Note 19 — THE FRIAR MEMORIAL OF 1898

Yea, your Excellency, unjust witnesses, for where are those abuses, those excesses, those vices, those outrages, of which their mouths are so full, and which furnish them matter for their speeches of a demagogical club of the rabble? What do the religious corporations maintain, when viewed with a deep synthetical standard, which is not in accordance with the canons of the Church and the rules of their institute; which is not fitting to the holy ministry that they profess; which is not greatly beneficial to the supreme interests of the fatherland? We turn our eyes in all directions, and however quick-sighted may be our eyes, unless one views the orders through the pharisaical or separatist prism, they discover nothing that does not merit the heartiest applause. “Laudet te alienus,” says the sacred book of Proverbs, “et non os tuum.”19 But it is not our intention to praise ourselves here. It is our intention to vindicate ourselves; to defend our honor unjustly impeached; to demonstrate our eminently Spanish mission; and to maintain our good name, which is our treasure, which is the great title of nobility that we can never abdicate nor allow to be vilified. “By your good works stop the mouth of the ignorance of foolish and senseless men,” says St. Peter to us. (1 Peter ii, 15.)20