After having mentioned in rapid survey the villages of which this province is at present composed, which are otherwise so many quiet groups of honest and industrious natives--who form, in the religious estate, the same number of parishes canonically established, each one with its own pastor, who is charged to watch over them through the functions of religion, and to dispense the sacraments and other benefits of religion to the souls of his respective parish--and having enumerated the communities that make up the general total of the population of what is now one of the most populous provinces of the archipelago: a meditative mind goes back about one century with the desire of ascertaining the state of the province in that time, since now we are seeing its condition in our own time. It has been stated above, in the introduction, that the villages having regular ministers were eight in number. In regard to canonical legislation then in force, those ministers had the character of missionaries, and not of parish priests. They labored in the salvation of souls with the apostolic zeal generally recognized (and denied by no one), which is characteristic of the fathers of the Society of Jesus. But the social state of those natives was a hindrance to the abundant fruit that ought to be expected from the fervent devotion and charity of so distinguished missionaries. The insurrections which took place in Bohol in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries had succeeded in forming a considerable body of malcontents who raised the banner of rebellion and disorder; and the disorder at the same time when it destroyed the obedience of most of their subjects to the authorities, also influenced very directly the advancement of Catholicism, and gave as a result that all those who took to the mountains, thus being separated from the immediate neighborhood of the eight churches then existing, returned to the habits of heathenism at the same time when they passed to the camp of freedom. Other things also were added to the causes which diminished the abundant fruits of the priestly ministry. That coldness of the people of Bohol toward the Spanish name, observed long before by Legaspi at the time of the discovery, and certain opposition inspired by some captious natives who favored but little the very zealous ministers of Jesus Christ (who were sacrificing their own existence for the eternal salvation of those souls), placed this territory in an abnormal condition, taking from it the forces necessary for its advancement and prosperity. Above all, peacefulness had left those shores, a loss which made it impossible to give signs of life and social and religious increase. One hundred and ten years have elapsed since the discalced Augustinians first entered Bohol. They did not go there as conquistadors; they did not go to preach the name of Christ to heathenism and idolatry; they did not go to make new vassals for