Lordship nor I should interfere with them, for they know what is suitable for the government and preservation of their orders; and they would be great fools not to consider themselves first rather than others, for St. Paul knew very well what he was saying when he bade his disciple Timothy to take heed to himself first and afterward to teaching. For the apostle knew very well how proper it was for a minister to take heed to himself first rather than others—and this not only for the good of the minister himself, but also for that of those to whom he ministers. Now since the apostle said this to a bishop, who is under so great obligations to look after his sheep, how much better might it be said to the friars, who have this duty only through charity. This is the law of charity, primum mihi secundum tibi; and this should be observed more among religious than among other ministers who are not included among them—in the first place, because these religious did not choose to take up this ministry as under just obligations to do so, but merely through charity, which looks first to itself and then to its neighbor; in the second place, because a simpleminded minister who is withdrawn from the world, and given to prayer, and a careful observer of his religion, and who will make the Indians feel that he lives as a saint, is worth more than twenty who are inattentive to their duties, and who cannot remain an hour in their cells. These virtues and other similar ones, without which a religious can not maintain himself, can ill be acquired by the religious when they go alone and are so separated as you wish. Would to God that I might see in every house for Indians, not four such as are in Batan, but six or eight, and not one, as your Lordship says, because I
