Note 4 — THE FRIAR MEMORIAL OF 1898

Alone, with our reason and our right, and confident that reason would at last clear the pathway, and that light would at last illumine the dense obscurity created by hatred of sect, by the separatist spirit, and by flippancy, envy, and the false zeal of certain persons, we have endured the insinuations, made in the Cortes [parlamento]4 of last year which showed scant respect to the orders; the assertions made, not only in private, but also in centers of great publicity, and by persons of considerable popularity in military circles [politica militante], that the religious prestige of Filipinas was so broken that it was necessary to substitute it with armed force; the publishing of the recourse of an eminent politician, sacrificed by anarchy, to the orders for information and advice in Philippine matters, as a dishonorable censure; the grave accusations directed against us, as well as against a most worthy prelate, in a memorial presented to the senate, although veiled under certain appearances of impartiality and gentle correction; the different-toned clamoring from day to day, with more or less crudity, in order that the historic peninsular period of 1834–40 might be reproduced in the islands, and in order that measures might be adopted against us, so radical that they are not taken (and the discussion of them is shameful) either against the centers of public immorality, or against societies and attempts that have no other end than to discatholicize the nation and to sow in it the germs of thorough social upheaval.