had left him unshaken and uncorrupted, a man truly without fear and without reproach. With the same faultless and unpretentious courage he walked forward to meet the end. As was to have been expected in the conditions attending his fate, the power that had dragged him down with so much of trickery and deceit attempted to soil with other deceit the name he should leave to his countrymen. To the newspaper reporter he said that “Noli Me Tangere” had been much misunderstood because the authorities had selected from it only passages that seemed to indicate sacrilegious or seditious purpose, whereas when read in their proper places with the context they had no such appearance. This statement was so distorted as to appear as an expression of regret that he had written the book. When he said that the Republicans in Spain had mistaken their strength and their opportunities, this was distorted into a petulant charge that the Spanish Republicans had been the cause of all his troubles. When he spoke with characteristic modesty of his own work as feeble and of small avail, the remark was twisted into a dubiety of his basic faith. Attempts were made to wrest from him something that could be called a retraction of his political opinions; even the last solemn offices of the church were utilized toward an end so base. All his life he had remained a true Catholic, [216] despite his sharp condemnation of the friars. He now desired to partake of the holy sacrament, and priests were sent to him. What took place when they gathered around him was so perverted that no man may feel sure he has the truth of the story. According to one account the priests refused him the sacrament until they should satisfy themselves of his orthodoxy, and a long examination followed. They demanded a signed statement affirming his belief in revealed religion. He readily consented to give it; he could have given it truthfully at any time. Of this affirmation two irreconcilable versions were subsequently reported, a fact that dealing with a thing so simple must serve to discredit both. As to one, no other evidence is needed than its style and content to show that Rizal never wrote it. As to the other reputed statement, opinions differ; reasonably, one might say, since there is extant no original copy, and no one now pretends to have seen such a copy. The style in the second statement is Rizal’s or an imitation of his; the expressions in it are in line with his general convictions; [217] and if throughout this phase of the story we met with less of manifest treachery and lying the probable authenticity of some such declaration might well be admitted.