of the same; we are neither military men nor functionaries of the judicial or administrative profession; we do not have weight in any political party; we do not intervene in elections; we do not form (for conscience forbids us) great federations that become feared; we do not incite the public, except to obedience and submission to all constituted authority; we are unable in determined cases to distribute appointments, or offer promotions or remunerations; we are not accompanied by a fattened retinue of friends or flatterers, who defend us for their own personal advantage, and who are the blind paladins of the general, of the politician, of the exalted dignitary, of the opulent banker; neither have we any influence over the press; we do not possess a nucleus of attached partisans to shout for us and overexcite so-called public opinion: in one word, we are without all the methods that are used in modern public life to gain respect and fear, to influence the nation, and cause all the shots of slander or ignorance to strike ineffectually against us. The religious of Filipinas, far remote from Europa, alone in their ministries, scattered even throughout the farthest recesses of the archipelago, without other associates and other witnesses of their labors than their dear and simple parishioners, have no defense other than their reason and right, which, although established on justice and law, and secured by the protection of the divine Providence--which mercifully has not failed us hitherto and which we hope will not fail us in the future--do not have, nevertheless, in their favor (nor ever, although we might have done so, would we avail ourselves of them) those most powerful modern auxiliaries which are attaining so much vogue and so great success in societies in which the great Christian sentiments having grown cold, reason is not heard easily unless supplied with the force of cannon or with the armor-plate of the high bench, of vast political parties, or of fearful popular movements. Alone with our reason and our right, although with our conscience satisfied at always having fulfilled, yea always, our duties, of having been as patriotic as the greatest, or more so, and of having fulfilled the obligations of our sacred ministry, we have endured silently and in all patience, in accordance with the advice of the apostle, the insults and vilifications, even of persons to whom we have offered in Christian sincerity our affection and civilities, even by persons who call themselves very Catholic, but who, perchance, infected with the contagion of the practical Jansenism of certain present-day reformers, forget the remark of that great Christian emperor, who said that if he should see a priest who had fallen into any frailty, he would cover him with his cloak, rather than publish his weakness.