Their procedure in respect to parochial obventions, to education, and intercourse with intelligent persons. It is said that we commit abuse in the exaction of parochial fees. Let the laws of the Church be consulted, let the doctrines of the moralists and the principles of positive natural and divine law be cited; and then submitted to that only sure rule as a criterion, let them tell us whether we abuse the public in that matter, and whether our procedure, within just bounds, is not that employed by the most disinterested priests. It is said that we are hostile to education and the advancement of knowledge. But if by education and knowledge, doctrines not condemned by the Church, our Mother, are not meant, let them tell us whether the islands have any education that has not been established, protected, sustained, and encouraged by the clergy, in all branches of instruction, both primary, and secondary and superior. It is said that we despise the intelligent men of the country, and that we make them the object of every kind of persecution. That assertion is so rare and stupendous that we wonder whether our enemies will write in imaginary spaces. A multitude of youths are graduated annually with the degree of bachelor or after the conclusion of some higher course, from the Ateneo Municipal, from the colleges of Manila and the provinces, and from the university. We are honored by the friendship of the vast majority of them, and take no little satisfaction in seeing them prosper and in knowing that they respect the Christian and solid education that they have received. It is known that very few of the great number of students that attend our lecture halls, and of the not few graduates that are scattered throughout the islands, have taken part in the rebellion; and that the vast majority of them have kept loyal to España, in fulfilment of the oath that they took on receiving the investiture of their professions. But what happens in the old world with the apprentices of free thought happens here: all those modestly call themselves intelligent who think that they exhibit signs of knowledge and talent by showing contempt for priests and religious; while it is a fact that a goodly proportion of those who express themselves in that manner have been unable to complete their courses with us, and are the refuse of our lecture halls. Regarding the sanctity of their private life. An outcry is being made against the vices and immorality of the regulars in terms that seem to be inspired in Protestant and anticlerical centers of low quality. But in that, as in other things, saving what can never be avoided even in the communities most sanely organized, by the severest legislation and the most exquisite care, all who view us near at hand are not ignorant that nothing can be thrown into our face.