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Against this perspective, the bishop's impression did not seemexaggerated, a view his fellow missionaries shared. The Christian life of theFilipinos was patent to them, not just as travelers passing through, but aspriests who had experienced its fruits. Simeone Volonteri knew it first fromhis contacts with two missionaries, Reina and Raimondi, who, failing inMicronesia, proceeded to Manila. With two others, they spent six months inthe Philippines in various Franciscan and Augustinian parishes where theyhelped in the priestly ministry. Enough time for these Italian priests to knowthe quality and depth of Philippine Christianity. And , when the Catholicchurch in Hongkong was burned in 1859, Raimondi returned to this earthlyparadise to beg alms for its restoration."In this garden of delights Volonteri and the other missionaries came torestore their shattered health and the financial well-being of their ownmissions always in need of money. Significantly, Raimondi wrote a letter toa Cardinal in Italy that their Hongkong mission could not pay its debts andmust be helped with money from the Philippines, just as earlier his churchhad been rebuilt with funds from the same source. And when Volonteri wentto Manila, he collected the not insignificant amount of $5,152.50, more thanthe annual allotment from the Propaganda Fide and the Society of the HolyInfancy in Italy."For three months, the bishop himself was the object of charity, peopleoutdoing one another to help him recover his health and the no less ailingfinancial condition of the Far Eastern missions. He had tasted thatunforgettable Philippine hospitality, a happy mix of simplicity andrefinement, where the natural goodness of the Oriental found full expressionin the fulfillment of Christian charity understood in the peculiar Filipino way.Not that Volonteri and the others had closed their eyes to the poverty of theFilipinos who yet were capable of giving alms to the missions; rather, thebishop and his companions appreciated it in its true dimension, in thetranscendental vision of the supernatural.From the esthetic viewpoint, both the natural scenery and the culturefound, by Volonteri were of indisputable beauty. The region around Lagunade Bay, Mount Banahaw, Pagsanghan Falls, Taal Volcano within Taal Lake,Mayon Volcano with its almost perfect cone, the Chocolate Hills of Bohol,the sugarcane fields of Negro$, Iloilo port, Cebu City with its shrine of theHoly Infant of Prague, Legazpi's cross, the Cathedral, and the walls ofIntramuros lapped by the Pasig River, and Manila Bay lined with colonialhouses, monasteries, palaces, and churches—all were spectacular scenes that9