etc. The surplus revenues over and above parochial
requirements were supposed to augment the common Church funds in
Manila. The Corporations were consequently immensely wealthy, and
their power and influence were in consonance with that wealth.

Each Order had its procurator in Madrid, who took up the cudgels in
defence of his Corporation's interest in the Philippines whenever
this was menaced. On the other hand, the Church, as a body politic,
dispensed no charity, but received all. It was always begging; always
above civil laws and taxes; claimed immunity, proclaimed poverty,
and inculcated in others charity to itself.

Most of the parish priests--Spanish or native--were very hospitable
to travellers, and treated them with great kindness. Amongst them
there were some few misanthropes and churlish characters who did not
care to be troubled by anything outside the region of their vocation,
but on the whole I found them remarkably complaisant.

In Spain there were training colleges of the three Communities, in
Valladolid, Ocana, and Monte Agudo respectively, for young novices
intended to be sent to the Philippines, the last Spanish Colony where
friars held vicarages.

The ecclesiastical archives of the Philippines abound with proofs of
the bitter and tenacious strife sustained, not only between the civil
and Church authorities, but even amongst the religious communities
themselves. Each Order was so intensely jealous of the others, that
one is almost led to ponder whether the final goal of all could have
been identical. All voluntarily faced death with the same incentive,
whilst amicable fellowship in this world seemed an impossibility. The
first Bishop (_vide_ p. 56) struggled in vain to create a religious
monopoly in the Philippines for the exclusive benefit of the
Augustine Order. It has been shown how ardent was the hatred which
the Jesuits and the other Religious Orders mutually entertained for
each other. Each sacred fraternity laboured incessantly to gain the
ascendancy in the conquered territories, and their Divine calling
served for nothing in palliating the acrimony of their reciprocal
accusations and recriminations, which often involved the civil power.

For want of space I can only refer to a few of these disputes.

The Austin friars attributed to the Jesuits the troubles with the
Mahometans of Mindanao and Sulu, and, in their turn, the Jesuits
protested against what they conceived to be the bad pol