CHAPTER XII. [camarines.] No Favorable Change in the Weather Was Expected in

The priests of the Philippines have often been reproached with gross immorality. They are said to keep their convents full of bevies of pretty girls, and to lead somewhat the same sort of life as the Grand Turk. This may be true of the native padres; but I myself never saw, in any of the households of the numerous Spanish priests I visited, anything that could possibly cause the least breath of scandal. Their servants were exclusively men, though perhaps I may have noticed here and there an old woman or two. Ribadeneyra says:--"The natives, who observe how careful the Franciscan monks are of their chastity, have arrived at the conclusion that they are not really men, and that, though the devil had often attempted to lead these holy men astray, using the charms of some pretty Indian girl as a bait, yet, to the confusion of both damsel and devil, the monks had always come scathless out of the struggle." Ribadeneyra, however, is a very unreliable author; and, if his physiological mistakes are as gross as his geographical ones (he says somewhere that Luzon is another name for the island of Cebu!), the monks are not perhaps as fireproof as he supposes. At any rate, his description does not universally apply nowadays. The younger priests pass their existence like the lords of the soil of old; the young girls consider it an honor to be allowed to associate with them; and the padres in their turn find many convenient opportunities. They have no jealous wives to pry into their secrets, and their position as confessors and spiritual advisers affords them plenty of pretexts for being alone with the women. The confessional, in particular, must be a perilous rock-a-head for most of them. In an appendix to the "Tagal Grammar" (which, by-the-bye, is not added to the editions sold for general use) a list of questions is given for the convenience of young priests not yet conversant with the Tagal language. These questions are to be asked in the confessional, and several pages of them relate exclusively to the relations between the sexes.

"Whereas the tenth chapter of the ordinances, wherein the governor of Arandia ordained that the alcaldes and the justices should communicate with the missionary priests only by letter, and that they should never hold any interview with them except in the presence of a witness, has been frequently disobeyed, it is now commanded that these disobediences shall no longer be allowed; and that the alcaldes shall make it their business to see that the priests and ministers of religion treat the gobernadorcillos and the subaltern officers of justice with proper respect, and that the aforesaid priests be not allowed either to beat, chastise, or ill-treat the latter, or make them wait at table."

In Huc's work on China I find the following passage, relating to the effects of the frequent official changes in China, from which many hints may be gathered:--