Читать книгу The Inhabitants of the Philippines - Frederic H. Sawyer - Страница 37

In Parish Ministry.	Parish Priests	188
Stewards	37
Coadjutors	7
Vicars (learning dialects)	3
Missionaries	12
		247
Residing in the convents of Manila, Cebú, and Guadalupe.	Superiors or Office bearers	19
Conventual Priests	7
Students	14
Invalids	6
Lay Brethren	17
		63
	Total	310

In former years this Order had established missions in Japan, and they were very successful in making converts, but during the persecution many members of the Order lost their lives, or, as they phrase it, “attained the palm of martyrdom.”

At the present time they maintain seven missionaries in the province of Hun-nan in China. In Spain they support three colleges, Valladolid, La Vid, and La Escorial. They are also in charge of the magnificent church of that extraordinary palace, and of the priceless library of which they are editing a catalogue.

The Augustinians have published a great many works, such as grammars and vocabularies of the native dialects, and many books of devotion.

One of their leading men, Father Manuel Blanco, was a most learned and laborious botanist. He collected and classified so many of the Philippine plants that the Order decided to complete his work and publish it. Fray Andres Naves and Fray Celestino Fernandez Villar, both well-known to me, worked for years at this, and were assisted by my illustrious friend H. E. Don Sebastian Vidal Soler and others.

The result is a most sumptuous and magnificent work—published in Manila—there being four folio volumes enriched by many hundreds of coloured plates of the different trees, shrubs, orchids and lianas, most beautifully executed from water-colour paintings by D. Regino Garcia and others. This monumental book is called the ‘Flora Filipina.’ It received a diploma of honour at the International Colonial Exhibition of Amsterdam in 1883. The British Museum possesses a copy, but unfortunately most of the work was destroyed by fire in the bombardment of the Convent of Guadalupe during the war.

However, the widow of Señor Vidal, now Mrs. Amilon of Philadelphia, still has some copies to dispose of.

I hope that what I have said about the Augustinians will show that they are not the lazy and unprofitable persons they are sometimes represented. The same may be said of the Dominicans.

The Augustinians were followed, after an interval of seven years, by the Franciscans, four years after that by the Jesuits, six years after the Jesuits came the Dominicans.

Last of all came the Recollets, or bare-footed Augustinians.

The following Table gives the numbers of friars of the five religious orders in the Philippines, at the dates mentioned, taken from their own returns. The first column gives the dates of the first foundation of the Order, the second the date of its arrival in the Archipelago. The other columns give the statistics of baptisms, marriages and deaths, taken from the parish registers.