"In the church great sedateness and devotion or silence reigns. In the villages the church is divided into three parts. In one end the women are seated, in the other the men, while the gobernadorcillos and principales occupy the center. However, this is not observed very strictly in some villages. In some churches there are men in the front half and women in the back half. When a small village is founded, in order to get the concession for a settlement and for a cura they offer to give the latter, in addition to paying the sanctórum tribute [a tribute paid to the Church by all Philippine natives of sixteen years and over], a monthly quantity of rice, eggs, fowls, etc., but they are afterward very remiss in living up to their offer. Many friars have had to have recourse to the alcaldes and to the officials of the district; and I have even heard of one of them who had to take a musket and kill the fowls in the yards, and carry them to the convent. "They are very fond of singing the passion or history of the death of Jesus Christ, which is written in Tagálog verse. During the evenings of Lent, the young men and women assemble in the houses for this purpose. But although this was a religious gathering at the time when it was originated, at the present time it has been converted into a carnival amusement, or to speak more plainly, into a pretext for the most scandalous vices; and the result of these canticles is that many of the girls of the village become enceinte. So true is what I have just said that the curas have prohibited everywhere the singing of the passion at night; and some of the curas go out with a whip in order to disperse them--or rather, send the fiscal of the church to ascertain who is singing, and send for such person immediately to beat him. "They say that all the saints are Spanish, since the patrons of their churches are always of this class. They would have no veneration for a saint with a flat nose and the physiognomy of a Filipino. "When any sick person refuses to confess, his relatives request him to do so. In this case they do not tell him that he will be condemned, etc., but, 'Consider what a shame it will be; just think what people will say; consider that you will be buried outside of holy ground.' The idea of being buried on the beach is what gives them most fear. This can only be explained by saying that they have seen the cemetery and the beach and not hell, nor the other world, which, as one would believe, costs them much to conceive--although in reality they do believe in it, in the same way as many Europeans believe in it, but without understanding it, and only because the sages give assurance of it....