is false, of living throughout life in the sin that they have committed to the wrong of marriage; and if true, as they say, of having been unscrupulous in not having declared the obstacle.  In order to avoid these troubles, it would be of great importance for your Majesty to be pleased to obtain from his Holiness power for the ministers in these islands to give absolution for all the secret obstacles of these neophytes when they come to be married, in order to contract the said marriage.  In this way it will be managed with less offense and with more ease to the conscience than now. [Marginal note:  “Have the ambassador at Roma notified to propose this matter to his Holiness; and if it be not unadvisable, to petition him to concede it.  After doing this, advise and notify the archbishop that the matter has been sent to Roma, and that he will be notified of the result.”]

Your Majesty ordered by a decree, twice issued (the second dated at San Lorenco, November, 603), that the bishops should inspect the religious who give instruction, in regard to their duty of the care of souls.  It would be very advisable for so holy a decree to be executed now, without more delay; for although the orders contain many who attend most earnestly to the service of our Lord, there are certain persons who allow themselves to be too easily led by their inclinations, and who do not labor in their ministry with the devotion and fidelity requisite.  Besides the bad example thus furnished to these natives, the latter are wronged, and without any remedy, because there is no superior to whom they can go for vindication—­for the provincials, sometimes for private reasons, generally sustain such subordinates.  That would cease with the visit of the bishops, and the provincials would find themselves obliged, or the bishops would oblige them, always to station in the missions ministers of learning, virtue, and exemplary life.  That would bring a cessation of such troubles.  The friars then could not assert that they would leave the ministries, as they did when there were no secular clergy, since that is clearly impossible; for there are now so many seculars that they are sufficient to administer what the orders would abandon. [Marginal note:  “Have the decree in regard to this sent to him, and have him observe the order, as declared in the said decree.  Despatch decrees to the archbishop and his suffragans, in accordance with those already despatched to the archbishop of Mexico and his suffragan bishops.”]

The kingdom of Xapon is in such an upheaval, and the persecution against Christians so bloody, that it seems rash for religious to go there.  However, those who go there from the orders, guided by the spirit of the Lord, go clad as merchants, and go about at Manila in the same way, some days before their passage, in order to have the Japanese get to know them and take them for men who are going to their country to trade.  Any other method would be rash,