The founders and brothers of this brotherhood, considering the work and business in which they had to employ themselves continually in fulfilment of the works of charity, prudently decided and decreed by a chapter of the ordinances that there should be 250 brothers for the due fulfilment of all the ordinances, in whom good report, sane conscience, honest life, fear of God, observance of His commandments, and prompt obedience to all that should be of service to God and to the brotherhood, and the relief of one's neighbor had to be included. They declared that they should not be single, unless they had reached the age of thirty, but that being virtuous persons and of the said qualities, they might receive dispensation and be received as brothers if they were twenty-five years old or upward. But no one who was not an oldtime Christian, and no one who had any obligatory duties that could prevent him from serving in the brotherhood [could be a member]; neither could those who did not know how to read or to write. Among said 250 brothers would be always the management and government of the house, and the election of the officers, with obligation to serve God by those who should be elected and appointed by the purveyor and brothers of the board if there were no legitimate obstacle to prevent that. Before they should be admitted as brothers, the secretary of the house was to enter in the book of the brotherhood that its ordinances should be submitted to them, so that having seen and read them, they might determine whether they could fulfil them. And if they were questioned by the board in regard to them, and were found with a mind resolved to observe them and to serve according to the rules in the brotherhood, an oath was to be taken from them on the holy gospels in a missal before the purveyor and brothers of the board, to the effect that when they should hear the signal of the house, or the bells, with the sign that had been arranged for the summoning of the brothers, they should come to the house to perform the works of charity in accordance with the orders that they should receive from the purveyor and brothers of the board; and also if they were summoned in the name of the aforesaid and there was no legitimate obstacle. The above was to be a matter of conscience. They were also to swear to keep the secrets of the board and the rules, when they should be summoned by the board, and were obliged, notwithstanding their oath, to recite fourteen Pater Nosters and fourteen Ave Marias for the deceased brothers, and, having done that, they were to be received as brothers, and their names to be inscribed in the book of the brotherhood. Annual alms given by the house of the Santa Misericordia of the city of Manila