As the unhappy man had once been an ecclesiastic and had apostatized under the fury of the revolutionary propaganda, the revolutionary journals made capital of the fact to cast aspersions on the clergy, declaring that the assassin belonged to the clerical party. The government comprehended that it was necessary to put a restraint upon the press, and in consequence, many journals were compelled to stop publication. At the same time a spirit of conversion began to touch the hearts of the people. Everywhere the missionaries were active, and out of the religious houses the words of new life were heard to echo into the homes, the factories, the army and the navy. The revolutionists began to be alarmed, and set to work to destroy what the preaching of Catholic doctrine had effected. The Liberals, haters of God and of country, commenced a series of barbarities. With the intention of destroying the monasteries and convents, they set fire to the Jesuit houses in Valladolid, Huesca, Barbastro, Saragossa and Valencia. At Valladolid in one day they burned three convents, and among them the celebrated and magnificent Trinidad. And these same incendiaries when they came into power in Spain two years later, dared to cry out against the barbarities of the Catholic Church. _REVOLUTION OF 1854._ In 1854 the revolution again broke out. Many of Spain's best generals, among them Leopold O'Donnell, went over to the party of rebellion, whose object was the overthrow of the monarchy and the establishment of a republic. The people, misled by a thousand rumors, knew not to whom to turn, but finally took as their leader that Espartero who had already proven himself a danger to Spain, hostile to the Church, and a slave to the secret societies. On July 18, 1854, the royal palace at Madrid was sacked by the mob, though the Queen succeeded in escaping to safety. Though the Revolution called for a republic, with Espartero at its head, yet that general preferred rather to lead the ministry under royalty, and so contrived to restore Isabella to her throne. Under this second regime of Espartero the Church suffered even more cruelly than before. The agents of the secret societies, which controlled the Cortes, began to demand the revocation of the concordat, the suppression of the religious orders, and a general persecution of the Church. The minister Alonzo set the example by driving out of the Escurial the monks of St. Jerome. _PERSECUTION AND CALUMNY._