The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume 32, 1640

Chapter LXXIII
The fervor of spirit of father Fray Luis, and his expedition to China

[Although grace perfects nature, it may work so vehemently that it weakens it and takes from it health and even life. This happened in the case of father Fray Luis, who, although he was of robust constitution, sometimes lost his health and was in great danger of death as the result of the vehemence of his spirit in receiving the favors of God. He prayed to the Lord to moderate this vehemence of spirit, and begged that he would take it from him. Father Fray Juan de Soria prayed the Lord to take from father Fray Luis this intensity, and to give it to Don Luis Perez das Mariñas. From that day forward the father lived with the greatest calmness, while the knight became so fervent of spirit that he seemed like a living fire; and finally he said to father Fray Luis that he should die of the love of God. Father Fray Luis, after having received this peace and calm, became eager to go to the conversion of China. Father Fray Juan had a vision of Christ our Lord, seated upon a very spirited horse, which was biting the bit and leaping about. The saddle, the girths, the reins, and all the other accoutrements all seemed so weak that saddle and horseman were sure to fall to the ground; but he held his seat firmly, and made charges in one direction and another, brandishing a lance with great dexterity. The horseman said to the father, “Who, think you, can control this horse?” He answered, “Thou only knowest, Lord.” “It is I alone,” said the Lord, giving him an inward understanding that this horse represented China, and the weak accoutrements signified the scarcity of ministers for its conversion. He added aloud, “Go straightway and tell Fray Luis what thou hast seen, which is a corroboration of what has at other times been said to him.” Visions were manifested to others, which ratified the visions which had already shown Fray Luis that he was to go to China. Before the departure of the governor Gomez Perez, Cathalina Diaz – a Spanish woman of holy life, to whom God vouchsafed to see the future in visions, at times – had a vision of the governor with his head cut open and bathed in his blood, the death of the governor by treachery being prophesied in this way. Although the difficulties of going to China seemed as a result of this act of treachery to be greatly increased, in reality the Lord made it the means by which father Fray Luis was sent there; for he received a commission as ambassador, in company with father Fray Juan de Castro. The ambassadors, reaching the province of Canton instead of that of Chincheo, for which they were bound, were arrested as pirates. Father Fray Luis thus had the opportunity to convert an apostate Christian among the Chinese. He also found many slaves from Macan who had apostatized in that country; and to them he preached with much spirit, but little fruit. The voyage was one on which they suffered greatly, particularly father Fray Luis, who traveled with nothing but the habit in which he was clothed; and they were exposed to the rain and to the cold, which was excessive. The viceroy of Canton was very wrathful with them because they did not show him the courtesy customary in that country, threatened them, and commanded them to leave the province within fifteen days, taking with them not more than twenty-five picos of rice. On his way back to the port he found a number of apostates, but was unable to bring them back to the faith.

There is a law of the king of China that any poor foreigner shall be supported at the public expense so long as he is in the kingdom; but that, if he desires to depart, he shall pay the mandarin the cost of his clothing, and something more. The allowance was twelve maravedis a day. This is sufficient for three meals, since things are cheap in that country. It is plain from this that there is no law in China against admitting foreigners. On the contrary, there is a law to attract them and to keep them. Knowing this, the slaves of the Portuguese in Macan flee to China, where they have their liberty and are well received. Father Fray Luis made one or two conversions. Neither in Chincheo nor in Canton did they find a trace of the galley which they sought, because it had gone to Cochinchina. The mandarins in Chincheo played a trick upon them, when the fathers asked permission for religious to go from Manila to their country. Pretending to give it, the mandarins handed them a plate of silver with some Chinese characters upon it, for which they received large payment. The father obtained this money as alms from the Spaniards who accompanied him on the voyage; but, when he showed the plate in Manila, it was found only to give permission to buy food there without hindrance. At the time of this journey father Fray Luis was actually prior of the convent of Manila. On one Easter day he had a vision of the Holy Spirit coming down upon all the religious of the convent of Manila. After his term was at an end, he was assigned to Nueva Segovia, where the faith had been newly planted.]

Chapter LXXIV
The silence, occupation, and virtues of father Fray Luis, and his happy death

[Father Fray Luis had the three virtues which St. Ambrose, the doctor of the Church, affirms to be fundamental ones: the power to keep silence, the power to speak in due time, and the contempt for worldly things. His habit of silence seemed excessive to some, but when it was necessary he spoke with great spirit; and he so contemned worldly things that, in spite of the high offices which he held in the order, he had not even, as many good religious have, an image or any other trifling thing of his own. When he was ambassador in China, he left the rich table of Don Fernando de Castro and sustained himself, as one in poverty, by the allowance granted to the poor in China. Contrary to his nature, he was very humble. He was devout in prayer, and careful in saying the divine offices. He distributed his time with the greatest accuracy. He was most modest in the presence of women, and, though he sometimes had to speak to them, he never looked upon their faces. He was so charitable and tender-hearted that, when the judges were about to execute any rigorous sentence, they always concealed it from father Fray Luis, because they knew they could not resist his prayers for pity and pardon. He could not bear offenses against God, however willing to suffer wrongs to himself. He slept on a mat on the floor of his cell. His pillow was a piece of wood hollowed to make it light. Though the rules of the order permitted him two blankets, one to lie on and the other to cover himself with, he contented himself with one, folding it so that it would fulfil both offices. He wore his serge tunic a month without changing it, which in such a hot country causes great annoyance, because of the great amount of perspiration. He said that custom had made it not uncomfortable for him. He constantly wore a hair-shirt next his skin, and over that a corselet of mail. In his extreme old age, the bishop of Nueva Segovia compelled him to lay this last aside. He wore his breeches in such a way that the fastenings cut into the flesh of his legs. He was very sparing in his eating, giving his suppers, when the constitutions permit them to us, to the poor; and his noon allowance was more theirs than his. His lunch was two biscuit crusts and a banana, or two guavas, when there were any; and except at these times he neither ate nor drank. When he was vicar of the convent of Nueva Segovia, a father visited him as his guest, bringing with him two crawfish, which he boiled and put on the table; but father Fray Luis would not permit them to be eaten, saying it was not a feast, that they should have anything so unusual. He scourged himself every night, with the energy which was his by nature. He was most patient, and, though his body was mortified, his spirit was open to divine influences. He had great power of insight into the souls of those whom he saw. At one time he caused the bishop of Nueva Segovia, whose vicar-general he was, to dismiss two youths of his household – saying that he saw in them the marks of wickedness, and that one of them was a thief and the other a traitor. This was not known at the time, but the truth was afterwards discovered, one of them having ransacked a desk of the bishop’s and the other having been condemned to be hanged for murder. When he was engaged in contemplation, his mind was so absorbed that he could hear and see nothing else than the visions of God. This life of penitence continued from his youth to an old age of almost eighty years. In his last illness he was taken to the convent of Sancto Domingo at Manila, where he died. Testimony of miracles wrought by him during his life was given after his death. He is mentioned with honor in the records of the provincial chapter of 1612 and in the general chapter held at Bolonia in 1615.]

Chapter LXXV
The election as provincial of father Fray Miguel de San Jacintho, and the condition of the province and Japon

On the thirteenth of May, 1612, father Fray Miguel de San Jacintho was a second time elected as provincial, not because there was any lack of religious of much virtue, knowledge, and prudence to take the place of father Fray Baltasar Fort – who had just completed his term, and had governed like an angel – but because father Fray Miguel had left all the religious of the province so devoted to his good government that they finally determined to elect him again. They regarded it as more prudent to select one whom they knew by experience to be of great skill in the government of the province, than to try the government of others who, though they gave good hopes, could not offer so much certainty.

[At this time the bishop of Macan, Don Fray Juan de la Piedad, was in Manila. He was a religious of our order; and when he saw the interest of our religious here in the conversion of the Chinese, he was desirous that some of the fathers of the order who understood the Chinese language might be given to him to enter the kingdom by way of Macan. Two fathers, Thomas Mayor – a very successful minister among the Chinese race, and excellent in their language – and Bartolome Martinez, were assigned for this purpose; but they met with so much opposition at Macan from the religious of another order that they were unable to carry out their purpose. Father Fray Thomas went to España, and father Fray Bartholome returned to the Philippinas. Their voyage was not entirely without fruit, inasmuch as it resulted in the conversion of one Chinaman from Chincheo.

At this time, although our religious and the Christian people in the kingdom of Figen in Japon enjoyed peace and quiet, there were persecutions in other kingdoms of that realm. After the death of Father Gregorio Cespedes of the Society of Jesus in the kingdom of Bugen, in 1611, the tono of that region, who had protected Christianity out of respect for the father, banished two other fathers who were there, and tore down the churches. The tono of Firando martyred in October of this year three Christians; and that of Caratzu,² a cruel renegade, banished many. Thus the devil began that which afterwards took place. The Lord gave warning, by means of crosses miraculously found, of the persecution which was to occur. In this year there went to Japon father Fray Alonso Navarrete and father Fray Domingo de Valderrama, sent there by father Fray Baltasar Fort; and in the following year father Fray Baltasar himself, at the end of his term as provincial, went as vicar-provincial to this kingdom.

For a long time the emperor of Japon³ had shown much dislike to Christianity, and in the year 1612 he began to persecute it. Don Pablo Dayfachi, the secretary of a man who was very intimate with the emperor, received a great quantity of money from Don Juan, tono of Arima, to help him in the recovery of some lands which had been lost by his ancestors in war. Don Pablo, who was a Christian, could do nothing for the cause of Don Juan, who complained to the emperor. The emperor commanded that Don Pablo should be burned alive in the sight of his wife, and that his son should be killed. The emperor thereupon began to persecute the Christians, saying that deeds like these were not done by the Japanese, and that Don Pablo had degenerated from them because he was a Christian. Fourteen knights with their wives and families and servants were exiled. The tono of Arima was banished, because he had endeavored to get back by favors lands which others had gained by war, and was finally executed. A certain English heretic, named Guillermo Adam [i. e., Will Adams], who knew the Japanese language and who pleased the emperor by giving him an account of European affairs, vomited forth the hate which he felt against our holy faith whenever he had opportunity. He told him that the plan of the king our lord to conquer kingdoms is to send religious first, that they may make the way plain for soldiers, citing for example Nueva España and the Philippinas – although, in point of fact, neither there nor here did religious precede, but invaders who intended to conquer the country. In addition to this, Safioye, the governor of Nangasaqui, had difficulties with certain fathers, and had complained of them to the emperor. The result was that the hatred of the emperor for Christianity grew greater and greater. He finally commanded all the churches in that part of Japon known as Cami to be demolished, and gave the same commands for the kingdom of Quanto.⁴ He required the Christians in certain parts of the country to deny their faith. A number of the Christians proved weak; while of those who refused to obey the commands some were martyred, some banished, and some driven to the mountains. The conduct of the governors in different parts of the country varied from very great rigor to as much kindness as was consistent with obeying the commands of the emperor. The tono of Figan, who had shown so many favors to our order, directed the religious of our order to leave the kingdom, but did not at that time persecute the Christians. The command to depart was received by the religious in September, 1613. Two of the religious retained their habit, and went on to Nangasaqui; but the third, disguising himself in Japanese costume, fled to the country of Omura, and went about secretly animating and encouraging the Japanese Christians. Don Miguel, the tono of Arima, who had married a granddaughter of the emperor,⁵ requested eight gentlemen of his household to pretend to have abandoned the faith, in order that he might satisfy the emperor that he had ceased to be a Christian. Five finally consented. The other three were executed with their wives and children, eight persons in all, in October, 1613. They were burned alive with a slow fire. The religious having been driven out from nearly all the kingdoms and having assembled in Nangasaqui, two of our religious were sent out to go secretly to comfort the persecuted Christians, to hear their confessions, and to celebrate the sacraments.]

Chapter LXXVI
The servant of God, Don Fray Diego de Soria, bishop of Nueva Segovia, and one of the founders of this province

[Among the most highly honored religious in this province a very important place is taken by Don Fray Diego de Soria, second bishop of Nueva Segovia. It was he who began the conversion in this province, and who might therefore be called the father in Christ of that church. Father Fray Diego was a native of Yebenes, near Toledo, and professed religion in the convent of the order at Ocaña. Giving signs of promise as a student and a preacher, he was sent to the college of Alcala, where he continued to follow the rigorous rules of the order forbidding the eating of flesh. When the holy and prudent vicar-general, Fray Juan de Castro, assigned his companions to their various duties, he gave father Fray Diego the chief place by making him superior of the convent which was to be founded in the city of Manila. The number of the religious at that time was so few that the superior of Manila rang the bells, assisted in the singing, took messages to the sacristy, and was general confessor of the many who, influenced by the great virtue of the new religious (the Dominicans), came to put their consciences in their care. The Lord had endowed father Fray Diego with two qualities which appear to be opposed to each other. The first was natural freedom of speech in rebuking evil with great courage and zeal; the other was marked gentleness and suavity of nature. At one time when the governor of Manila – who was a very good Christian and a learned man⁶– was confessing to him, a certain difficulty arose in which it seemed to father Fray Diego that the governor had erred. When the governor strove to defend his conduct, father Fray Diego said to him that in this matter he was, although learned, not a judge but a party, and indeed defendant; that in cases of conscience the confessor alone was the judge; and that, after reflection, he had formed his conclusion, which was that the governor’s conduct could not be approved. He required him to accept his decision or to seek a confessor elsewhere. The governor, with tears in his eyes, professed his readiness to obey. At one time when a very rich man was sick, and feared death and the judgment, he sent to call father Fray Diego to him that he might confess; but the father refused to go, sending back as an answer that the rich man must return the tribute which he had wrongfully taken from an encomienda, and must give the Indians there a minister. The sick man put himself in father Fray Diego’s hands, and thus his conscience was composed, to the great advantage of the wronged Indians. When the bishop of these islands, Don Fray Domingo de Salaçar, was about to set out for España, he asked for father Fray Diego as a companion; but the governor at that time [i. e., Gomez Perez Dasmariñas], being very different from the previous one, refused to permit him to go to España, fearing the freedom with which he might speak there. Father Fray Diego was therefore sent to Pangasinan, where he learned the language of the Indians; thence he went to Nueva Segovia, being the first minister to the Indians there. Among them he made many conversions, especially that of the most important Indian in that region, Don Diego Siriban. He was afterward elected prior of Manila, and was then sent as procurator to España. He went on his voyage in complete poverty, trusting in the Lord for what he might need. He received enough not only for the support of himself and his companion, but for the purchase of the convent and garden of San Jacintho – where, from that time forward, the religious who came from España to this province were lodged. This was so important a matter that if father Fray Diego had done nothing else for this province, this would have been enough to entitle him to its gratitude and perpetual thanks, since it receives here a perpetual benefit whenever new religious come. He had planned for other similar prudent arrangements in España, but the province declined them for the time, failing to see the advantage of them; and afterward, when they were desired they could not be obtained, because there was no Fray Diego de Soria in España. In that country, great and small thronged to consult him in regard to spiritual matters, for he had singular power in prudent counsel. He gave his chief attention to sending many good religious to the Philippinas, and for this purpose went on to Roma clad in the same lowly fashion as in his poor province. He was very small of stature, and went clothed in a habit of serge which was short and patched. In spite of his unfavorable appearance, he made a great impression, not only upon the general of the order, but upon the supreme pontiff, who at that time was Clement VIII. The pope desired to retain father Fray Diego with him in Roma, in order to put into execution the reformation of all the religious orders; but the father was unable to remain, because he was very much occupied with assembling religious for this province. It usually happens that many of those religious who have purposed to come to the Philippinas have fallen off; but in the case of father Fray Diego not one of those who had been assigned and prepared for this journey failed him, while many others came to see if they might be accepted. This happened at the time of the great plague of 1601, which raged with especial fury in Sevilla, where the religious were to assemble. Father Fray Diego was highly regarded at court, especially by Queen Margarita. The bishopric of Nueva Caceres in these islands was vacant, and was offered to father Fray Diego, who declined to accept it because he did not understand the language of the Indians of that region. But when the bishopric of Nueva Segovia was offered to him, he could find no excuse for declining it. It was desired to keep him in España in some bishopric; but, as he wrote, he would not give up his poor apostolic bishopric for the chief bishopric in España. When he became bishop, he did not change his manner of living or lay aside his serge habit. The only thing which he did to maintain his dignity as a bishop was to keep one servant. He kept his pectoral covered with his scapular, until the nuncio directed him to make his appearance more dignified, and to wear his pectoral openly. His prudence was so highly regarded that he was asked to carry the news of her mother’s death to the daughter of the Duchess of Lerma, the wife of the Conde de Niebla, which he did with such discretion that she accepted her bereavement with Christian resignation. On his departure from España, he brought with him a good company of religious. On the way he was delivered, as by the hand of God, from some Moorish galliots. When the others were rejoicing at the opportunity of disembarking at the island of Guadalupe to get wood and water, the bishop was in great anxiety, as if he saw the evil that was to follow; and strove, but without success, to keep the others from going on the land. The bishop disembarked, and after saying mass instantly returned to the ship. The rest of the religious, following the usual custom of those who go to that island, remained till evening. Five of them lost their lives, and four came back wounded, by the arrows of the Indians on that island. Somewhat later, a storm attacking the fleet, some of the other vessels were lost; but that in which the bishop was came safe to land – as it seemed, miraculously. In Nueva España he inspected the convents of the province, under direction of the pope, the general of the order, and the king; and he performed this visitation with such justice that even those who were grieved by his chastisement were obliged to admit that he was a saint. On the way a mule laden with a number of rich and exquisite pieces of cloth which had been given him in España by many lords, and by the queen herself, for his pontifical vestments, was drowned. All that the bishop said was Dominus dedit; Dominus abstulit– “The Lord gave it, and the Lord has taken it away; let Him be praised for all things.” The muleteer was overcome with shame; but the bishop consoled him, and caused him to be paid as if he had delivered his entire load safely.]