triving to spread
the faith in the said islands. For some believe (and more than two have
expressed as much to me here in Espana in familiar conversation) that
the reason why the heathenism of those countries has not been ended,
is because the missionaries do not work with the same spirit as they
did at the beginning. But they are surely deceived, for in addition to
the many other reasons that may be assigned, the three above-mentioned
suffice to render the most laborious efforts vain. The same tenacity,
zeal, and courage of the first laborers accompanies those who have
succeeded them. Let the obstacles be removed, and one will see that
(as has been experienced many times) Belial having been destroyed
and cut into pieces, although many render him adoration, the Catholic
faith triumphs in the ark of the testament. This happened at the time
of which we treat in the mountains of Bislig.

606. The year, then, of 1671 came, in which that holy province held
their chapter and father Fray Juan de San Phelipe, a native of Nueva
Espana, who had taken our holy habit in the convent of Manila, was
elected provincial. That religious had lived for some years in Bislig,
and had known by experience how necessary it was for a missionary to
live in residence near the mountains, where so great infidelity was
fortified, in order to establish there the health-bringing dogmas
of our Catholic religion. Scarcely was he elected superior prelate,
since he had a sufficient number of subjects in order to attend to all
parts, when he resolved to place one of them in residence at Catel,
and to order such an one solemnly that he should from there procure
the reduction of those heathens by all means without engaging in other
cares, however useful they seemed to him. He also gave very rigorous
orders to the father prior of Bislig to the effect that whenever
they could without any omission in the spiritual administration of
the other villages, he or his associates should go to reside in the
village of Carhaga, and be there in residence as much as possible, all
three religious concurring in that great work and aiding one another
mutually for the attainment of so well conceived desires. Finally he
arranged matters with so much acumen that if the lack of religious
had not rendered it impossible after such ideas had been put into
practice, it is probable that they would have subdued all the heathens
of those mountains.

607. In August 1671 that project was