Our province of Philipinas extends its apostolic preaching to the districts called Contracosta [i.e., the opposite coast]. FatherFray Agustin de San Ildephonso, a learned and holy religious, dies in Tobòso. The Year 1662 § I The missions of the Contracosta, whither the preaching has spread, are received into our province of Philipinas, and four convents are founded. 64. [The Philippines, says our author, may be regarded as the limits of the earth, and hence the text of Isaias xviii, 2, may be regarded as spoken of the Philippines, in which the gospel is to be published.] 65. In obedience to the insinuation of that text, even before the roots necessary for its subsistence had been fixed our discalced congregation despatched apostolic missionaries to the above-mentioned islands, in order that they might be illumined by the splendors of the evangelical doctrine, and enriched by the examples of its angelic perfection. It was not content with that first squadron, for the undertaking commenced has been prosecuted at various times, and a great number of its sons have been sacrificed to an undertaking as arduous as useful. We have already seen in the preceding volumes, the greatness of their actions in the conversion of the most terrible peoples of that archipelago, in Zambàles, Carahaga, Calamiànes, and the islands of Romblòn. In this volume we shall treat of the spread of the faith, which was extended into other villages, a proof that new zeal has ever been gathered, also born of the salvation of their neighbors. But at present we shall speak of a new field, which was handed over to the cultivation of our ever sure workers in the island of Luzòn and the Contracosta of Manila. And although that field was abandoned afterwards for lack of evangelical ministers, there is no reason why endeavors so meritorious should be forgotten. Let our pen, therefore, be busied in the relation of these labors.