El Filibusterismo
EXCERPTS FROM EL FILIBUSTERISMO
Into the midst of the silence the priest's voice broke sad and deliberate, but consoling: "God will forgive you, Señor--Simoun, " he said. "He knows that we are fallible, He has seen that you have suffered, and in ordaining that the chastisement for your faults should come as death from the very ones you have instigated to crime, we can see His infinite mercy. He has frustrated your plans one by one, the best conceived, first by the death of Maria Clara, then by a lack of preparation, then in some mysterious way. Let us bow to His will and render Him thanks!"
"According to you, then," feebly responded the sick man, "His will is that these islands--"
"Should continue in the condition in which they suffer?" finished the priest, seeing that the other hesitated. "I don't know, sir, I can't read the thought of the Inscrutable. I know that He has not abandoned those peoples who in their supreme moments have trusted in Him and made Him the Judge of their cause, I know that His arm has never failed when, justice long trampled upon and every recourse gone, the oppressed have taken up the sword to fight for home and wife and children, for their inalienable rights, which, as the German poet says, shine ever there above, unextinguished and inextinguishable, like the eternal stars themselves. No, God is justice, He cannot abandon His cause, the cause of liberty, without which no justice is possible."
"Why then has He denied me His aid?" asked the sick man in a voice charged with bitter complaint.
"Because you chose means that He could not sanction," was the severe reply. "The glory of saving a country is not for him who has contributed to its ruin. You have believed that what crime and iniquity have defiled and deformed, another crime and another iniquity can purify and redeem. Wrong! Hate never produces anything but monsters and crime criminals! Love alone realizes wonderful works, virtue alone can save! No, if our country has
Into the midst of the silence the priest's voice broke sad and deliberate, but consoling: "God will forgive you, Señor--Simoun, " he said. "He knows that we are fallible, He has seen that you have suffered, and in ordaining that the chastisement for your faults should come as death from the very ones you have instigated to crime, we can see His infinite mercy. He has frustrated your plans one by one, the best conceived, first by the death of Maria Clara, then by a lack of preparation, then in some mysterious way. Let us bow to His will and render Him thanks!"
"According to you, then," feebly responded the sick man, "His will is that these islands--"
"Should continue in the condition in which they suffer?" finished the priest, seeing that the other hesitated. "I don't know, sir, I can't read the thought of the Inscrutable. I know that He has not abandoned those peoples who in their supreme moments have trusted in Him and made Him the Judge of their cause, I know that His arm has never failed when, justice long trampled upon and every recourse gone, the oppressed have taken up the sword to fight for home and wife and children, for their inalienable rights, which, as the German poet says, shine ever there above, unextinguished and inextinguishable, like the eternal stars themselves. No, God is justice, He cannot abandon His cause, the cause of liberty, without which no justice is possible."
"Why then has He denied me His aid?" asked the sick man in a voice charged with bitter complaint.
"Because you chose means that He could not sanction," was the severe reply. "The glory of saving a country is not for him who has contributed to its ruin. You have believed that what crime and iniquity have defiled and deformed, another crime and another iniquity can purify and redeem. Wrong! Hate never produces anything but monsters and crime criminals! Love alone realizes wonderful works, virtue alone can save! No, if our country has