behind the veil of the temple.

In January, 1872, an uprising occurred in the naval arsenal at Cavite,
with a Spanish non-commissioned officer as one of the leaders. From
the meager evidence now obtainable, this would seem to have been
purely a local mutiny over the service questions of pay and treatment,
but in it the friars saw their opportunity. It was blazoned forth,
with all the wild panic that was to characterize the actions of the
governing powers from that time on, as the premature outbreak of
a general insurrection under the leadership of the native clergy,
and rigorous repressive measures were demanded. Three native
priests, notable for their popularity among their own people, one an
octogenarian and the other two young canons of the Manila Cathedral,
were summarily garroted, along with the renegade Spanish officer who
had participated in the mutiny. No record of any trial of these priests
has ever been brought to light. The Archbishop, himself a secular[5]
clergyman, stoutly refused to degrade them from their holy office,
and they wore their sacerdotal robes at the execution, which was
conducted in a hurried, fearful manner. At the same time a number
of young Manilans who had taken conspicuous part in the "liberal"
demonstrations were deported to the Ladrone Islands or to remote
islands of the Philippine group itself.

This was the beginning of the end. Yet there immediately followed
the delusive calm which ever precedes the fatal outburst, lulling
those marked for destruction to a delusive security. The two decades
following were years of quiet, unobtrusive growth, during which
the Philippine Islands made the greatest economic progress in their
history. But this in itself was preparing the final catastrophe, for
if there be any fact well established in human experience it is that