Vainly do Protestants attempt to evade the shameful acts of the first "reformers" by showing its own scars and framing a list of martyrs. No wounds are glorious while the cause they sustain is an iniquity; and heresy can never be justified in its rebellion against the church of Christ. If its apologists tell us that revolution is necessary in order to get liberty, we deny this theory of the end sanctifying the means, of a bad end sanctified by unjust means. Let heretics not speak of their martyrs. A martyr is one who witnesses, not one who protests; a man who dies, not to sustain a passionate and obstinate denial, nor in defence of speculative opinions and personal ideas, but as a witness to seal the traditional teaching, to confirm the faith which is sustained by unexceptionable evidence. A martyr is not a conspirator, an instigator, and upholder of civil war; he lives without reproach, defends the truth without fanaticism, suffers without vain exaltation, and dies without anger; his memory is irreproachable before God and man. Would that heresy could point to such heroes! We are only too proud and happy in presenting to our friends and foes the picture of such men, in whose holy hands the church has put the palm of martyrdom. III. In the Low Countries more than elsewhere, Protestantism has concealed from its posterity its sanguinary and tyrannical instincts. It has perfidiously taken advantage of the national sentiment and appears clothed in the cloak of liberty. How many consider Philip II. a monster, the Duke d'Alba an executioner, and that they are solely responsible for all the blood shed in the Low Countries? But the time has come when we should no longer allow ourselves to be duped by hypocritical declamations against Catholic reprisals. They who have first taken arms and begun the war are held responsible for the blood that is shed. One of the most learned students of modern history, Baron deGerlache, said, in opening the congress of Malines, on August 24th, 1864: "The history of the sixteenth century, written by Protestants and copied by Catholics, needs to be rewritten from beginning to end, from the real statement of the facts, which are contained in the archives of the church. Then Protestants will appear as they really are, such as they are now in Ireland and elsewhere, aggressive, violent, intolerant, inaugurating persecution when they are powerful enough, and demanding liberty when they are weak." These words sum up the history of the pretended reform, acting its double part, the farce of liberty and the tragedy of blood, according to the number of its partisans.