321. We have already mentioned in various parts of this history, that when our Recollects arrived at the Philipinas Islands, in order to illumine them with the splendors of the faith, and to fight like well-ordained astral bodies against the sissara of the abyss, they chose with apostolic strength the most difficult districts, the islands of the most barbaric people, and the places where, if the light of the gospel had shone, it had allowed itself to be seen only in fitful gleams. Hence it is that our ministers are the most exposed to peril and danger among all those of the archipelago; for they are very distant, not only from Manila, but also among themselves from one another, and surrounded by enemies to the Christian name. Each district consists of many villages and even of distinct islands. Since all of them have a right to the bread of the doctrine, which is the only food for souls, the religious, in order to attend to that obligation, has to be in continual movement. He must travel by sea threatened by so many dangers to his life, among frights and chance; and he who considers it of value to endure them and despise them, can only form a just opinion of them. They do this without other profit than the spiritual, enduring to the uttermost penury, and the lack of necessities, in order to teach and instruct certain poor peoples whom they are alluring from the most wild barbarism in order to get them to live like men in a civilized Christian society. 321. Let one add to all the above bodily hardships the lack of one to employ himself in so great charity, to whatever serves in this life as a consolation to the spirit. For there our religious is properly a hermit, although he may live among many people. Now, it is because he is deprived of the company of his brothers, for he is almost always alone in villages that are too large, and the nearest minister is fifteen or twenty leguas away and separated by rough seas, or inaccessible mountains, which render it impossible most of the year for them to have the comfort of seeing one another, or even to have communication with one another by means of letters, in order that they might console one another in their mutual troubles. Now, it is because the Indians make them no company for the blessings that human association brings with it, but serve only for an insupportable martyrdom; for, in addition to the fatigues incumbent on them as missionaries, they must attend to all their quarrels, grudges, necessities, and troubles. For these reasons and others that cannot be expressed at present, the governor of Philipinas, Don Fausto Cruzàt y Gòngora, when addressing the king in a report, did not hesitate to affirm that the discalced Augustinians, even in times of peace, and after the subjection of the villages of their administration, suffer the same hardships as do missionaries in the lands of the infidels. His Excellency, the bishop of Zebù, Don Manuel Antonio de