sts, deacons, subdeacons, those who have
taken the lesser orders, and those who have taken the tonsure--one may
calculate that the four seminaries will contain about one hundred
students; so that, adding these to the ninety-three preceding,
belonging also to the secular clergy, the number increases to one
hundred and ninety-three. There are also in each one of the bishoprics
some secular ecclesiastics employed under the immediate orders of the
diocesans, who bear the name of pages, cross-bearers, etc., whose
number cannot be determined. One is also unable to calculate the
number of those who have been ordained under the title of patrimony,
[115] and chaplaincies [116] of blood or of class, etc. By a royal
decree of June 1, 1799, order was given for the curas to pay the
three per cent for the sustenance of the seminaries.

Before concluding this review, we must also show that there are some
arrangements that are common to both secular and regular clergy--those
which make it indifferent, for the discharge of certain duties or
commissions, whether they are secular or regular priests. Such are
outside vicariates, and the chaplaincies of presidios, fortresses, etc.

From the founding of Manila until it obtained its first bishop there
was a space of ten years. Its first prelate was suffragan to the
metropolitan see of Mejico. But seventeen years after, and twenty-seven
from the foundation of the city, in the year 1596, and by means of the
bull of Clement VIII, despatched at the proposal of King Don Felipe II,
it was separated from that see, and was erected into a metropolitan,
with the three suffragan sees which it has at present.

Bishopric of Cebu

Cebu, formerly called Sogbu, is a suffragan bishopric of the
archbishopric of Manila, which bounds it on the north. This diocese was
created in 1595, at the same time as those of Nueva Segovia and Nueva
Caceres, at the request of the monarch, Felipe II, by brief of his
Holiness Clement VIII. Its first bishop was Don Fray Pedro de Agurto,
who took possession of this bishopric on October 14, 1598. He who at
present occupies the see is his Excellency Don Romualdo Gimeno, who
is governing the diocese worthily to the honor and glory of God, and
the gain of the metropolitan see, having begun his office February 27,
1847. This diocese includes at present the civil provinces of Cebu,
Negros, Leyte, Samar, Capiz, Antique, Misamis, Caraga, Nueva-Guipuzcoa,
Zamboanga, Calamianes, an