The state of the province, and the persecution in Japon
For the holding of the intermediate chapter [in 1627], an
ancient custom in the Order of St. Dominic, devout fathers had
assembled. Although the day was at hand, the provincial was absent,
being occupied in the new conversion in the island of Hermosa. He had
not returned from there since the previous year, when he had made the
journey. As the accidents of the sea are so various, the religious
were anxious; but the Lord relieved them from their anxiety on the
day before the holding of the chapter, the morning of Thursday. The
coming of father Fray Bartolome caused joy in all the community; and
in recognition of the good news which he brought and of the labors
which he had undergone, the governor Don Juan Niño de Tavora, invited
him and the fathers who constituted the chapter to dine with him on
the following day, which was Friday. That evening they discussed that
which they were to do on Saturday the twenty-fourth of April; and on
that day they elected as definitors fathers Fray Balthasar Fort and
Fray Miguel Ruiz, who had been provincials; Fray Antonio Cañiçares,
vicar of Babuyanes, and Fray Marcos Saavedra, a son of Villaescusa,
vicar of San Raymundo de Malagueg. By this time the Indians who not
long before had revolted and apostatized from the faith in Mandayas
(and especially those of Fotol and Capinatan) had been reduced to
subjection, and, as a result of the efforts of the religious, had
gone down to their old villages. Recognizing the error which they had
committed, and desirous of atoning for it by amending their lives,
they built churches, reëstablished the villages, and returned to the
quiet which they had enjoyed in their earlier age of gold, giving up
their age of hard iron [42] which they had been deluded into entering.
[The religious in Japon were at this time greatly afflicted. One of the
persecutors, Feyzo, strove to force his own mother by hunger to give
up the faith from which he was himself a renegade. This man captured
Father Baltazar de Torres, a religious of the Society of Jesus,
who had been his own father in the faith, and imprisoned him. On the
twentieth of July four religious of the Society of Jesus, with five
of their servants, were burned at the stake. The persecution was most
bitter at Omura, where the holy father Fray Luis Beltran (of Exarch)
then was. He was a native of Barcelona, and received the habit in
the convent of Sancta Catarina Martir in that city. He was sent to
the college of Origuela, where even during the time of his studies
he devoted himself to prayer and spiritual exercises. He volunteered
for the Philippinas, reaching Manila in 1618. After learning the
language of the Indians of that region, who are called Tagalos, he
also learned that of the Chinese, ministering in both languages up to
the year 1622, when he was sent to Japon to assist in consoling the
afflicted Japanese. He came in disguise, and very soon learned the
language of that country; and he labored for three years with great
effect in the kingdom of Omura. He foresaw that he was to suffer death
by martyrdom. He was serving in a hut of lepers when he was betrayed
to the judge. While in prison his very jailers showed him respect.]