Father Fray Miguel found an evil doctrine spread abroad in the court, which a member of a religious order [45] had taken pains to introduce. He had come from the Philippinas with documentary authorizations from the bishop and the two cabildos [i.e., ecclesiastical and civil], before the province of the Holy Rosary was established there, and before there were any Dominican friars in the islands. After having carried on some negotiations at Roma he had returned to the court, and endeavored to bring it about that the preaching of the holy gospel in heathen countries should be begun by soldiers, who by force of weapons and musketry should make the country quiet and subject the Indians, in order that the preachers might do their office immediately without resistance. This doctrine is very well suited to human prudence but is contrary to divine Providence, to that which the Lord has ordained in His gospel, and even to the very nature of the faith, which demands a pious affection in those who hear it. This is not to be acquired as the result of the violences, murders, and conquests wrought by soldiers. On the contrary, as far as in them lies, they make the faith to be hated and abhorred; and hence the Lord commanded that the preachers should be as sheep among wolves, conquering them with patience and humility, which are the proper arms to overcome hearts. Hence not only the apostles, but all the other apostolic preachers who had followed them, have by these means converted all the nations of the earth. This father saw all this very well; but it seemed to him, as indeed he said, that these were old-fashioned arguments and that the world was now very much changed; and that no conversion of importance could or would be made unless soldiers went before to bring into subjection those who were to listen to the gospel, before the preachers preached it. He painted out this monster with such fair colors of rhetoric and with arguments so well suited to our weakness, our little spirit, and our less readiness to suffer for Christ and His gospel, that these lords of the Council were firmly established in this his doctrine--a new doctrine, as its author himself affirmed, and, as such, contrary to the gospel and to the works of the saints who acted in conformity therewith. To overcome this error, much was done by the bishop of the Philippinas and by father Fray Miguel. The latter, being younger, was able to exert himself more; and being so great a theologian and so subtile of mind, he was able to adduce such superior arguments, and so clearly to reveal the poison which was hidden in the arguments of this religious, that the king our lord and his Council were firmly persuaded of the truth. They came to regard it as a great inconsistency to say that our Lord Jesus Christ had acted with so short a view as a legislator that, when He made a law which was to last to the end of the world, He had announced a method which was to be followed only at