The growth of Christianity in Catubig.  Chapter LXXXII.

The same want of gospel ministers is felt by other residences (as is plainly evident from what I have thus far said), but especially in the island of Samar, where for that very reason the exercises of Holy Week and Easter were celebrated this year in one village; and there were many confessions and communions together with the feast and procession of the institution of the most blessed sacrament—­both of which were conducted with devotion and grandeur, although with some inconvenience, as they were not celebrated at their proper time.

Nevertheless, on account of the extraordinary and crying needs of Catubig—­which, as we have said, is in the eastern part of the island of Ibabao, bathed by the South Sea—­Father Juan de Torres, accompanied by a brother, was constrained to go thither from Tinagon at the end of the year one thousand six hundred and one.  For a year and a half no one had visited Catubig, because there was no one who could go there; and now, although this caused a lack of service at other stations, the greater needs of Catubig compelled us to leave them [for the present].  Well did our Lord exercise them in their journey, so that upon arriving they might enjoy the pleasant fruit which they afterward gathered; for besides the rivers and swamps—­through which they journeyed with the water, in some places, and the mud in others, to their knees—­the slopes and mountains were so rugged that it was impossible to advance except by using their hands as feet.  But consolation was not long delayed; even before they reached Catubig, on their very way, our Lord aided them, as the father himself describes in the following words:  “One night three villages met together, rejoicing at our arrival, and, thinking that it would be appropriate, I told them about the things of the other life, the immortality of the soul, and the existence of God; and of the reward for Christians, and the torment for those who are not.  I am sure, my father, that among the many people who were there you would not think that there was one who had not faith, to judge by what they said and the questions they asked, and the way in which they encouraged one another to receive baptism.  They soon made arrangements to build a large church, and gave me a list of all the inhabitants, including the children, of whom there are an infinite number.  God knows what my grief was at seeing them in the arms of their mothers; for they appeared to me like unto the ripe fruit hanging from the bough, which, if the gardener neglects it, is either stolen or decays, and thus is lost.”