Every family in the Christian communities has a little statue of the Virgin or of a patron saint, to which prayers are addressed. Occasionally as much as a thousand dollars will be paid for one of these images, for some have more power than others. When Tondo caught fire and was reduced to ashes, the houses of mat and bamboo burning like paper, one thing alone survived the flames: a wooden statue of Mary. This token of a special watch upon the figure immediately raised its importance, and it was attired in the dress and ornaments of gold in which it may now be seen. Not all the domestic saints are brilliantly dressed or originally expensive. One Filipino family worshipped a portrait of Garibaldi that adorned the cover of a raisin box, while a native elsewhere was found on his knees before a picture from an American comic paper that represented President Cleveland attired as a monk and wearing a tin halo. Both of these pictures had been placed on altars, and candles were burned before them. Another statue of great power is in the church at Majajay. It was sent there from Spain in charge of the friars, and is especially besought by invalids, for it is a general belief that whosoever will reach the church with breath enough remaining in him to recite certain prayers before this image shall have fresh lease of life; yea, though he were at his last gasp. Some of the attacks made on the friars in the Philippines have been construed into attacks on the Church, but this is wrong. For the good of the Church, no less than of the people, it is desired to purge the islands of these ancient offenders. They have used religion as a cloak for evil, have encouraged, in private, vices they preached against in public, have availed themselves of famines and other distresses to force money from the poor, and have fathered as many half-castes as the Spanish soldiers have. As to their offspring, Filipino wives have quieted jealous husbands by assuring them that the appearance of a European complexion in a hitherto brown family was a special favor from St. Peter,--a miracle ordered by the keeper of heaven as a reward for piety and good works. Hence, one hears much of St. Peter's children in the Philippines. Some of the white inhabitants have nevertheless been conspicuous for virtue. Miguel Lopez de Legaspi, for example, the first ruler of the islands, was so good that for years after his death his body, now in the St. Augustine Monastery, Manila, underwent no decay or change, but was like that of a man in sleep.