunities. At one time a soldier came to Binalatongan with news that Don Luis Perez das Mariñas was dying in the province of Ylocos. He sent word to father Fray Luis, but without asking him to come, as the sisters of Lazarus wrote to the Lord. Father Fray Luis went to his choir to intercede for his friend, and there remained constantly in prayer and sacrifice until he received news that he was better. From the very day when the soldier reached father Fray Luis, the governor began to recover his health. On many occasions sick children were healed by the prayers of father Fray Luis. He was ready to risk his life for his duties. In many cases it seemed as if God had kept children alive only until they received baptism that they might be saved.]
A case which illustrates this point happened to father Fray Luis in Calasiao. He would never tell of this unless compelled by his obedience. He was called upon to see a child who had been baptized, and who was dying; and he went there with a boy named Andresillo, and with others. When they came near the house where the child was, they heard a great lamentation with which they were weeping over him; and in another house very near they heard a great noise of people who were drinking, as was then very common among the heathen. Among others was their chief named Catongal, a man fierce by nature, and furious when he had taken wine. On this occasion he came up with the others, full of wine, and said to the father, “You kill many” – intimating that he killed them with baptism, because few of those who received it escaped. The father replied that the reason of this was, that the Indians did not permit the children to be baptized until there was no hope for their lives; and he said that the good that the religious did to them would cause them to rejoice greatly if they knew it. Catongal was not mollified by this; and the father tried to leave him to go on, but it seemed best to have the child shrouded first that he might take it and bury it – to prevent superstitious acts, such as were customary. He saw it lying dead in the arms of an Indian woman; and, looking upon it as such, he directed them to shroud it. But a voice within him seemed to say that he should repeat a gospel. He went to look at it again, found upon it all the marks of death, and said, “Why should I say a gospel for it?” They shrouded it; but he was still more urged on by that inner impulse to repeat the gospel, until at last he did so. It was the gospel of St. John, In principio erat verbum.1 After he had repeated this he made the sign of the cross upon the brow of the infant, saying, “O Lord, I ask no miracles of thee; but if it is to thy glory, the credit of thy faith, and the conversion of these heathen, I pray thee to work them.” He added, Evangelica lectio sit tibi salus et protectio, placing his hand upon the head of the child; and, before he took away his hand, the Lord looked upon the child and gave it life. All were astonished, and the father in confusion said, in order to humiliate himself, that it could not have been dead; and the chief was convinced that the fathers did not kill children. The child sucked immediately, like a well and healthy child. It would have been a miracle, even though it were not dead, for it so suddenly to have recovered its health. Father Fray Luis passed the rest of that day in great embarrassment, being anxious lest some part of what had happened should be attributed to him, as the instrument of it. On the following day he went to ask how the child was, and found it well and strong. He asked the Indians who were there what they thought of the event, and, before they replied, the Lord gave him an answer from within: “This is excessive curiosity.” He blamed himself severely, and was so ashamed that he went away immediately, and never more looked upon the child or spoke of the matter; and on the occasions which offered themselves for any father to make any reference to it (because it had been public), he changed the subject of conversation, without appearing