Add to the apathy of the masses dragging out their vacant lives amid the shadows of religious superstition and to the unrest of the few, the fact that the orders were in absolute control of the political machinery of the country, with the best part of the agrarian wealth amortized in their hands; add also the ever-present jealousies, petty feuds, and racial hatreds, for which Manila and the Philippines, with their medley of creeds and races, offer such a fertile field, all fostered by the governing class for the maintenance of the old Machiavelian principle of "divide and rule," and the sum is about the most miserable condition under which any portion of mankind ever tried to fulfill nature's inexorable laws of growth.
And third came she who gives dark creeds their power, Silabbat-paramasa, sorceress, Draped fair in many lands as lowly Faith, But ever juggling souls with rites and prayers; The keeper of those keys which lock up Hells And open Heavens. "Wilt thou dare," she said, "Put by our sacred books, dethrone our gods, Unpeople all the temples, shaking down That law which feeds the priests and props the realm?" But Buddha answered, "What thou bidd'st me keep Is form which passes, but the free Truth stands; Get thee unto thy darkness."
"Ah, simple people, how little do you know the blessing that you enjoy! Neither hunger, nor nakedness, nor inclemency of the weather troubles you. With the payment of seven reals per year, you remain free of contributions. You do not have to close your houses with bolts. You do not fear that the district troopers will come in to lay waste your fields, and trample you under foot at your own firesides. You call 'father' the one who is in command over you. Perhaps there will come a time when you will be more civilized, and you will break out in revolution; and you will wake terrified, at the tumult of the riots, and will see blood flowing through these quiet fields, and gallows and guillotines erected in these squares, which never yet have seen an execution." [6] Thus moralized a Spanish traveler in 1842, just as that _dolce far niente_ was drawing to its close. Already far-seeing men had begun to raise in the Spanish parliament the question of the future of the Philippines, looking toward some definite program for their care under modern conditions and for the adjustment of their relations with the mother country. But these were mere Cassandra-voices--the horologe of time was striking for Rome's successor, as it did for Rome herself.