As year by
year she saw the ruin of the Missions steadily going on, their vast
properties melting away, like dew before the sun, in the hands of
dishonest administrators and politicians, the Church powerless to
contend with the unprincipled greed in high places, her beloved
Franciscan Fathers driven from the country or dying of starvation
at their posts, she submitted herself to what, she was forced to
admit, seemed to be the inscrutable will of God for the discipline
and humiliation of the Church. In a sort of bewildered resignation
she waited to see what further sufferings were to come, to fill up
the measure of the punishment which, for some mysterious
purpose, the faithful must endure. But when close upon all this
discomfiture and humiliation of her Church followed the
discomfiture and humiliation of her country in war, and the near
and evident danger of an English-speaking people's possessing the
land, all the smothered fire of the Senora's nature broke out afresh.
With unfaltering hands she buckled on her husband's sword, and
with dry eyes saw him go forth to fight.
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