How they have fulfilled their duties. Our good works are in the gaze of all men, and our good works, thanks to God, are the brightest gem of the corporations. Not only do we preach the gospel here; not only do we carry the Christian and civilized life to the barbarous and fetish-encumbered inhabitants of these islands; not only did we obtain the incorporation of the archipelago into the Spanish crown, working in harmony with the other official entities, and preserved it, as is well known, in a peaceful and happy condition for the space of three centuries; but also, in all time, even now when we are wronged so deeply by some ingrate Filipinos, whom we pity, have we been the constant defenders of the Indians, enduring for that reason innumerable loathings, and all kinds of persecution on the part of many peninsulars, who did not understand the devotion and patriotism of our conduct. In all time have we been zealous for the purity of the faith and for the conservation of good morals; and illegal exactions, bribery, extortions, outrages, ease, immoral gambling, and a licentious or little restrained life, have always had in us a severe judge and the most inexorable censor. Can it be said of the religious institutes, whether collectively or in the vast majority of their individual members, that they have prevaricated; that they have ever abandoned the duties entrusted to them in the administration of the sacraments, in the celebration of divine worship, in Christian preaching and catechising, in the vigilance of good manners, in the tutelage of moral interests, in protection and relief to the needy and weak, in advice and consolation to all about us, in the maintenance of obedience to the mother-country, in the extension of education, in the campaign against every kind of superstition and erroneous practice, in repression of concubinage, and of other public irregularities and scandals? Does not the tenet enter the head of the most exalted sectarian, if he has any lucid moment, that we religious have fulfilled with assiduous self-abnegation the obligations of our ministry? We have become wearied with reading, your Excellency, whatever has been written and published against us for years, and we know also how much is said now in assemblies and gatherings. With our hand upon our heart, with our foreheads raised aloft, as one who walks in the light and fears not to have his deeds examined and discussed in the light, we challenge and defy our detractors and calumniators, and those who flippantly, or by any other unjust and inaccurate motive, talk and murmur, to show us with exact data and with perfectly authentic information, not only the accuracy of all their accusations, but the mere probability of whatever they allege against our honor and well-established credit, touching the fulfilment of our duties, both religious and patriotic.