Residence of Alangala

In this residence four priests and three brethren give their energy to cultivating the vineyard of the Lord.  They go afoot through the rivers, the pools, and the marshes, the water often reaching to their navels, and the sun burning above them.  But since their labor is wrought through the love of God, He, in His unmeasured kindness, never deprives them of His solace in the utmost perils.  They write that, from the end of last year up to the present time, more than fourteen hundred have received the sacred washing of regeneration.  They give diligent attention to the divine offices, which are celebrated in this residence with greater magnificence than elsewhere, on account of the convenience of three Indian chapels, which far surpass the Spanish.  They follow the practice of singing Salve Regina, in honor of our Lady the Virgin; and, throughout Lent, of singing the psalm Miserere to accompany the discipline.

Several missions have been established in various places, with manifold increase of baptisms and other spiritual fruits.  I will give an account of some.  While a father was living in one little district, an Indian, crippled in both hands and feet, made his way straight to the father by boat, and that alone, to the astonishment of all—­God and his guardian angel doubtless impelling the boat.  He begged the father for baptism, and declared that the author of his request had been a certain Spaniard who had told him that all those who did not accept the Christian law would be carried off to hell.

The greatest results have been obtained from the schools, for the pupils have each of them become teachers in the paternal homes of all the domestics; and by the good example of their lives they incite others to accept the true doctrine.  A boy, a cantor in church, being solicited by a Spaniard to perpetrate a foul deed, answered:  “Sir, I know well by what remedy you should drive away that temptation of yours.  Let us recite together a rosary in honor of the blessed Virgin Mary, and instantly all these wicked thoughts will vanish in smoke.”  Thus by the newly converted Christian he was instructed who ought rightly to have been the teacher and master of others.

In the island Leita there were counted last year above five hundred and twenty-nine thousand souls; and they have the instruction of our priests only, who are six in number.  By their hands the most holy waters of baptism have, in the course of a year, in this and other islands, been sprinkled upon at least ten thousand nine hundred heads.  And this, in brief, is the harvest of this vice-province.

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