To persecution the anti-Christians added calumny against the bishops and clergy of Spain, accusing them of desertion in the time of danger, of abandoning the victims of the cholera. These open falsehoods aided somewhat in stirring up a spirit of hostility even in places where the devotion of the clergy was known to be most heroic. Stories then were circulated of arms hidden in the sanctuary of Loyola; as a consequence, the Jesuits were driven from this shrine, even though it was well known that their only occupation at Loyola was the maintenance of a college for the education of missionaries to Cuba, Porto Rico and the Philippine Islands. [Illustration: ISABEL II., QUEEN OF SPAIN.] At the same time certain deputies in the Chamber complained that the journal, "The Catholic", had dared to publish the Bull of Pius IX. on the Immaculate Conception without governmental permission. One of the ministers, Madoz, proposed restoring the ruined treasury by the sale of all ecclesiastical property without exception. Another deputy, Escosura, a furious and fanatic anti-Christian, insulted, in a session of the Chamber on March 24, 1855, the Bishop of Osma, whom he called a butcher because of his defence of the church property; the Minister of Grace and Justice, Aguirre, demanded the punishment of those bishops who dared to preach religious unity. For this "crime" the Bishop of Osma was exiled to the Canary Islands. The same Aguirre caused the Bishop of Barcelona to be exiled to Carthagena. It was in vain that the Holy See strove to compose matters. Appeals to the ancient piety of Spain, and to the well known virtue of the nation were alike unheeded. It was not the nation that ruled, but a clique who had gained control by force of arms, and it was this clique that sent back the appeals of the Holy Father with contempt and derision. The Cortes was filled with irreligious enemies of the Catholic name; it was these who set aside the concordat, from its first article to the last. It was these who forbade bishops to ordain priests, who forbade monasteries of nuns to receive new novices; and who converted to State use all chapels and religious schools. In the deliberations of the Cortes, on January 12, 1855, it was determined that the seminaries might no longer teach philosophy and theology, and that all ordinations of the clergy should be suspended. _PROTESTS FROM THE HOLY SEE._