there are, near by, some little islands in extreme spiritual want, and entirely deprived of any human succor for their conversion. Therein might be held some missions most acceptable to God, all the more so because those people are so forsaken; for, as those are insignificant little islands, no one cares for them. Those people are on the road to hell, if we do not succor them; and we do not aid them for lack of ministers. One of these islands is called Isla de Fuegos ["Island of Fires"], and is a half day's sail distant from here. Several times its chiefs have come to ask that we would go thither. The people already know how to recite the Christian doctrine, and yet not one has been baptized there (although they are calling for that sacrament), for there is no one who may distribute the bread, and thus they are perishing of spiritual hunger. "But, to return to our island, there is great cause to glorify our Lord in seeing the esteem with which its people regard the Christian religion, and the fervor with which they one and all fulfil their obligations as Christians, in confession and communion, and in their pious and general affection toward the things of God. A week ago, there was in our house a young man, an infidel, who had come from another village to see us. He was laughing and enjoying himself with the others, although quite modestly; yet another lad who was there, a Christian, said to him: 'How is it that thou, who art not a Christian, dost laugh and sport?'" Thus writes the father; he adds that the new baptisms during this past year amounted to four hundred. The number was no larger, because they did not dare to baptize converts in other villages until those people could have fathers to maintain them in the faith and in Christian customs. The growth of Christianity in Catubig. Chapter LXXXII. The same want of gospel ministers is felt by other residences (as is plainly evident from what I have thus far said), but especially in the island of Samar, where for that very reason the exercises of Holy Week and Easter were celebrated this year in one village; and there were many confessions and communions together with the feast and procession of the institution of the most blessed sacrament--both of which were conducted with devotion and grandeur, although with some inconvenience, as they were not celebrated at their proper time.