What the Society accomplished in Sebu until the year 1597.  Chapter XXIII.

As soon as Father Antonio Sedeno passed away in Sebu (as we have said), Father Antonio Pereira returned to Maluco, his own province, whence he had come.  I was therefore compelled to remain alone in that college with one brother, not a little disconsolate at the loss of so valued a companion and brother, with whom I had passed a very pleasant year in Tigbauan, Leite, and Sebu; and whose help was so efficacious in our duties that through the gracious and thorough manner in which he performed them, we were all greatly esteemed and sought for in the province of Pintados, and especially in the city of Santissimo Nombre de Jesus.  Here this father had previously remained alone during almost another year, in the convent of San Agustin, where those most godly fathers received him into their house as if he were one of their own order.  He, in turn, served them and the whole city with such edifying results as contributed not a little to win their affection; and greatly influenced them to demand our fathers, and receive us in their city—­which was done, as we have said.  Don Rodrigo Ronquillo de Penalosa, alcalde-mayor of the city—­a son of Don Goncalo Ronquillo, who died while governor and lieutenant in these islands for the Catholic king, Don Felipe Second—­aided us much with his authority, as also did his cousin Don Goncalo Ronquillo de Vallesteros, who was leaving the same office.  All of those gentlemen have ever professed great devotion to our humble Society.

Considering that we were alone, our ministrations in our church to both Spaniards and Indians were sufficiently frequent, and I often preached in the cathedral.  Moreover, ascertaining that in the Chinese quarter of the city there were more than two hundred souls, and only one of them a Christian, and that they had no one to minister to them, although they were well disposed to receive our holy faith if there were any one to teach it to them, I applied myself to studying and learning their language—­at which they were much rejoiced, and many came to me every day at an appointed hour to give me instruction.  In this way I acquired sufficient knowledge to begin instructing them—­in which undertaking I received much help from Governor Don Luis de las Marinas, who sent me from Manila a very bright young Christian lad of that nation, who helped me to instruct those who were to be baptized.  It was thus that I spent Advent in the year fifteen hundred and ninety-five.  We celebrated Christmas Eve and the feast of the Nativity with solemnity and joy, preparing in the meantime to celebrate our first feast of the Circumcision, for which we had decorated the church and invited father Fray Bartolomeo Garcia—­at that time the preacher in the Sebu convent of the glorious doctor St. Augustine; and now associate of the right reverend bishop of Sebu, and commissary of the Holy Office of the Inquisition in that bishopric—­to