to the Filipinas.  However he sent the promised news of what had been enacted concerning it, which was given a glad reception.  Thereupon, our fathers, like men who had reached land after a great and severe storm, commenced to breathe.  They gave thanks to the Lord that He had not forgotten them.  Thanks were given likewise to his Majesty Felipe II; for by so many favors and privileges they were able to prosecute the works that had been undertaken, and to place their shoulders to works much greater for his service.  This was not alone for the good of the Augustinian order, but for that of all the other orders; for if one order suffered shipwreck, all must do the same, as all were in the same boat, directed by the same helm in the same direction, and under the same winds.

[Father Aguirre returned to the islands in 1593, where he was received with joy.  He died as was his wish, in the islands “which he loved greatly, as he was one of the founders of that province.”]

Chapter XXVI

Of the chapter held in the Filipinas Islands, and as will be told later, of the first election of our father Fray Diego de Alvarez. [123]

The year 1584 came, at which time father Fray Andres de Aguirre had finished his term as provincial, as aforesaid; and the time had come to give the province, according to the orders and rulings of our regulations, a new head, who should take charge of the affairs of the province, both in spiritual and temporal matters, with new strength, and new energy and resolution.  I do not deceive myself in comparing the action of the chapter to that of retiling; for they act as one who, when he perceives that his house is leaking, tries to remedy that by putting on new tiles, which oppose the rain and wind with new vigor and thoroughness, and keep the house free from leaks, which at the last would utterly ruin it.  In the same manner, the superiors of the order, after the completion of their three years of service in the office, would beyond any doubt be tired and liable to yield more easily to any dispensation in the rigor of the observance, so that gradually the edifice would be undermined—­as the Holy Ghost tells us, qui spernit modica, paulatim decidet. [124] Therefore in order to avoid such troubles, which are so full of peril to the order, our rules provide that new superiors be elected, who may carry out the rigor of our laws with new resolution, new zeal, and new force, and who should restore and suspend whatever time and opportunity has relaxed somewhat, taking away the opportunity for evil custom and abuses.  Thus, desirous in this chapter of advance throughout the province, the capitular fathers set their eves on father Fray Diego de Alvarez, a man of learning and judgment, and of blameless life.  Of such a man did the province have need, so that with the quiet that it had already negotiated at the cost of the anxiety, care, and diligence of father