heroic grandson was Friar Andrés de Urdaneta the veteran navigator
whose natural abilities and extensive knowledge of the eastern seas
stood his commander in good stead at every point and most effectively
contributed to the success of the expedition. Nor should the work of
the Friars be ignored. Inspired by apostolic zeal, reinforced by the
glowing enthusiasm of the Catholic Reaction, gifted and tireless,
they labored in harmony with Legaspi, won converts, and checked the
slowly-advancing tide of Mohammedanism. The ablest of the Brothers,
Martin de Rada, was preaching in Visayan within five months.

The work of conversion opened auspiciously in Cebu, where Legaspi
began his work, with a niece of Tupas, an influential native, who was
baptized with great solemnity. Next came the conversion of the Moor
[Moslem] "who had served as interpreter and who had great influence
throughout all that country." In 1568 the turning point came with
the baptism of Tupas and of his son. This opened the door to general
conversion, for the example of Tupas had great weight. [27]

It is a singular coincidence that within the span of one human life
the Spaniard should have finished the secular labor of breaking the
power of the Moslem in Spain and have checked his advance in the
islands of the antipodes. The religion of the prophet had penetrated
to Malacca in 1276, had reached the Moluccas in 1465, and thence was
spreading steadily northward to Borneo and the Philippines. Iolo
(Sulu) and Mindanao succumbed in the sixteenth century and when
Legaspi began the conquest of Luzon in 1571 he found many Mohammedans
whose settlement or conversion had grown out of the trade relations
with Borneo. As the old Augustinian chronicler Grijalva remarks, and
his words are echoed by Morga and by the modern historian Montero y
Vidal: [28] "So well rooted was the cancer that had the arrival of