IV. The town of Silan is accessibly and commodiously situated. Hence it
is easily and frequently visited by sojourners, the more so because
the inhabitants themselves are uncommonly humane and devoted to
Christian piety. It happened that some Indians turned aside from their
journey to visit one of the inhabitants; and as they were taking out
of a little chest some clothes that they were carrying with them,
packed up, it happened that they took out along with them a tiny
idol formed of a twisted mass of hair. The people of Silan who were
present were frightened when they saw this, and told one of Ours,
who was stationed there, of it. He went to the house as if on another
errand, and uncovered the deceit together with the idol. Then taking
advantage of the occasion, he made a serious address to the Indians,
warning them against such wickedness; and he inspired in the owner
of the idol (who was a woman) a better mind. With the help of God she
abjured the impious worship of hair, which she had before pursued, and
also abandoned and corrected another sin of no small heinousness. The
delights of a festival which had been announced were almost destroyed
by a great misfortune which accidentally befell this place. For while
all were looking forward to the day sacred to All Saints, when all
the inhabitants had prepared themselves for the proper reception of
the feast, behold, at the oncoming of night the fury of all the winds
arose. The rain and storm which followed did not cease to rage until
they had overthrown more than two hundred houses, to the incredible
alarm of the Indians, who left their own houses to take refuge as
quickly as possible in our church, where nearly the whole night was
spent in hearing their confessions. But not even here were they safe
enough, for the wind blew the boards off the walls and whirled them
away; so that the whole body of people took refuge in the sanctuary,
where they waited for death and the last hour.
V. At the proclamation of the same feast in the village of Antipolo
ninety persons received communion--sixty more than in that of
Taitai--which is a large number for new Christians. And among these
tribes, as has been elsewhere said, that cross is still much visited
to which in this year a woman brought a public attestation of the
recovery, on two occasions, of her health. The inhabitants of the
village have given a silver cup and other ornaments to the church.
VI. The women of Taitai, who formerly surpassed all other Indians in
their worship of idols, are now as completely devoted to the pursuit
of Christian rites and customs. Even those of high rank among them are
not ashamed to sweep the floor of our church, and to appear in public
with broom and water, in order that they may be able to command their
servants to do the like. This is the praise due to the women; the
men deserve another. A very old man dropped from his hands the slip
of paper given to him monthly, on which was written the name of the
saint whom he had received by lot. Grieved at his loss, the good old
man ran back to the village of Taitai, which is about a mile from his
own; and thence (as he did not find the father who used to distribute
that kind of slips of paper) he went on to Antipolo, over a rough and
hilly road. When he reached there, after going four miles, he first
asked the father's pardon for his carelessness; and then begged him
not to refuse to give him another in place of his lost patron. This
fact shows plainly enough with what zeal these tribes strive after
the greater matters of salvation. In another place an Indian was
lying sick, and had received communion and been anointed with the
holy oil. Early in the evening he began to be in such agony that
the people in the house took him for dead, and, after laying out the
body, put him on his ancestral bier. After they had watched the whole
night about his body, when dawn returned he returned also, stammered
something, and about noon uttered his words articulately. Then he
said first that he seemed to have been dead three years, because of
the cruel torments which he had himself suffered in hell, and which
he had seen an infinite number of Indians suffer. There demons--as it
were, smiths--kindled forges with bellows, poured melted iron over the
wretched souls, and in the midst of their pitiful howlings burnt them
forever with never-ceasing tortures. After he had seen these things,
he said, he had been led by a venerable old man away to a higher place,
by reaching which (for he thought it was heaven) he was filled so full
of bliss that he was unwilling to leave it. But when he was commanded,
he returned to life, to inform the living about each place to which
men are consigned, that of the blessed and that of the damned; and
this command, he affirmed, was laid upon him under a heavy penalty;
for there are among mortals not a few who by the pretense of virtue
deceive themselves and others, and although they are looked upon as
good, yet are very far from the service of God. Then he added that
his conductor told him to bid his fellow-townsmen be of good courage,
for the church they were then engaged in building would be better and
stronger than the others. The Indian, after he had said these things,
recovered, and a general confession was appointed. He continues to
this day to show by his life and example that those things which he
reported were no dreams. The improvement of morals which has followed
in many others who heard of these things has almost entirely put an
end to pretexts for doubt and suspicions of deceit.
The prophecy, moreover, with regard to the church--that it should be
stronger than the others--has been fulfilled. A few months before, the
church of these Indians had burned down for the second time, together
with our house. The fire broke out in the following manner. Some of
the townspeople were out hunting, and, a dispute arising among the
barbarians about the hunt, they came to blows. Soon after the quarrel,
fire was thrown on our house, and destroyed the new church with almost
all the furniture. The relics of the saints and the images were in
part saved from the fire by the dexterity of the Christians. But Ours
after no long delay bent themselves to the work again, and erected
another church for themselves, at no trifling expense, and with no
small labor on the part of the Indians. This is the seventh church
erected in the ten years since the founding of the town. A further
fortune which befell an Indian woman confirmed many in the Christian
faith. She had ventured, without confessing her sins after the manner
of Christians, to receive Christ in the communion; after she went home,
she began to suffer from such agony in her throat that she thought
she should choke to death. Thus she suffered, complained, an wailed
until, having recognized the cause of her suffering, she went to the
church that very evening. She prayed and besought the father to hold
back her soul, already departing; and to succor an unhappy woman,
whose throat was burned by the host as if by a flaming torch. When
the father heard this, he instantly besought God, and God instantly
showed mercy. She declared her sins, and thereupon all her torment
ceased; and by this salutary remedy of confession the maladies of
many Indians have been suddenly dispelled by Ours, the name of God
or of some saint being invoked.
At the college of Zebu one of the Society, when in the town one day,
heard weeping not far away; and when he followed it he discovered a
mother bitterly lamenting the death of her new-born infant. Touched
by her grief, the father went a short distance away, and entreated
God, in the name of the Virgin Mother, to help this afflicted
woman. Instantly the child revived, without a trace of sickness left
upon him. Whether it was his senses or his soul that had left him,
it is surely to the divine goodness that his sudden revival is to be
attributed. The recitation of the Gospel of St. John has also benefited
many sick persons; but Ours have found nothing so fit for removing
the sicknesses of souls as the salutary Exercises of our blessed
Father [_i.e._, Loyola], which the very heads of each magistracy,
the sacred and the civil, have employed--not alone to private but
also to public advantage. Their example, imitated by some of those
in the higher ranks, has been followed by the same results. The rest
of the people have been marvelously stirred up by the renewed fervor
of the members of the sodalities, among other things; and by the new
confidence given them by letters from Rome received this year, to the
great delight and approval of all; which letters have much promoted
the worship of the most blessed Virgin, and have also kindled those
who are reckoned among the first in the city to accept the advice
to join a sodality. By these means cares have been turned aside,
and four bitter family quarrels, in which the very heart of life and
salvation was attacted, not without public scandal, were brought to
an end with the desired success.