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Chapter IV: How the Planter Should Behave in Choosing the Hands and Skilled Workers He Engages, Beginning with the Choice of Chaplain
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25 chapter iv y How the Planter Should Behave in Choosing the Hands and Skilled Workers He Engages, Beginning with the Choice of Chaplain If there is one thing above all others in which the planter should show his capacity and wisdom, it is without doubt in the good choice of the hands and skilled workers whom he takes into his service for the smooth running of the plantation. Since choice is the daughter of prudence, he can rightly be condemned as unwise who chooses reprobates , or those unfitted for what they have to do. It is obvious that good-for-nothings will be displeasing to God and to men, and will be the cause of many and serious vexations; others through their ineptitude will cause excessive damage to the estate. The planter can rightly be blamed for this, not only by his own family, who will be the first burned or singed by his behavior, but likewise those outside, and especially the tenants. They will be inadvertently compelled to suffer the losses resulting from their unrequited toil if the skilled workers do not know their respective jobs. The first to be hired is the chaplain. He should be chosen with circumspection and after obtaining secret information regarding his comportment and knowledge. He is entrusted with teaching everything concerning the Christian ways of life. In this way, he will be able to fulfill the most important of his duties, which are catechizing and instructing the household and the slaves. He can do this, and it will not be done through a local slave or an overseer, who at the most can teach them verbally some prayers and the Ten Commandments. He will be someone who knows how to explain to them what they must believe, how they must believe, and how to pray to God for what they need. If it should be necessary for this reason to give the chaplain something more than the average stipend, the planter may rest assured that good money could not be placed in better hands. 26 The Cultivation of Sugar The chaplain, then, has the duty of saying Mass in the plantation chapel on Sundays and Holy Days. This leaves him free to say Mass on the other days of the week for whoever wishes this, save only if he makes another kind of contract with the owner of the chapel, receiving a stipend proportional to his work. On the said Sundays and Holy Days, or at least on the Sundays, if he is engaged on this condition, he will expound the catechism. That is to say, he will explain the principal mysteries of the faith, and the commandments of God and the Holy Church: † What a great evil is mortal sin, and what punishment God has ordained for it in this and in the next life, where the soul lives and will live for all eternity. † What remedy God has given us in the incarnation and death of Jesus Christ, his most holy son, so that our sins may be forgiven, as likewise the penances we must undergo to pay for our sins. † In what way we should confess our sins, and ask God to pardon them, with true repentance and the firm resolve never to commit them again, with the help of divine grace. † In what manner we make penitence for our sins. † Who is in the most Holy Sacrament on the altar? † Why He is there and who receives Him. † In what frame of mind the sacrament should be taken in life and the viaticum11 when on the point of death. † How important it is to gain indulgences, so as to discount something from what has to be paid in Purgatory. † How everyone has to commit himself to God so as not to fall into sin, and how He should be offered in the morning the work of the ensuing day. † How abominable are the witch doctors and folk healers who use words to heal, and those who resort to them, abandoning God from whom all salvation comes. Equally evil are those who give poison or drinks (as they say) in order to influence or sway the minds. So are drunkards, fornicators, thieves, seekers of revenge, gossip-mongers, and those who bear false witness, either from malice or greed of gain, or for worldly reasons. [44.200.175.46] Project MUSE (2024-03-29 15:56 GMT) 27 How the Planter Should Choose Workers † And finally, what reward and what...