Tl1e Field and Its Workers
21
to their care a mission in the Pueblo de Tamaulipas, some thirty leagues from Tampico, which was without a pastor at the time. For two years, from 1686 to 1688, the enthusiastic sons of the new college worked with untiring zeal in their post. Just when they were beginning to see the fruit of their labors, however, they were ordered by the Commissary General to return to their college, because the mission was by right within the jurisdiction granted to the Ctestodia of Tampico. Undismayed, the faithful Padres attempted another mission that same year at Rio Blanco, in the northern frontiers of the Nuevo Reyno de Leon. After several months of sore trials and tribulations, the missionary in charge was forced to abandon it, discouraged by the unbearable conduct of the military guard given him for his protection. After his return to the college, he was heard to say each day, at the close of his prayers: "A militibus libera uos Domine." (From the soldiers deliver us, Oh Lord.) One more attempt was made to launch into missionary work among the natives before the field in Texas was open to the new missionaries, who were burning with a desire to spread the faith beyond the frontiers of New Spain. This was at the Real de Minas de Boca de Leones, where they established the Mission of N uestra Senora de los Dolores. After a short while, it was abandoned by order of the Commissary General, so that more missionaries could be spared to join the projected expedition to Texas in 1690. 41 Thus at last, the sons of the College of La Santa Cruz de Queretaro, founded for the sole purpose of spreading the faith among the heathen, were to penetrate the land of the Tejas, where more than sixty years before, Maria de Agreda, the Woman in Bl1,e, had appeared to the natives to instruct them and counsel them to go an• seek missionaries to minister to them. College of Nuestra Seiiora de Guadalupe de Zacatecas. So great wa. the zeal of the apostolic missionaries of Queretaro and so dire the need for their services in Mexico, that before long, new colleges were estab- lished by the original founders in Guatemala and in Zacatecas. As early as 1686, a group of Padres from Queretaro had visited Zacatecas to give a mission. The people of this city were deeply impressed with the sincerity and enthusiasm of the fervent missionaries and begged them at that time to found an apostolic college in the city, offering them the church of Nuestra Senora de Guadalupe and the means to build a friary. But the modest friars, who were no others than Fray Francisco
41 / bid., 88-9 t.
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