Myself. - How many aspirants for the mission are you at present
instructing?
Rector. - Not one, my son; not one. They are all fled. The flock
is scattered and the shepherd left alone.
Myself. - Your reverence has doubtless taken an active part in the
mission abroad?
Rector. - I was forty years in the Philippines, my son, forty years
amongst the Indians. Ah me! how I love those Indians of the
Philippines.
Myself. - Can your reverence discourse in the language of the
Indians?
Rector. - No, my son. We teach the Indians Castilian. There is no
better language, I believe. We teach them Castilian, and the
adoration of the Virgin. What more need they know?
Myself. - And what did your reverence think of the Philippines as a
country?
Rector. - I was forty years in the Philippines, but I know little of
the country. I do not like the country. I love the Indians. The
country is not very bad; it is, however, not worth Castile.
Myself. - Is your reverence a Castilian?
Rector. - I am an OLD Castilian, my son.
From the house of the Philippine Missions my friend conducted me to
the English college; this establishment seemed in every respect to
be on a more magnificent scale than its Scottish sister. In the
latter there were few pupils, scarcely six or seven, I believe,
whilst in the English seminary I was informed that between thirty
and forty were receiving their education. It is a beautiful
building, with a small but splendid church, and a handsome library.
The situation is light and airy: it stands by itself in an
unfrequented part of the city, and, with genuine English
exclusiveness, is surrounded by a high wall, which encloses a
delicious garden. This is by far the most remarkable establishment
of the kind in the Peninsula, and I believe the most prosperous.
From the cursory view which I enjoyed of its interior, I of course
cannot be expected to know much of its economy. I could not,
however, fall to be struck with the order, neatness, and system
which pervaded it. There was, however, an air of severe monastic
discipline, though I am far from asserting that such actually
existed. We were attended throughout by the sub-rector, the
principal being absent. Of all the curiosities of this college,
the most remarkable is the picture gallery, which contains neither
more nor less than the portraits of a variety of scholars of this
house who eventually suffered martyrdom in England, in the exercise
of their vocation in the angry times of the Sixth Edward and fierce
Elizabeth. Yes, in this very house were many of those pale smiling
half-foreign priests educated, who, like stealthy grimalkins,
traversed green England in all directions; crept into old halls
beneath umbrageous rookeries, fanning the dying embers of Popery,
with no other hope nor perhaps wish than to perish disembowelled by
the bloody hands of the executioner, amongst the yells of a rabble
as bigoted as themselves:
