other people did; but that to inaugurate a system of
persecution would be to return to the Dark Ages, and to follow the bad
example set by the Church itself in former years.

Meanwhile, a clear intimation had been given by the Government that
public instruction was absolutely free, and that no interference would
be allowed with the teaching of science in the public schools. After
all, public opinion alone can deal with the question of the confessional
and the occult influence of the priest, for the remedy lies in the hands
of those who place themselves under the domination of the confessor.

So far, well! The riots were at an end, and the more sensible and
law-abiding people were satisfied that the ground stealthily gained by
the Jesuits had been cut from under their feet as soon as the full light
of day had been let in on their proceedings. Then came the extraordinary
excitement caused by Galdos's play. To a stranger reading it, it is
obvious that the public mind must have been in a strange condition of
alarm and distrust to have had such an effect produced upon it by a
drama which has no great literary worth, and which appears commonplace
and harmless to an outsider. The story is simply that of a young orphan
girl, who, according to Spanish ideas, is extremely unconventional,
though nothing worse. There is nothing of the emancipated young woman
about her as the type is known in England; in fact, she has a perfect
genius for those domestic virtues which "advanced" English women regard
with disdain. The villain of the piece, is a certain Don Salvador, who,
though the fact is never mentioned, is obviously a Jesuit, and the
interest of the play consists in the efforts made by this man, first by
fair means and then by foul, to separate Electra from her _fiance_, and
immure her in a convent. He succeeds, to all appearance, by at last
resorting to an infamous lie, which reduces the girl to a state of
insanity, in which she flies to the convent from the lover whom she has
been led to believe is her own brother. Finally, by the action of a nun
who leaves the convent at the same time as Electra, the truth is made
known, and the girl is rescued.

"You fly from me, then?" exclaims Don Salvador.

"It is not flight, it is resurrection!" replies the lover, in the last
words of the play.

This drama ran an unprecedented number of nights in Madrid, over fifteen
thousand copies of the book were sold in a few weeks, and it is still