in favor of it, we have in plenty; the fulfilment of them will come
when there is nothing temporal to be looked after, which will be very
late. If your Lordship does not think so, ask what is going on in the
island of Panay. Of what do they take most account, of the galleys
and ships which are being built there, or of the religious instruction
which was to be preached there? Because I have seen with what dislike
your Lordship hears of what is going on there, I have ceased to inform
you of it--which I did, hoping that if you understood the situation,
you would find means to improve it. Letters and messengers from there
have told me things which are enough to break one's heart; but now I
am hardening it, because I see that it is of no use for me to grieve
over them. This I say in reply to the statement in the preface to
your Lordship's letter, in which you say: "If they would allow me
to be bishop, I would maintain better order in my bishopric than
there is, and the natives would be much better instructed and not so
harassed." But where there are so many to order and so few to obey,
he who leads this dance can ill guide it to the place where it ought
to go. For this reason many things are going so far astray, and they
will go astray as long as he who has care of everything does not have
the authority which he ought to have. For how can I arrange for the
religious instruction, or take away here or place there, if after I
have ordered it someone says that he chooses not to abide by it, but
to do what he thinks best? Allowing, in general, that in moral matters
there is a little improvement, let us come to the particular point
which your Lordship treats of in your letter. But, before considering
it, I wish to warn your Lordship that concern for these things, and
the arrangement of them, and deciding who is to be here and who is to
be there, is my business--not only because it belongs to my office,
but because his Majesty particularly committed and entrusted it to
me, recommending me to do it in communication with your Lordship;