with which they bought more land.  Here we dwelt until Captain Juan Pacheco Maldonado, a regidor of Manila, and Dona Faustina de Palacios y Villa Gomez, his wife, our excellent benefactress, erected for us a beautiful stone edifice.  This work was begun, with great piety and devotion, on the same day when this Christian captain received the news that the English had robbed a vessel in which he had a great quantity of goods.  The mariscal Gabriel de Ribera, another notable benefactor of ours, erected temporarily a very neat wooden church, which was used until the stone church, which we now have, was finished.  The greater part of this was done at the expense of this captain, Juan Pacheco.  The rest was accomplished with the aid of large gifts contributed by the devout people.  In short, this post at Manila began to assume permanent form; our very reverend Father-general Claudio Aquaviva, accepted it as a college, and appointed, as its first rector, in the year one thousand five hundred and eighty-nine, Father Antonio Sedeno.

Of the employments of the fathers of the Society in the
Filipinas.  Chapter V.

In the residence at Manila (which was the only one that our Society then had in the Filipinas), of the five priests who had gone thither only three remained.  For, as we have said, Father Hernan Suarez urged himself on to work until he died of sheer exhaustion—­but certainly with most abundant harvest, and having brought great consolation to that commonwealth, where his loss was deeply felt, and his memory was held for many years in great tenderness and affection by all.  Father Alonso Sanchez, although inclined by nature to retirement and solitude, could not hide his light, since he was a man of great courage and ability.  His retirement was perpetually beset by bishop, governor, royal ministers, prelates of the church, and regidors of the commonwealth.  Both within and without Manila, he was forever busied in important affairs—­whether concerning the welfare of souls, the peace of men’s consciences, the tranquillity and prosperity of the commonwealth, or the service of his Majesty the Catholic king, our sovereign.  On this account not only did they send him on several journeys to China and Malaca, but finally despatched him to Europe upon like undertakings, where he was well known at the court of Espana and afterwards at that of Roma.  The three who were left behind did not remain idle.  Father Antonio Sedeno, in addition to his ordinary occupation of preaching—­in which he was so effective that he could move stones by his eloquence—­in his capacity as superior attended to the temporal affairs of the residence and to the construction of buildings.  He was all the more busy in this latter occupation, from the scarcity, at that time, of architects and builders in Manila; for there were none at all.  First he taught this art to the Indians, and then to the Chinese; and he inspired the bishop to build the first stone house ever erected in Manila.