The Philippine Islands, 1493-1803 — Volume 01 of 55: 1493-1529; Explorations by Early Navigators, Descriptions of the Islands and Their Peoples, Their History and Records of the Catholic Missions, as Related in Contemporaneous Books and Manuscripts, Showing the Political, Economic, Commercial and Religious Conditions of Those Islands from Their Earliest Relations with European Nations to the Beginning of the Nineteenth Century
History
The Philippine Islands, 1493-1803 — Volume 01 of 55: 1493-1529; Explorations by Early Navigators, Descriptions of the Islands and Their Peoples, Their History and Records of the Catholic Missions, as Related in Contemporaneous Books and Manuscripts, Showing the Political, Economic, Commercial and Religious Conditions of Those Islands from Their Earliest Relations with European Nations to the Beginning of the Nineteenth Century
Demarcation line of Alexander VI; Missions -- Philippines; Philippines -- Discovery and exploration; Philippines -- History -- Sources
In regard to the religious life of the converted Indians the Friars
and Morga speak on the whole with no little satisfaction. Friar Martin
Ignacio in 1584 writes: "Such as are baptised, doo receive the fayth
with great firmenesse, and are good Christians, and would be better, if
that they were holpen with good ensamples." [49] Naturally the Spanish
soldiers left something to be desired as examples of Christianity
and Friar Martin relates the story of the return from the dead of a
principal native--"a strange case, the which royally did passe of a
trueth in one of these ilandes,"--who told his former countrymen of the
"benefites and delights" of heaven, which "was the occasion that some
of them forthwith received the baptisme, and that others did delay
it, saying, that because there were Spaniard souldiers in glory, they
would not go thither, because they would not be in their company." [50]
Morga writing in 1603 says: "In strictest truth the affairs of the
faith have taken a good footing, as the people have a good disposition
and genius, and they have seen the errors of their paganism and the
truths of the Christian religion; they have got good churches and
monasteries of wood, well constructed, with shrines and brilliant
ornaments, and all the things required for the service, crosses,
candlesticks, chalices of gold and silver, many brotherhoods and
religious acts, assiduity in the sacraments and being present at
divine service, and care in maintaining and supplying their monks,
with great obedience and respect; they also give for the prayers
and burials of their dead, and perform this with all punctuality and
liberality." [51] A generation later the report of the Religious is
not quite so sanguine: "They receive our religion easily and their lack
of intellectual penetration saves them from sounding the difficulties
of its mysteries. They are too careless of fulfilling the duties of
the Christianity which they profess and must needs be constrained by
fear of chastisement and be ruled like school children. Drunkenness
and usury are the two vices to which they are most given and these
have not been entirely eradicated by the efforts of our monks." [52]
That these efforts were subsequently crowned with a large measure of
success is shown by the almost universal testimony to the temperate
habits of the Filipinos.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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