There is one most special reason and one of extraordinary importance which demands that that respect should be sanctioned by the laws and supported by customs, namely, that the religious in his respective duties, becomes, as a general rule, the only peninsular, and, therefore, the only representative of the mother-country in the majority of the Filipino villages. Consequently, Spanish prestige is greatly interested in that he be the object of such considerations and guaranties that these inhabitants far from seeing, as unfortunately they have not a few times seen, that he is despised and humbled, be daily more fortified in the traditional idea that their cura or missionary is, at once the minister of God and the representative of España, a lofty idea that has redounded, and redounds, so greatly to the favor of the mother-country, and says so much in honor of all the Spanish entities. We came to the archipelago through our love to religion and España, and have remained in it more than three centuries, ready to continue here so long as conscience does not dictate the contrary to us. Gross temporal considerations do not move us, nor sentiments of pride and of mere personal dignity. In the fulfilment of our duties, we have striven to attain even sacrifice and by the grace of God, we shall continue the sacrifice. A good proof of this is offered the impartial critic by the present epoch of rebellions and insurrections. The cura and missionaries, in spite of persuasions that they were putting their lives in great danger by the continual plots of the ferocious Katipunan, have steadfastly maintained themselves in their posts, foreseeing that if they abandoned their parishioners, a general rising of the islands was almost certain. This procedure, if not heroic, is sufficiently near it, and has cost us many victims, snatching away our dearest brethren from us, some treacherously assassinated and others immolated by reckless mobs seduced by filibusters and masons. And although this sad sacrifice has seemingly not been bewailed and appreciated, as perhaps it ought to be by the loyal sons of España, we trust that God, the compassionate and generous remunerator of every good deed, will in His infinite mercy, receive it as a propitiation for the evils of this unfortunate country, and will have rewarded the martyrs of religion and of the fatherland.