the village ceased, and we sat down to table: it was noon. A message
had been sent to the village bell-ringer that the Señor Padre thought
he must be asleep, and that it must be long past twelve as the Señor
Padre was hungry. Il est l'heure que votre Majesté désire.

[Franciscan friars.] Most of the priests in the eastern provinces of
Luzon and Samar are Franciscan monks (The barefooted friars of the
orthodox and strictest rule of Our Holy Father St. Francis, in the
Philippine Islands, of the Holy and Apostolic Province of St. Gregory
the Great), brought up in seminaries in Spain specially devoted to the
colonial missions. Formerly they were at liberty, after ten years'
residence in the Philippines, to return to their own country; but,
since the abolition of the monasteries in Spain, they can do this
no longer, for they are compelled in the colonies to abandon all
obedience to the rule of their order, and to live as laymen. They are
aware that they must end their days in the colony, and regulate their
lives accordingly. On their first arrival they are generally sent to
some priest in the province to make themselves acquainted with the
language of the country; then they are installed into a small parish,
and afterwards into a more lucrative one, in which they generally
remain till their death. Most of them spring from the very lowest
class of Spaniards. A number of pious trusts and foundations in Spain
enable a very poor man, who cannot afford to send his son to school,
to put him into a religious seminary, where, beyond the duties of
his future avocation, the boy learns nothing. If the monks were of
a higher social grade, as are some of the English missionaries, they
would have less inclination to mix with the common people, and would
fail to exercise over them the influence they wield at present. The
early habits of the Spanish monks, and their narrow knowledge of the
world, peculiarly fit them for an existence among the natives. This