In the mountains of Ytui, which are not far from Pangasinan, father Fray Juan de San Jacintho went on a journey at this time, accompanied by only two Indians. Here he taught, settled their disputes, and brought them to the faith. These people were a race of mountaineers, among whom other religious had not been safe even with an escort of many soldiers; but the gentle manners of father Fray Juan caused them to become calm, and many of them came sometimes to Pangasinan to ask that religious might be given to them. Many years passed before it was possible to provide them with religious; but the father provincial had, as minister of Pangasinan, seen their pious desires and wished to give them the religious. For this he requested the sanction of the ordinary, and asked the governor for the royal patronage. When the fathers of St. Francis learned this, they came and said that this conversion belonged to them, because it was very near to the ministry and the convent which they had in Baler. The order (which needed religious in other regions) instantly yielded without any dispute, permitting the fathers of St. Francis to take charge of these Indians. This they did, but very soon abandoned them, since the region was not one to be coveted, but was very unhealthy. As a result these Indians remained for some time deprived of the ministry of the holy gospel; and, what caused greater regret, they were morally certain to apostatize, like many other Christians among heathens, since they were children among idolatrous parents and kinsmen, without religious and without instruction.

[In this year, 1609, father Fray Juan de Anaya departed this life. He was a native of San Pedro de las Dueñas, two leguas from Segovia, and was a professed son of the convent at Valladolid, whence he came to this province in 1598. He was sent immediately to Nueva Segovia, the conversion of which had just begun. He learned the language very quickly, and so wrought with them that he not only taught them the gospel and the Christian life, but also civilization. He showed them how to build their houses, and how to work their fields; and taught them all other matters of human life, not only by instruction, but by example. He sought out the Indians, and brought them down from the mountains and the hiding-places where some, deluded by their sins, had gone to hide from grace. Father Fray Juan was not content to ask where they were and to send for them; but, trusting in his natural strength, he went to look for them and brought them down from the mountains, traveling through the rough and thorny places among the thickets where they hid. He compelled them to enter upon the path of their welfare, not by the violence of a tyrant, but by the force of love and charity. When he was vicar of Pilitan, some of the poor Indians lost all their harvest from an overflow of the river. Not daring to wait for those who were to come and get the tribute, and indeed through fear of starvation, they left the village, and many of them fled to the mountains. Father Fray Juan was deeply afflicted because of the danger which their souls ran. This grief and his many labors affected his health, and finally brought on a flux, from which he died. Another religious, a subordinate and companion of Father Juan, father Fray Vicente Alfonso, died eight days later. He was a Valencian by birth, and had been a sailor up to his twenty-fourth year. He assumed the habit in the convent of Preachers in Valencia, and set a good and humble example as a religious. He was very charitable, giving away even his clothes to the poor. In the province of Pangasinan, in the month of August, 1609, there departed from the miseries of this life father Fray Francisco Martinez, a native of Zacatecas, and a son of the convent of Mexico. He came to Manila in 1598, and was assigned to Pangasinan, where he learned the language of the natives with great perfection. He was constant in labor and in prayer. To defend the Indians, he did not shrink from suffering or fear the perils of the sea. On one occasion, when he had gone to Manila on this account, he fell into the hands of Japanese pirates on his way back to Pangasinan, and was several times in danger of death, with the pirate's knife at his throat, who intended by such terrors to increase the ransom. Death called him from his labors and sufferings. He rejoiced, and died a most holy death.]

The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XXXI, 1640 — Part 68