most devout religious.  The province, aware of this, has never allowed him any rest, but has always entrusted to him the offices of greatest weight and honor; and he has given most strict account of them, to the very signal interest of the order.  He has twice been prior of Manila, which place is the rock of experience, and where each one shows his talents.  Both times he labored hard, performed much, and ruled that convent in all strictness.  He was prior of Sugbu, as well as visitor and definitor of the province at the same time, and prior of many convents.  He ever bore the name of provincial, to which office he was not elected—­not for lack of merit, but of fortune, which is not always equal; and the lots go by pairs.

Our father visitor-general began, then, his visit through the Tagal province Pampanga, and Ilocos, and kept for the following triennium what remained in the Pintados.  He was not limited in time, and therefore, went slowly.  Everywhere he exhibited great prudence and wisdom, as the religious recognized, and he knew how to carry himself with them.  He provided what he saw was most essential to the perfection of the province, which he thought to establish with the earnestness demanded by his care and devotion, and by disposing their minds to observe what he was teaching them by word and precept.

When he was in Manila he was an excellent chorister, and in the other convents he assisted in the same manner.  When he saw what was advisable, he approached Manila to arrange what was needful in the chapter affairs, for the true reformation is, that the superior be such.  If the superior be perfect, then he must try to see that all whom he rules be perfect also. Qualis rector est civitatis, tales et inhabitantes in ea. [21]

CHAPTER XXXIV

Of the election of our father Fray Miguel Garcia

Since the province, as we have seen, was so extensive, and all the houses had a vote, except that there were some few convents which were vicariates, the men who collected for the chapter were numerous; and if I do not deceive myself, they were difficult to count—­that is, they were more than sixty.  And among so many men (although it is true that it was always thought that the province was to be for our father Fray Miguel Garcia), there are different tempers, and factions, and they say those things which afterward it were well that they had not said.  They found the president inclined not to make our father Fray Miguel Garcia provincial—­not because there were demerits in his person, but because he had already governed, and he considered that enough.  Such discussions, although they were in good point, did not have any effect; for the waters flowed in their usual channels, and this talk served only to disquiet some.  In short, our father Fray Miguel Garcia was declared elected on the twenty-third of April, of the year 1611, all votes concurring in his election with great