Includes bibliography.

Indeed the 19th century brought a hundred years of simultaneous great awakenings and great nightmares, of minds that soared and hearts that mourned. It was Rizal's century. He exemplified it's essence. Although he inspired the founding of the Katipunan, he refused to give his blessings to the revolution they planned to carry out, believing Filipinos were not ready to claim freedom from Spain by force. Like their islands of their archipelago, they were physically and psychically scattered and pathetically short of arms and military training. Just the same, without proof of the charges against him, he was sentenced to pay with his life for defying Spain, a blessing in disguise. In death his spirit soared in exultation, rallying Filipinos toward freedom and, within about a hundred years hence, into the wide road of progress his last prophetic message to his people. As Charles Dickens had written in A Tale of Two Cities : " It was the best of times. It was the worst of times.''