Akron daily Democrat. [volume] (Akron, Ohio) 1892-1902, 1899-06-16

even comparatively free He looked on
the dazzling attainments of modern civil
lization among the people of Europe
and like the stab of a knife went
through him the thought of his own ig-
norant, despised, poverty stricken, SER
vile Tagalo people at home. He never
forgot or forgave it that his family had
been done out of their property by the
friars. Such thoughts as these brooded
ana simmered in his impressionable
soul till they forced for themselves an
outlet Rial uttered them in his IA
nous novel with the Latin title, ''Noli
Me Tangere" (''Touch Me Not'). 1t
was an undisguised attack on the friars
of the Philippines. He drew pictures Of
their lives and performances that were
unmistakable.
The book was published in Belgium
in 1856, but it quickly made its way
to the Philippines, where it made
tremendous sensation. AS to its literary
merit, reports are contradictory. One
side represents ii as work of dazzling
genius. A Jesuit father, on the other
hand, tells me it is coarse and COM
mon in its literary style, and of literary
style the scholarly padre is certainly
judge. At any rate, whatever the liter
ary style of his novel, it made his ma
tive land too hot to hold him when he
came back to Manila in 1887, and he
found it expedient to go to Hongkong
and stay not on the order of his going.
At Hongkong he organized the Philip
pine league to work against the religious
orders and for the independence of the
islands, an idea which by this time had
taken shape in his mind. In 1888 he
returned tc Europe and wrote his
second novel, 1.-The Filituster Sequel
to Noli Me Tangere AT the same
time he began writing history of the
Philippine Islands.
The fathers who were his former
teachers speak regretfully of this period
in Rizal's life. They cast the blame of
it all on his residence and travels in
Europe ''In Europe, one of the
padres told me, she associated with
Protestants and Lutherans and bad
people, and thus became unsettled in
his principles. l find in church rec
ord of him that the Freemasons are
blamed for filling his mind with indie
pendent and revolutionary sentiments
the writer thus at one clever stroke
giving a black eye to both Freemasonry
and republicanism.
At any rate, the poor Tagalos bowed
down to Rial living as to god and
worship the memory of him dead as
that of a blessed saint and martyr. He !
was of their own race and to them the
finest flower it ever had produced or
could produce. Indeed he was charac-
ter to call out the enthusiastic. admira
ton of even white man. Daring, |
gifted and generous, he had withal an
executive and organizing power that |
would have done credit to statesman
of Europe or America Night or day,
too, his services as physician or oculist |
were ready for the poor free of charge.
and he was ever as generous as if he
had been millionaire instead of
poor revolutionist earning his own liv
ing.
At length he ventured back to Ma |
Mia, never ceasing his revolt against /
corrupt government and boss rule. The
friars' ring on its part never ceased
either. and their object was
his downfall. They still remembered
''Noli Me Tangere. - Finally, in 1892,
they obtained a government decree
him from Manila to Dapitan,
in the island of Mindanao. He could
have escaped at any time and gone to
Europe or America and been alive and
today, but he refused to do
so. He remained as near Manila as pos
sible-working, planning still to free
his poor Tasalos
The unfortunate feature of the case
was, however. that the Tagalos exceed
ed his instructions and precipitated the
revolution before it was ripe. A secret
ieputation of natives from Manila Wis
tied him in his exile and told him of a
projected rising.
''Do not do it, he said. ''You are
not strong enough. Wait, wait till all
our brothers have been won over and
we have arms and force large enough
to annihilate our enemies at one blow"
They did not take this excellent advice,
however. But it is to be recorded and
remembered that Rial himself, the pa
-riot of the Philippines, opposed the in
Meanwhile the friars, ever alert, got
wind of the revolution, as they obtained
so much other information, through
.he confessional. A Tagalo woman told
;he story in confession to the curate of
rondo. The friars reused the Spanish
government authorities at Manila, and
he untimely movement had as its only
immediate result the putting to death
If Rial the idol of the natives and the
me wise counselor who had advised
against i. The friars and the govern