[15] A reference to I Cor. i, 12, and possibly to iii, 22.

[16] Huerta says of Sotelo (p. 393):  “As the preparations for his journey to Japan were not made so promptly as he desired, he retired to our convent of San Francisco del Monte, where he occupied himself in the practice of all kinds of virtues until the year 1622, when he succeeded in reaching Japan.”  Fuerza here apparently refers to ecclesiastical interference with Sotelo’s plans, to which reference has been several times made in preceding volumes.

[17] Andres del Sacramento was a native of a small village in the valley of Sayago.  He made profession in the province of San Pablo, and reached the Philippines in 1611.  In October of that year he was assigned to the village of Ligmauan, whence he went to Tacboan.  At the chapter held August 3, 1619, he was elected definitor.  He afterward ministered at Manila, Minalabag, Polangui, and again at Minalabag.  He became provincial November 18, 1628, and held that office until January 17, 1632.  In that time he projected and partly executed the opening of a navigable canal from Nueva Caceres to the port of Pasacao.  After 1632 he ministered in several villages, and was elected provincial for the second time September 16, 1639, holding the office until January 17, 1643.  He died in the convent at Manila in 1644.  See Huerta’s Estado.

[18] Agustin de Tordesillas was born in Tordesillas in 1528, and in his childhood served as acolyte in the parochial church, where he learned to play the organ.  In 1558 he took the Franciscan habit as a lay brother, and made profession in the Observantine province of La Concepcion in 1559.  He was finally ordained a priest, and became a confessor.  He afterward joined the province of San Jose, and arrived with the first Franciscans at Manila in 1577, and was appointed first president of the convent there.  On May 20, 1579, he went to China, returning thence at the beginning of 1580.  That year he was appointed first master of novitiates, first chaplain of the royal hospital of Manila, and vicar-general of all the archipelago, which last office he held until the arrival of Bishop Salazar in 1581.  In 1582 he went to China again, whence he went to Siam in 1583, via Macao.  Returning to Macao he was appointed guardian of the convent there, but returned to Manila in 1586.  There he labored in the hospital until he was elected definitor at the chapter of September 15, 1594, after that being guardian one or more times of the convents at Manila, San Francisco del Monte, and Cavite, besides having charge of Sampaloc.  He lived to the age of one hundred and one years, dying in the Manila convent, having been the last one of the first mission to die.  He wrote a relation of the expedition of the Franciscans to China.  See ut supra, and Vol.  VI, p. 131. note 31.

[19] In the MS. at this point the text apparently reads pol desta pos; but it is uncertain what these words refer to, especially as Tordesillas was not at the time provincial of the Franciscan province, but was probably minister at Sampaloc, near Manila (Huerta, p. 504).