the hope that the virtue of the Dominican order shall not leave its home to go to China and the Philippinas. He prays that they may go on as they have begun; and that they will offer their petitions to the Lord that he may have a good departure from this life. The letter is written from S. Pablo de Valladolid, April 25, 1625.] CHAPTER XIX The foundation of the vicariate of Bataan, and the early history thereof Being now armed with the general ordinances and animated by the fervent address of the vicar-general, whom they regarded as inspired by the Lord, those who had received assignment went directly to the duties to which he assigned them. Since that of Bataan was the first in the neighborhood of Manila which was founded, not fifteen days passed after the arrival of the brethren in those regions before some of them were there, to whet the steel of their ardor on some of those rough stones. Within two months after their arrival they were regularly settled, and in charge of it, and were given exclusive right to it by September 15, 1587. It was a post of much labor; and on this account, and because there were many others where with less effort greater results could be obtained and more souls converted, it had been abandoned by the clergy who had previously had it. Secular clergy, and members of the orders of St. Francis and of St. Augustine, all had tried it, but none had persevered. It was no marvel that they left it, because the few Indians who dwelt there, about seven hundred inhabitants in all, were scattered in thirty villages situated at the foot of some mountains toward the sea--in a land subject to overflow, with many creeks or little rivers, to cross which the Indians did not take the trouble to build bridges. There was no open road from one village to another, and it was necessary for all of them to keep in continual movement, in order to baptize, to confess, and to administer the other sacraments to all. More ordinarily, however, they were called on to go to the sick, to whom the ministers, when they were called, could not excuse themselves. Since to attend to so many villages a single man would not have had enough strength, while on account of the lack of ministers not many could occupy themselves with so small an Indian population, the labor came to be intolerable; and when this region was compared with others in as great a need of service, but requiring less labor, and giving a greater spiritual harvest, within a few months those missionaries left this desert place, and went away where they could reap a greater harvest with less effort. This is the reason why the Indians in this district never had a settled ministry before our religious entered it. Accordingly the ministers who went there, being merely transient, had not been able to give it the care and devotion required for new conversions; because the newly baptized, being so new in the faith, are likely to fall away, and to return