s living here, were Christians only in name,
knowing no more of Christianity than if they had never accepted it. I
was much grieved that a nation of such renown should lack priests to
teach and instruct them in their own language. This led me to make
arrangements with Don Goncalo Ronquillo for a special location to be
assigned to them for their own use, and priests were to be given them
who should learn their language and teach them in it. When this had
been all arranged, and a priest had been appointed, the whole thing was
undone through obstacles which arose at that time. Then I appealed to
all religious orders to appoint some one of their religious to learn
the language and take charge of the Sangleys. Although all of them
showed a desire to do so, and some even began to learn it, yet no one
succeeded; and the Sangleys found themselves with no one to instruct
them and take up their conversion with the necessary earnestness,
until, in the year eighty-seven, God brought to these islands the
religious of St. Dominic. Their coming was for the welfare of the
Sangleys, as the result proved, and as I shall relate further on. God
soon showed us that the religious had come by His will, to take charge
of the Sangleys. This city, being built on a narrow site with the sea
on one side and a river on the other, was all occupied, and there
seemed to be no place where the Dominicans could settle; but there
was soon discovered a site of which no one had thought until then,
and which now is the best in the city. The site adjoins the Parian
of the Sangleys, and that gave the religious of that order occasion
to begin to hold intercourse with them, and for the religious and
Sangleys to become mutually attached to one another. For, whenever
the Sangleys come and go from the Parian, they pass by the church of
Sancto Domingo, and, being a very inquisitive people, they often stop
and watch what is taking place there. When the confraternities of the
Rosary and of the Oaths, which are founded in that house, hold their
processions, a great many Sangleys come out to watch them. They live
so near the monastery that in the night they hear the religious sing
matins, and are not a little edified by it; for they also have their
own form of religion, and there are among them religious men who lead
a very austere life and claim to live in profound meditation. When
it shall please God to enlighten them, Christianity will undoubtedly
profit much by this c