2 February 1893

Manila

Manila, 2 February 1893

MR. JOSE RIZAL

Dapitan

MY MOST BELOVED IN CHRIST DON JOSE,

I received on time your very esteemed letter of the 9th January. I appreciate the gift that in honor of St. Paul you have deigned send me. The said image will continually remind me that I ought to pray to God for you through such a powerful mediator. Likewise I appreciate the undeserved confidence you place in me which I shall try to return with the same candour.

The shipwreck of faith has been really an act in you after suffering so many tempests on the turbulent sea of your agitated life. Not everything is lost however, for the life preserver of hope is still attached to your soul. Do not let it go, for it will lead you to the port of salvation. You have sucked on the lap of your mother, in your family, and at the Ateneo Municipal the pure doctrine of the true religion, an irrefragable witness being this present writer, and sooner or later you will have to return to the bosom of the Holy Mother the Catholic Church. Adolescense juxta viam suam etiam cum sennerit non recedet ad ea.

In the first place you affirm that more than by faith, by reasoning and by necessity you believe firmly in the existence of a Creator Being. This belief is the basis and beginning of every good philosophical doctrine and the first question required of God in Theology. Au sit? And I see that by the mercy of God, we agree on this basis of natural philosophy. Neither is it incompatible that we should have knowledge and faith at the same time from the same natural truth that we know through reason and revelation in the manner that we see distant objects with the eyes and the telescope and we see images directly or through the negative. We hear and we communicate with one another with the voice by direct hearing or by means of the telephone or the phonograph. We go to certain places by foot, by horse, or by carriage, or driven by steam or electricity. Knowledge, then, and faith are two knowledges of distinct order which can lead us to the acquisition of the same truth through different ways. Who is God? What is His name? You will pronounce it with respect if you call it ineffable. God is Being by himself. Ens a se; vel inconmutabilis substantia spiritualis, infinitia et se subsistens in actu simplicisimo. The names of God that we have are positive and negative, proper, improper, relative, univocal, ambiguous, and analogous, but all inadequate. Only the Eternal Father is named adequately and names his Son, comprehending or understanding himself adequately, engendering from the eternal that Holy Ghost and its adequate naming, inasmuch as with the Father and the Son it has to be equally and jointly adored and glorified. The person of the Father is distinct, that of the Son is distinct, that of the Holy Ghost is distinct but one in their divinity, essence, substance or nature of the three Persons. So that in the confession of the true or eternal Trinity, unity is adored in the essence, propriety in the Persons, equality in the Majesty. Only the Trinity can give to Itself an adequate name.

This is added by Theology, revelation, and faith to the idea that sane philosophy conceives of God. Dogma in this case, without resembling that bull of Anacreon, illuminates with the brightest splendor that source of this reason with the luster of this most transcendental truth. Without any boldness, in what has been said fits perfectly your concept of God, namely, that He is infinitely wise, powerful, good (however imperfect and confused your idea of the infinite may be) on seeing the wonders of His works, the order that reigns in them, their magnificence and overwhelming extent, and the kindliness that shines in everything. I understand that His thought humbles you and makes you giddy, and that as many times as your reason tries to raise itself towards that Being that created so many planetary systems, so many suns, so many clusters of worlds or nebulae, as many times it falls stunned, dazzled, and crushed. The same happens to me not only on contemplating so many worlds and planetary and astral systems but even before the presence of a single microbe. On seeing the life that shines in the thousands of millions of worlds so invisible on account of their smallness despite their proximity, how invisible are the thousands, perhaps millions, of systems, almost so overwhelming for their magnitude as well as for their distance, on seeing that every drop of water or blood or tiny bubble of air is a world replete with living beings with their own life and every being distinct from one another; on considering that God governs them all by the simplest laws with the greatest peace and repose with regard to their number, weight, and measure that perhaps the entire material combination of the world is governed by a unity of forces created and governed by the only principle or only constant motor in the most simple act that in essence is God, I cannot but exclaim enthusiastically, without fear of resembling the bull of Anacreon: Oh quam magnifica sunt opera tua Domine Deus virtutum! Coeli enarrant gloriam Dei et opera manuum ejus anuntiat firmamentum. Invisibilia enim ipsius (Dei) a creatura mundi, per ea quae facta sunt, intellect conspiciuntur, sempiterna quoque ejus virtus et divinitas. If I did not do it that way, I would make myself unpardonable, because knowing God, I had not glorified Him as such, at least in gratitude for the benefits He had bestowed on me through his creatures. However, for the things created form nature we can only know God, as one says, behind the back. When shall we see Him facie ad faciem sicuti est? [face to face as He is?]. For the present, philosophy ought to be contented to prove His existence a posteriori. It ought not to be silent for this reason, rather, full of admiration, it should exclaim with the great Linnaeus in his Systema Natura: Deum sempiternum, inmensum, omniscium, omnipotentem expergetactus a ergo transeuntem vidi et obstupui. Legi aliquod ejus vestigial per create rerum, in quibus omnibus, etiam in minimis ut fere nullis, qua vis! Quanta sapientia! Quam inextricabilis perfectio…….!

Let us remove our shoes like Moses before the burning and incombustible mysterious bramble. The place we are going to tread on is holy. Let us not approach then in order to scrutinize the secrets of nature without recognizing first the voice of the Creator that speaks to us through His creatures and without first adoring the majesty of God and give Him thanks for the benefits received.

We should not content ourselves, however, with studying God in His creatures and in the bosom of our conscience. Let us listen with irrevocable faith from the infallible lips of the Catholic Church to the voice of God, who spoke forthwith to man by means of Revelation.

And what? Is Revelation impossible perchance? He who has endowed man with the gift of the word to communicate with one another in society and in a thousand different languages, He alone will be deprived of communicating forthwith with men and shall need the material instrument of mute nature, like a trumpet, to do so? He who made the eyes shall not see? He who made the ears shall not hear? He who enriched us with the word shall not speak? God as the first cause, and ens a se possesses in a most simple, eminent, and independent manner all the virtues that beings inferior to Him possess as second causes. These receive their virtue to act from the first cause as they receive from it also their life. Therefore, if men can communicate with one another a fortiori God can do so in a manner even more perfect and forthwith.

And if He can, why will He not do it? Is it perchance because it is not advisable? And in what other way can the Will of God be better communicated to us so that we can fulfill it than through Revelation, entrusting its custody to a magistracy, endowed with an infallible authority, so that it may not be adulterated? Would He who has so wisely and paternally provided His creatures with everything necessary for this life, as you say, bury us among the fog of the most supine ignorance with regard to what is necessary for eternal life? Such a thing would not be feared from a God who is so good, wise, and powerful; on the contrary, granting that God has created us for so noble and supernatural purpose such as deserving Him in this life and enjoying Him in the other, it is but just that the means be proportional to the purposes and therefore supernatural.

But inasmuch as the acts done by free will, left to their own strength, would never be deserving of eternal life if they are not reinforced and elevated by the customary sanctifying grace, for not being proportional to the purpose, therefore, granting that God has destined us for a supernatural purpose, it is necessary that He let us know the supernatural means by which we can duly attain it and at the same time impart to us the supernatural strengths necessary to carry them out.

Here is proven the necessity of Revelation and the illuminating and impelling supernatural grace to attain eternal salvation. Does not this path seem to you my most beloved Mr. Jose, much better and more expeditious, clearer more logical, and safer than the one you follow when [you] say: “Permeated with this vague but irresistible Sentiment before the inconceivable, I leave the study of the superhuman, the infinite, to brighter minds; I listen in suspense to what other religions say, and incapable of judging what passes my strength, I content myself with studying it in His creatures, my brothers, and in the voice of my conscience that can only arise from Him. I try to read, to divine, His will in what is around me, and in the mysterious sentiment that speaks within me, whose purity I try to keep above all things. Many religions pretend to have that Will condensed and written in their books and dogmas; but apart from many contradictions, from varied interpretation of the words and many obscure and indefensible points, my conscience, my reason, cannot admit how He who has so wisely and paternally provided His creatures with everything necessary for this life, would bury what is necessary for eternal life in the fog of a language, unknown to the rest of the world, darkened by metaphors and deeds contrary to His own laws? He who makes His sun shine for everybody and the air to circulate everywhere so that it may refresh the blood, He who has given to all intelligence and reason to live this life, would He conceal from us the most necessary for eternal life? What would we say of a father who showers his children with tidbits and toys and only feeds one, educates him, and maintains him? And if it turned out afterwards that the chosen one refused the food while the others were dying in search of it?”

I assure you, my beloved friend Rizal, that this paragraph of yours that I have just transcribed leaves the soul stiff with cold and forsaken in the darkest of the darkness of an eternal night. All of it smells of systematic naturalism and it cannot satisfy anyone, you included; because as Job would say, Celat consilium absque scientia. Here you prejudge questions and you shut yourself up in a castle for not wishing to examine them; you leave the study of the superhuman to brighter minds and listen in suspense to what other religions say. (It would be enough for you to say the Catholic religion.) But, if you believe yourself incapable of judging what surpasses your strength, why do you judge in the following line that the voice of your conscience and at most the voice of men can only arise from God? And cannot the voice next to the same God arise also from God? It seems to me that I have already answered sufficiently before this extreme. You ought to join the voice of your conscience then and that of the creatures to the voice of God, revealed and entrusted for its faithful custody, to the Church, endowed with infallibility by Jesus Christ himself for its accurate interpretation. Neither are you required to judge what you do not understand and surpass your mental power but only to admit and to believe the truth and the existence of the mystery that the church proposes to you as credible and revealed. Inasmuch as even if you do not have intrinsic reasons of the mystery, God has them and reveals them and you have them — intrinsic or metaphysical reasons of which God cannot be deceived or deceive us — and therefore for believing the truth of the existence of the dogma, the authority of revealing God is enough to render the gift of the faith entirely reasonable. In order to know that God has revealed what the Church proposes to us as an article of faith, the extrinsic motives of credibility are sufficient that, like a touchstone, will serve you marvelously to judge whether or not what surpasses your mental power is admissible or inadmissible, is true or false, and this is with such strength of conviction that in order to break its certainty, it would be necessary to break likewise the essential attributes of God himself — his wisdom and his power. Do not be satisfied then, my dear Mr. Rizal, to study God only in the creatures your brothers and in the voice of your conscience that when it is righteous and true comes also from God. It is necessary besides that that conscience and that reason hear the voice of the Lord when he speaks to them through Revelation, legitimately recognized by the infallible teaching of the Catholic Church, established for this purpose by the same God. And what, was not the said Revelation perchance necessary in the world? Read, for God’s sake, the history of the past before the coming of Jesus Christ and you will see until what point mankind, left to its own forces, had reached. How all peoples that dispensed with Revelation fell into the abyss of idolatry, all notions of the most practical and transcendental truths of the natural order being obliterated from their minds; how natural law itself, with respect to morality, came to be obliterated almost completely, from the hearts of peoples, families, and individuals, the law that God had engraved in the consciences of men more deeply than marble.

And this does not assume a grand original fall of mankind, which increasing itself in the course of time, rushed headlong like an immense avalanche, a terrible avalanche, over countries and nations, leaving behind it dismal traces of desolation and moral ruin so indelible that human and natural force would not have been able to lift up mankind form its state of depression and prostration. Only God was powerful enough to rehabilitate fallen mankind and this was precisely what at the fullness of time Jesus Christ did. Therefore, Jesus Christ was God.

I shall not amuse myself here in providing to you the divinity of Jesus Christ for I have already clearly demonstrated it in my last letter.

How unfortunate mankind would have been had it relied on its own forces to read and divine by itself during the period of its idolatry and paganism the will of God. What would it be at this time except a grand temple of Venus and an immense Roman Circus?….Nor do I oppose, rather I urge you, to listen to the voice of your conscience purified of all error and wickedness. However, know at the same time that the sieve through which you ought to sift it cannot be any other than the doctrine and moral of Christ, interpreted according to the spirit of the Catholic Church, established and guaranteed by Jesus Christ on the indestructible rock of Peter and his successors.

“Simon, Simon”, he said to him in a certain occasion, promising infallibility to Peter and the Church confirmed by him, “ecce Satanas expetivit vos ut cribaret sicut triticum, ego autem rogabo pro te ut non deficiat fides tua, sed tu aliquando conversus confirma fratres tuos.”[1] This promise was fulfilled and realized ever since Jesus Christ said to him, “Pasce agnos meos, Pasce oves meas.”[2] Whom shall we believe, Christ or Strauss or Mahomet or Buddha, or Draper and Renan? Neither Renan nor Draper nor Strauss nor Buddha, nor Mahomet is the true God. And Christ, founder of the Catholic Church, is the true God. He is, therefore, the original model that we ought to follow and whose teachings we ought to practice. On reading in your previous letter the paragraph on the study of comparative religions, giving as an example a statue observed and copied from different points of view, a doubt assailed me that you might have imbibed the superficial and most pernicious doctrines of the unhappy and wicked Draper, for in the last chapter of his book on Conflicts he has a paragraph that is very similar to yours so that I quote it to enable you to appreciate the similarity. It says: “Objects that are presented under identical relations to different persons ought to be seen from the same point of view. In the case that we are now considering the religious man has his special station and the scientist another very distinct one; none of them can demand that his fellow observer admit that the panorama of facts unfolded before him should be the same as the one that appears before the eyes of the other.

“With such deeply separated points of view, it is impossible that religion and science can agree on the representation of things. Neither can any common conclusion be reached except when appeal is made to reason as the final and supreme judge.

“There are many religions in the world, some of venerable antiquity, others that have more followers than the Roman Catholic religion. How can a choice be made among them if one does not resort exclusively to reason? Religion and science ought to submit their pretensions and differences to its arbitration.”

True science and religion are not afraid to submit their verdict to reason when reason is illuminated by faith and both are subject to God, author of science and religion. However, by no means can they submit to the verdict of reason without faith, because it is an incompetent court; or to independent Godless reason, because it is not a legitimate court; or to the decision of free will when it abuses its right and wishes to dispense with or eliminate the value and efficacy of supernatural and divine grace, emancipating itself from the author of the very liberty that is the supreme authority of God from which its own is derived. It is well and good that the motives of credibility are studied and analyzed; however, we shall always hold that the conversation to God, as a supernatural act worthy of eternal life, just as it cannot be practiced without the free will of the subject neither can it ever by obtained with natural forces alone if these are not accompanied and embellished with the supernatural imparted by the grace of God, actual or habitual, illuminating for the intelligence and impelling to the will

You add that many religions pretend to have in their books and dogmas the will of God, condensed and written. Very well; but none of them has it really, except only the Catholic religion and I challenge you to cite me one single contradiction in its sacred books or in its tradition relative to faith and customs outside of which the various interpretations either are not essential or religion itself obstructs them, because they are not indispensable to eternal life unless directly or indirectly, mediately or immediately, they touch dogma and moral. For the obscure points there is hermeneutics with its rules; or will you cite me an indefensible point in religion matters, Omnis scriptura debet legi eo spiritu quo facta est?[3] Neither Revelation nor religion nor the sacred books have never pretended to give us lessons on astronomy, physics, or natural history nor arts and trades but only the knowledge of sanctity and salvation. As to the rest, in order to be intelligible, they conformed to the common way of speaking of the people of those times in which they wrote; as for example, even now we say, that the sun is in the middle of its course, to signify that we are at noon, etcetera.

And who has told you that God has buried the necessary for eternal life in the darkness of a language unknown to the rest of the world, obscured by metaphors and deeds contrary to His own laws? In what language, I ask, were the sacred books published but in the language of the countries of those who wrote them? And in what language did Jesus Christ and the apostles preach? Nonne ecce omnes isti qui loquuntur galilaei sunt?[4] said the pilgrims in Jerusalem. Et quomodo nos audivimus unusquisque linguam nostrum in qua nati sumus?[5]

Is it perhaps because Latin, Greek, and Hebrew were spoken then and not now? For the present, we know already and Saint Paul could confirm it, that the Gospel was preached in the whole known world then. Fides ex auditu, he said, auditus autem per verbum fidei; sed dico, numquid non audierunt. Et quidem, in omnem terram exibit sonus eorsum et in finis orbis tarrae verba eorum?[6] Such was the zeal of all the apostles, and even of the missionaries today, to make themselves everything to all in order to win all and therefore they use the language of the natives and they learn their language in order to save them. And by chance, according as languages and nations have been succeeding one after another, has not the Holy Gospel been preaching in all of them?

But, if you treat of the Bible, whenever it is necessary to have a general language to facilitate the universality of the cult, the sacred studies, and the unity of communion in the Church, there is the version of Saint Jerome that circulates in all hands as the Vulgata; nay, there is the version of Scio and Amat in Spanish, like that of many other approved authors in all the rest of the languages.

Neither is it necessary to know the Bible nor even all the dogmas of the Church in order to save one’s self. It is enough to believe explicitly in the most indispensable ones that are called of average necessity and at the most those necessary precepts. The remainder can be included in the general formula of believing all that the Mother church orders as dogma of faith, with which, and by practicing the law of charity imposed by Christ, heaven is gained. It is not therefore necessary for a Christian in order to attain eternal life to go deep into the haze of an unknown tongue, obscured by metaphors and deeds contrary to the very laws of the Creator.

And what can these metaphors and deeds contrary to the very laws of God be that man ought to know in order to be saved? A six-year old boy averagely studious, learns very well in school what he ought to know and practice in order to save himself without such metaphors or acts contrary to the very laws of the Creator. By chance the one decreed the law on cases foreseen and determined by Him and one who knows all the future acts as if they were present, even those which have to be performed by the free action of men, can He not foretell them before they occur? Where is the contradiction in the law there? It is enough for God to suspend his aid to the efficacy of the action of a creature for the latter to fail to produce its natural effect as the second cause in that case; and it is enough for Him to let operate the free causes in the circumstances that He has foreseen so that events may occur in conformity with His foresight. He who has so wisely and paternally provided His creatures with all that is necessary for this life, would He deny us the necessary means to attain eternal life? Of course not; and for this the Church says with Saint Peter: Deus vult omnes homines salvos fieri et ad ignitionem ceritatis venire;[7] and Isaiah adds: Nolo mortem impii sed magis ut convertatur et vivat;[8] and St. John: Sic Deus dilexit mundum ut filium suum unigentitum daret ad nostrum salutem[9] And the Church asserts of Jesus Christ in the Credo: Qui propter nos homines et propter nostrum salute descendit de coelis. And is already a proverb of the Church: Facienti quod est in se, deus non denegat gratiam.[10] And so much is this so that all the theologians, including St. Thomas, agree that any one [who] observes well natural law during his lifetime, will be given before his death by God our Lord the graces necessary to attain his eternal salvation, whether through a missionary who may instruct and prepare him or through an angel or direct Revelation; that is, He will do it considering the order of His actual providence. This answers your question: “What would we say of a father who showers his children with tidbits and toys but feeds, educated, and supports only one of them?” “And if it should turn out afterwards that the chosen one rejects the food while the other ones died looking for it?”

Do you know the story of the Prodigal Son? What a long time he was out of the paternal home? When he returned to it, how did his father receive him? God our Lord wants to save all and gives as we have seen the necessary means in order that they may attain their eternal salvation provided they do their part in obtaining it. If mankind, like the prodigal son, left that paternal home, Jesus Christ came in the fullness of time to bring it to the good way and as a good head of families he wished to receive it with open arms and did what he could to receive it from Calvary; and He is always ready to forgive the sinner so long as he comes before Him sincerely repentant of his sins. He is the Lord of the Land who receives his laborers at the first, third, sixth, ninth, and eleventh hour, that is, at any time of life that mortal man comes before Him to earn the wages of the other life; and He pays all that they deserve so that no one can reasonably allege injustice against Him. He is the King who orders His servants to seek in the plazas, the streets, and highways even the blind, lame, and cripple of this life in order to present them to the feast of His glory and share His eternal happiness provided they wear the decent wedding dress, that is, His sanctifying grace. If it is true that in order to enter heaven it is necessary to have entered first that pale of the Catholic Church and belong to the soul of the same, it is also true that the door of the Church is open to all and God wishes all to enter it and that the flock be under one Shepherd. However, not all those inside the Church by the mere fact of being there are saved; in order to be saved it is necessary to belong to the soul of that Church; that is, to enjoy the life that Christ himself infused in it. May the world die in the search for truth and the practice of it! God would not hesitate to communicate it even amply. The people who you call chosen, if it insisted in rejecting the spiritual food necessary for its eternal health, was in the end a wicked people. The choice of God remains exclusively sealed with the final perseverance.

The sacred books are something more than the minds of men and whole generations converted into pages and human knowledge of the past on which the future rests. They are also something more than pure condensation or formulae of natural laws and from them are enunciated the precepts of the positive divine law. Nor does the Catholic Church say that in that sense the said precepts and books are divinely revealed word by [which] in the concept that having been inspired forthwith by the Holy Ghost they recognize God as their author. In this sense there will never arise contradiction or any conflict between the natural and the supernatural and therefore I see no reason in religious matters to favor the truth that is more in conformity with natural laws. You will find contradiction in the foolish pride of the infatuated rationalists.

A while ago I have told you that every writing ought to be read with the same spirit with which it has been written, and the Bible, was it not written in order to get from it the true benefit in the practice of the virtues and in the business of our eternal salvation? Nor is nature the divine book that serves us as the code or ordinances of good government for our salvation but only one of the pages that serves as its prologue, preface, or introduction. Much more is necessary, I believe of course, for our eternal salvation than this clear, not the only one, perennial, living manifestation that we have here of the Creator, powerful and victorious over our blunders and errors in the natural order, I concede with absolute possibility; with the moral order, I distinguish; in all, I deny, in some I concede; incorruptible if you wish, and cannot be falsified, speaking objectively in spite of human caprice, constant, immutable in its laws in all regions and times in accordance with the will of the Legislator. I ask: And is not the Redeemer Lawgiver and are there are no established laws so that man may fulfill his duties in the supernatural order which are so clear, definite, and immutable as in the natural order?

It is morally impossible that entire mankind can be united in one sole religion, fulfilling its duties in the natural order in assured and universal ways, without the grace of God supernatural. The experience of all the centuries proves to us this truth.

Weak human mind would crack up, like Sirius or Aldebaran, by giving it a supernatural object superior to its strength, if it were not prepared in advance, elevated, fortified, and strengthened by supernatural grace, just as a clay vase would leak if it were not previously well cooked according to its temper by the action of condensing fire. Today, engines of multiple expansion are generally used in steam-boilers. In our case God strengthens the soul with an engine of supernatural expansion.

In the light of philosophy and reason you will find at most the finality of things and causes in the natural order. If you will try to follow its command without going farther, your mind will remain in the dark and your heart empty to desire the supernatural and eternal purpose that God intended when he placed us in this world. To the eagerness to know, innate in man and fostered by the objective and subjective world, one must add another eagerness, instilled by God, to know our ultimate, supernatural end, to wish it, and apply the means conductive to its attainment.

You see poverty as a penalty of ignorance. I discover likewise criminals who are rewarded in the world, the rich, proud, and powerful, the fools and the wicked often taking the reins of government of a nation and at their pleasure dispose unjustly of life and property. You deduce that well-being is a prize of knowledge, but I see on the other hand many learned men submerged in poverty and the object of persecution by ignorant men in power. You draw from your reflections that the Author of man wishes man’s natural perfection through a pile of knowledge, but I infer that besides the natural perfection of man acquired through the pile of knowledge and natural virtues through divine grace, God also assumes the supernatural perfection of the same man through a pile of revealed knowledge and solid and perfect supernatural virtues, suitable to the status of everyone during his lifetime. From the mysterious sentiment of sympathy, its dynamism and evolution, you pick the impulse that orders us to love one another and in this sense you accept as divine word the religious mandate to love one’s fellowmen as one’s self. However, reading in my heart this same inscription engraved by God as law and finding it confirmed on the tablets of the Decalogue and publically claimed by Jesus Christ as his own precept: Hoc est praeceptum meum ut diligatis in vicem sicut dilexi vos,[11] I take counsel with God’s opinion that natural law and positive and revealed divine law go in harmony and I am doubly convinced that I can follow the second faithfully without contradicting the first.

Seeing how the abuse of liberty adulterates and destroys the principle of life, when this could subsist by itself if it were limited to life, or if it were inscribed within the sphere of its attributes respecting mutual duties and correlative rights, I am convinced that for the common good of society it is necessary to restrain it, requiring individuals to be responsible for their acts through legislative, administrative, coercive, judicial, and executive authority. Consequently I am inclined to the preventive and repressive system. Seeing that through the unconstrained and unrepressed license of men oftentimes the law of the strongest and the majority rules instead of reason and justice and therefore the right of the weakest is left behind without any protection or support of the strongest and ambition for honors and riches together with independence and pride enlarges more and more everyday their horizons, enthroning the spirit of egoism in society and eliminating from it the spirit of sacrifice, I deduce the anti-Christian society with its apotheosis of the I is purely a nominal and agonizing society.

Force ought always to be consecrated to the service of justice and be based upon it, otherwise, however powerful nations may be, they will be overthrown quickly like the statue of Nebuchadnezzar. On account of this, empires fall flat to the ground because force is separated from justice. Then there shall be peace on earth when justice joined to force makes truth triumph, and justice is tempered with mercy. However, this can only be attained with the social reign of Jesus Christ, his precepts reigning in the legislation of states and the spirit of the Catholic religion vivifying their codes. Only with Jesus Christ are man and society perfected. He is the beginning and the end, the alpha and the omega of true civilization. In quo habemus redemptionem per sanguinem ejus, remissionem peccatorum, secundum divinitas gratiaw ejus quae superabundavit in nobis, in omni sapientia et prudential: ut notum faceret nobis, sacramentum voluntatis suae, secundum beneplacitum ejus, quod proposuit in eo, in dispensation plenitudinis temporum, instaure omnia in Christo, quoe in soelis, et quoe in terra sunt, in ipso.[12]

Per ipsum et cum ipso et in ipso soli Deo honor et gloria. Amen.[13] This is the idea of redemption that you ought to have through the Incarnate Word, Our Lord Jesus Christ, and of the transcendence of this ineffable mystery. God willing, I shall expand on this matter on another occasion.

See to it that your maxims and habits are irreproachable before the Divine Majesty who is offended by the madness and ravings of his children whom he has endowed with liberty, making them for that mere fact responsible for their acts: Nonne si bene egeris, recipies: sin autem male, statim in foribus peccatum aderit?[14]

Concerning those who are intending to settle in Duhinob, it is necessary that you inform me about the number of families that desire to till new lands there; and as soon as your plan becomes a reality, we shall ask for their exemption from personal services for five years.

I would be very glad if you would finally decide to live forever in the district of Dapitan. God grant it. Believe me [to be] ever your affectionate friend in Jesus’ heart.

PABLO PASTELLS, S. J.

01-775 [Family]