visited the island of Bohol and
gave my first attention to collecting the people, who were scattered
everywhere, into one place. To many I suggested means of peace, and
proposed efficacious remedies; and at last I succeeded in getting a
thousand men, the greater part of whom had been trained in the use of
arms, to leave their mountains, from which it had been impossible to
draw them before, and to assemble at one spot. We also attempted to
attract a number of barbarian inhabitants of the mountains, who had
never looked upon any mortals before they saw our fathers, making use
of all of the offices of humanity and of the allurements suitable
to their nature, and we succeeded. We assigned them a settlement
near the river, where they have now built a church, to which they
flock on Sundays. We have baptized one hundred and twenty of their
children, or even more. The adults have not only laid aside all
of their fierceness, but pray for baptism with the greatest ardor,
singing chants, and night and day recite the Christian faith.
"On the day sacred to St. Anne, to whom the church was dedicated,
the conversion of a certain old chief, on whom they all look as a
father, made a beginning for the conversion of the rest. He on bended
knees begged me with the most humble prayers that I would bathe him
in the sacred fount. His example greatly confirmed in their purpose
those who were ready for baptism, and excited others to desire it;
so that one after another, to the number of more than one hundred,
came as suppliants for baptism. In Visaia I baptized eighty-nine
adults at one time, and a few days later ninety-four--partly children,
partly adults; and on another day all the rest of the natives. Leaving
here I crossed a mountain; and the Lord obtained as spiritual gain
twenty-nine children, with faces like those of angels; and with the
cleansing water we sprinkled them in the name of the Holy Trinity,
along with three adults whom I had taken with me that they might
hear the sacrifice of the mass, and might by word and example be more
accurately instructed in the Christian faith. After we had gone some
distance thence, we came to a hamlet in which the natives had built
a convenient church in preparation for our arrival, extending over a
space of ten cubits. Here we began to spread our net, or rather the
net of Christ, and caught in it all the fish that were there; for
all the leading men and women, with old and young, great and small,
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