al, after advancing all known arguments,
was completely vanquished. His marriage was made contingent upon his
signing a retraction of his published heresies.

The Archbishop had prepared a form which the Jesuits believed
Rizal would be little likely to sign, and they secured permission
to substitute a shorter one of their own which included only the
absolute essentials for reconciliation with the Church, and avoided all
political references. They say that Rizal objected only to a disavowal
of Freemasonry, stating that in England, where he held his membership,
the Masonic institution was not hostile to the Church. After some
argument, he waived this point and wrote out, at a Jesuit's dictation,
the needed retraction, adding some words to strengthen it in parts,
indicating his Catholic education and that the act was of his own
free will and accord.

The prisoner, the priests, and all the Spanish officials present knelt
at the altar, at Rizal's suggestion, while he read his retraction
aloud. Afterwards he put on a blue scapular, kissed the image of
the Sacred Heart he had carved years before, heard mass as when
a student in the Ateneo, took communion, and read his a-Kempis or
prayed in the intervals. He took breakfast with the Spanish officers,
who now regarded him very differently. At six Josefina entered and
was married to him by Father Balanguer.

Now in this narrative there are some apparent discrepancies. Mention is
made of Rizal having in an access of devotion signed in a devotionary
all the acts of faith, and it is said that this book was given to one
of his sisters. His chapel gifts to his family have been examined,
but though there is a book of devotion, "The Anchor of Faith," it
contains no other signature than the presentation on a flyleaf. As
to the religious controversy: while in Dapitan Rizal carried on with
Father Pio Pi, the Jesuit superior, a lengthy discussion involving the
interchange of many letters, but he succeeded in fairly maintaining
his views, and these views would hardly have caused him to be called
Protestant in the Roman Catholic churches of America. Then the
theatrical reading aloud of his retraction before the altar does not
conform to Rizal's known character. As to the anti-Masonic arguments,
these appear to be from a work by Monsignor Dupanloup and therefore
were not new to Rizal; furthermore, the book was in his own library.

Again, it seems strange that Rizal should have asserted that