f an Apostolic Brief [91] of Pope Clement XIV.,
but were permitted to return in 1859, on the understanding that
they would confine their labours to scholastic education and the
establishment of missions amongst uncivilized tribes. Consequently,
in Manila they refounded their school--the Municipal Athenaeum--a
mission house, and a Meteorological Observatory, whilst in many parts
of Mindanao Island they have established missions, with the vain hope
of converting Mahometans to Christianity. [92] The Jesuits, compared
with the members of the other Orders, are very superior men, and their
fraternity includes a few, and almost the only, learned ecclesiastics
who came to the Colony. Since their return to the Islands (1859)
in the midst of the strife with the Religious Orders, the people
recognized the Jesuits as disinterested benefactors of the country.

Several Chinese have been admitted to holy orders, two of them
having become Austin Friars. [93] The first native friars date their
admission from the year 1700, since when there have been sixteen of
the Order of St. Augustine. Subsequently they were excluded from the
confraternities, and only admitted to holy orders as vicars, curates
to assist parish vicars, chaplains, and in other minor offices. Up
to the year 1872 native priests were appointed to benefices, but in
consequence of their alleged implication in the Cavite Conspiracy of
that year, their church livings, as they became vacant, were given
to Spanish friars, whose headquarters were established in Manila.

The _Austin Friars_ were the religious pioneers in these Islands;
they came to Cebu in 1565 and to Manila in 1571; then followed the
_Franciscans_ in 1577; the _Dominicans_ in 1587, a member of this
Order having been ordained first Bishop of Manila, where he arrived
in 1581. The _Recoletos_ (unshod Augustinians), a branch of the Saint
Augustine Order, came to the Islands in 1606; the _Capuchins_--the
lowest type of European monk in the Far East, came to Manila in 1886,
and were sent to the Caroline Islands (_vide_ p. 45). The _Paulists_,
of the Order of Saint Vincent de Paul, were employed in scholastic
work in Nueva Caceres, Jaro, and Cebu, the same as the Jesuits were
in Manila. The _Benedictines_ came to the Islands in 1895. Only the
members of the first four Orders above named were parish priests,
and each (except the _Franciscans_) possessed agricultural land;
hence the animosity of the natives was directed