and depicted him in the most affectionate terms in the Paris Press. Both honoured his conviction that the money bequeathed to him was a trust for humanity, and should be spent in public work, not on them. Trinidad, in the fine spirit of her father's wish, even refuses the help now willingly offered her, and supports herself by her own labour.
Mme. Ferrer went to Russia. There she joined the Orthodox Church, obtained a divorce, and remarried. For Ferrer himself no divorce was possible. In spite of the general immorality, the clergy of Spain cling to the antiquated ideal, and bitterly oppose a law of divorce. When, therefore, Ferrer found among his teachers at Barcelona a woman of great charm and helpfulness, a true and sustaining companion in his arduous struggle, he was not at liberty to contract legal marriage with her. It is one of those very exceptional cases that need only to be known in their true features. We have known such in high circles in England, and understood. But for the Spanish clergy, with their own body deeply infected with immorality, with their genial toleration of the most flagrant laxity in their most religious centres, to make a crime or a vice of this act of Ferrer's is one of those pieces of insolence which one can only brush aside. To his real wife, Soledad Villafranca, and to his daughters, Ferrer was very sweet, affectionate, and generous. The world knows how bitterly they have mourned their loss.
I have anticipated the virtual marriage of his later years, since it must be understood in the light of his experience at Paris. Now I must take up the thread of the story, and describe those features of the Spanish Church and the Spanish system of Government which alone explain the ferocity with which his death was designed and accomplished. It is true that his educational work undermined the authority of Church and State. But what a Church and what a State!
