ce that the first objects
of anxiety are the pernicious ideas of greed, and the progress of
the faith is disregarded if it opposes their cupidity.

604. But the strongest reason for the failure of the desired fruit
was the third. This reason is reduced, as we have already mentioned,
to the fact that there were but two religious generally in the said
district, and of those no one could be in residence at the villages
of Catel or Carhaga, the nearest ones to the said mountains, and they
only went thither two or three times per year. Consequently, although
they wished never so strongly to labor in the conversion of the heathen
Indians, they could not obtain the fruit up to the measures of their
desires. It happened almost always that the minister was detained a
fortnight at most, in the said villages, the greater part of which
was necessarily spent in instructing the Christians. And although,
by stealing some hours from sleep, the minister employed some of them
in catechizing the heathens, since his stay was so short, he could
not give the work the due perfection, and left it in its beginning,
as he had to go to the other villages. He charged some Christians to
continue in preparing and cultivating those souls so that they might be
ready on his return to receive baptism. But human weakness, united to
the sloth, which almost as if native to him, accompanies the Indian,
was the reason that when the religious returned after an interval of
four or six months, instead of finding the work advanced, he found that
which he himself had done in it lost. And idolatry always triumphed,
notwithstanding that he did not cease to make vigorous war upon it.

605. Thus time rolled on, and the Church obtained very little increase
in those mountains, for the three above-mentioned reasons. The order
could not conquer the two first, and there was less possibility
for the third. For however much the order desired to apply on its
part the only means whereby the desired fruit could be obtained,
namely, the assignment of a religious to reside in the said places,
who should look after the reduction of the Tagabaloyes, without
attending to any other thing, it was continually unable to effect that,
for in Philipinas the harvest is very great and the laborers few. I
have detained myself in the consideration of these obstacles, which
threaten the total devastation of the heathendom of Philipinas, and
are transcendental to all the holy orders, who are s