Granted however the character of Bonifacio, his aims and the methods he adopted to carry out his ideas, such an excuse as that of Reyes argue but little in pro of the good judgement or better said the good faith of its author. Bonifacio was anxious for the first blow of the revolt to be struck that he might not lose the confidence of those who had intrusted him with the undertaking and who had been fooled into the idea that the Katipunan forces were so powerful that nothing could resist their onward course once they had been started on their way. And to suppose that Bonifacio was to be so easily influenced by a few petty chiefs is to show a complete ignorance of the character of the hero of the Katipunan. If the opposition of the said petty chiefs really occurred it was probably inspired more by fear of the consequences than by the true spirit of repentance, for if the cruelties and abuses said to have been committed by the Spaniards were the cause of the revolt, what need was there of such a repentance? The prestige enjoyed by Bonifacio among the katipuneros was natural enough, in as much as he was the father of the Katipunan, the illegitimate offspring of filipino freemasonry, itself a legitimate child of the Spanish family of universal freemasonry. "The Katipunan," says the author of an exposition to Congress, dated 1900 and published at the printing office of the El Liberal, "the worthy and legitimate [82] child of Andrés Bonifacio, was founded in his own house in calle Sagunto (Tondo) between six and seven in the evening of the 7th of July 1892. Andrés Bonifacio gathered together his best friends, Teodoro Plata, Valentin Díaz, Ladislao Dina, Deodato Arellano, and Ildefonso Laurel, to whom he proposed the necessity of the creation of that Superior Association of the Sons of the People, whose only aim should be that of the independence of the people under a Spanish protectorate or in default of that, of Japan. Those assembled took to the idea with great enthusiasm and at once commenced the propaganda of the same. Note 95. One thing which clearly demonstrates the state of fanaticism and moral degradation to which the Katipunan fell, was the savage manner in which they treated the Religious prisoners who fell into their hands. Disrespect for all authority and especially that of the clergy, was one of the chief fruits of the work of propaganda carried on by Rizal and other of the separatist element, aided and abetted by the Bible societies who gave moral as well as practical assistance to their labors. As fanaticism increased, this want of respect became more intense and eventually led to a thirst for the blood of those whose greatest crime was the excessive favor they had extended to the indian, to whom such a thing as gratitude was unknown [83].