the girls of the village without pay. Of a gentle disposition she was yet unyielding on occasions of necessity and although tempted by an alcalde-mayor who was enamored of her beauty and made improper proposals to her, she ever maintained her virtue. At her death by cancer of the breast, she was buried in the Recollect church. The last two sections of this chapter have nothing on the Philippines.] DECADE TEN [The first chapter of this decade does not treat of the Philippines.] CHAPTER II Our province of Philipinas attempts a mission to Great China. The life of the venerable brother Fray Martin de San Francisco. The year 1682 § I Relation of the anxiety which our province of Philipinas has always had to extend its apostolic preaching to China; and the great effort made in 1682 for that purpose. [The story of the Recollect attempt to evangelize in China is one of failure, notwithstanding the earnest efforts made by that order to send laborers to that empire. Shortly after the closing of Japanese ports to all missionaries in 1640, the Philippine Recollects began to work up the foreign mission field, but it was not until 1650 that they were able to present memorials to the Roman court, which proved unavailing as the Italians and French were already on the ground in many of the Asiatic countries. In 1667 the father provincial, Fray Juan de la Madre de Dios, received decrees in blank ordering him to send laborers to China, but the royal treasury was in no position to aid them, and the wars both in the islands and in China also prevented the proposed spiritual invasion. Many other mandatory decrees from the king met the same fate, but in the chapter of 1680, the order determined to make the mission if they had to supply all the funds themselves. Three men were told off to study the language in order to prepare for the work in China, and in 1682, one did actually get as far as Macan, but the opposition of the civil authorities there proved the deathknell to all hopes at that time. Again in 1701, and in 1704, abortive attempts were made to enter the great empire, the last being coeval with the arrival of the apostolic visitor Cardinal Tournon.] [The second section of this chapter treats of Spanish matters.] CHAPTER III A fine mission leaves España for Philipinas; and the venerable father Fray Christoval de San Joseph leaves this for the eternal life. The year 1683 § I Of the missions of our religious who reached Philipinas during the years of these three decades, and in especial of the mission which made its voyage this year 1683 to the not small luster of the Catholic religion.