718. The profits and good effects that followed that undertaking happily instituted, and reduced to fact with rare success, cannot be easily explained. Oh would that the lack of religious almost transcendental in all times in that province did not prevent the prosecution and perpetuity of so holy a custom by which unspeakable harvests of spiritual blessings were obtained, although some temporal riches should be spent in it. It is true that the ministers of parish priests of our said order who live continually in the villages, attend to those duties without avoiding any toil. But since they always live among their parishioners, and treat them so near at hand, and since they exercise over them a certain kind of authority, greater than that which the curas in España possess, it will not be imprudent to observe (considering human weakness, and the cowardice of the Indians), that some will not go to confess to those said parish priests without great fear, the common enemy infusing them with fears lest the parish priests perhaps will punish them for the sins that they might confess. Let us add to this that there are no other confessors on whom to rely, especially in the districts which are at some distance from Manila. Also it is almost impossible as our ministries are located, for the Indians to go from one village to another for that purpose. For these reasons, I myself have experienced, and I have heard it asserted by many curates that too many sacrilegious confessions are made, for sins are kept hidden out of shame, to the deplorable ruin of souls. All the above impediments cease undeniably so far as the missionaries are concerned. Hence one can infer the great fruit that would be gathered in spiritual matters by means of the profitable idea which was invented by our father Fray Joseph and put in practice in his time with the utmost ardor.