n must be attributed to neglect, to heedlessness,
or to real difficulties, but never to aversion. The ceremonies and the
solemnity of the worship attract them very powerfully, and so do the
popular Catholic exhibitions of great feasts and processions. They
display without any objection, but rather with great pleasure, the
pious objects and insignia of any devotion or pious association to
which they belong; and in many places the women wear the scapular or
rosary around the neck as a part or complement of their dress. It may
be said that there is no house or family, however poor it be, that
does not have a domestic altar or oratory. There are some careless
Christians among the Filipino people, vicious and scandalous because
of their evil habits; there are even some who are ignorant of the most
necessary things of their religion: but there are no unbelievers or
impious ones among them--unless some few, relatively insignificant in
number, who have become vitiated and corrupted in foreign countries,
and afterward have returned to their country. Even these latter have
hitherto, because of a certain feeling of shame that they retain,
taken care not to let that change be seen, except among irreligious
associates or those of another form of worship. Finally, the tertiary
orders, brotherhoods, and pious and devotional associations, old and
new, have always had a great number of individuals enrolled in the
Filipinas, and even constant and fervent affiliated members.

The Catholic religion, always holy and sanctifying, works in those
who adopt it, according to the natural or acquired disposition of
the same. Thus it is that the defects of character in the Indians,
if they are frequently moderated, thanks to the religion that they
profess, wholly disappear but with difficulty, and generally even
have some influence on the private life and religious character of
the natives. Since they are, therefore, more superficial and more
impressionable to new things than those of other races, they would
perhaps be less constant in their Catholic practices, sentiments,
and convictions, and would feel more easily than do others the evil
influences of false doctrines and worships, if they had experience with
these. They are readily inclined to superstitions, now by their former
bad habits, now by their nearness to and communication with those
who are yet heathen, now by their exceedingly puerile imagination,
and by their nature, which is influenc