Obregon, Bernard, the founder of the Spanish order of Minorite hospital brethren, was born at Las Iluelgas, near Burgos, 'May 20, 1540. He was at first a soldier, but having been converted, he devoted him-
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self to the care of the poor in the court hospital of Madrid. He soon found followers, and formed a con- gre^cation, which was approved by Decio Caraffa, nuncio to Spain in ]5t)9. Several cities demanded members of the new order for their hospitals, and in 1587 they were intrusted with the administration of the general hospital of Madrid. Two years later cardinal Caspar Quiroga, archbishop of Toledo, received their solemn vows, and subjected them to the rules and habit of the third order of St. Francis. See Minorites. In 1592 Obregon went to Lisbon, where he reformed the nu- merous abuses existing in the administration of the hospitals of that city, and drew up a set of rules for the guidance of his congregation, which was linally com- pleted in 159i. Upon his return to Madrid he nursed king Philip II through his last illness, in Sept., 1598, and afterwards resumed the directorship of the general hospital. He died at Madrid August 6, 1599. Obregon wrote Instruccion de enfermos, y verdadera praciica como se hace de aplicar los remedios que enseiian Ids medicos (Madrid, 1(507, 8vo). The Spaniards call the members of the order Obrer/ons. See Herrera Maldo- iiado, Vita de Bernardino de Obregon ; Dom de Guber- iiatis, Orbis seraphicus, vol. ii ; Helyot, Hist, des ordres vionastiques, vii, 321-326. — Hoefer, Kuuv. Biog, Gene- rale, xxxviii, 40G. (.J. X. P.)
Obregon, Pedro de, a Spanish painter, was born at Madrid, according to Bennudez, in 1597. He studied under Vincenzio Carducci, and gained a high reputation in historical painting, especially in works of an easel size. Palomino commends a large picture by him, rep- resenting the Trinity, in the refectory of the convent de la Merced, and another of the Immaculate Conception in the church of Santa Cruz. There are some of his easel pictures in the collection at Madrid, where they are highly esteemed. Bennudez says Obregon was also an excellent engraver. He had two sons, Diego and Mar- cos, whom he instructed in the art. He died in 1659. There was another Pedro de Obregon, who v.'as a mini- aturist, and illuminated books of devotion ; he flour- ished about 1564. See Spooner, Biog. Hist, of the Fine Arts. ii. 624.
O'Brien, James Tiiojias. D.D., a noted Irish prel- ate, was born in Ireland in 1792, and was educated at Trinitj' College, Dublin. He took holy orders immedi- ately after graduation, and soon rose to the first ap- pointments in the Church. In 1842 he Avas made bishop of Ossory. At the time of his death, which occurred January 9, 1875, he was the senior bishop of the Irish Episcopal Church. He is noted as the author of a work on ./iistijication by Faith only (ten sermons, Lond. 1833, 8vo), which is " one of the best expositions of the car- dinal article of the Reformed Church extant" (Lowndes, Brit. Lib. p. 763). He also published several minor works, among them one entitled .4 Charge (1843, 8vo, and often since).
Obscene Prints, Books, or Pictures, so ex- hibited in public as to damage the general morality, are not oidy to be preached and prayed against, but also legislated against; and it is the duty of the Chris- tian public to see that the laws now on the statutes be faithfully executed and strengthened, to prevent the demoralization of the masses from this source. In Great Britain the laws are very strict; in the United States they might be greatly improved. In recent years a Mr. Comstock, of New York, has given much time to the suppression of the nefarious traffic in obscene publi- cations of all kinds, and has rendered great service to the general American public.
Obscurantists (Lat. obscurare. " to darken, ob- scure") is the term originally ap|)lied in derision to a party who are supposed to look with dislike and appre- Iiension on the progress of knowledge, and to regard its general diffusion among men, taken as they are ordi- narily found, as prejudicial to their religious welfare, and possibly injurious to their material interests. Of those
who avow such a doctrine, and have written to explain and defend it, it is only just to say that they profess earnestly to desire the progress of all true knowledge as a thing good in itself: but the\' regard the attempt to diffuse it among men, indiscriminately, as perilous and often hurtful, by producing presumption and dis- content. They profess but to reduce to practice the motto,
"A little learning is a dangerous thing."
It cannot be doubted, however, that there are fanatics of ignorance as well as fanatics of science. There are religious, political, scientific, and artistic obscurantists. In the Reformation period the Humanists (q. v.) called those zealots who opposed all innovation Obscurantists.