The religious, being exiled and expelled from the kingdom of Satzuma,
are admitted to other kingdoms.
[The kingdom of Japon is subject to constant changes and novelties, as
may be known by those who have lived in it, and by those who have read
what historians have to say of it. Although the plague of inconstancy
is very common among all heathen, the Japanese are particularly subject
to it. It is not to be wondered at that the king of Satzuma, after
all that he had done to bring religious from St. Dominic to Manila,
should have expelled them without any cause. The natural inconstancy
of this race is sufficient explanation for his conduct. St. Francis
Xavier was expelled from the same kingdom of Satzuma, as he was
afterwards from the country of Yamaguçu, [55] whence he fled to the
kingdom of Firando. As early as the year 1555, the heathen Japanese
believed that so soon as the faith should enter their country the
kingdom would be destroyed; and in the following year the city of
Amaguchi was destroyed, and there was a great persecution. In the
year 1564 there was another persecution, even more severe, in Meaco,
the imperial court. Father Cosme de Torres was obliged to leave there
and to go to the kingdom of Bungo. In Firando the churches were
overthrown, and the emperor Nabunanga imprisoned Father Argentino
[56] and his associate, refusing to release them until he received,
as a ransom, from the most noble and Catholic Don Justo the fortress
called Tayca Yama. [57] In 1599 the Taico [i.e., Iyeyasu] banished
by public edict all the religious there were in Japon (all of whom
were then Jesuits), declaring that all Christians were his enemies;
but soon after he granted to father Fray Juan Cobo--a religious of
St. Dominic, who had come from Manila as ambassador--that he, and
religious of the Society or of any other order, might preach and make
converts in Japon. The sons of the seraphic father St. Francis went,
under this permission, in 1593, and were kindly received; but very
soon afterward commands were given to crucify them, as preachers of the
gospel. Father Fray Francisco de Morales felt that conditions were such
that it was necessary to comply, and began by taking down the church
and looking for boats to carry it in; for it was fitted together with
grooves, without nails, and could be, used elsewhere. They removed
for a time to Meyaco, and soon afterwards to the city of Ozaca. In the
erection of both churches they were bitterly opposed by the members of
the other religious orders, although the others could not serve the
twentieth or the thirtieth part of the people of those cities. The
Japanese banished from Satzuma suffered greatly. Among this people
banishment is often worse than death, which is not greatly feared by
them. Banishment is generally accompanied with a loss of their goods,
so that those who are noble and rich are by it instantly reduced
to poverty and drudgery. The fathers carried away their vestments,
the timber of the church, and the body of the holy martyr Leon,
removing them to Nangasaqui. Father Fray Francisco also carried
with him the lepers of the hospital which he had before his house,
that they might not be left in the power of wolves. In the meantime,
the affairs of Christianity went on prosperously in the kingdom of
Fixen. In July, 1609, father Fray Juan de Sancto Thomas, who sent
the first religious to Japon when he was provincial, came to Japon
as vicar-provincial, bringing with him as his associate brother Fray
Antonio de San Vicente. He labored much and successfully in Fixen,
and the Lord showed the fathers grace by enabling them to baptize many
whom He had predestinated at the point of death. There were especially
many cases of baptism of new-born children, whom the parents intended
to kill, or left to drown in the river.]
One day's journey up the river from Abulug, in the province of Nueva
Segovia, there is a village named Fotol in the midst of a number of
other smaller villages, as is customary among the mountains. When
these villages were visited for the purpose of collecting tribute,
the religious was accustomed to go along that he might be there
conveniently to give them some knowledge of the law of God, and strive
to bring them to a love of the faith by which they might be saved. This
diligence, although it was exercised so seldom--only once a year--was
yet not in vain; for the words of the gospel sown in the hearts of
these heathen took root and caused them to go down [the river],
voluntarily, for the purpose of seeking a preacher to live among
them, to teach, direct, and baptize them. Father Fray Miguel de San
Jacintho, vicar of Abulug, sent there father Fray Diego Carlos. [58]
The Spaniards did not dare to visit the village when they collected
the tribute, except in numbers and with arms. On this account,
and because they were surrounded by mountaineers who were heathen,
untamed, and ferocious, it seemed to the Christian Indians of Abulug
that the religious ought not to go without a guard to protect his life;
but since the order given by our Lord Jesus Christ is not such, but
directs that His preachers should go as sheep among wolves, father
Fray Diego would not receive the advice given him by these Indians,
though they were friendly; and departed alone with his associate,
as a preacher of peace and of the law of love. All the Indians,
great and small, came out to receive them with great joy; and the
religious immediately began to preach to them and to teach them. In
a short time they did a great work, and baptized not only those of
this village, but also those who dwelt near there. They left their
old sites and, gathering in this one, formed a new settlement. The
church was built under the patronage of our Lady of the Rosary,
and here the Christian faith went on flourishing until the devil,
hating so much good, disturbed them and caused them to fall away for a
time--to their great harm, spiritual and temporal; though afterward,
recognizing their error, they returned to their obedience to their
Creator, as will be told hereafter. Almost in the same manner, and
following the same course, another church was built at this time in
the high region at the head of the great river, six days' journey
from the city of the Spaniards, in a village named Batavag. Here
father Fray Luis Flores, who was afterward a holy martyr in Japon,
gathered together seven little hamlets, making one very peaceful
one. He preached to them, taught them, and baptized many, without
receiving any other assistance in all this than that which the Lord
promises those who, for love of Him and from zeal for souls, go alone,
disarmed, and in gentleness among heathen. To such no evil can happen,
since, if the heathen hear the teaching and are converted, all is
happiness and joy both in heaven and for the preachers, since the
sinners are converted; while if they refuse to admit them, or if,
when the preachers are admitted, the heathen do not become converts,
the preachers have a certain reward, as the Lord has promised. This
reward will be much greater if the heathen, in addition to refusing
to be converted, treat them ill, or take their lives from them, for
the sake of the Lord whom they preach. Therefore in this as in all the
other conversions the religious have always gone alone, unarmed, and
in poverty, but sure that they are to suffer no evil. The results in
Batavag were very good, although they did not last many years because,
desirous of a greater laxity of life than the divine law permits,
the natives went up into the neighboring mountain, apostatizing from
the faith which many of them had professed in baptism.
In the mountains of Ytui, which are not far from Pangasinan, father
Fray Juan de San Jacintho went on a journey at this time, accompanied
by only two Indians. Here he taught, settled their disputes, and
brought them to the faith. These people were a race of mountaineers,
among whom other religious had not been safe even with an escort of
many soldiers; but the gentle manners of father Fray Juan caused them
to become calm, and many of them came sometimes to Pangasinan to ask
that religious might be given to them. Many years passed before it was
possible to provide them with religious; but the father provincial had,
as minister of Pangasinan, seen their pious desires and wished to give
them the religious. For this he requested the sanction of the ordinary,
and asked the governor for the royal patronage. When the fathers of
St. Francis learned this, they came and said that this conversion
belonged to them, because it was very near to the ministry and the
convent which they had in Baler. The order (which needed religious
in other regions) instantly yielded without any dispute, permitting
the fathers of St. Francis to take charge of these Indians. This they
did, but very soon abandoned them, since the region was not one to be
coveted, but was very unhealthy. As a result these Indians remained
for some time deprived of the ministry of the holy gospel; and,
what caused greater regret, they were morally certain to apostatize,
like many other Christians among heathens, since they were children
among idolatrous parents and kinsmen, without religious and without
instruction.
[In this year, 1609, father Fray Juan de Anaya departed this life. He
was a native of San Pedro de las Dueñas, two leguas from Segovia,
and was a professed son of the convent at Valladolid, whence he came
to this province in 1598. He was sent immediately to Nueva Segovia,
the conversion of which had just begun. He learned the language very
quickly, and so wrought with them that he not only taught them the
gospel and the Christian life, but also civilization. He showed them
how to build their houses, and how to work their fields; and taught
them all other matters of human life, not only by instruction, but
by example. He sought out the Indians, and brought them down from the
mountains and the hiding-places where some, deluded by their sins, had
gone to hide from grace. Father Fray Juan was not content to ask where
they were and to send for them; but, trusting in his natural strength,
he went to look for them and brought them down from the mountains,
traveling through the rough and thorny places among the thickets
where they hid. He compelled them to enter upon the path of their
welfare, not by the violence of a tyrant, but by the force of love and
charity. When he was vicar of Pilitan, some of the poor Indians lost
all their harvest from an overflow of the river. Not daring to wait
for those who were to come and get the tribute, and indeed through
fear of starvation, they left the village, and many of them fled to
the mountains. Father Fray Juan was deeply afflicted because of the
danger which their souls ran. This grief and his many labors affected
his health, and finally brought on a flux, from which he died. Another
religious, a subordinate and companion of Father Juan, father Fray
Vicente Alfonso, died eight days later. He was a Valencian by birth,
and had been a sailor up to his twenty-fourth year. He assumed the
habit in the convent of Preachers in Valencia, and set a good and
humble example as a religious. He was very charitable, giving away even
his clothes to the poor. In the province of Pangasinan, in the month of
August, 1609, there departed from the miseries of this life father Fray
Francisco Martinez, a native of Zacatecas, and a son of the convent
of Mexico. He came to Manila in 1598, and was assigned to Pangasinan,
where he learned the language of the natives with great perfection. He
was constant in labor and in prayer. To defend the Indians, he did not
shrink from suffering or fear the perils of the sea. On one occasion,
when he had gone to Manila on this account, he fell into the hands
of Japanese pirates on his way back to Pangasinan, and was several
times in danger of death, with the pirate's knife at his throat, who
intended by such terrors to increase the ransom. Death called him from
his labors and sufferings. He rejoiced, and died a most holy death.]
In this year the most reverend general of the order, seeing how many
great things were wrought by the medium of the divine grace through
the religious of this province, and condemning the silence with which
they hid and covered them, without giving any account of them even to
the general head and superior of the order, issued a mandate to the
provincials that they should every year, on pain of incurring mortal
sin, give him information of what took place in this province of the
Philippinas, Japon, and China in the conversions of the heathen and
the extension of the holy Church, the service of the divine Majesty,
and the edification of the people of Christ. In addition to this, they
were to give an account of the state of our order in each province,
declaring how many and what convents it included, how many religious it
possessed, and of what virtue, sanctity, learning, and good example
they were; telling if any of them, after having done illustrious
things, had died gloriously; and recounting all other matters which
might be an honor to God, a source of comfort to the religious, and
an adornment and decoration of our religious order. Together with
this mandate, he wrote with his own hand the following letter, from
which may be seen the high esteem in which he held this province. The
letter is in the archives of the convent of Manila.
"Very reverend Father Provincial: Father Fray Alonso Navarrete has
given me good news of the great devotion, spirit, and continual
preaching in this new province. In this I have felt very great
satisfaction; but it would be desirable that I should receive more
detailed reports with regard to matters there, and particularly with
regard to what has been done for the conversion of the heathen, by
the grace of our Lord, in those kingdoms of China and Japon. This
knowledge would be of great service to our Lord, great edification
to our fellow-men, and great honor to our holy religious order. On
this account and in order that you, very reverend Father, may have the
merit of obedience, it has seemed good to me to send you the enclosed
mandate. This is sent, however, still more that it may serve as a
memorandum for the fathers provincials who may succeed your Reverence
in that province, because I know that there may be some carelessness
in this respect. Orders have already been given that friars religious
shall go to that province to preach and assist your Paternities in the
conversion of the heathen. Would that it might please our Lord that I
might go with those for whom our Lord has prepared so great rewards
in heaven. Your prayers, very reverend Father, and the prayers of
all that province I beg for myself and for my associates. Palermo,
June 18, 1609. Your Reverence's fellow-servant in God,
Fray Agustin Galaminio,
master of the Order of Preachers."