ts own secular uses.

The priests in Binan were Filipinos and were usually leaders among
the secular clergy, for the parish was desirable beyond most in the
archdiocese because of its nearness to Manila, its excellent climate,
its well-to-do parishioners and the great variety of its useful and
ornamental plants and trees. Many of the fruits and vegetables of
Binan were little known elsewhere, for they were of American origin,
brought by Dominicans on the voyages from Spain by way of Mexico. They
were introduced first into the great gardens at the hacienda house,
which was a comfortable and spacious building adjoining the church,
and the favorite resting place for members of the Order in Manila.

The attendance of the friars on Sundays and fete days gave to the
religious services on these occasions a dignity usually belonging to
city churches. Sometimes, too, some of the missionaries from China
and other Dominican notables would be seen in Binan. So the people
not only had more of the luxuries and the pomp of life than most
Filipinos, but they had a broader outlook upon it. Their opinion
of Spain was formed from acquaintance with many Spaniards and from
comparing them with people of other lands who often came to Manila and
investigated the region close to it, especially the show spots such
as Binan. Then they were on the road to the fashionable baths at Los
Banos, where the higher officials often resorted. Such opportunities
gave a sort of education, and Binan people were in this way more
cultured than the dwellers in remote places, whose only knowledge of
their sovereign state was derived from a single Spaniard, the friar
curate of their parish.

Monastic training consists in withdrawing from the world and living
isolated under strict rule, and this would scarcely seem to be
the best preparation for such responsibility as was placed upon the
Friars. Troubles were bound to come, and the people of Binan, knowing
the ways of the world, would soon be likely to complain and demand the
changes which would avoid them; the residents of less worldly wise
communities would wait and suffer till too late, and then in blind
wrath would wreak bloody vengeance upon guilty and innocent alike.

Kalamba, a near neighbor of Binan, had other reasons for being known
besides its confiscation by the government. It was the scene of an
early and especially cruel massacre of Chinese, and about Francisco's
time considerable talk had been occa