w names are
spoken under the arches that once heard only those of Saint Thomas,
Suarez, Amat, and the other idols of my day. In vain the monks cry
from the chair against the demoralization of the times; in vain the
convents extend their ramifications to strangle the new ideas. The
roots of a tree may influence the parasites growing on it, but they
are powerless against the bird, which, from the branches, mounts
triumphant toward the sky!"

The old man spoke with animation, and his eye shone.

"And yet the new germ is very feeble," said the lieutenant. "If they
all set about it, the progress already so dearly paid for may yet
be choked."

"Choke it? Who? The weak dwarf, man, to choke progress, the powerful
child of time and energy? When has he done that? He has tried dogma,
the scaffold, and the stake, but E pur si muove is the device of
progress. Wills are thwarted, individuals sacrificed. What does
that mean to progress? She goes her way, and the blood of those who
fall enriches the soil whence spring her new shoots. The Dominicans
themselves do not escape this law, and they are beginning to imitate
the Jesuits, their irreconcilable enemies."

"Do you hold that the Jesuits move with progress?" asked the astonished
Don Filipo. "Then why are they so attacked in Europe?"

"I reply as did once an ecclesiastic of old," said the philosopher,
laying his head back on the pillow and putting on his mocking air,
"that there are three ways of moving with progress: ahead, beside,
behind; the first guide, the second follow, the third are dragged. The
Jesuits are of these last. At present, in the Philippines, we are
about three centuries behind the van of the general movement. The
Jesuits, who in Europe are the reaction, viewed from here represent
progress. For instance, the Philippines owe to them the introduction
of the natural sciences, the soul of the nineteenth century. As for
ourselves, at this moment we are entering a period of strife: strife
between the past which grapples to itself the tumbling feudal castle,
and the future whose song may be heard afar off, bringing us from
distant lands the tidings of good news."

The old man stopped, but seeing the expression of Don Filipo he smiled
and went on.

"I can almost divine what you are thinking."

"Can you?"

"You are thinking that I may easily be wrong; to-day I have the fever,
and I am never infallible. But it is permitted us to dream. Why not
make the dreams agre