Well! our enemies are right! If this reactionary spirit signifies fidelity and love for the Catholic Church, self-renunciation for Christ's sake, earnest endeavor that no jot or tittle of His law be neglected; if it means that we have striven to produce in Portugal a body of active and fearless Catholics, who will not confine themselves to prayers, but will labor by word and deed to renew all things in Christ; that to this end we employ every means within our reach, the pulpit, the confessional, lectureships, the press, in order thus to promote the glory of God and salvation of souls--then in truth we are reactionaries, and guilty of the offense laid to our charge. Strange offense indeed, in a country where on every hand we hear our enemies proclaiming liberty of conscience, of speech, of the press! Strange offense of which to be accused by men who denounced the monarchy for suppressing freedom, while in the columns of their newspapers and the rhetoric of their meetings they were violently attacking authority and its representatives; an offense to be punished by those who were never weary of declaring that every man must be allowed to propagate and fight for his own ideas. Yet what else did we do? Were we ever known to enforce the agreement of others or to avenge ourselves for their disagreement by inflicting upon them what we have ourselves endured--arrest, imprisonment, confiscation, banishment? No, it cannot be said that such conduct was ever ours; it is peculiar to those false prophets of liberty who, instead of responding with reason and argument, seek to reduce us forcibly to silence, or to crush us with insult and declamation. * * * * * Transcriber's Notes: Punctuation and spelling errors repaired. P. xvi, "transcendental and the empiric" original reads "empyric." P. 6, "Abbe St. Cyran" original reads "Abbie." P. 85-86, original shows block quote as one continuing paragraph, not breaking for each article; retained. P. 116, "Pius VII. embarked" original reads "Pius VI. embarked." P. 148, "J. ARCHEVEQUE de CORINTHE," original reads "d CORINTHE." P. 269-270, No "Art. 4" in the original. P. 363 "three months relay" changed to "three months delay." Five cases of Buonaparte (p. vi, 106, 114[2], 120) changed to more frequent Bonaparte (50). P. 415, "Shipman, in his exposé" original reads "expose." P. 438, "obsolete legislation of Pombal" original reads "Pomal."