What is now in progress proves the truth of what I say. It is alleged that we Jesuits are the worst enemies of the republic, and must accordingly be treated with exceptional severity. This is a mere pretence. The society has nothing to do with Republican institutions as such. When absolute monarchies were the rule throughout the civilized world, the foremost Jesuit writers already taught, on grounds of philosophy and divinity, the fundamental principles of democracy, and at the present day none of our provinces are more prosperous or enjoy greater liberty than those established under republics; it will be sufficient to name that of the United States. There is, therefore, no such opposition as is pretended between Jesuits and republics. It will, however, be objected that in Portugal at least we are anti-republicans. But, in the first place, wherever it is situated, the society, like the Catholic Church, inculcates loyalty to whatever form of government is duly established. And Portugal was a monarchy. A still more powerful reason precluded our sympathy with the Republican movement in Portugal, namely, that the republic as exhibited in our national history was not the republic imagined by speculative sociologists. It is Republicans who make a republic, and who were these in Portugal? With few very rare exceptions they were the declared enemies of religion, either avowed unbelievers, or at best wholly indifferent to all beyond politics. Could we, without being false to our most cherished principles, affect sympathy with such a party? They themselves undertook to show by their actions that we were not wrong; just as the last government under the monarchy clearly showed by its action that we were not mistaken in its regard. I must, however, acknowledge that for all my dread of the revolutionary intolerance of these advocates of liberty, my simplicity was at fault, since I never dreamed of what we are witnessing today. _6. REACTIONARY INFLUENCE._ As it seems to me, I have replied to all the pretexts alleged to justify all the arbitrary tyranny, the spoliations and outrages against liberty of which my religious brethren and myself have been the victims. It remains only to speak of what is proclaimed as the final motive of the laws enacted against us, that our influence is reactionary.