The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume 30 of 55, 1640: 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 close of the nineteenth centuryAduarte, Diego
History
The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume 30 of 55, 1640: 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 close of the nineteenth century
Aduarte, Diego
Demarcation line of Alexander VI; Missions -- Philippines; Philippines -- Discovery and exploration; Philippines -- History -- Sources
The worst of all was the wars that they were constantly waging among
themselves, and the great oppressions inflicted upon the people of
the lower class by those who are above them in rank. These took away
their possessions from them and made them slaves at their mere whims,
under the law that "might makes right." One of these bravo chiefs
(a very tyrannical one, and therefore the more esteemed, feared,
and respected by the rest), by name Cabanday, would never hear of
being converted to Christianity--the more so because he would have
been required to restore everything which he had taken by injustice,
usury, extortion, and wrong; for thus he had gained all he had, and he
was very rich. [God one day heard the prayers of the friars for him;
and at night he told the Indian who was his closest friend that he felt
so strong an impulse to turn to God that he could not resist it. He
ordered his slaves to take the chest in which he kept all his gold and
riches, to carry it to the church, and to open it immediately. They
broke it open. The fathers went down from the choir where they were,
being mistrustful of some ill. They found him with his chest; he
opened it; placed at the feet of father Fray Bernardo all that was
in it, and afterwards threw himself at these too--praying, with much
feeling and with many tears, to be baptized, and telling them that
there was the whole of his fortune and the fortune of his children;
let them do with it what they would, though they should send him away
poorer than the lowest of his vassals, if only they would do what he
asked. The religious gave a thousand thanks to God, comforted him,
promised him baptism, and began to prepare him for it. Being very old,
he could not learn the prayers by heart; but he was very intelligent,
and very well understood the mysteries of the faith they taught
him. They accordingly baptized him, to his own great joy and to the
comfort of the fathers. They called him in baptism Don Pablo. Though
he could not learn the prayers by memory, he was not deprived of them;
for when he recited the rosary, in place of the pater-noster he said
in his own language: "Oh, Lord my God, have pity upon me, a sinner,"
and in place of the Ave Maria he said the same to our Lady. And,
when he came to confess, in place of the general confession he
said: "Father, I come to your feet to reveal my sins, and to obtain
pardon therefor from God our Lord." He made his confession with much
clearness and contriteness, educated his children in the fear of God,
strove to have all the people of his country baptized, and lived an
exemplary life. He lived eighteen years a Christian. His death took
place under the following circumstances. While father Fray Bernardo
was confessing the Indians, one Lent, in the church of Binalatongan,
Don Pablo came on foot and said: "Father, confess me, for I am going
to die today." He asked the father to come and say mass, and to give
him the viaticum. On the same day he died.
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