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552999


ETOF A 'VISITATION OF
PHILIPPINE MISSION




OF THE BOARD OF FOREIGN MISSIONS
oV: THE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH IN THE
U-NITFI) STATES OF -AMERICA
BY THE  


IREV. ARTHUR J. BROWN,


D. D., SECRETARY


PRILNTED FOk TH'~
USE OF THE BOARD)
AND THE MISSIONS


The BOARD OF FOREIGN MISSIONS
OF THE PRESBYT.iERIAN CHURCH
IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
i 56 FIFTH AVENUE,, NEW YORK
1 90 2


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335o
REPORT ON THE PHILIPPINE MISSION
BY:a
THE REV. ARTHUR J. BROWN, D. D., Secretary
We are at the end of a victorious war, but at the beginning of the
momentous problems to which it has given rise. It is therefore not.a time for national glorification or for appeals to greed or passion, but
for thoughtful, solemn consideration of our duty. By no scheming of
our own, and in ways very strange to us, we have been forced into governmental relations with eight millions of people on the other side of the
planet. Some of them are partially civilized; many are wholly primitive,
and nearly all are heathen with a thin veneer of Romanism of the medisevalSpanish type. They are variously judged. As in China, much depends
upon the point of view. Many soldiers, having come to the Philippines
with a military man's natural ambition to see the active service which
will give the coveted opportunity for fame and promotion, see in the
Filipino only an enemy. They chafe under the transfer from the absolute military supremacy, which they enjoyed prior to July fourth, to
the present subordination to civil power. The guerrilla warfare which
is still being waged in various parts of the Islands, notably in Cebu and
Samar, has resulted in some massacres of our troops so treacherously
atrocious that the typical soldier is apt to imagine that every Filipino
carries a concealed bolo which he would use if he dared, and that the
wisest course would be to give the Army a free hand until the natives
have learned a wholesome lesson. One of the Manila papers gives editorial expression to this view as follows: "Do not let the people of the
United States be deceived as to the true condition of these Islands.
No American government not backed by bayonets can live here a month.
Withdraw the troops and the Civil Governor and the Civil Commission
would be swept into the sea. It will be necessary for Congress to make
an appropriation looking to the maintenance, transporting and re-equipping of at least fifty thousand troops on these Islands indefinitely. Honesty to the American tax-payers demands that these facts should be
frankly, even bluntly, stated."
317883




The Spaniards, however, tried this policy for three hundred years,
and the results can hardly be considered satisfactory. The more natives
they shot on the Lunetta, the more active and numerous the revolutionists became, till Spanish rule was virtually confined to the garrison towns.
Another point of view is that which was illustrated by some of the
members of Congress who recently visited the Philippines. It is common among travellers and globe-trotters. It judges the Filipinos by
the standards created by centuries of American and European Christian
civilization, and condemns them out of hand because they fall short.
*,*ut let us be reasonable. How can we expect the Filipinos to imme* ' itely trust and love a foreign conqueror after their long and grievous
'bondage to cruel Spaniards, to be humane and honest under the example
of Castilian brutality and duplicity, to be moral when the children of
their alleged celibate priests play upon the street, to be industrious in
a land where tropical exuberance easily supplies man's need, where
climatic conditions tend to languorous existence, and where the results
of thrift, if achieved, would be filched by unscrupulous oppressors?
The more I learn of what these people have suffered, the greater is my
wonder, not that they are not better, but that they are not worse.
They impressed me as naturally intelligent and kindly. Among the
delightful memories of my life are receptions in Dumaguete and Manila,
where hundreds of well-dressed, pleasant-faced Filipinos bade us welcome
with a grace which suggested a far remove from barbarism. Give these
people a chance-some decades of fair treatment, of just laws, of American
political and educational methods, and of a pure, Protestant faith-and
I believe that they will justify the hopes of their well-wishers rather
than the sneers of their detractors. Said Senor Felipe Buencamino to
me: "The heart of the Filipino is like his fertile soil, and it will as surely
repay cultivation. Sow love and you will reap love. Sow hate and
hatred will grow." Said our lamented martyr President: "The Filipinos are a race quick to learn and to profit by knowledge. He would
be rash who, with the teachings of contemporaneous history in view,
would fix a limit to the degree of culture and advancement yet within
the reach of these people if our duty toward them be faithfully performed."
They are not inherently degraded or vicious people. For uncounted
centuries, their women have been creatures of men, and if they easily
yield to the soldier and the priest, it is not so much because of a lascivious disposition as because they have never been taught to have a conscience on the subject or to feel that it was possible for them to resist
anything a man might desire. Their Church, which should have inculcated loftier standards, put a premium upon concubinage by refusing
to perform the marriage ceremony except for exorbitant fees. I heard
of one case where the priest extorted $200 Mexican from a family in only
moderate circumstances. Nor was this an exceptional case. In such
circumstances, it is not surprising that many couples, who, in other conditions, would have been married, lived together without wedlock,
especially as their religious leaders openly did the same thing.
In his remarkable book on "Social Evolution," Benjamin Kidd
reminds us that "the social development which is called Western civil2




ization, is not the product of any particular race of people; that it must
be regarded as an organic growth, the key to the life history of which is
to be found in the study of the ethical movement which extends through
it. If we look at the matter in this light, and then call to mind what
the histories of the nations and races embraced within the life of this
organic development have been; if we reflect how deeply these peoples
have been affected at every point by the movement in question; how
profoundly their laws, institutions, mental and moral training, ways of
judging conduct, and habits of thought have been influenced for an
immense number of generations in the course of the development through
which they have passed, we shall at once realize that it would be irrational and foolish to expect that any individuals, or classes, or all the
individuals of a single generation, should have the power to free themselves from this influence. We are, all of us, whatever our individual
opinions may be concerning this movement, unconsciously influenced by
it at every point of our careers, and in every moment of our lives. We,
like our times, are mentally and morally the product of it; we simply
have no power to help ourselves. No training, however religious and
prolonged, no intellectual effort, however consistent and concentrated,
could ever entirely emancipate us from its influence. In the life of the
individual, the influence of habit of thought or training once acquired
can be escaped from only with the greatest difficulty, and after the lapse
of a long interval of time."
The unwillingness of the Filipino to work is a serious problem in
the development of the Islands. Rich soil, perpetual summer, and
simple wants are not conducive to hard labor. Little toil is necessary
in a land where bananas, cocoanuts, and hemp grow spontaneously,
and where sugar cane, once fairly started, thrives so vigorously that
weeds cannot compete with it. A few hours' work with a bolo will construct a hut of bamboo, and the leaves of the abundant nipa palm will
thatch it. Clothing is an equally simple matter in that soft climate.
I repeatedly saw men and children of the lower classes with only a loin
cloth, and the latter often arrayed only in the atmosphere, while the
women drape themselves tastefully in a pretty homemade cloth of cocoanut fibre. In the cities, however, men in neat white suits and women
in silk are common.
In such circumstances, life is taken more easily than by the Scotchman, the Yankee, or the Chinese, who have to contend against a sterner
climate and a more unresponsive soil. The American public school superintendent in Dumaguete spent a fruitless forenoon, during my visit,
in the effort to hire a cart to haul a teacher's baggage to a village four
miles distant. Scores of carts were idle, but "why should a man go
four miles in the sun when it is so much pleasanter to sit in the shade."
There are noble forests of excellent building timber on the mountains
a day's journey back of Dumaguete, but it is impossible to engage men
to cut it, so that we must transport the materials for our Silliman Institute from the lumber yards of Cebu or Iloilo. At Escalante, I found a
disgusted contractor who could not induce men to load a lorcha at any
price because they had won enough for their immediate necessities at
3




the Sunday cock-fight, and they would not work till the money was
spent.
Mr. N. M. Holmes, the civil engineer in charge of the construction
of the Benguet road in Luzon, says that " the greatest difficulty that we
'have to contend with is labor. At the present time there are from nine:hundred to one thousand laborers at work, but they can by no means be
depended upon. They will work for only a few days or a week at a
time, so that it is necessary to be breaking in new laborers who are entirely unfamiliar with the work. To keep up the force requires a man
on continual recruiting service."
A mining engineer, whom I met on Negros, told me that there is an
abundance of coal in the Philippines. Large deposits of lignite are
known to exist on the Islands of Bataan, Luzon, Cebu, Mindoro, Masbate,
Mindanao, and Negros. "The extensive fields near Bulacacao, in southern Mindoro, are within four to six miles of a harbor which gives safe
anchorage throughout the year and which has water deep enough for
the largest ocean-going vessels. Some of the Cebu deposits are also
conveniently situated with reference to harbor facilities." The experts
employed by the Taft Commission report that the Philippine coals do
not clinker, nor do they soil the boiler tubes to any such extent as do
Japanese and Australian coals, and that practical tests have shown
that their steam-making properties are very satisfactory. But the natives cannot be induced to toil in a coal mine. It is too disagreeable.
So the coal has to be imported from Japan and Australia at $24 Mexican
a ton. And these are typical cases. The upper classes are too proud
to work, and the lower classes see no reason why they should do any
tnore than sufficient to supply their actual wants.
This is the labor question which immediately confronts the American
business man who is eager to exploit the Philippines. Resources
are here in abundance-rich soil, vast forests, rare woods. But worknmen cannot be obtained to develop them. These Asiatics have never
learned the Anglo-Saxon lesson of labor and thrift. The idea of toiling
steadily eight or ten hours a day in the hot sun just for the sake of doing
something or of getting ahead in life, has never occurred to them. American capitalists are here now with vast schemes for developing all sorts
of enterprises which would be profitable alike to them and to the Filipinos. But they are finding themselves thwarted at every turn by
the unreliability Of native workmen. who will leave their employers
in the lurch as soon as they feel tired or have a few pesos in their pockets.
It is useless to bring over white laborers. The American cannot do
manual labor in this climate. He is the product of a radically different
physical environment. The sun here seems to be no hotter than in
vur summers at home, but it is deadly to the foreigner who continuously
exposes himself to it. It has a kind of "X-ray" power under which
the white man inevitably succumbs in time, while the perpetual mildness of the tropics saps the energy and affords no recuperation. The
American in the Philippines must always be an employer, an administrator, or a teacher. He should never come expecting to earn his
living as a farmer, a mechanic, or a laborer. He cannot stand the cli



mate and he cannot compete in wages with natives who, when they
do work, accept a scale of pay on which the well-fed and well-clothed
American workingman would starve. In the construction of the Benguet road, for example, the laborers are paid five cents Mexican an
hour (two and a half cents gold), and a pound of rice a day.
Americans will make a great mistake if they flock in large numbers to
the Philippine Islands expecting to find remunerative employment.
The British Consul at Manila has recently written to his Government:
"There are no openings for Europeans here except with capital, the number of destitute and unemployed Europeans and Americans being constantly on the increase. There is no difficulty in filling posts of any
sort from the American volunteers now being disbanded here in large
numbers, many of them being men of superior education."
THE CHINESE IN THE PHILIPPINES.
At this point, the Chinese question emerges. Nowhere else in the
world, outside of China, are the peculiar traits of the Chinese more
characteristically exemplified. Before Magellan discovered the Philippines in 1521, and his lieutenant, Legaspi, founded Manila in 1571, the
enterprising Celestials had begun to trade with the Philippines. For
a long time after the conquest, the Spaniards encouraged and protected
them. But finding that the Chinese were, like the Jews in Europe,
getting all trade and finance into their hands, while at the same time
they were living apart and refusing to profess the national faith, jealousy
was aroused and a policy of restriction was gradually adopted. In
1755 the Spaniards decided to expel the Chinese. But while 2,070 were
forcibly driven out, 1,623 succeeded in remaining by the simple device
of submitting or promising to submit to Catholic baptism. Ever since,
the Chinese have had a hard time in the Philippine Islands. The Spaniards disliked them and enacted laws to limit their numbers and their
freedom, while the Filipinos feared and hated them. In I603, 1639,
i66o, 1763 and i820, this race rancor resulted in a general massacre,
sometimes by the Chinese being goaded to revolt, sometimes by the
unprovoked attack of the fanatical populace.
But in spite of all this antipathy and opposition, the persistent
Chinese continued to come and to thrive. In I638 their number was
estimated to be 33,000, and now it is believed to be about 100,000, of whom
no less than 60,000 are in Manila. Under Spanish rule, the number was
steadily increasing, for they were permitted to enter as agricultural
laborers on the payment of fifty pesos each. But the law was evaded
with comparative ease, partly because Spanish control of large portions
of the Archipelago was only nominal, and partly because corruption
was not difficult where the law might have been enforced. When the
Americans took possession many hoped that all restrictions would be
abolished. But these hopes were quickly dashed by the decision that
until Congress should decree otherwise, the United States Geary Exclusion Law should be considered as applying to the Philippine Islands,
so that John is now in a worse plight than ever.
5




The reason for all this hostility is apparent. The Chinese are industrious, frugal and persistent, and the Malays and Spaniards are not.
The -Filipino cannot compete with the hardy Celestial who works twelve
and fourteen hours a day, seven days in the week. Though the Chinese
originally entered as laborers, they are the merchant class, for as soon
as one gets a little ahead, he opens a shop, and by strict attention to
business, rising early, retiring late, watching keenly for bargains, and
accepting moderate profits, he speedily drives competitors out of the
field, so that often the less enterprising Filipino is forced to buy of the
hated alien or go without what he wants.
And yet the Chinese domesticates himself in the Philippines as he
does not in America, for as a rule he takes a Filipino wife and establishes a home. The native women are not proud of their Chinese husbands and seldom are seen with them in public, but they are quite
willing to marry them because their superior wealth permits dresses
and carriages and jewelry which the poorer Filipinos cannot afford.
"Do your people sympathize with the American law excluding the
Chinese? " I asked a Filipino Presidente of Negros. He promptly replied:
"We wish you would not only prevent any more Chinese from coming,
but that you would drive out those who are already here."  "Why?" I
queried. "Because the Chinese are like the pest of grasshoppers; they
eat up the country, leaving nothing for the Filipinos."
It will not be easy to repeal the Exclusion Act, partly because the
Filipinos do not want the Chinese, and it is the policy of the Commission
to do everything practicable to conciliate the Filipinos and to reconcile
them to our rule, partly because politicians at home are fearful that
repeal would lose the votes of a few States in which Chinese labor is a
local issue.
But every American and European business man with whom I talked
in the Archipelago was emphatic in his opinion that without Chinese
labor there is absolutely no hope for the Philippine Islands. The white
man cannot work and the Malay will not, but the Chinese both can and
will. To forbid him would be as fatal to the industrial life of the Islands
as was the expulsion of the Moors from Spain. In the sixteenth century,
Dr. Antonio Morga declared: "It is true the town (Manila) cannot exist without the Chinese, as they are workers in all trades and business
and very industrious, and work for small wages." About two centuries
later, Juan de la Conception wrote: "Without the trade and commerce
of the Chinese, these dominions could not have subsisted." Foreman
says: "The Chinese are really the people who gave the natives the first
notions of trade, industry and fruitful work. They taught them, among
many other useful things, the extraction of saccharine juice from the
sugar cane, the manufacture of sugar, and the working of wrought iron.
They introduced into the Colony the first sugar mills with vertical stone
crushers and iron boiling pans."
It is difficult to find a rational reason for American exclusion of the
Chinese. They came to the Philippine Islands before either Spaniards
or Americans. They are more numerous there than we are. They are
settled in homes and in long-established business houses. Through
6




their intermarriage with the Filipinos, they are introducing a more
virile strain into the native blood so that the strongest type of character
in the Islands to-day is to be found in the Chinese-Filipino mestizo.
They are industrious, peaceful and law-abiding. They pay more taxes
in proportion to their numbers than any other class. They could not
be banished without throttling the trade of the Islands, and they are
so absolutely indispensable to industrial and commercial development
that unless our American capitalists and employers can have the benefit
of their labor, the Philippines can never return the United States half
of what they will cost us. The Manila Times truly says: "The reasons
which exist for excluding Chinese laborers from the United States do
not exist in the Philippines. The conditions are vastly different here."
Our missionary plans for the Philippine Islands cannot ignore this
Chinese population. It will not require the whole time of a foreign
missionary nor will it be necessary for any of our men to learn the Chinese
language. The Chinese understand enough Spanish or Tagalog in Luzon
and enough Spanish or Visayan in our other fields to make it possible
to converse with them in the native tongues. Nor need it be at great expense. Being as a class well-to-do, the Chinese can soon be led to support their own work. Nearly all of them came from the neighborhood of
Amoy, Foochow, and Canton, where mission work has long been conducted
by various Boards. An occasional preacher could probably be obtained
in China through the kindly offices of the missionaries there, and with
some assistance at the outset from the Board and under the wise supervision of onr missionaries, a self-sustaining work could be quickly developed.
Nor is it difficult to reach the Chinese with the Christian message.
The Chinese in the Philippines are far less conservative and exclusive
than in the Flowery Kingdom. Their very departure from their native
land has broken down many of their prejudices against foreigners and
has widened their mental horizon, while their desire to trade with the
more numerous and powerful people among whom they live has taught
them a complaisance to the foreigner, which their brethren across the
China Sea do not possess. So the Chinese in the Philippines is a broader
and more accessible man than his countryman at home.
Our missionaries in the Philippines early saw this inviting opportunity and began service for the Chinese in connection with their other
work. Although hampered by the fact that the medium of communication was a language foreign alike to preacher and hearer, the effort
speedily thrived. A few Christian Chinese who had been converted in
China were discovered, and these, like the devout Jews whom Paul
found in the cities of the Roman Empire, were the nucleus around whom
the new movement gathered. In Manila, two of these were able to
preach, and while supporting themselves in their shops during the week,
reasoned out of the Scriptures with considerable power on the Sabbath.
Mr. Gelwicks, being under appointment for China, naturally interested
himself in this service, which has a congregation of from forty to fifty.
A native pastor is now urgently needed. The missionaries cannot
spare from their other work the time necessary to properly develop this




attractive field among the sixty thousand Chinese in the city. Nor can
this comparatively intelligent congregation be permanently built up by
the necessarily unstudied talks of Chinese who must devote their energies
to a trade or a shop. We can continue to give the congregation the free
use of our Trozo chapel Sunday afternoons, and I believe that with
reasonable effort the Chinese could be induced to subscribe enough to
pay the salary of a Chinese pastor. If they cannot raise it all at once, the
Board should make them a grant with the understanding that it shall
not exceed one-half the salary and that it will be diminished each year
with a view to entire self-support at an early date. A regularly trained
preacher from Amoy would be best, but the mission there cannot spare
one. I think it would be wise to temporarily engage one of the present
unpaid preachers. He would have to make some sacrifice, for he is now
earning $I,250 Mexican a year as a cabinet maker. But he is an intelligent, consecrated man, whose life is exemplary, who speaks with fluency
and force, and who has the advantage of a good knowledge of English.
While the missionaries do not, of course, understand his addresses in
Chinese, they note that the Chinese appear interested and that the
attendance increases. If such a man were enabled to give his whole
time and strength to the preparation of sermons and to pastoral and
evangelistic work, he would be able to accomplish much good.
Dumaguete has not yet had time to inaugurate work among the
Chinese, the Silliman Institute having naturally absorbed the energies
of the one man who has thus far been stationed there. But at Iloilo,
where there are several thousand Chinese, of whom four-fifths are from
Amoy and the rest from Canton, work has sprung up in a remarkable way.
When the missionaries arrived, they discovered two Christian Chinese
from Amoy. In April, 1900, as Dr. Hall and Mr. Hibbard were passing
a Chinese shop, one of these Christians ran out and implored Dr. HUll
to come in and see a man who was very sick. Entering, the missionaries
found a raving maniac held down on a bed by several excited Chinese.
It was evidently a bad case. Asked for an opinion, the Doctor was
forced to say that he had never known a man in such a condition to
recover. The Chinese said that they expected the patient to die and that
they were going to send him to Hongkong the next day so that he might
die in China. The Doctor expostulated: "This man cannot make so
long a voyage." But the men were obdurate, saying that they were
unwilling to have him die on their hands. Keenly feeling the inhumanity
of subjecting the sufferer to the horrors of the Asiatic steerage, Dr. Hall
finally persuaded the Chinese to keep him by promising to do all he could
to save his life. The issue was long and doubtful, but under the missionary's skilful care, the patient slowly improved, and while he is not and
probably never will be entirely well, he is so much better that he is
again earning his living. The wonder, delight and gratitude of the
Chinese knew no bounds. Dr. Hall took advantage of the influence he
thus acquired to speak to them of Christ. Soon he began to hold services
in that very shop. The work prospered from the beginning, with the
result that on October sixth, at the request of Dr. Hall, I had the great
privilege of baptizing ten adult Chinese men. They had faithfully at8




tended the preaching service for a year and a half, and for six weeks
they had been specially instructed by Dr. Hall in an evening class at
his home. With another who was baptized in China, there are now
eleven Christian Chinese in Iloilo with every promise of an increase.
All the eleven are from Amoy and have been in Iloilo from nine to sixteen years. Here also a Chinese pastor is needed, and he should be paid
by the Chinese themselves, the mission assistance taking the form of
the free use of our chapel Sunday afternoons till the congregation can
provide an edifice of its own.
The Methodists have also begun work among the Chinese in Manila,
having been naturally led to it by their large Mission interests in Foochow, from which some thousands of the Manila Chinese have come.
But the Evangelical Union at its conference with me October 14th,
unanimously voted that there is ample room for both Presbvterians
and Methodists in view of the size of the Chinese population in Manila,
and the fact that the work, while important, will always be under native
helpers and subsidiary as compared with the Filipino work. In our
other Stations, of course, we have the Chinese field to ourselves.
COMITY AND THE BEGINNINGS OF PROTESTANT MISSIONS
IN THE PHILIPPINES.
The circumstances in which the Presbyterian Church inaugurated
Protestant missionary work in the Philippine Islands have not yet
been set forth in connected narrative; and partly because it is desirable
for historical reasons that they should be, partly because they constitute the most notable effort in the direction of comity which has yet
been made by any Board, and partly because a knowledge of them is
essential to an understanding of the present situation and to some of
the recommendations which I shall make further on, it appears proper
for me to recount them. As soon as Commodore Dewey's victory
was announced in May, 1898, we saw that the barrier which had so
long separated the Philippine Islands from the rest of the world had
been broken down and that the circumstances involved a missionary
call to American Protestantism.  Two weeks later, the Presbyterian General Assembly in session at Winona, Indiana, enthusiastically
endorsed the following section in the report of its Standing Committee
on Foreign Missions, the Rev. George F. Pentecost, D. D., Chairman:
"In addition to fields already occupied, we cannot be deaf or blind
to the startling providence of God which is just now opening up new
and unexpected fields for Foreign Mission work. The peace-speaking guns of Admiral Dewey have opened the gates which henceforth
make accessible not less than 8,ooo,ooo of people who have for three
hundred years been fettered by bonds almost worse than those of heathenism, and oppressed by a tyrannical priesthood only equaled in cruelty
by the nation whose government has been a blight and blistering
curse upon every people over whom her flag has floated, a system of
religion almost if not altogether worse than heathenism. * * * *
We cannot ignore the fact that God has given into our, hands, that is,




into the hands of American Christians, the Philippine Islands, and
thus opened a wide door and effectual to their populations, and has,
by the very guns of our battleships, summoned us to go up and possess
the land."
From the mission field came like urgency. Several missionaries
in various lands wrote that they were willing to be transferred to the
Philippine Islands, while the veteran Dr. Kerr of Canton, China, wrote
the following interesting note:
"Forty years ago I spent several weeks in the Philippine Islands,
and some years ago I wrote to Dr. Ellinwood urging him to take some
steps to establish a Mission there. Recent events at Manila indicate
that the way is now or soon will be open to establish Protestant Missions
in those Islands. What is there to hinder our Church from being the
first to enter, as it did in Japan and Korea? It would be a difficult
field, but the war will no doubt shake off some of the Catholic fetters
which have bound the people, and some of them might welcome the
preachers of salvation by grace, as they will welcome free government.
I hope you will take this matter in hand, and see that the Board enters
into it with enthusiasm and faith."
Meantime the records of our Board for June 6th show the following
action:
"The Executive Council presented a paper in relation to the opening
of mission work in the Philippine Islands, and it was voted to refer
the whole question to the Committee on China and the Executive
Council."
June 2oth, the Committee and the Council presented the following
report, which was unanimously adopted:
"The Committee on China and the Executive Council, to whom
was referred the expediency of opening mission work in the Philippine
Islands, feel that the political and military relations into which the
United States has been so strangely forced with reference to the Philippine Islands and also to Cuba and to Porto Rico, involve certain moral
and religious responsibilities-responsibilities which are perhaps quite
independent of the precise character of the political relationship which
may hereafter be formed with them, and that the Christian people
of America should immediately and prayerfully consider the duty of
entering the door which God in His providence is thus opening. This
appears to be, so far as we can judge, the feeling of the Presbyterian
Church. It is significant that already letters have come to the Board
from persons in five'different States, urging the importance of taking
up this work, and making offers of cooperation in men and money, one
pastor having actually raised and paid over to the Treasurer of the
Board $I,ooo toward the support of the first missionary, while the
General Assembly itself gave strong approval in the report of the Standing Committee on Foreign Missions.
"However, it is only fair to presume that this sentiment is not peculiar to Presbyterians. Indeed, there are rumors that the Foreign
Mission Boards of other Churches are disposed to consider the question of their relation to these opening fields. We feel that it would be
10




quite unfortunate if several Boards should enter any one of these fields
at the same time, thus unnecessarily duplicating expenses, and perhaps introducing elements of rivalry. We have heard much in recent
years of the principle of comity, and we are earnestly striving to promote that comity in lands which are already jointly occupied. We
believe that the new situation thus providentially forced upon us affords
us excellent opportunity not only for beginning this work but for beginning it right from the view-point of Christian fellowship and the
economical use of men and money.
"To this end we recommend that the Executive Council be directed
to hold an early conference with the representatives of the American
Board, the Baptist Missionary Union, the Missionary Society of the
M. E. Church, the Board of Foreign and Domestic Missions of the P. E.
Church, and the Board of Foreign Missions of the Reformed Church
in America, with a view to a frank and mutual understanding as to
the responsibilities of American Christians to the people of Cuba, Porto
Rico and the Philippine Islands, and an agreement as to the most
effective distribution of the work among the several Boards, if it shall
be found expedient and practicable to undertake it.
WM. R. RICHARDS,                ARTHUR J. BROWN,
Chairnan, Cozmmittee on China.          Secretary in Charge."
On the basis of the above action, I addressed a circular letter to
the Foreign Missions Boards of the United States and Canada, June
29th, embodying the main points of that action and concluding:
"To this end we have great pleasure, on behalf of the Board of
Foreign Missions of the Presbyterian Church in the U. S. A.,in inviting to a conference the representatives of such Foreign Missions Boards
as are disposed to seriously consider the question of opening missionary
work in the Philippine Islands, Cuba or Porto Rico, as well as those
which already have such work, with a view to a frank and mutual
understanding as to the most effective distribution of the responsibility
among the several Boards, if more than one shall find it expedient to
undertake it."
The responses to this invitation were general and hearty. It was
evident that the idea was cordially approved. Several of the Boards
replied that as there was no probability of their being able to undertake missionary work in any of the Islands referred to, it was not necessary for them to incur the expense of sending a representative, but they
assured us of their sympathetic and prayerful interest. Other Boards,
however, sent delegates, and a broadly representative conference was
held in our Board Room July 13. The result was the unanimous adoption of resolutions declaring that the duty of Protestantism to give
a purer faith to the people of our new possessions represents the deep
and solemn Christian patriotism of the country, and that support will
be given to the Boards for this purpose. The resolutions continue:
"In view of the fact that the American Board of Commissioners
for Foreign Missions has for years been conducting work in the Caroline
Islands, and that the population of those Islands is not sufficient to
justify the- presence of more than one missionary agency, we recom11




mend that the Caroline Islands be deemed the distinct field of the American Board.
"The conference notes the fact that seven Boards have either already undertaken work in Cuba or are expecting to undertake it, namely,
the Home Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention, the
Missionary Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church, the Board of
Missions of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, the General Conference of the Free Baptists, the Foreign Missionary Society of the
United Brethren in Christ, the American Church Missionary Society
of the Protestant Episcopal Church, and the New York and Indiana
Yearly Meeting of Friends; that three Boards contemplate work
in Porto Rico, namely, the Missionary Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church, the Board of Missions of the Methodist Episcopal Church,
South, and  possibly the Southern Baptist Convention;  and that
three Boards are disposed to seriously consider the opening of missionary work in the Philippine Islands, namely, the Board of Foreign
Missions of the Presbyterian Church in the U. S. A., the Missionary
Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church, and the American Baptist
Missionary Union.
"We therefore recommend:
"i. That each of the Boards mentioned appoint a committee of
two on the field or fields which it thinks of entering, each group of
committees to confer with a view to a frank and mutual understanding
as to the most effective and equitable distribution of the territory and
work under the several Boards.
"2. That the committee take early steps to secure all available
information regarding these various islands as missionary fields, and
that all information thus obtained be shared with the other committees.
concerned, with a view to subsequent action.
"3. That the Committee on the Philippine Islands be requested
to inform the American Board that no Board has expressed any intention of undertaking work in the Ladrone Islands, and that the question was raised as to whether the equipment of the American Board
in connection with the Caroline group does not better fit it for work
in the Ladrone Islands, if it should become expedient to undertake it."
As Secretary of the Conference, I sent a copy of this action to each
of the Boards concerned. Our Board promptly and without a dissenting voice adopted it and appointed the Secretary in Charge and the
Rev. Dr. Richards as its Committee on the Philippine Islands, to form,.
with like committees from the Baptist and Methodist Boards, the joint
committee called for by recommendations one and two. Having been
requested to act as the convener of this joint committee, I called a
meeting in our Board Room for November I7th. At this meeting
the Baptists and Methodists reported that for financial reasons they
could not enter the Philippines at present. For our Board I stated
that, as special funds had been given to us for that purpose, we were
planning to open work in the Philippines at once.
Our Board thereupon proceeded with its arrangements on the
supposition that, as it was the only Board prepared to go forward
12




immediately, it had a clear field. November 2 st, it voted as follows:
"In view of the evident probability that the present treaty negotiations between our own and the Spanish Government, whatever
their issue, will at least leave the Philippine Islands our own open field
for missionary effort, the Methodist and Baptist Boards having communicated to us their inability to do anything for the Islands this year,
Resolved, That the Council be authorized to correspond with the
Rev. James B. Rodgers, of Brazil, offering him a transfer of appointment to Manila, for the immediate opening of mission work in the Philippine Islands."
The Rev. and Mrs. James B. Rodgers having been transferred from
the Southern Brazil Mission, arrived in Manila on the 2 st of April,
1899, the anniversary of the declaration of war by the United States
against Spain in 1898. Their knowledge of the Portuguese enabled
them to master the Spanish with ease, and the first sermon was preached
in the Spanish language on the next Sabbath after the anniversary of
the decisive naval battle in Manila Bay, 1899. In May, they were
joined by the Rev. and Mrs. David S. Hibbard. The report of these
missionaries in December, 1899, showed an organized native Church
with nine members; regular semi-weekly services conducted in Spanish
at four different points in the city; service every Sunday for the Englishspeaking people, evangelistic work among the soldiers, hospitals visited,
etc. Mr. Hibbard had also made a tour of the Islands and selected
Dumaguete to be with Iloilo, already designated by the Board, the
points for future mission stations. The Philippine Mission was formally constituted in  December, 1899.  In January, 1900, Dr. and
Mrs. J. Andrew Hall arrived, and the next month, the Rev. Leonard P.
Davidson. Thus our Presbyterian work was promptly organized and
vigorously prosecuted.
The effort to practically apply the principles of comity was widely
discussed and cordially approved by the religious press of the country.
For a time, however, it looked as if the hopes entertained at the inauguration of the work would not be realized. One after another, several
Boards found themselves led into the Philippines by the enthusiasm
of their constituents. Each followed certain leadings of individual
opportunity which appeared providential, till Baptists, Methodists,
Episcopalians, Christians and United Brethren, as well as the Presbyterians, were represented in the Philippines, and all, too, in such juxtaposition as to apparently precipitate the very conditions which the conference had sought to avoid. (From the view - point of comity, I
do not, of course, include the British and Foreign and the American
Bible Societies, and the Army Branch of the Y. M. C. A., all of which
are doing excellent work in the Philippines but along their own distinctive lines, so that questions of comity are not involved. I have
also omitted the Christian and Missionary Alliance, which sent a woman
missionary to Manila, but afterwards decided not to undertake work
in the Philippines and withdrew its appointment.) Fortunately, however, the missionaries of the various Boards in the Philippine Islands
13




are men of broad views who are in perfect accord with the conviction
of the conference that missionary work in our new possessions should
be characterized by the practical application of true comity. Ably
re-enforced by the Rev. Dr. J. C. R. Ewing of the Lodiana Mission
of the Presbyterian Church and Bishop F. W. Warne of the Methodist
Church, who were temporarily in the Philippines, a union meeting of
Protestant Evangelical missionaries was held in Manila, April 24-26,
I90I. At this meeting, the Evangelical Union of the Philippine Islands
was formed with the following constitution and by-laws:
"Article I-Name. The name of this society shall be The Evangelical
Union of the Philippine Islands.
"Article II-Obiect. It shall be the object of this society to unite
all the Evangelical forces in the Philippine Islands for the purpose
of securing comity and effectiveness in their missionary operations.
"Article III-Membership. All regular appointees of recognized
Evangelical organizations working in the Philippine Islands may be
members of the Union.. Other Christians, lay or clerical, may be elected
to membership by the Executive Committee.
"Article IV-Management. There shall be a central Executive
Committee composed of two members from each recognized Evangelical
organization represented in the Union and working in the Philippine
Islands. Each organization shall choose its representative in the
Committee. This Committee shall consider and make recommendations upon all questions referred to them affecting missionary comity
in the Philippine Islands. The Executive Committee shall elect its own
officers.
"Article V-General Officers. The general officers of the Union shall
be a President, two Vice-Presidents, a Secretary, and a Treasurer, to
be elected at the annual meeting on nomination of the Executive Committee.
"Article VI-Amendments. This constitution may be amended
upon recommendation of the Executive Committee at any annual
meeting of the Union by a majority vote, due notice having been given
of proposed amendment.
BY-LAWS.
"ist. The Executive Committee shall meet once a year, or at any
time upon the call of the Secretary, for any special business to come
before the Committee.
"2nd. The Union shall have an annual convention, arrangements
for which shall be in the hands of the Executive Committee.
"3rd. One of the duties of the Executive Committee shall be to
meet and confer with workers of any Societies that are not now arties
to this agreement, and to confer with and advise representatives. Societies arriving in the future as to the location of their respective fields;
also to earnestly urge them to become parties to the agreement and
to choose members who shall represent their Missions in the Executive
Committee of the Union.
14




"4th. The name 'Iglesia Evang6lica' shall be used for the Filipino
Churches which shall be raised up, and when necessary the denominational name shall be added in parentheses, e. g., 'Iglesia'Evangelical
de Malibay (Misi6n Metodista Ep.)."'
At the same time, the following resolutions regarding division of
territory were adopted:
" Whereas, several Evangelical Missionary Societies are entering
upon their work in the Philippine Islands, and
"Whereas, the evangelization of these people will be more speedily
accomplished by a division of the territory, thus avoiding waste of
labor, time and money arising from the occupation of the same districts by more than one Society, which has marred the work in other
and older fields, Therefore:
"Be it resolved, that each Mission now represented on the field accept
the responsibility for the evangelization of certain well-defined areas,
to be mutually agreed upon, such agreement to be open to revision at
the end of three years by the Evangelical Union at its regular meeting.
"Be it resolved, that in the Island of Luzon, the Methodists shall become responsible for the work in the Provinces of Bulacan, Pampanga,
Tarlac, Nueva Ecija, Pangasinan, Bataan and Zambales; the Presbyterians for the work in the Provinces of Morong, Laguna, Batangas,
Cavite, Tayabas, North and South Camerines and Albay; the United
Brethren for the work in the Provinces of La Uni6n, Ilecos del Norte and
Itecos del Sur, also
"Be it resolved, that no new work be begun in the City or Province
of Manila, except by mutual understanding between the Superintendents of the Missions whose interests are involved, and in case of disagreement, the decision to rest with the Executive Committee of the
Evangelical Union.
"Be it resolved, that we recommend that the Baptists and Presbyterians shall become responsible for the work in the Islands of Panay
and Negros, they mutually deciding upon the portions of the Islands
for which they will be individually responsible."
The constitution of the Executive Committee appears to need some
revision. The Rev. Dr. P. S. Barbour, in speaking of another proposed
interdenominational Committee, once wisely said: "A Board having, for
example, three missionaries in a certain field should not have the same
representation on such a Committee as the Board having forty missionaries." It would be better and more equitable to have the Executive
Committee composed of representatives of the various Boards in the proportion of say one member for every five missionaries, provided that a
Board having less than five should have one member, and that a quorum
for the transaction of business should consist of at least one member from
not less than three Boards. This would reasonably guard the interests of
the smaller Boards, while it would do justice to the larger ones. The
Boards which do the bulk of the work should have a proportionate voice.
But as it is now, a Board having only one man and his wife (for by the
Constitution women are not excluded from membership in the Executive
15




Committee) and no native work at all, has as decisive a voice as a Board
having ten missionaries, three stations, and a large native work.
In Luzon, the Union assigned to the Presbyterian Mission about half
the City of Manila and all that portion of the Island south of Manila, the
Methodists taking the other half of Manila and the Provinces named in
the action on the North. This involved our turning over to the Methodists some very promising work which Mr. Davidson had developed, and
receiving in return a Methodist work at Cavite which was supposed to be
considerable, but which proved to be quite unsubstantial. In one of his
letters, the beloved and richly gifted Davidson, who was so soon to fill the
first missionary grave in the Philippine Islands, wrote: " I wanted to keep
the Provinces in which I had been working so hard, but I confess that I
felt that I would be going against the Holy Spirit if I held out." So the
sacrifice was ungrudgingly made. The general division appears to be
equitable, the population of the Methodist and Presbyterian fields being
estimated at about the same figure, I,300,000 each. Our Manila Station
therefore has a large and clear field for development.
In the other Islands, in which we had begun work, however, the plan
has not proved so fair to us. The Baptists having only two men in the
Philippines and they not being in Manila at the time, were not represented
in the conference of missionaries at which the Evangelical Union was
formed. As the Union was unwilling to legislate for them in their absence
and as the Baptists and Presbyterians were the only denominations at
work on Panay and Negros, the Union left the division of those Islands to
the two groups of missionaries involved-" they mutually deciding upon
the portions of the Islands for which they will be individually responsible." In the local adjustment thus provided for, the status quo was
simply recognized, each group continuing to work the territory which it
had already occupied-Baptists at Jaro and Bacalod, Presbyterians at
Iloilo and Dumaguete. And so it has come about that, instead of having
a wide and populous field for our Iloilo station, we are confined to about
one-third of the area and population of the Island. Of the four Provinces
into which the Island is divided, the Baptists claim Capiz, population 128,oo6, Conception 19,600, all that portion of Iloilo (Province, population
472,798) lying east of a line running from the city of Iloilo a little northwestwardly to the boundary of Capiz. This leaves to us only the smaller
southwestern section of Iloilo Province, the long, narrow Province of
Antigue, 114,483, and the small, poor and thinly populated island of
Guimaras, though we might add the little island of Cuyo, ten hours' sail
to the west and having about o0,000 inhabitants. There is no possibility
of expansion in any direction, for the rich Occidental Province of Negros
with its nearly three hundred thousand people speaking the Iloilo dialect
is also claimed by the Baptists, who have already stationed a man at
Bacalod, its capital. This in turn leaves our Dumaguete Station on
Negros with only the Oriental Province, less than one-fourth of the population of that Island.
Apart from the embarrassment growing out of this contraction of an
original field, friction is almost certain to develop. The Philippines are
not a region of great cities, but of villages and plantations. The city of
16




Iloilo has a population of but I8,ooo, and Jaro, which is a suburb of Iloilo,
of perhaps half as many. People come to the Sunday services from a
radius of twenty miles, and attend the Baptist chapel in the morning and
the Presbyterian in the afternoon. The Sunday I was in Iloilo, the Baptists had a baptismal service in the river in the afternoon, and about half
our Presbyterian congregation left our service to witness the, to them,
novel ceremony of immersion. Mr. Briggs, the Baptist missionary in
charge, seeing that many of our people were present, sought to divest the
service of divisive influences. But he has not yet had time to learn the
language, and the zeal of his native preacher could not be restrained, so
that immersion as the only method of baptism was vigorously presented
to a large number of our people. Not only this, but the Baptist translations of the Gospels and the tracts prepared by Mr. Lund and Mr. Manikin, instead of employing a word meaning to baptize, leaving each missionary to interpret it as immersion or sprinkling according to his convictions, use a Visayan word which means to put entirely under the water.
This is the only form in which the natives are now getting the printed
Gospel as our missionaries have not yet had time to publish anything.
There is no danger of conflict between the missionaries personally.
There are only two Baptists now in the Philippines, Mr. Briggs and Mr.
Hughes, though another man and a single woman are understood to be
on the way. I had two conferences with Mr. Briggs and found him to be
a man of delightful spirit and broad views. He frankly told me that he
was distressed by the situation; that while the relations of the missionaries
were and would continue to be intimate and even affectionate, he feared
that friction might arise between native helpers and Christians. He declared that some readjustment ought to be made at once before matters
go any farther, and that while he had no authority to commit his Board
or his associates, yet personally he was willing to make any reasonable
sacrifice which could be shown to be in the interest of the work.
It is plain to me, as it is to Mr. Briggs and to all our missionaries, that
the present status is highly inexpedient and that some redistribution of
territory should be made before either Board becomes any more deeply
involved. We have enough of a field for the present activities of our two
men at Iloilo, but we have neither the area nor the population for the outreaching evangelistic work which we shall want to do in the immediate
future, while the work we already have is being so interrelated to that of
the Baptists that the people are becoming confused on the question of
baptism and as to why they cannot come to the Lord's Table together.
There is a fellowship of interest between the comparatively few Protestants of this region which is blissfully ignorant of denominational distinctions, so that when the Presbyterians announced to their congregation that a communion service would be held upon a given Sabbath, the
Baptist converts heard of it and prepared to attend in joyous sympathy.
Imagine the perplexity and dismay of both companies of believers, when
the word went forth that Baptists must not commune with Presbyterians.
I do not wish to be understood as criticizing. I thoroughly respect the
conscientious convictions of our Baptist brethren. They are as clearly
entitled to them as we are to ours. It would be impertinent for me to
17




suggest that they be modified, and chimerical for us to imagine that the
historically distinctive position of a great and honored denomination will
be abandoned in any field in which its missionary operations are conducted. I am not arguing that question at all, but simply stating actual
facts which show that either the Baptists or the Presbyterians should
withdraw from Panay and go to one or more of the many populous Islands
which have not yet been occupied by any Board. In this age of the world
when so many other fields are wholly neglected, it is surely unnecessary
and undesirable for two Boards to occupy in this way a territory only
large enough for one.
In determining the question which Board should withdraw, the following considerations may be fairly borne in mind:
First. Priority of Presbyterian occupation. Our plans for Iloilo date
from the very beginning of our decision to open work in the Philippine
Islands, namely May, 1898. As we did not wish to confine ourselves to
the port of Manila and as Iloilo was known to us as the second city of the
whole group, we at once contemplated a station there. I speak advisedly,
for I was the secretary who had initial charge of the matter on behalf of
our Board. The outbreak of the war with Aguinaldo delayed actual occupation, but at the earliest practicable opportunity a preliminary visit to
Iloilo was made, and in the spring of 1899 two missionaries were specially
appointed to Iloilo. Dr. Hall, our medical missionary there, says that
this designation-of field was expressly emphasized to him by the Secretaries when he visited New York, November 1899, en route to the Philippines. In February, 1900, he, with Mrs. Hall and Dr. and Mrs. Hibbard,
began their permanent residence in Iloilo.
The first Baptist missionary, on the other hand, did not reach Iloilo
till May, 1900, when we were already in possession. True, he and Mr.
Manikin brought with them in printed Visayan the Gospel of Mark and
five tracts in editions of five thousand each, while they had translated,
ready for the printer, the remaining Gospels and several Epistles. But
while this fact, as well as the relationship with Mr. Manikin, was a good
reason for beginning work in Visayan territory, it may be questioned
whether it was a valid reason for opening a station in our immediate field.
Mr. Lund did indeed so far change his plan as to settle at Jaro, instead of
Iloilo as he had originally intended, but Jaro is only two miles away, is the
market town of Iloilo, and as such commands most of its adjacent villages,
so that our missionaries were immediately cut off from the bulk of their
natural constituency. The contention that the Presbyterian missionaries
acquiesced is not to the point. They were not consulted in circumstances
which permitted anything else than acquiescence, and our Board was not
consulted at all.
Second. The fact that Presbyterian occupation of Iloilo was not only
prior to that of the Baptists but that the circumstances warranted our
Board in assuming that we should have the field to ourselves. At the
joint Committee meeting in my office, November, 1898,-I quote from
my notes taken at the time-" the Baptists reported through their Secretary that they had asked Dr. G. W. Richardson, Surgeon, U. S. Volunteers, in the first military expedition to Manila, and formerly a member of
18




the Baptist Missionary Union, to obtain information for us, though thus
far nothing has been heard from him; and that while the Baptists will
probably enter the Philippines after a while, we have no present plans for
doing so and it is improbable that any missionary can be sent either this
year or next." One of the Secretaries of the Y. M. C. A., whom I met
recently, told me that in November,I899, nearly a year later, one of the
Secretaries of the Baptist Missionary Union said to him in Boston that the
Baptists then had "no definite plans for missionary work in the Philippine
Islands." At that time, however, as already explained, a Presbyterian
missionary was already en route to the Philippines under specific appointment for Iloilo.
Third. The considerable sacrifice which would be involved in our withdrawal. Presbyterian work at Iloilo is now well-established. Three and
four missionaries have permanently resided there for about two years.
Preaching has been regularly maintained in the city and frequent evangelistic trips have been made to the adjacent villages. Seventy communicants have been received and the ordinary attendance at the Sabbath
service is between four and five hundred. A Hospital has been erected
and frequently has a daily attendance of over a hundred.  The last day
of my visit, it was a hundred and fifty. And besides all this we have a
wide and favorable acquaintance with people of all classes. The extent
to which the missionaries have gained the good will of the community and
the great influence which they have acquired are shown in the fact that
the entire sum for the hospital building was raised in Iloilo-Filipinos,
Chinese, Spaniards, Englishmen, and Americans contributing. The building is a modest one, but the fact is notable nevertheless. The influence
of our Hospital has powerfully aided in creating the conditions which have
made the Baptist work so successful, many of the people from the villages
in the Baptist territory having been treated by Dr. Hall. The impression
made by this Hospital is a fair offset to that made by the circulation of
Baptist literature.
Fourth. The fact that our Board interposed no objection to the occupation of the Keng Tung field in the Shan States by the Baptists not long
ago. Our Board and our Laos Mission strongly felt that this was Presbyterian territory. Our missionaries had toured widely through it and
regarded it as in the line of the legitimate and necessary development of
their work. The Baptist missionaries in Burmah, however, believed
that the region should be considered theirs. Frank and full conference
both on the field and in the United States failed to convince either party
of the soundness of the other's position. As the Baptists, however, were
prepared to send a man to Keng Tung before we were, our Board, in the
interest of comity, felt that it ought not to protest and so informed Dr.
Barbour, when, in a brotherly way, he laid the matter before us. Our
Laos missionaries feel deeply aggrieved by this action and are strenuously
insisting that the case be reopened.  There is some complaint that this is
the way comity usually works in practice.  I sometimes think that it
might be defined as the graceful and fraternal yielding of Presbyterians
to brethren of other denominations who feel conscientiously obliged to
stand up for their own Church. Of course, the pending question in the
19




Philippines should be considered on its merits apart from the Keng Tung
matter. But after having seen comity mean Presbyterian concession to
Methodists in Africa, to Southern Baptists in Shan Tung, to Congrega2
'tionalists in Peking, and to Northern Baptists in the Shan States, I may
'perhaps be pardoned for desiring to see it mean just once something
advantageous to Presbyterianism. We cannot always yield.
On the other hand, we should not underestimate the sacrifice which
'our Baptist brethren would have to make if they were to withdraw. They
will probably state their own case. But my desire to do them justice
leads me to present the following considerations on their side.
First. The circumstances in which they were led to Iloilo. Of course,
the Baptist Missionary Union had no thought of interfering with us. But
when the Union decided to undertake work in the Philippines, it was
natural that it should instruct Mr. Lund, who was its representative in
Spain and therefore familiar with the Spanish p'eople and language, to go
to the Philippines, look over the field and select one or more points for
stations. It was equally natural that Mr. Lund should take counsel with
Mr. Manikin, a native Filipino, who had been educated for the priesthood
at the Roman Catholic school at Jaro, who had then gone to Spain to complete his studies, and had met and been converted by Mr. Lund. The two
immediately began translating Gospels and tracts into Visayan, the native
tongue of Mr. Manikin, and when they arrived in the Philippines, they,
of course, again went to Iloilo, the port near which Mr. Manikin had been
educated and where he had a wide acquaintance. Finding the Presbyterians already established at Iloilo, but in the circumstances and after
their correspondence with the Baptist Missionary Union about Iloilo, not
feeling justified in going to another field, they opened their work at Jaro,
two miles away. Here Mr. Lund went vigorously to work, and with the
powerful aid of the Baptist literature prepared in Spain and of Mr. Manikin, who is an able and eloquent preacher, a successful movement was inaugurated.
Second. The great promise of the work. True, little has yet been
accomplished in Occidental Negros beyond the baptism of four men and
the settlement of a missionary at Bacolod, but north and east of Iloilo
the work has spread with wonderful rapidity. Not only have 113 persons
Kbeen baptized, but "over ten thousand people in the country districts
-have announced their desire to become Protestants." An experienced
-missionary would probably not regard such petitions as indicative of a
rgenuine spiritual movement, especially as the majority of.the villagers
-concerned have never yet seen a foreign missionary, for none of the Baptist missionaries can yet speak the Visayan and comparatively few of the
^natives outside of Iloilo can understand Spanish. The preaching thus far
ihas been done by Filipino helpers. Still such petitions do indicate a
remarkable opportunity.
Third. The literary work which has been done. For a long time before Mr. Lund and Mr. Manikin left Spain, they were hard at work transiating the New Testament and preparing tracts in Visayan. All their
imanuscripts were confiscated before they left Spain, as was also the Gospel
4by-Mark which had been printed. But a small hand press was promptly
20




bought and set up at Jaro, and the printing was done there. Thus far
Mark is the only Gospel published, but all the other Gospels and most of
the Epistles are ready for the printer. Of tracts, five in editions of five
thousand each have been distributed far and wide, laying a foundation for
Baptist work and undoubtedly exerting a wide influence.
Fourth. The fact that withdrawal by the Baptists would mean not only
their relinquishment of an inspiringly encouraging work in which their constituency at home has become interested, but the giving up of everything
they now have in the Philippine Islands. For while Presbyterians could
leave Panay and still have left their Manila and Dumaguete stations, the
Baptists have practically no other point, for.Bacolod on Occidental Negros
is really a part of the Panay field, as I shall explain presently. It would
not be easy, therefore, for the Baptists to go. Still, it would be as easy
for them to leave as it would be for us.
Where could the withdrawing missionaries go? I answer to Cebu. The
Visayan Islands are naturally divided by dialect into two groups which
may be designated the Panayan and the Cebuyan. The difference is so
marked that a native of one cannot understand the other, though, like
that between the Spanish and the Portuguese, it is soon overcome when
an effort is made. The appended table will serve our convenience in
making comparisons, the figures having been taken from the "Atlas de
Filipinas," published by the Director of the Jesuit Observatory in 1899,
and said to be the most reliable obtainable.
PANAYAN GROUP.
Islands                Area in square miles          Population
Panay.......................4,708...............  734,887
Guimaras....................... 176... (population  included  in
Panay, it being a part
of Province of Iloilo.
Occidental Province of Negros....3200............... 296,995
Tablas........................  250
Sibyan........................  31...............  38,000
Romblon and five smaller islands.. 245
M asbate.......................I,200...............  I9,5I7
Total,...........i0,000...........1,089,399
CEBUYAN GROUP.
Islands               Area in square miles           Population
Cebu..........................1,742...............  504,076
Bohol......................... 1,439..............  248,000
Oriental Province of Negros...... I,654............... 94,782
Siguijor.....................  83.... (included in Oriental
Negros, as it is a part
of that Province.)
Samar........................5,040............... 200,753
Leyte......................2,713..............  270,491
Total............ 12,671,3I8,Io2
21




The Atlas does not give the area of Provinces,and as the two Provinces
of Negros must be divided between the two groups of dialects, a mountain
range separating them, I have had to roughly estimate their respective
areas from the appearance of the map. The area of the whole Island is
4,854 square miles, the Occidental Province having approximately twothirds. The area of Romblon and its neighbors is not stated, but it is
small, though the city of Romblon is the capital of the Province and a
port of call for the steamers between Manila and Iloilo.
Each group has a good city as a base for mission operations, affording
all necessary banking and shipping facilities. Iloilo, the metropolis of
the Panayan Group and 250 miles from Manila, is the second port of the
Philippines in importance with a population of approximately I5,ooo.
Cebu, with a population of I0,972, is the metropolis of the Cebuyan group,
is usually rated as the third port of the Philippines and is the great shipping point for hemp as Iloilo is for sugar. It has a better harbor and a
more attractive location, Iloilo being on low, marshy ground, so that I
heard the opinion frequently expressed that Cebu will in the future be
the more influential city.
The following table, prepared by General James F. Smith, late Coilector of Customs of the Islands, will show the relative trade of the chief
ports for the year I900.


Imports.                   Exports.         All
Year and Port.                                                           other    Total
P Free and'r                                          Collec- CollecDutiable Dutiable,     Duty.      Value.     Duty.     tions.   tions.
Value.     Value.
1900
Manila......... $33,665,518 $28,115,616 $8,641,410 $33,677,388  $866,856 $299,818 $9,808,085
Cebu............    2,090,738  2,o90,738   546,122  3,537,746   115,536 19,869      681,527
Iloilo..............  2,896,420  2,888,554   883,60o  2,626,470    88,568   14,619    986,788
olo0...............     237,598   221,568     69,926    216,308     5,055    1,742     76,724
Sassi.............      39,054     38,440    i3399      57,616       255      134     12,789
Zamboanga.......         28,652    23,594          0      8,o82         0 o                0
Total........ $38,957,980 $33,378,8o1 $10,153,458 $40,123,6IO $1,076,270 $356,270 I 11565,913


Both Iloilo and Cebu have regular steamer connection with Manila
and are occasional ports of call for some of the Hongkong and Singapore
steamers.
The Panayan and Cebuyan Groups are so related geographically to
Southern Luzon, that either would give our Philippine work a fairly compact field and permit a good Mission organization with annual meetings
which would be attended by representatives of all our stations. The
natives of both Groups are of the same general Visayan stock and are
among the very best material in all the Philippines, second only to the
Tagalogs of Luzon in development and, some think, superior to them in
natural qualities. At any rate, they have less admixture of Spanish
blood.
As permanent fields for missionary labor, there is not much choice
between the two Groups, though the Panayan is now more open and ripe
22




for successful missionary effort and is rather more compact and easily
worked, the bulk of the territory being on the single Island of Panay with
fairly good roads. The Cebuyan Group, on the other hand, while including no one island as populous as Panay, has a greater number of relatively
important ones. Though in some parts of the Group, as for example
Oriental Negros, the people are most friendly, yet in Cebu and Samar
hostilities are still in progress. Spain never attempted a real occupation
of the latter, and it was not till a short time ago that the United States
undertook to pacify it-Co. C of the 9th Infantry being surprised and
fifty-nine men killed or wounded as recently as Sept. 28th.
Undoubtedly the Baptists would be glad to have us take the Cebuyan
Group, leaving them Panay, for they would then retain all their present
work and, with the addition of all our work on Panay, they would have at
once the most immediately promising field in the Philippines and all the
territory they will probably ever care for in the entire Archipelago. But
as they have nothing in the Cebuyan Group, they could give us nothing in
exchange for our work on Panay, and comity would again mean the yielding of Presbyterians. Still, if the Baptists should accept the Cebuyan
Group, we should have to turn over to them our Dumaguete Station on
Oriental Negros. This would be as heavy a sacrifice as the loss of Iloilo,
for while Dumaguete is not so important a city, it is the most beautifully
and healthfully located place I saw in the Philippines and it is the seat of
our Silliman Institute, which is already in successful operation. Moreover, the highest Filipino officials of the municipality and Province are the
warm friends of the missionaries and the Institute, and we have so publicly committed ourselves to this School that withdrawal would be a
serious matter.
Another solution, considering that the Baptists have already established themselves on Panay and are unwilling to leave it, would be
for them to take the Provinces of Capiz, Conception, Antigue, and the
islands of Romblon, Tablas, Sibuyan and Mesbate off the coast of Capiz.
This would give them a good and clear station field with the cities of
Capiz and Romblon for centers. Then we could take the Provinces of
Iloilo and Occidental Negros. As these have the same dialect, as they
are but a few miles apart, as their trade relations are very close, twothirds of the sugar of Occidental Negros being exported from Iloilo
and boats running back and forth daily-these two Provinces naturally belong together as one station field. The southern part of the
Province of Antigue is more naturally tributary to Iloilo, but the population is not considerable enough to be a vital element in the question.
With this division, each Board would have an independent and ample
field. I wish this could be adopted. It would be the most just to us
and would permit us to retain both our Iloilo and Dumaguete stations.
It is doubtful, however, whether this would be agreed to by the Baptists as all their present work is in the Provinces of Iloilo and Occidental
Negros. The dialect division undoubtedly looks to the larger and
longer good, though whichever one we take, we must make a heavy
sacrifice in withdrawing from a promising station.
Providentially, the Rev. Dr. Barbour, Foreign Secretary of the
23




American Baptist Missionary Union, is now in the Philippines. As I
knew from a delightful personal acquaintance the breadth of his mind
and the largeness of his heart, I was very desirous of meeting him, confident that a frank and brotherly conference would bring us to a mutually satisfactory agreement. But unfortunately, he was not due in
Manila until some weeks after I was obliged to leave for Siam, so that
I could not see him. I therefore requested Dr. Hall and Mr. Rodgers
to confer with him and to explain the situation from our viewpoint.
In the Dumaguete station field also, the division of territory has not
assigned us an adequate area, for we have only the Oriental Province,
which is confined to the comparatively narrow strip on the coast east
of the mountains, and the sparsely settled adjacent island of Siguijor
eighteen miles distant-all told only about 1,600 square miles and
94,782 population. The great Occidental Province of Negros, with
three-fourths of the area and population of the Island is, as already
explained, claimed by the Baptists. It is out of the question for us to
think of maintaining a permanent station and developing our leading
educational institution in so contracted a field, especially as we must
expect a considerable part of the population to remain Roman Catholic.
After having visited China stations with tributary populations of from
one to six millions each, 94,782 people impressed me as small.
However, there is ample unoccupied territory in sight. The southern
end of Cebu is within six miles of Dumaguete, while Bohol is only forty
miles away. The native sailboats are abundant, swift and fairly comfortable, and in them the missionary from Dumaguete could reach those
islands far more easily than the average missionary in China can get to his
out stations. A tour in such circumstances would be a holiday jaunt
compared with Dr. Corbett's toilsome journeys of 125 miles on horseback in Shantung. Mr. Briggs thinks the Baptists would give us Occidental Negros if we could give them all of Panay. Though the dialects
of the two Provinces are different, the divergence is not so great as that
which we successfully meet in the Canton, Hainan, Persia and Syria
Missions. Moreover, a railroad is now being surveyed from Escalante,
a port on the northeastern coast of Negros, over a pass in the mountain range and down the whole length of Occidental Negros. This line
will send the wide stream of Occidental Negros sugar trade into a port
within easy reach of Dumaguete, and will bring the two Provinces of
the Island into far closer relations than at present.  It would be better
to have the whole Island of Negros under the same Board, not only
to avoid the embarrassments of dual occupation which have already
broken out on Panay, but because one Board could work the whole
area and because the postal and banking facilities will be on our side
of the Island. However, Dumaguete does not need the Western Province
if it can have Cebu and Bohol.
But while neither of these islands has been appropriated by any
Board, I was informed that by the terms of the Evangelical Union Compact, they could not be considered Presbyterian ground unless so
assigned by the Executive Committee. I therefore raised the question
in a conference with the Union. Dr. Stuntz, the Presiding Elder of the
24




Methodist work, stated that, not knowing of our desires, he had been planning a station at Cebu which he regarded as a very important strategic
centre. I pointed out that, with the Baptists in possession of two-thirds
of Panay and all of Occidental Negros, we were now shut out from fourfifths of our Iloilo station field, and that if the Methodists were to establish themselves at Cebu, our Dumaguete station would also be crowded
into a corer with no possibility of expansion; that it was neither necessary nor expedient for two denominations to enter the Cebuyan dialect,
when one was ample; that we were already established in that region
(Dumaguete); that there were now two Boards in the Visayan Group,
Baptist and Presbyterian; that the entrance of a third would be contrary to the basal principle on which the Union was founded; that the
only way out of the tangle on Panay was for one of the present denominations to take the Cebuyan dialect; that the Methodist occupation of
Cebu would destroy all possibility of such an adjustment; that when
we opened a station, we never had in mind simply the town in which
the missionaries lived but also the region within practicable working
distance, and that Dumaguete was not a station in our use of the term
without its outlying population. I stated moreover that our Board
had voted December I8, I899, "that if the way be clear, a station be
opened in the northern part of the Island of Luzon, presumably at the
port of Oparri, recently opened and garrisoned by our Government,"
but that the action of the Union in giving the Methodists the Provinces immediately north of Manila and the Presbyterians those south of
it, made it inexpedient for us to carry out our original plan, as we should
have to pass through Methodist territory to reach Oparri and as our
station there would be too far detached from our other stations. I
therefore suggested that the Methodists consolidate their work north of
Manila by adding the northern valley, and that the Presbyterians
consolidate their work southwards by adding to our southern Luzon
field the whole of either the Panayan or the Cebuyan Group, as we
might arrange with the Baptists. As the American Board had already announced to our Board its expectation of undertaking work
in Mindanao, this arrangement would give each of the four great Boards,
which would doubtless always represent the chief part of Protestant
work in the Philippines, an ample, independent and geographically
compact field, thus economizing men and money, avoiding rivalries
and promoting the essential object of the Union.
Dr. Stuntz promptly and cordially stated that if the Methodists
could look forward to developing their work to the northern end of the
Island, they would abandon their plans for Cebu. My steamer sailed
that week, but it was understood that the Executive Committee, with
which such matters officially rested, would meet the following Monday, to ratify this plan. If it is agreed to and if our adjustment with
the Baptists leaves us Dumaguete, that station should have a normal
equipment, besides the physician, of three ordained men, one for the
Institute, one for Evangelistic work on Negros, and one for Evangelistic
work on Cebu and Bohol until the way opens for establishing a station
in the city of Cebu.
25




The American Church in Manila presents another embarrassing
question of comity, which I took up in obedience to instructions
from the Board. By far the most successful American service in the
city was the one founded and conducted by our Presbyterian missionary, the Rev. James B. Rodgers. I heard this from several disinterested
travellers from Manila before I reached the Philippines. The Rev.
George L. Gelwicks, who was sent out to take temporary charge of this
congregation, wrote March 4, I901:
"We were most agreeably surprised to find the excellent beginning
that had been made in the work to which we came. The Church
services are sustained by an audience which for culture and intelligence
will compare very favorably with any in the home land. Our congregation includes some of the best people in Manila, both in army and
civilian circles."
In this popular service, Presbyterians had a decided denominational
advantage. But our missionaries cordially proposed to waive it in
the interest of what they believed to be the larger good. In forming
the Evangelical Union, it was understood that its jurisdiction was
to be over the native work only, and that it was not to include the services in English for the American population. Nevertheless, the Presbyterian missionaries had from the first greatly desired that there should
be a strong Union Church for Americans, visibly manifesting in our
work for our own people that unity which we counselled for the Filipinos.
Mr. Gelwicks continued: "It is the conviction of our missionaries
that in view of our peculiar conditions, the united strength of all Christians
is needed to build up a strong evangelical church. After due prayer
and deliberation, we decided to make our Church one in which all evangelical Christians can unite on a basis of equality. It is purposely not
styled a Mission Church in order that the way may not be blocked for
alliance with a denomination later on. If Presbyterians or persons
willing to become Presbyterians are in the majority, we feel that it will
be all right to make the Church such, but if adherents of some other
denomination shall quite outnumber Presbyterians, it seems only just
that the Church should ally itself with that denomination if it changes
its present status."
Accordingly, a broad evangelical statement of belief was adopted,
all characteristically denominational features were excluded, and the
congregation was named simply "The Union Evangelical Church."
But through no fault of either our mission or the congregation, this
scheme did not work. All three of the other Protestant bodies represented in Manila came to the conclusion that the interests of their work
and of the cause of Christ justified them in establishing separate services for Americans. Two of them began preaching in other parts of
the city, but have bought property in Ermita, and the third is occupying
a rented building in the same quarter. So the unity for which we
sacrificed our Presbyterian advantage cannot be attained. Not only this,
but the name "Union Evangelical Church" became an object of criticism.
Our missionaries were told that it was not fair to style this Church " Union
Evangelical" as if it were the only one in the city. On the other hand
26




the congregation lost the support of some Presbyterian visitors at the
hotels, who, seeing the announcement of other services, went to them
when they would have attended ours if they had known that "Union
Evangelical" was virtually Presbyterian. So the mission was surrendering the congregation which it had toiled so hard to build up,
losing the prestige which it had won for the Presbyterian Mission, and
was not only failing to gain the unity which it sought, but was under
the same responsibility and expense as before, for a Presbyterian missionary had to give his entire time to the work of the Church and our
Board had to pay his salary.
A meeting of the congregation was accordingly held during my
visit, Oct. 17 (I9o0), and the whole question frankly discussed. Mr.
Rodgers explained the original intention to have a Union Church and
the failure to realize it. Called upon for a statement, I was careful
not to ask that the Church become Presbyterian, stated our earnest
desire for unity, our disappointment that it could not be obtained
at present, our uncertainty as to what relation our Board and Mission
were expected to sustain to the Church, our cordial willingness to sacrifice our denominational interest in the Church to a real union; but said
that if we had to carry the sole responsibility of maintaining the Church,
we should feel that our interests in it were paramount to those
of any   other denomination, and "that the    Board looks with
disfavor upon any pledge or tacit understanding that in the formation of the Church, whether English-speaking or otherwise, either
the Mission or the Board which mainly supports such Church shall
at any future time be bound to submit the question of the possible
transference of the Church to another denomination by a majority
vote." I stated, however, that the congregation was free to take such
action as it deemed expedient and that we should be glad to know what
was in the mind of the people, etc. Thereupon, several who were not
Presbyterians declared that in the circumstances a Union Church was
impracticable; that without the support of the united Protestant
forces of the city, it could not hope to succeed unless some Mission
gave it care for a time; that Union Churches elsewhere had experienced
difficulty in inducing suitable ministers in England and America to
leave their denominational relations to become pastors of such detached,
independent congregations; that this particular congregation, in order,to attain the commanding position it ought to occupy, must have the
strong leadership of some influential Mission; that the Presbyterians
had done all the work, borne all the expense, furnished the minister
and deserved all the credit, and that the Church should be called Presbyterian. After full discussion, it was by a standing vote unanimously
" resolved to change the name of the Church to the Presbyterian Church
to be in connection with the Mission of the Board of Foreign Missions
of the Presbyterian Church of the U. S. A."
It will be noted that this consummation is in harmony with the report of the Board's Committee on the Philippine Islands and the Executive Council to wit: "While it would have been desirable for a time
that the various Protestant Missions working in Manila should unite
27




in the maintenance of a union service, yet the Board having learned that
the Missions of other denominations decline to unite in such a movement either in vernacular or English-speaking congregations, the Board
decided to advise its missionaries to conduct the services of the Englishspeaking congregation in a broad and catholic spirit, but with the view
of its establishment as a Presbyterian Church in case a permanent
Union Church continues to be impossible;" and also with the further
action that "while the Board does not feel at liberty to depart essentially
from the constitution and order of the Church under whose commission
it acts, yet it would encourage its missionaries in the Philippines to
conduct all their work in a generous and catholic spirit, and it most
cordially approves the plan of receiving as associate members all Protestant Christians who prefer not to lay aside their own denominational
relations."
I had pleasure in emphasizing to the congregation the thought
embodied in the preceding sentence, namely that the Board is in hearty
sympathy with every wise effort to promote true comity, that if a real
Union Church could have been formed we would unhesitatingly have
turned over to it our interests in the congregation, that while in accordance with their vote the Church would now be known as Presbyterian,
it was not our purpose to conduct it on any narrow sectarian lines,
that our constitution required acceptance of denominational tenets
only by ordained officers, membership being open to all evangelical
Christians, and that we should regard it as both a duty and a privilege
to keep the Church what it is now-a spiritual home for all of God's
people who wish to unite with it, whatever their denominational preferences might be.
Doubtless the situation in the Philippines will strengthen the conviction of some who were already convinced that comity is nothing
but "an iridescent dream." Indeed one editor rather sarcastically
inquires-" What are we to conclude regarding all the palaver about
comity and cooperation there has been in America within the past
two or three years, between the numerous missionary societies of the
country? The conferences held by the representatives of the Boards
of Missions have discussed these topics in the most amiable and enthusiastic way, yet we learn that not fewer than thirteen societies have
expressed their intention of prosecuting missionary work in Cuba;
ten have resolved to enter Porto Rico, and half a dozen or more have
the Philippines on their list."
But I am not ready to admit that comity is a failure. In calling the
original conference on the Philippines and in framing the resolutions
which it adopted, we did not imagine that the millennium of ideal unity
was to immediately dawn. Difficulties should not deter true men
from trying to do what is best. Better far to fail in an honest effort
to attain the right than to weakly acquiesce in the wrong. I will never
admit that it is our duty to perpetuate on the foreign field the blunder
which has crowded our American towns with rival congregations, quartering the strength of the churches by quadrupling their number. Comity
is right, comity is coming. Let us work for it and pray for it. Let us
28




not be discouraged by obstacles. Let us remember that every sensible
discussion of the subject promotes it, that every wise effort to attain
it hastens the day of its triumph. Shortly after the original conference
on the Philippines was held, I said "Whatever may be the immediate
outcome, we feel that it is a distinct gain that such a conference has
been held, and that such resolutions were adopted. It is a great thing
that, for the first time in the history of the world, so far as we know,
before occupying a new field, the representatives of the various Boards
sat down to cordially plan the situation together, to pray over it, and
to decide how men and money can be used to the very best advantage
and to the avoidance of many of the evils of denominational lines."
The New York Independent was right in characterizing that conference
"as one of the marked and exceedingly interesting signs of the times."
It should be remembered, too, that the only serious embarrassment in the Philippines, that between the Baptists and Presbyterians,
was not intentionally caused by either party's indifference to the principles of comity. It grew out of the accidents, not out of the designs,
of the situation. So far from that embarrassment proving that comity
is a failure, the very fact that the overlapping is so promptly recognized
by both parties, and that there is such a cordial and fraternal desire
to make a better adjustment proves the success of comity. If it be
objected that my argument is that the Baptists should yield, I reply
that I am willing to abide by the judgment of the two Boards concerned or of any third party to whom they may see fit to refer the question as to the inherent worth of the reasons which I have stated.
"But suppose the Baptists conscientiously feel that they can not
withdraw from the Provinces of Iloilo and Occidental Negros? What
then?" Then I say that the Presbyterians should withdraw. Inequitable as I should deem such an alternative in view of our prior plans
and occupation, yet with so many unevangelized and unoccupied fields,
with such importunate demands upon our inadequate supply of men
and money, we should not be justified before our own consciences, or
the Christian world, or the Judge of men, in maintaining a Station for
so limited an area and a population as we now have in Iloilo, when
another evangelical agency is able and willing to cover the whole Island.
Let us in this event transfer our force to Cebu.
Consider, too, how much has been really gained for comity in the
Philippines. With the single, and, as I believe, the temporary exception
on Panay. the Methodists, Presbyterians, United Brethren, and Congregationalists have been assigned wholly distinct fields, so that in each
place only one Church is being developed and a united front is presented
to the people. Further than that, it has been agreed that the Protestant Churches throughout the Islands should bear one name-" Iglesias
Evang. licas," and where the denominational designation is to be added
it is to be subsidiary like the name Dominican or Augustinian in connection with a Roman Catholic Church. Defects there are beyond
question, and additional ones will probably develop from time to time.
The missionaries in the Philippine Islands, like the missionaries in other
lands, are the products of American denominational Christianity and
29




they will be more or less influenced by the views of the Churches which send
them forth. But the fact remains that in spite of draw-backs, comity
in the Philippines has made a more practical start than in any other
mission field. Let us see to it that we maintain the position taken by
our Board's Executive Council and Committee on the Philippines,
namely-" that nothing should be done by the Mission which should
prejudice the advanced position which the Presbyterian Church through
its General Assembly has already assumed on the subject of comity,
and the thorough and cordial cooperation of different Missions of
whatever denomination in advancing the one great work of a common
Redeemer."
THE AMERICAN POPULATION.
Apart from  some of the difficulties which are common to other
mission fields, a distinctive problem in the Philippine Islands is the
presence of an overshadowing number of irreligious Anericans. Of
the approximately seventy thousand people from the United States
now in the Philippine Islands, only a few hundred identify themselves
with the Christian cause. Many are given to profanity or intemperance
or immorality, or perhaps to all three, and are so conspicuous in their
vices that they appear to be relatively more numerous than they really
are. The American saloon is the greatest curse that has been introduced into the Archipelago. Near our missionary residence in Dumaguete, for example, there is a saloon kept by a former volunteer soldier.
It was filled with soldiers every time I passed it, and I was informed
that its receipts are between $300 and $400 Mexican every pay-day. Statistical reports show that during the year 900o, liquors were imported
into the port of Manila to the value of $1,534,558.00 gold, and that flour
was imported during the same period to the value of $4II,616.00 gold.
The Manila Times says that "the people will no doubt wonder what
on earth was done with so much flour. The proportion appears to
be one solid to four liquids." Before the arrival of Americans, the
native wine-shops were numerous, but they seldom carry more than a
few pesos' worth of bino (rice whiskey) and tuba (cocoanut beer). Intemperance is not a Filipino vice. He drinks moderately as compared
with the American, usually in his home at night, and in the opinion
of the Taft Commission, "consequently suffers comparatively little
harm." In a month's constant travelling, I did not see a drunken
Filipino. Drunkenness came with the American soldier and sailor.
An unimpeachable authority, not a missionary, told me that venereal
diseases brought by Americans are spreading with such appalling rapidity,
that in some villages half the population has already been infected and
that it has become absolutely necessary to establish hospitals for the
treatment of venereally diseased native women. I saw two hundred
such women, many of them mere girls, in one hospital in Manila. "What
are we to do?" half-pathetically said an officer of the Bureau of Public
Health to me. "We cannot allow these contagious diseases to run
unchecked and rot away their lives."
30




But let us be fair. Secretary of War Root says of the last report of
the Philippine Commission: "The section of the report on the liquor
traffic in Manila indicates that the powers of the Commission are ample
to deal with that subject; that they have devoted great attention to
it, and that the difficulties which they experience are the same as those
which confront Congress in governing the city of Washington and our
State legislatures in dealing with the same subject, while the success
which they have attained will compare favorably with the results here.
Many false and misleading statements have been made regarding the
use of intoxicating liquors in Manila. The fact is that this traffic is
more rigidly and effectively regulated and kept within bounds in the
city of Manila than in any city of similar or greater size in the United
States. A strict high-license law is enforced, under which the native
salooxr or wine-shops have been reduced from 4,000 at the time of
American occupation to 400 at the present time, and the saloons selling
American liquors, including hotels and restaurants, have been reduced
from 224 in February, 1900, to 105 at the date of this report, and to 88
at the present time. Of these, but 48 are permitted to sell spirituous
liquors. All of these saloons are closed at half past eight in the evening
and are prevented from making sales until the following day, and all
are closed and prevented from selling on Sundays. Manila has a population of over 400,000, and as against her 400 native and 88 foreign
saloons for that population we have in this country the cities of:
POPULATION.  SALOONS
W ashington.................................  278,718     513
Cleveland....................................  381,768   i,888
Cincinnati...................................  325,902    I,727
New    Orleans................................  287,104   I,370
Milwaukee...................................  285,3I5     1,747
San   Francisco................................  342,782  3,007
St.  Louis....................................  575,238  2,o60
Baltim ore....................................  508,957   1,988
B oston.......................................  560,892   799
Philadelphia.................................  1,293,697  1,709
Chicago.....................................  1,698,575   6,460
New York.................................    3,437,202   10,832
"Since the date of the Commission's report further regulations have
been adopted by them, limiting the portions of the city in which the
traffic is permitted, and I am satisfied that they are dealing with the
subject with wisdom, firmness, and a full knowledge of the conditions."
The Manila police force numbered, when I was in the city, I,058, of
whom 619 were Filipinos and 439 Americans, nearly all the latter being
discharged Volunteer soldiers. But an Inspector of Police told me, in
answer to my inquiries, that Manila is now so orderly that this force will
soon be largely reduced. The laws restricting vice are as good as similar
laws at home and they are as well enforced. The officials whom I met in
the Philippines impressed me as high-minded men who are conscientiously
31




doing the best they can amid many difficulties. Let us not revile them
because they do not accomplish what our home cities have conspicuously
failed to accomplish. The Commission "has imposed many new restrictions on the sale of intoxicants, and has forbidden saloons on certain of
the principal streets and plazas, namely, the Escolta, Calle Rosario, Plaza
Moraga, Plaza Cervantes, Calle San Fernando, and a part of Calle Nueva."
It has adopted a graduated scale of licenses rising to twelve hundred pesos
for a "first-class bar" and sixteen hundred for a theater bar. For the
first time, drug and grocery stores must pay license fees and the sale of
intoxicants in public markets, street booths or by peddlers or street
venders is strictly prohibited. Licenses will not be granted against the
protest of adjacent residents and property owners. To prevent the Filipino from being attracted to the American saloon, "the playing of musical
instruments or the conducting or operation of any gambling device,
phonograph, slot machine, billiard or pool table, or other form of amusement in saloons, bars, or drinking place is forbidden." "Violations of
the minor provisions of this law are punishable upon conviction by a fine
not exceeding 200 pesos or imprisonment for six months, or both, in the
discretion of the trial court, for each offence. A violation of any provision of the act may subject the offender to having his license revoked,
in the discretion of the provost marshal general, while, if he is convicted
of selling, giving away, or otherwise disposing of any liquor not allowed
by his license, or during the hours wherein the sale of such liquor is prohibited, or of selling, giving away or otherwise disposing of any intoxicating liquor to any intoxicated person, the license becomes null and void
as a consequence of conviction."
All this indicates the earnest desire of the Commission to place such
restrictions upon the liquor traffic as can be enforced among a population
of Americans who as a class are drinking men.
The trouble is that, while in the United States vice is more or less
counterbalanced by a great body of Christian sentiment and of pure men
and women, in the Philippines the number is yet so small that the proportion is grewsomely on the wrong side. In its official report to the Secretarv of War, Nov. 30, 900o, the Taft Commission, discussing the difficulties in securing a good civil service in the Islands, frankly says: "The
Americans who come to these islands come eight or ten thousand miles,
come with a venturesome spirit, come with the idea of amassing a competence by their stay in the islands. They are exposed, in any important
official position where there is opportunity for defeating the rights of the
Government, to constant temptations offered them by interested persons
seeking to escape lawful burdens or to obtain fraudulent advantage, and
who have no other conception of a public officer than of one who is to be
reached by bribery if the sum offered be large enough. Men may leave
the United States honest, but with the weakening of moral restraints of
home associations and with the anxious desire to make so long a trip result successfully in a pecuniary way, demoralization and dishonesty are
much more likely to follow than at home."
Unfortunately, too, some whose lives are not only upright but whose
personal sympathies are with our Protestant missionary effort, hold them32




selves publicly aloof from it. In some cases this is due to that lessening
of the sense of Christian responsibility, that sagging of the spiritual life,
which are so often noticed in men who are far away from the environments of home and the Churches with which they are connectedc In other
cases, it is due to considerations which I shall mention in connection with
the Roman Catholic question. So it comes to pass that some men who
were open supporters of religion at home seldom enter church doors in
the Philippines, that where the Filipino sees an American who is not
ashamed of his faith he sees a multitude who are apparently either hostile
or indifferent, and that the missionary must toil as best he can unaided
save by a comparatively small number of men and women, who refuse to
sacrifice their personal faith and duty to God to any dictates of alleged
expediency. Thank God there are such Americans in the Philippines.
They believe as strongly as any one in the separation of Church and State.
But they believe nevertheless that it is their duty as individuals to stand
up for God. Nor, so far as I could learn, are they any the less popular
on that account.
OUR AMERICAN CHURCH.
These facts emphasize the importance of our Church service for Americans. In other lands, we are justified in paying little attention to the foreign community, for it is comparatively very small and composed almost
wholly of Europeans who usually have churches of their own nationality.
But in the Philippines, the case is different. With the exception of a
small and rapidly diminishing number of Spaniards, all of whom are Roman Catholics. and a handful of English and Scotch business men, the
whole of the large white population is from the United States. The fact
that Americans possess the Philippines and that they occupy all the
high administrative posts in the Government as well as every rank in the
Army and Navy, naturally gives to this American element unquestioned
leadership and prestige. The attitude of this class toward religion is
therefore certain to be enormously influential over a naturally imitative
people. Protestant missionary effort cannot concern itself wholly with
the Filipinos while leaving this great American community to set a demoralizing example of agnosticism and vice. The Filipinos have never
been taught to distinguish between Church and State. For three hundred years, they have seen the two united. The victory of the Spaniards
meant enforced submission to Romanism. When the contest with the
United States began, the Spanish priests sought to inflame the people by
vociferously. telling them that the Americans were Protestants and would
compel them to become Protestants. Undoubtedly many of the Filipinos
now believe that as Romanism is the religion of Spaniards so Protestantism is the religion of Americans and that the transfer from Spanish rule
to American involves a compulsory change of faith. The fear that this
will be as ruthlessly enforced as the Spaniards enforced their creed, together with the natural desire of many to be on the winning side, probably accounts in part, for example, for the fact that ten thousand villagers
in the interior of Panay send word that they wish to become Protestants.
33




Not only Governor Taft and his official associates but the Protestant
missionaries themselves are trying to disabuse the popular mind on this
point. We do not want the people to join our Churches from any such
motives, and so it will not be long before the Filipinos will learn that
loyalty to the new Government does not require them to become Protestants, and if, in addition, they see that Americans themselves are personally indifferent or hostile to all Church work, the result can easily be foreseen. The success of our work among the Filipinos is dependent in no
small degree upon the example of a commanding American Church.
Besides, have we not a responsibility for these Americans for their own
sake? If we do not do Christian work among them, who will? We cannot
expect European Boards to send foreign missionaries to American citizens
in American territory. We would not deem it wise or courteous for our
Boards of Home Missions to undertake work in a region in which the Foreign Boards have established themselves. The Army Branch of the
Y. M. C. A. and the Army and Navy chaplains, will, it is true, work
among the soldiers and sailors, but who will interest themselves in the
influential and increasing class of civilians?
I believe therefore that Christian work among Americans is not only
a legitimate but an absolutely necessary phase of our missionary enterprise in the Philippine Islands and that we cannot ignore it without betraying a part of the trust which we have assumed.
In Iloilo and Dumaguete, this responsibility will not, for a long time
if ever, involve much separate expenditure of time or money. The
American population in such cities is comparatively small, the civil officials being nearly all Filipinos. A few business men, clerks, soldiers and
the public-school superintendents and teachers constitute the American
element which we can reach. The very fact that the Americans are relatively few in number brings them closer together, makes it easier for the
missionary to personally know each one and to be personally known by
him. It is important, for the reasons already stated, that we should
reach this class, but the methods already employed are adequate, for the
present, viz. a Sabbath English service in the same building in which the
native congregation worships and under the care of a missionary who can
in addition do considerable evangelistic or educational work among the
Filipinos.
But in Manila, the American population is altogether too large to be
reached by such methods. There must be an American Church with
its own edifice and its own pastor. It is idle to suppose that the work
can be effectively done any other way. As a matter of fact, it has been
conducted in this way. Our American congregation absorbed practically the whole time of Mr. Gelwicks, and since his departure it
has taken the whole time of Mr. McIntire. So exacting are its demands, that he is not even learning the native language. This is a
sacrifice of our Filipino work which we cannot afford to make. It
throws the entire burden of that work upon Mr. Rodgers, a killing load.
The entire time and strength of two ordained men are the very least
force imperatively needed for the Filipino work of this station, and we
really ought to have three.
34




A pastor for the American Church should therefore be sent by the
Board at once. At a meeting of the congregation, October I7th, "it was
resolved that we formally request Dr. Brown to ask the Board to appoint
a pastor for this Church, the congregation promising to do the utmost
possible toward paying his salary." He may or may not be a regularly appointed missionary. It might be just as well to have him come
as an associate missionary under a three or five years' contract. It
would be better to select a man who has had several years'successful
experience in a home pastorate. In addition to the spiritual qualifications upon which I need not enlarge, he should have a pulpit power
which would enable him to interest and hold men who are educated,
alert, preoccupied and tempted. He should also have a very large
measure of tact and common sense. A minister who could succeed
in a down-town city church in the United States is the type that is
wanted. A high-priced star preacher would probably not be content
to settle down to the patient, steady drudgery which will be required
to build up a permanent congregation. A sensational drum-beater
would be an unspeakable calamity. A scholarly recluse would discourse to empty benches. Send an earnest, sensible, spiritual, gospel
preacher, who will be willing to live on a missionary support, who
will accept equality with his missionary brethren individually and the
same subordination to them collectively to which they themselves
submit, and he will find an inspiring opportunity to work for God and
for his fellow men. If in addition, or while such a preacher is being
found, some man of commanding ability and eminence could be sent to
assist for six months or a year, without expense to the Board's regular
funds, so much the better. The Evangelical Union would doubtless
be glad to arrange a series of union meetings on a large scale for such
a man, and he could also render great assistance in holding meetings
for Bible study and for deepening the spiritual life of Christian workers
and of selected native helpers. Such a campaign, for example, as
Dr. Pentecost conducted in India would be invaluable in the Philippines.
But there would still be need for the more permanent man, unless of
course the founder would be willing to stay.
A church building is an immediate necessity. The congregation
is now worshiping in a rented residence, at I98 Nueva street, Ermita. It
serves a temporary purpose fairly well, but only a temporary one. I
need not urge this, for I am gratified to learn that the Board has already noted on the recommendation of its Committee on the Philippines
and the Executive Council, "That in accordance with the previous
instructions of the Board, the Mission be requested to take immediate
steps for the acquisition of land necessary for the erection of a church."
In company with Mr. Rodgers, I inspected seven different sites in
Ermita, which is the quarter where the largest American population
centers and where, from present indications, it always will center. Our
first choice is either of two comers of intersection of Calle Nueva and
Padre Faura. A church at this point would be a conspicuous object
and easy of access from all directions, the streets named being important thoroughfares, the former running from the Lunetta to Malate.35




and the latter from the Bay through all the residence district eastward.
The other sites are in the same neighborhood and are good, but are
all inside lots save one, and at that, the intersecting street, Divisoria
corner of Calle Nueva, is short and unimportant. This is the lot which
the Board was once urged to buy; and it is now held at double the
figure at which it was then offered. The site is desirable, but it would
be wiser in the long run to pay a little more for one of the main corners
before mentioned.
There is reason to believe that approximately $4,000 gold will suffice,
and on my advice Mr. Rodgers immediately began negotiations for
purchase, the cooperation of the congregation having been secured
by a resolution that a committee be appointed to secure a lot for
the purpose of building a church thereon and that Mr. Rodgers
should be chairman. The $8,ooo gold already appropriated by the
Board will probably cover the cost of, the land for both the American and the Filipino churches, or if not, the balance required will be
small.
The Board should also give some assistance in building. The people
are liberal. They are already paying the rent and all the lighting, janitor and incidental expenses of the congregation, everything indeed
except the missionary's salary, while the Christian Endeavor Society
is paying the salary of one Filipino evangelist and proposes to raise
the money for a second. On a single Sabbath, the people subscribed
$400 Mex. to repair the building, paint it and put in acetylene gas.
Mr. Gelwicks says: "I have never found the task of collecting subscriptions an easier one." In the last seven months, the congregation has
raised altogether $i,o67 Mex. With a permanent pastor and a suitable
edifice, the church ought to be entirely self-supporting in a few years.
The new minister should be sent with the understanding that the Board
expects this. But I think it would be wise for a time to continue the
present arrangement, viz: the Board paying the salary and the congregation all the other expenses, in order that the people may be able to
help in securing the money for a church, unless, of course, some special
giver at home offers the whole sum requisite. It does not matter much
whether the people give toward the salary or the building. The point
is that they cannot do both now. If the Board provides both land and
building, the congregation will rapidly attain self support. If the
Board pays the pastor's salary, the people can direct their energies
toward an edifice. But even then. some aid must come from America.
Building materials in Manila are very expensive. Governor Taft writes
on this point: "The high prices of lumber and the rise in the cost of
labor and materials have all retarded building. Shortly after the timber
regulations were issued by the military government, there was a reduction in the price of lumber, and it was hoped that the reduction would
continue, but the demand for it was so great that the supplies of cut
lumber on the coast awaiting shipment to Manila were rapidly exhausted
and the means for cutting it in the mountains, due to disturbed conditions, are so limited that it may be some considerable time before
the price is reduced to a normal figure." We cannot afford to wait
36




for a fall in prices which may be several years in coming. Our time to
act is now.
When I asked General Chaffee for suggestions as to our work, he
advised the erection of a large and handsome church. He said that
the Filipinos are accustomed to see such churches and that many of
the Americans who come here are also accustomed to them, and that
if Protestantism is to be influential it must be represented by an edifice
of dignity. On this basis some local gifts might be obtained from men
who are outside the Church. The Methodists are raising locally $6,600
Mex., the purchase price of their lot, about half a mile from our proposed location. But the Americans here are not rich. Moreover,
business is at a standstill on account of the demoralization of war, the
confusion of readjustment to new conditions, the restriction of Chinese
immigration, the ravages of rinderpest, the enforcement of American
laws among conditions to which they are not applicable, and the virtual
strangulation of what trade there is by excessive taxation. In such
circumstances, large gifts are not to be contemplated. $io,ooo gold
will build only a very modest American church in Manila and part of
that must come from America, though I think it should, if possible,
be a special gift.
OUR FILIPINO CHURCHES.
The work among the Filipinos in Manila is remarkable, particularly
when one considers how recently it was inaugurated. The permanent
congregations are two.
The oldest is the Trozo chapel congregation in the quarter called
Binondo.   The communicants number about seventy-five.   They have
not yet been formally organized as a church, but they soon will be, as
there are several good men ready for ordination to the eldership. It
is a spiritually strong body of believers. Mr. Rodgers describes them as
"handpicked and reliable." I was very favorably impressed by the intelligence and devotion of the leading men. Unfortunately, a native pastor
is not yet available, but as soon as one can be found, the people dan
contribute a considerable part of his salary, especially as the Board gives
free rent. This is because the chapel, a spacious, comparatively new, twostory building in an excellent location, is largely used by the Station for
other purposes. The second story is the general headquarters of our
Manila work, with missionaries' office, classrooms for inquirers and
native helpers, book and tract depository and two suites of rooms, now
sublet, but which would afford suitable living rooms for a single man
or even for a family without children. The chapel occupies the first
story. It is ample for present purposes, but it could be doubled in size
at the small cost of removing a partition and enclosing the adjoining court
which is a part of the property. The rent of 'the building seems high,
$I15 gold a month, but we can do no better in Manila, and we receive
for the rooms we sublet $62.50, so that we really pay only $52.50. It is
desirable that the Mission should retain control of the chapel as well as
37




the second story, for in addition to the Filipino congregation, the chapel
is used for the Chinese service, and as a central hall for general meetings,
while it is also well adapted to street chapel work. The Trozo Filipino
congregation, therefore, does not need a church edifice at present and it
can devote its financial energy to paying incidental expenses and to the
support of a pastor when one can be found, though meantime it might
help toward the rent. A  good spirit of self-help is being cultivated.
Offerings are taken at all Sabbath services and a subscription paper is
being circulated.
The other congregation is the one so widely known in connection
with Sefior Felipe Buencamino. This congregation has a remarkable
history. After the overthrow of the Spaniards, -many of the notorious
friars fled, fearing both the Americans, who were supposed to be hostile
to their interests, and particularly the natives, whom they 'had so long
plundered and oppressed. After a time, however, it became known that
it was the policy of the American Government not to interfere in religious
matters, and a report was circulated that the friars would return and be
reinvested with their former power. The apparent influence of the
Archbishop and the Apostolic Delegate with the American authorities
strengthened this report. The matter was discussed by the members
and friends of the Federal Party, which was led by Sefior Buencamino,
Aguinaldo's former Secretary of State. He decided that the most effective
way of escaping the domination of the vicious friars was to connect themselves with the Evangelical Protestant Church, not as a political party, but
as individuals. Accordingly, Mr. Rodgers, the senior member of our
Mission, was invited to call. He, of course, accepted the invitation, and
after a personal interview, he was requested to address a meeting of the
leading men. He earnestly counselled the total separation of the religious
and the political movements, explaining that a union would be injurious to
both. Buencamino accepted his advice, and soon afterward, the Federal
Party formally disavowed all connection with the Evangelical Church.
Many individuals, however, including Sefior Buencamino himself, actively
identified themselves with Protestantism. In January, 19oI, religious
services were begun in the Rizal Theater in the section of the city known
as Tondo, the Filipino proprietor giving the use of the great building
every Sunday morning, rent free. From the beginning, the financial
management of the congregation has been vested solely in a board of
twelve Filipino trustees headed by Sefior Buencamino. They pay all bills
and the work has never cost the Board a dollar.
It is a mistake to suppose that this congregation is now "a politicoProtestant movement to which Mr. Rodgers occasionally lends a friendly
hand." It has no connection whatever with a political movement. Not
only has the Federal Party officially disclaimed it, but all the original
political features have dropped out and many who first came from political
motives no longer attend. Mr. Rodgers, so far from having only a nominal relation to the church, is, by the cordial and loyal desire of the people,
in full control of all the spiritual work and preaches regularly every Sunday. It is as much a Presbyterian congregation as any we have in the Phil38




ippines, with an average attendance of from four to five hundred, and on
special occasions of nearly a thousand.
I am aware that some question the motives of Sefior Buencamino.
But after having seen much of him personally and after having made
inquiry of those who have had ample opportunity to know him, I am
unable to see any adequate reason for doubting his sincerity. Governor Taft told me that he regarded him as one of the very ablest Filipinos
he had met in all the islands. Whatever Buencamino's original expectations may have been, he now clearly sees that he has absolutely nothing
to gain in a worldly way from his identification with Protestantism. His
profession of evangelical faith has cost him the friendship of many
Filipinos who remain loyal to the Roman Catholic Church. While he
now holds a public office, it is commonly believed that the Commission
would have appointed him to a much higher post if he had not been
such an active Protestant as to make him unpopular with the Catholic
party. Yet his interest in our Church work does not lessen. He has
become a communicant. He speaks for Christ, and prays to the edification
of his brethren. Several Americans, not missionaries, told me that they
believed him to ble a changed man since his acquaintance with Mr. Rodgers.
Though he is not rich, he offered in my hearing to give $I,ooo a year for
several years toward a new church building.
Such a building is needed at once. As I have already explained,
the Trozo congregation is well housed for the present, in rented quarters.
But the Tondo congregation of five' times the size of the other is dependent upon the generosity of a Filipino who never attends the service
and who rents his theatre every Sunday afternoon and evening for all
sorts of performances. The associations of such a place are necessarily
far from religious. At a conference with twenty-eight selected leaders
representing all the groups in Manila and its vicinity, Trozo included, the
opinion was unanimous that the Tondo congregation was the one which
needed the first building. "We should not go on worshipping God in a
theater," they said. "It is not fitting and it brings Protestantism into
reproach of a community which is accustomed to churches. We must have
a tabernacle for God."
As to capacity, opinions varied from I,000 to 3,000, but there was unanimous agreement upon my suggestion that to avoid debt, an auditorium
seating 600 with class and Sunday School rooms so arranged that by slidpartitions 400 sittings could be added, would suffice for the present,
leaving future enlargement to be made when growth justified it.
The location should be that of the Rizal Theatre, or some lot in its
immediate neighborhood. It is the center of the largest native population in the city, in the region where our work is most successful and
promising, about a mile from the nearest church of any other denomination, and on such a street as I did not expect to find anywhere in Asia,
the Paseo Azcarraga, nearly as broad as Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, and with a double track street-car line. A suitable lot here, I
was told, could be had for about $4,000 gold. A side street would be
cheaper, but would, in my judgment, be extravagant economy. Estimates
39




of cost of the building averaged about $I6,ooo Mexican. Thus far, not
a word has been said about help from the Board, and I asked how much
the people could raise. Sefior Buencamino said that most of the people
were poor, but that he would give $I,ooo, Mexican, a year for two years,
and that he thought 400 members would give a Mexican a month, so
~that with;some gifts wthich he hoped to obtain from  relatives, he
believed that the people would raise $6,000, Mexican, a year, for two years.
I then said: "If the Board will buy the land will the Board of Trustees
agree to immediately canvass for funds as Sefior Buencamino has suggested?"  After full and eager discussion, in which there was no dissenting voice, this was enthusiastically agreed to. Throughout the entire
conference, there was not a trace of a.disposition to unduly lean upon
the Board, but on the contrary, a most gratifying spirit of self-help
was shown. As the Board had already "instructed the Mission to proceed as soon as practicable with the purchase of land and the erection
of a church to be held as the property of the Presbyterian Board, and
for the use of the Filipino organization," I counselled the immediate
purchase of the site which had been previously agreed upon. I hope
that the Board will approve, and that the special funds, which, I understand are being raised by Col. Bird, of Washington, may be accepted
and used to give the further aid which will be required for both this
enterprise and the American Church. At any rate, we shall want this
Tondo property if we are to build a Filipino Church in Manila at all.
A delicate question may arise as to title. The Roman Catholic Church
kept all property in the name of its bishops. The Courts have recently
sustained its claim that all property acquired for Church purposes belongs to the Church, even though all the people who gave the money
became Protestants. Thus many of the Filipinos find themselves shut
out, not only from their churches, but, also, from their schools, cemeteries,
and a large amount of other valuable property for which they furnished
the funds. Made sensitive on this subject by -this bitter experience, 'they
may not consent to have the title to all Protestant Church property
solely vested in another outside religious corporation in which they have
no voice. On the other hand, the Board cannot risk a repetitipn of
the American Board's experience in Japan, by giving the title to the
Filipinos. This point 'will have to be prudently managed to avoid offence.
I suggest that the Filipinos be told that the Board cordially acquiesces
in their holding the sole title to all the property which they fully pay
for and fully maintain, the Board in turn to hold the property for which
it provides more than half the funds. When the contributions of the
Filipinos equal one half the cost, let the title be held jointly by the Board
and by the duly authorized native body. Governor Taft informs me
that the Board can hold property under the laws in the Philippines.
It does not appear expedient at present to buy or build residences
at any of the stations we now occupy in the Philippines. Good Spanish
houses adapted to the climate, can be rented. True, rents are high,
but so are land and building materials.
In Iloilo, I cannot advise the purchase of property at this time. Until
40




the Board and the Baptist Missionary Union settle the pending question
of comity, the future there is uncertain.  The building we rent as a
church is well suited to its purpose, in the very best location in the whole
city, at the intersection of main thoroughfares, and can probably be
rented as long as we want it or until the congregation is able to acquire
property of its own. The site cannot be bought, and any other can only
be obtained at an absurd price. In fond anticipation of a great influx
of Americans and a rich "boom," owners are holding their lands at
fictitious figures. They will find out their mistake after a year or two,
and come down to something reasonable. As our hospital is also provided
for on ground leased at a low rate, we can afford to wait for more normal conditions.  There are not many signs yet of rebuilding the best
buildings of the city which were burned by the insurgents, February I2th.
At Dumaguete I regard the site already purchased for the Institute as
sufficient for the present, for reasons which are given later in this report.
As a general rule, I believe it is wiser to pay a little more, if necessary,
for property which we definitely know to be actually required than it is
to tie up money in land for an uncertain future on the plea that "it may
rise in value." Save in exceptional cities like Manila, the rise in value
is not likely to exceed the interest we should lose on the purchase
price, while we wait for the need to arrive. If the Board does lose
occasionally in this way, it will, on the other hand, avoid loading itself
up with unprofitable ventures.
With the exception, therefore, of the American and Filipino churches
in Manila, and hospital sites after a little in Iloilo and Dumaguete
there is no pressing need for acquiring more expensive property in the
Philippines; though, of course, other needs will develop later, especially
one for a training school. I am writing now only of the present and
the immediate future. It may be expedient to help a few of the other
native Churches in securing places of worship. But the Mission wisely
proposes that, as a rule, the outstation churches shall be provided by the
people. A surprisingly neat and commodious chapel can be cheaply built
out of the bamboo and nifa of which the people construct their own
houses. Such buildings are no longer allowed within the fire limits of
cities, but they can be erected in all the outstation towns.
But we must not expect too much from the people at first. The
war, with its destruction of property, its withdrawal of able-bodied men
from peaceful pursuits, its prevention of the cultivation of the soil, and
its enforced tribute to insurgent chiefs, has impoverished the country.
The rinderpest has swept off much of the live stock, thirty-four of the
fifty-one towns in the single Province of Iloilo having reported to the
Governor a loss of 35,000 cariboo (water buffalo), while a large part of
the property remaining, including vast areas of the best land, is held by
the Roman Catholic Church. Time will be required for readjustment
to normal conditions. But this does not mean that the principle of selfsupport should be ignored. We should start right. Painful experience
in other fields has shown that if mission work is begun wrong, it is
exceedingly difficult to change it afterwards. The Filipinos have been
41




taught by the friars to give heavily for the support of their religious
institutions. Priestly extortion is a reason for moderation and justice
in our work, but it is not a reason for going to the other extreme of
furnishing everything for nothing. The natives expect to pay, and unless
we spoil them by an ill-advised charity, which will seriously embarrass
the future work and retard the development of a self-supporting church,
they will be very grateful for a reduction from the Roman Catholic to
the Protestant standard. The moral effect of such a reduction will
be as great and far more beneficial to all interests concerned than a pauperizing policy of absolute charity.
EVANGELISTIC WORK.
The evangelistic work of the Mission is inspiring, considering the
youth of the Mission. I have already described the Tondo and Trozo
movements in Manila. But in addition to those established congregations,
street, market/ and cottage meetings are held all over the city land the
surrounding region. At the conference with the native leaders referred
to, report was made of services at thirteen different places the preceding
Sabbath, the attendance aggregating 1,725. Of the twenty native helpers
who preach more or less regularly in these meetings, only two are paid
by the Mission, the rest gladly speaking without compensation. While
their qualifications naturally vary, some of them are really able men.
At one open air service which I attended, in a vacant lot in Manila, a
young Jew, who is employed in a business house, and a Filipino teacher
in a large private school, preached with splendid power to a congregation of about two hundred. The flaring torches, the respectful stillness
of the people sitting and standing about, the fitful light upon the upturned faces of those farther back or leaning out of adjacent windows,
the sweetly solemn tones of the hymns rising on the evening air, and
the earnest manner of the speakers, combined to form a memorable scene.
At Pasig, the interest of the people was so great that the two helpers,
one paid and one volunteer, were compelled to hold six services in one day,
and they only stopped when overcome by weariness at ten o'clock at night.
At Malate, the few Christians started and regularly maintain a service
without suggestion or aid from the missionary. No missionary has
ever visited Pena Frane, but one or two faithful followers of Christ
began preaching on their own account and now several are awaiting
baptism.
At Dumaguete, the recent opening of the station and the labor of
founding the Institute have thus far prevented the one missionary family
from undertaking that evangelistic work among the Filipinos which they
are eager to begin as soon as possible. But at Iloilo, the effort of less
than two years has borne the same quick fruitage as in Manila. About
four hundred people regularly attend the Sabbath preaching service. One
of the most notable sights of the Philippines is to be seen in Iloilo Saturday evenings. My room, on the second story of Dr. Hall's house,
opened into a wide Spanish hall with a broad flight of stairs to the
42




story below. About five o'clock, I was startled to find the hall, landing,
and stairs, packed with Filipinos, sitting quietly on the floor and steps.
They had walked in, men, women, and children, from the outlying
villages, some of them four hours distant, in order to attend the Sabbath
service. So many 'regularly do this, coming Saturday and remaining till
Monday, that the station has been obliged to rent a large room in which
the men can spend the nights, the women occupying the chapel. The
people are quiet and well-behaved. They bring their own food or buy
it in Iloilo, and they contentedly sleep on the floor.  I wish that
those critics who insist that the Filipinos are all Roman Catholics, and
that they do not want Protestantism, but only relief from the friars,
could look into that great room in Iloilo any Saturday night and see that
dense throng of people who have patiently trudged past stately Roman
Catholic churches to a plain chapel where there are no altar lights, or
gorgeous vestments, or fragrant incense, but only the preaching of the
simple Gospel of Divine Love. When men and women would rather walk
fifteen miles under a hot sun and sleep two nights on a board floor to
attend a Protestant service than go to a pompous stone church in their
own village,there is certainly something more than curiosity in their hearts.
Rising early the following Monday morning, I rode horseback with a
missionary and a native helper, over a good country road between groves
of cocoanut and banana trees and plantations of tobacco and sugar cane,
with occasional noble trees of mango and breadfruit, to the village of Oton,
seven miles from Iloilo. It was market day and the place was thronged
with people. Choosing a convenient open space, we began to sing hymns,
and before the second one was finished, I counted 248 people gathered
about us. After a passage of Scripture and a prayer, helper Adrian
preached a short sermon. Of course, I could not understand what he
said, but I noted not only his fluency and earnestness, but the silent attention of the throng. Most of the other street and market audiences
that I have seen, both at home and abroad, have been restless, men
coming and going, those on the outskirts talking and sometimes laughing.
But these 248 Filipinos stood as quietly and listened as intently as a
reverent Sunday morning congregation in America. No one left until
the Ibenediction had been pronounced, and even then dozens remained
to buy tracts and hymns and Gospel portions. The service was repeated
in another part of the market, this time with I54 listening with equal
attentiveness. Afterward we spent an hour walking among the multitude. A splendid Roman Catholic church stood within a stone's throw
of the market, but no priests appeared and not a sign of hostility was
manifested by the people, and these are typical scenes. They occur
every week and in scores of towns and villages. Plainly the Filipinos
are not only willing but eager to hear the Gospel.
CHURCH ORGANIZATION.
Church organization is yet inchoate. Only a few congregations have
been formally constituted Churches, and no central ecclesiastical body has
been formed. The thought of the missionaries on this subject is suggested
43




by -the following extract from a paper read before the Manila Ministers'
Association, by the Rev. James B. Rodgers: "As soon as there are a few
churches in any district, let representatives of these churches meet regularly for conference and mutual helpfulness. Such conferences would
develop, naturally, into truly representative bodies, which would soon
grow into provincial and then into national assemblies. The foreign
missionary should be on the outside of this organization. He should
exercise no authority except over such workers as may Ibe employees of
distinctly missionary enterprises, such as schools and colportage work.
He can be an advisory member and exercise quite as much influence in
that way as when he has a vote. If the foreigner is a member of the
Church Court, then the native feels no responsibility for a long time, and
simply does what he is told to do. When he does attain a spirit of independence, he is often apt to use race and not reason as his motive.
The attitude of the different missionaries should be that of helpers and
advisers, rather than of dictators. They should work along as evangelists, not as pastors, opening new fields, raising up new churches, advising
the people, and caring largely for the educational work, and especially
the theological training of the ministry. Up to the time that the individual churches are able to support themselves, either spiritually or
financially, I think it would be well to keep them under Mission direction.
As for their government during this period, the less and the simpler the
better. I think that sometimes the Missions have attempted to put too
large an armor on the little churches and have felt that because the
system of church government that they follow is good at home, therefore, it should be worked down to its minutest detail on the mission
field. Why not do as the apostles did, and appoint earnest laymen as
church officers, calling them elders, or deacons, or stewards, or wardens,
or whatever term seems best? The Filipino system of government by
cabozaz de bavangay is similar; and, as Paul used the existing system
why should we not adapt the social habits of the country to our needs.
As soon as churches reach a stage of self-support, they should be made
members of the national Church. It would be a reward to hold before
them. A Board of Home Missions and a Publication Committee could be
easily formed and the work of spreading the Gospel taken up by them.
There are, of course, many difficulties that can be seen even now, and
without doubt, many more will appear as the work develops. I sincerely
believe, however, that they will not be as great as those that have
accompanied the old system that rules in many of the mission fields. This
plan conserves the independent action of the missions and at the same
time opens the way for the growth of an independent, self-directing
self-supporting Filipino Church."
MEDICAL WORK.
Medical work is as necessary in the Philippines as in other mission
lands, except, of course, in Manila. There the number of physicians in
private practice is already considerable, and it will doubtless increase. There are several large and well equipped military hospitals, in
44




which civilians are, within reasonable limits, received as private patients,
an excellent Women's Hospital for foreign women, public hospitals for
lepers, fallen women, contagious diseases, etc. Drug stores are numerous,
and the sanitation of the city is admirably looked after by an efficient
Board of Health. The Government intends to see that necessary facilities
are   provided in Manila.  There is, therefore, no special field for
medical missions in the capital, unless private Christian philanthropy may
at some later 'time, and without drawing upon missionary resources, choose
to establish a Presbyterian Hospital after the model of similar institutions in our own home cities. In the provincial towns, however, medical
work is as needful as in many other mission fields. The masses of *the
people know as little about the proper treatment of diseases as those
in China, and they suffer as much from them. True, there are in the
larger towns a few Spanish or Mestizo physicians, while in several places
the Army Surgeons have been exceedingly kind to both foreigners and
natives. But such service is necessarily confined to a few places, is purely
professional, does not reach the poor, save in vaccination during some
smallpox scare, and, in the case of the Spaniards and Mestizos is, as a rule,
painfully unsympathetic and incompetent. The relief thus afforded is far
less than in India, where the legitimacy of medical missions is unquestioned.
Our Board early recognized this need, and December i8, I899, it authorized "the opening of medical work in the Philippines as soon as the best
place or places shall be found therefor." Both Iloilo and Dumaguete, have
been properly designated as such places.
In Dumaguete nothing has yet been done, as Dr. Langheim, the
newly appointed medical missionary, had not arrived when I left. But
there is a good field awaiting him. There is no physician of any kind,
native or foreign, except the Army Surgeon, and a small drug store
kept by a native represents the only permanent medical aid.
In Iloilo, we already have a hospital, which is a model for a new institution, that might well be imitated in other places. Instead of calling
on the Board for an appropriation, Dr. Hall and Mr. Hibbard canvassed
the local community, setting forth the advantages of a hospital in such
effective ways, that the entire sum requisite was subscribed, Chinese,
Filipinos, Mestizos, Spaniards, Americans, and Englishmen, contributing.
The amount was not large, but in that respect, also, Dr. Hall showed
his good sense. An expensive institution was not required at first; land
was leased for two years at $3, Mexican, a month, and for $550, Mexican,
a neat building of bamboo and nipa was erected. It includes a dispensary,
reception room, operating room, and two small wards of four beds each,
one for men and one for women. The dispensary attendance has already
reached I50 in a single day, and the hospital is powerfully aiding the
mission work. In-patients pay ten cents a day for their food, but no
regular fee has been fixed for the dispensary, patients simply furnishing
their bottles and paying something or nothing, as they are able, usually
the latter. A native helper and his wife live in the hospital and every
patient hears the Gospel in some form, either from Dr. Hall, Mrs. Hall,
or the helper and his wife, sometimes by all four.
45




There are medical missions and medical missions. Dr. Hall rightly
believes in and practices the latter. He does not argue "that the ordained man should look after the souls while he cares for the bodies."
He talks with individuals, leads prayer meetings, conducts inquirers'
classes, and takes his turn in preaching. The suffering patient is
thinking not of his spiritual, but of his physical disease. To him the
foreigner who can relieve that is the great man-almost a God sometimes.
If the medical missionary leaves the treatment of the spiritual malady
to some one else who, perhaps, is personally unknown to the patient, and
who, even if known, has no special claim upon him, the patient inevitably
concludes that the physician himself regards the spiritual as of comparatively minor importance. I believe that everywhere, as in Iloilo, the
medical missionary should have the direct charge of and should actively
participate in the evangelistic work of the hospital and dispensary. He
may have assistance, but the spiritual influence of the physician in
charge should pervade every department. Such medical work will be a
powerful factor in disarming prejudice and opposition, in creating evangelistic opportunities and in reenforcing the general work and purpose of
the mission. For such medical work, there is ample room and great need
in dealing with the antipathies of a semi-Romish, semi-heathen population. Unquestionably our hospital has powerfully promoted the conditions
which have made both 'the Baptist and Presbyterian work so successful in the Province of Iloilo.
I asked not only missionaries of our own and other Boards, but
Army surgeons, whether women physicians were needed in the Philippines. The answers were unanimous in the negative, all physicians, both
military and civil, declaring that women patients are as accessible to men
physicians as in America, and that they do not show the slightest reluctance to call upon them. This being the case, and the population of Iloilo
and Dumaguete not being large enough to justify the maintenance of two
physicians, there is no present necessity for sending women medical missionaries to the Philippines.
EDUCATION-PUBLIC         SCHOOLS.
The educational problem is a large one. Under Spanish Government,
schools were numerous, the theory being one male and one female teacher
for each 5,000 people. But they were exclusively controlled by the Roman
Catholic Church. As to their value, Captain Albert Todd, then in
charge of the Department of Public Instruction, officially reported to the
Secretary of the Military Governor, August I7, I9oo: "The supplies
were generally of inferior character, the text books being mainly pamphlets, poorly printed, and capable of imparting but meagre knowledge.
Moreover, much of this instruction was on religious subjects, embodying
the tenets of the Roman Catholic Church." This opinion is in harmony
with reports from Army officers in various parts of the Islands. BrigadierGeneral J. F. Bell declared that "they (the schools) simply make a showing, and serve to keep children out of mischief, only teaching them a
few calisthenics and to chant a few prayers in native dialects." 'Lieut.
46




Russell C. Langdon said that "these schools seem to be generally the
informal gathering of a few pupils, in each case, for instruction during
a portion of the day, under some one of sufficient education who earns
some little extra money in this way."
The schools conducted by the Jesuits were by far the best and a
few of them did fairly good work. But in the office of the Department
of Public Instruction in Manila, one may find a report from BrigadierGeneral W. A. Kobbe on the 175 Jesuit schools in Mindanao and Jolo,
from which I make the following extracts: "The parish priest was
inspector of schools for the village where he resided and he gave the
examinations, quizzes in religion, and awarded rewards and demerits at
the end of each term. The teachers report to him. The Catecismo
of Astete was used, copy cards as guides to correct writing, and charts
for spelling; the Divino Pastor for reading and other subjects; there
was prepared a large book embracing them all called 'Manual de la
Infancia.' This system in its practical working might be compared to
American systems Ioo years ago, the teacher doing too much and the
pupils too little. In spelling, he calls out the word and they repeat after
him; in reading, the teacher reads a line and the children repeat it in
chorus.- Under the eye of the priest, the religious portion was too much
developed, and teachers now employed still make religion and prayer the
centre of the course, barely touching other subjects. The pupils all sit
on long benches and recite in chorus, the section being heard standing,
and making such a din that the others can do little more than to listen
to them."
The Taft Commission sums up the testimony as follows: "It has been
stated that in I897 there were in these islands 2,167 public schools. The
ineffectiveness of these schools will be seen when it is remembered that a
school under the Spanish rdgime was a strictly sectarian, ungraded school,
with no prescribed course of study and no definite standards for each year,
and that they were in charge of duly certificated, but hardly professionally
trained or progressive teachers, housed in unsuitable and unsanitary buildings. It is stated on good authority that when the Spaniards came here
several of the tribes of the Philippine Islands could read and write their
own language. At the present time, after three hundred years of Spanish
domination, the bulk of the people can not do this. The Spanish Minister
for the Colonies in a report made December 5, 1870, points'out that, bythe
process of absorption, matters of education had become concentrated in
the hands of the religious orders. He says:   'While every acknowledgment should be made of their services in earlier times, their narrow,
exclusively religious system of education, and their imperviousness to
modern or external ideas and influences, 'which every day become more
and more evident, rendered secularization of instruction necessary.' "
All this accords with the statement made to me by a prominent Filipino
official, that the typical school was little more than a poor church school,
devoting to the Catechism the greater part of the short daily session.
The American authorities quickly (realized that better educational
facilities were indispensable and, accordingly, they determined to intro47




duce the American system of free, non-sectarian public schools. By
direction of Major-General Otis, who was then Military Governor, and
to conciliate the Roman Catholics, Father McKinnon, a Roman Catholic
Army Chaplain, undertook the establishment of public schools in Manila,
which was then practically the only place where the military conditions
permitted such peaceful work. He was soon succeeded by Mr. George P.
Anderson, under whom the zone of school work was gradually widened
till it included several places outside of Manila. March 30, I9oo, General
Otis formally constituted a Department of Public Instruction for the
Islands and placed Captain Albert Todd of the Sixth Artillery in temporary charge. He secured reports and opinions from Army officers in
various parts of the Islands and recommended:
"I. That a comprehensive, modern school system for the teaching of
elementary English be inaugurated at the earliest possible moment, and
that attendance be made compulsory wherever practicable.
"2. That industrial schools for manual training be established as soon.
as a fair knowledge of English has been acquired.
*      "3. That all the schools under Government control be conducted in the
English language so far as in any way practicable, and that the use of
Spanish or the dialects be only for a period of transition.
"4. That English teachers, well trained in primary instruction, be
brought over from the United States in sufficient numbers to take charge
of the schools in larger towns at least.
"5. That a well equipped normal school be established for instructing
natives to become teachers of English.
"6. That in the larger towns, a portion, at least, of the school houses
be modern structures, plainly, but well and properly equipped.
"7. That the schools supported by the Government be absolutely divorced from the Church. If the natives desire schools in which religious
instruction is to be given, that they furnish the entire support of same
from private resources, but that attendance at these latter schools shall
not excuse the children from attendance at the public schools, where
English is taught. In addition, the parochial church schools, if such are
maintained, shall be required to be equal in character of general instruction to the public schools."
With the exception of some modifications, chiefly in number 7, these
recommendations have been substantially followed by the Civil Commission under Judge Taft. September I, I9oo, Dr. Fred W. Atkinson,
formerly principal of the High School of Springfield, Mass., assumed the
office of General Superintendent of Education, and January Ist, I9go, the
Taft Commission enacted a general school law which, in addition to defining the principles and regulations of the public school system, gave the
General Superintendent power to determine the qualifications of and to
appoint all subordinate superintendents, teachers and clerks, to prescribe
their duties and, within certain limits, their salaries; to fix the curriculum for schools of all grades, to determine in what towns secondary
schools shall be established, to prescribe plans for the construction of
school houses to be built by the municipalities, to make all contracts for
48




school supplies, to determine the towns in which English teachers, to be
paid out of the Insular Treasury, shall teach, exercising his discretion in
favor of those towns showing their loyalty to the United States by their
peaceful condition, and in favor of those towns which shall construct and
maintain suitable school houses by local taxation or contributions," and
to "exercise general supervision over the entire department." In the discharge of these very extensive powers, he is assisted by a "superior advisory board of four members to be appointed by the Commission," the
General Superintendent, however, being ex-officio chairman, so that he
virtually has carte blanche in organizing and conducting the public school
system of the Islands.
The Archipelago is to be divided into ten School Divisions, the city and
barrios of Manila constituting one. Schools are to be established "in
every pueblo of the Archipelago where practicable." All primary instruction "shall be free," and authority is given to the General Superintendent
of Public Instruction to obtain from the United States one thousand
trained teachers. Under this authority, 850 American teachers have
already arrived, while about 200 soldiers have been detailed to teach in the
smaller towns, pending the arrival of more teachers from America. There
are, beside, nearly 5,000 Filipino teachers employed, 2,000 of whom receive daily instruction in the English language, which they manifest great
earnestness to acquire. Altogether, therefore, over 6,000 teachers, foreign
and native, are at work in the public schools-a marvelous record of educational enterprise, and still the number is not adequate to supply the
towns which are calling for schools. Yet care is exercised in making
selections. Superintendent Atkinson told me that 15,000 applicants were
examined in making 500 actual appointments. The qualifications required are: (i) Either Normal or College graduation or an equivalent
education; (2) At least two years successful experience in school work;
(3) Two references who can vouch for moral character and personal
habits; (4) A satisfactory examination in Arithmetic, Political and Physical Geography, American History and Government, General History and
Current Topics, English Composition, Dictation and Grammar, Physiology
and Hygiene, Algebra, School Methods and Management; (5) A physician's certificate of good health; (6) A contract to serve two years, and
accept whatever location may be assigned.
Thus far nearly all the schools are of primary grade, only a few
intermediate classes having been formed. This is partly, though not
wholly, due to the ignorance of the pupils, for as all instruction is in
English, which very few of the children understand, and as none of the
American teachers can speak Spanish or the native-languages, teaching,
necessarily, begins with the A B Cs, and with object lessons. Great emphasis is being laid on this primary training so that a sound foundation
may be laid. But the system includes a comprehensive scheme of higher
education, which will be developed as fast as pupils are prepared for it.
There is to be a University in Manila, with an auxiliary High School
" giving general, industrial, and commercial instruction " in each Provincial capital. In addition, there are to be a Normal school and a Trade
49




school in Manila, an Agricultural College at some point on the Island of
Negros, yet to be determined, probably at Bacolod, and Trade schools at
Dlagupan (Luzon), and Tagloban (Leyte). All these trade or industrial
schools will teach carpentering, plumbing, printing, mechanical drawing,
etc. The commission, also, recommends the opening of a Military school
in Manila. A Nautical school with a three years' course has already been
started (Dec. 15, 1899), and the Commission adds that "eventually orphanages, reform schools, schools for the deaf and dumb and blind, supported
by public funds, will have to be established."
This elaborate system for giving the Filipinos a better education is
costing a sum which is in striking contrast with the comparative pittance
which the Christian people of the United States are expending for giving
the Islanders a purer religious faith. The Government pays the traveling
expenses of teachers from their homes in America to the place where they
are to teach, and monthly salaries of from $75 to $125 (gold). The
General Superintendent receives $6,ooo, the City Superintendent of Manila,
$3,000, and the Division Superintendents a lesser sum fixed by the General
Superintendent. Dr. Atkinson told me that the annual pay roll is now
one million dollars gold. In addition, $400,000 have been appropriated
for the erection and equipment of school buildings, $220,000 for supplies
and text books for the current year, $25,000 for the Manila Normal
School, and $I5,ooo each for the Manila Trade School and the Negros
Agricultural College, a total of $945,000 more, or a grand total for the
year of nearly two million dollars, gold.
And yet, as in our missionary work, the aim is self-control and selfsupport. The Manila Normal School is specifically "for the education of
natives in the science of teaching." The development of such teachers
is a prominent feature of Dr. Atkinson's plan. He now employs all the
properly qualified ones he can find and it is his intention to largely use
native teachers as rapidly as they can be developed. In each municipality
there is to be a local school board, consisting of four or six members, in
addition to the President or Alcalde of the Municipality, who shall be a
member ex-officio.  One-half of the members, except the member exofficio, shall be elected by the Municipal Council, and the remaining
half shall be appointed by the Division Superintendent. As far as practicable school buildings are to be provided Iby the local communities, either
by rent, purchase or erection. I saw several buildings constructed of the
bamboo and nipa used by the common people for their homes. Two buildings are required, no matter how small the school, for the customs of the
country require the separation of the sexes, though in several schools that
I visited, the two buildings are on the same lot. The people must help,
too, in meeting the current expenses.  The act provides that "every
pueblo shall constitute a school district and that it shall be the duty of
the Municipal Council thereof to make as ample provision as possible
by local taxation for the support of all the schools established within its
jurisdiction. In exceptional cases, where the topography of the country
or the difficulty of communication between parts of the same pueblo require it, the Division Superintendent may attach a part of one pueblo to
50




the school district of another and shall in such case, fix the amount which
it will be just for the Municipal Council of the former to contribute to the
annual school expense of the latter."
Considering that attendance is not compulsory, the attendance on the
public schools is encouragingly large. In Dumaguete I found an enrollment
of 250 in the boys' school and 203 in the girls'. In Iloilo there were 405
names on the records of the boys' school and Ioo on those of the girls'.
The average attendance in these schools is eighty per cent. of the enrollment. A recent school census showed 1,700 children in Iloilo between
the ages of five and sixteen, of whom about 300 are bound servants. In
other words, out of a possible 1,400 children, 505 or about 36 per cent. are
voluntarily attending the American public schools, and if we allow,
not only for the bound servants, but the sick and crippled, the proportion
will be increased. This is certainly a significant showing, especially as
there are in addition night schools, three evenings of each week, which
are largely attended by those over sixteen, who desire to learn English.
According to the latest reports of the Department of Public Instruction,
150,000 pupils are enrolled throughout the Islands, and the actual daily
attendance is 75,0oo, an average of about 75 for each foreign teacher. It is
probable that a natural curiosity regarding "some new thing," and an
ambition to acquire the language of the new rulers, have something to do
with this attendance and that after the novelty wears off there may be a
reaction unless a compulsory school law is enacted, which, indeed Superintendent Atkinson has already recommended. Still, the people never
manifested such an eagerness to acquire the language of their Spanish
rulers, while tthe American policy of filling all practicable posts with
Filipinos will operate as a permanent incentive to the study of the language which will be more and more essential to preferment.
School superintendents and teachers uniformly said, in answer to my
questions, that the children are, as a rule, bright and quick to learn.
Lieut. Russell E. Langdon writes: "After close observation of the children
of this town and elsewhere around here, I am of the opinion that the
Tagalog children between the ages of six and sixteen are very bright and
apt at acquiring languages, even though their intellectual faculties may become comparatively inferior as they become adults." Thus far, however,
the test can hardly be considered complete for the studies are necessarily
those which call into action memory and imitation, faculties in which the
Filipino excels. It remains to be seen what the youth can do when he
passes beyond the stage of mechanical memorizing. He has never been
trained to hard, steady mental application, to which, indeed, he is constitutionally as averse as he is to plodding manual labor. The school
authorities recognize this by widely circulating a leaflet by Molton A.
Colton, which begins by stating that "apparently anything but memorizing
is wholly contrary to the spirit and practice of any instruction hitherto
given in Philippine schools. So strong a hold has this method obtained that
it is not merely inertia which we must overcome, but a real antagonism.
Of course this work must be done by degrees as it has already begun. The
51




evolution must be slow so as to give no violent wrench to the existing instruction, and in time it will develop into a new one."
Meantime, as an indication of what a Filipino youth can do, I was
shown the following address presented by a boy of twelve years of age
to Governor Taft on the occasion of the visit of the Civil Commission to
Lawag, Sept. 20, I9oi: "Sir-I am delegated by my master, with the approbation of my fellow scholars, to welcome you here, as representative,
not merely of the President of the United States, but of the great American
nation also. We welcome you here for many reasons, of which I will
state but two.
"Firstly, because your presence here indicates the reestablishment of
peace and the inauguration of a system of government which declares
that those who are fortunate enough to be sheltered by it shall enjoy the
rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
"Secondly, because the teachers and scholars of Lawag have here now
an opportunity of publicly expressing their sense of gratitude to the
American people for their generous interpretation of those principles to
which I have just referred; for their lavish expenditure on Public Instruction, for their appointment of so many American teachers to assist,
not to supplant, our native teachers, and for their provision of the best
educational books in the world. I am happily too young to speak from
wide experience of bygone times. The past is better irrevocable. The
future alone is ours. You are now putting into our power, for the first
time in the history of our race, the opportunity for individual judgment
and intellectual development which will enable us in the ample pages
of knowledge, aided by wisdom, and by moral sincerity, to demonstrate
eventually our equal position with our fellow citizens in the United States.
"Our fathers have told us that the ancient system of education was
such as to render us inevitably an inferior race; that reproach cannot be
repeated hereafter, except through our own fault. If we, as Filipinos,
remain inferior, we shall have no one on whom to saddle the blame, for
the fault and the shame will be ours, and ours alone. Speaking for my
fellow scholars of the public schools of Lawag, I trust that, with God's
grace, by our own steadfast efforts, by perseverence, by industry, by integrity, by loyal and mutual co-operation, we shall justify those generous
efforts and sacrifices that the American people are making on our behalf.
Our patriotism can be most worthily and gloriously demonstrated in our
persevering and ardent pursuit of such knowledge as shall indisputably
evidence the equality of the Filipino with all other people, who enjoy their
liberty under the Stars and Stripes of America."
I am naturally of a confiding disposition, but the assumption that a
twelve year old boy prepared those Johnsonian sentences unaided is a
little too much even for my credulity. The style suggests a Presidential
message to Congress rather than the natural expressions of a youthful
Malay.
MISSION SCHOOLS.
It may be asked-with such an elaborate system of public schools
under American management, why have mission schools?
52




I answer-For the same reason that we must have Christian Schools
in the United States where the same system of free public schools and
Universities has had complete development; for the same reason that we
are compelled to have them in India and Japan, where Government schools
are numerous and excellent; for the reason that Section I6 of the School
Law enacted by the Philippine Commission, Jan. Ist, I9oI, reads: "No
teacher or other person shall teach or criticise the doctrines of any Church,
religious sect or denomination, or shall attempt to influence the pupils for
or against any Church or religious sect in any public school established
under this act. If any teacher shall intentionally violate this section, he or
she shall, after due hearing, be dismissed from the public service. Provided, however, that it shall be lawful for the priest or minister of any
Church established in the pueblo where a public school is situated, either
in person or by a designated teacher of religion, to teach religion for onehalf an hour three times a week in the school building to those public school
pupils whose parents or guardians desire it and express their desire therefor in writing filed with the Principal Teacher of the school, to be forwarded to the Division Superintendent, who shall fix the hours and rooms
for such teaching. But no public school teacher shall either conduct religious exercises or teach religion or act as a designated religious teacher
in the school building under the foregoing authority, and no pupil shall
be required by any public school teacher to attend and receive the religious instructions herein permitted. Should the opportunity thus given
to teach religion be used by the priest, minister, or religious teacher for the
purpose of arousing disloyalty to the United States, or of discouraging
the attendance of pupils at such public school, of creating a disturbance
of public order, or of interfering with the discipline of the school, the
Division Superintendent, subject to the approval of the General Superintendent of Public Instruction, may, after due investigation and hearing,
forbid such offending priest, minister or religious teacher from entering
the public school building thereafter."
Let us not harshly criticise the Commission and the School authorities
for this total secularization of the public educational system. The Roman
Catholic priests want to control all schools now, as they did under the
old regime. If there is the smallest loophole for religious instruction in the
schools, the priests will enter it. Any concession made to Protestants would
have to be granted to Catholics, and as the Roman priests outnumber the
Protestant missionaries hundreds to one, and as they are not only persistent and determined, but wholly unscrupulous in their methods, the
only way to keep Romanism out of the schools is to resolutely insist on
their absolute religious neutrality, to prohibit the entrance of religion from
the outside and to forbid teachers from inculcating it on the inside. When
Dr. Atkinson advised me not to have our services held in schools even
when the local officials offered them, Mr. Rodgers, who was present, replied that this was already his policy.
I found an impression in some quarters that the school authorities
carry this policy so far as to discourage teachers from attending Protestant
services or in any way identifying themselves with Protestant Mission
53




work. But Dr. Atkinson told me, and several of the local 'Superintendents
confirmed the statement, that the prohibition related solely to the school
work of teachers, and that they were as free in their private lives outside of school hours as teachers in the United States. The teachers whom
I personally met took this view of the case. But it is plain that the influence of the public school system as an institution will be purely secular,
that it will powerfully reinforce an already strong secular tendency, that
unless teachers have decided strength of Christian character, they will succumb to its spirit, and that in any event the Church cannot depend upon
such a system for a supply of ministers and Christian workers.
Romanism is already recognizing this. The school authorities had
hoped that by carefully steering a middle course and avoiding every possible action which could justify the Roman Catholics in suspecting that
the public schools were in alliance with Protestantism, "the priests would
see that the schools were not anti-church."  The anxiety of the school
officials to produce this impression led some who were regular church attendants at home to give the cold shoulder to Protestant Church work
in the Philippines. But it was all in vain. Rome promptly and instinctively
recognized "non-sectarian public schools" as a formidable foe. She is not
only retaining, but is improving her parochial schools, so that she can meet
this new competition, and every day her enmity to the public schools becomes more pronounced.
Protestant missionaries are not taking this position. On the contrary,
they believe in the public school system. In every place, I found our missionaries outspoken and cordial in their support of it. Intellectual freedom
and enlightenment are death to the type of Romanism which prevails in
the Philippines. Its superstition can not live in such an atmosphere, and
from their viewpoint, the friars are right in their conviction that they must
fight the public schools in the interest of self-preservation. But Protestantism thrives and, indeed, depends upon an atmosphere of intellectual freedom. It wants men to think and insists that they shall do so. I believe
that the public schools in the Philippines, secular though they are, are a
powerful ally of Protestant missions. They will do for us, quickly, effectively and without expense to us, a vital work which we should otherwise
have had to do for ourselves, which, as a matter of fact, we have to do
in most unevangelized lands-namely, dispel the gloom of ignorance,
clear away the tangled growth of error and superstition, and thus prepare
the soil. The danger is that other and equally noisome seeds of infidelity
and atheism will spring up in that prepared soil. But that is where our
call comes in. It is our business to sow good seed in that cleared ground,
and it would be foolish for us to join the Papal hue and cry against "godless schools," because they do not undertake that part of the work which
is especially ours, and which, we venture to believe, a mission can do better
than a government school. While, therefore, there can be no official relation between the mission and the Department of Public Instruction, as
individual American citizens we should co-operate with it, helping and
not hindering, in every practicable and prudent way.
Nevertheless, there are some things which we cannot fairly expect a
54




public school system in the Philippines, hampered, as it is, by an everpresent and vigilant Romanism, to do for us. And one of those things
is to supply us with pastors and other Christian workers. Ministers we
must have. There is a quaint but effective voicing of this vital necessity
in a rare and sumptuous volume, entitled "Letters from the Indies, published for the first time by the Minister of Public Works, Madrid, 1877."
In this volume there is a petition from Fray Domingo Salazer, Bishop of
Manila, to the President of the Council of the Indies in Madrid, dated
December, I585, in which we find the following appeal: "Very Powerful
Sire: I, the Bishop of the Philippines, do state: That, as your highness
is aware, and as is also well-known, the greater part of the natives of
these islands are about to be converted, and those who are converted lack
the impartment of the Gospel, for there is no one to spread it; while in
some places there are ministers, they are few, and the natives, many in
number, so they cannot receive as they should the doctrines of the Gospel......  It behooves your royal conscience, as well as mine, and it befits
the interests of the natives, that orders be issued to the effect that those
converted may have ministers to instruct them and maintain them in
Christianity. It is a noteworthy fact that as soon as they lack ministers
they return to their idolatrous rites.  It is also requisite to furnish
ministers for those who are open to conviction and conversion."
For the same reason, Protestants also must have a ministry. If we
knew in advance which particular boys would become Church leaders,
we could confine our schools to them and make our institutions simply
training schools for Christian workers. But in the Philippines, as elsewhere, the only way that we can obtain such workers is to bring under
our direct influence during the formative period of school life a considerable number of promising boys, mould them spiritually as well as intellectually, and from them select those who have the requisite qualifications
and who appear to be called of God. In other words, we, like the Roman
Catholics, must educate in the interest of self-preservation, the radical
difference being that Protestants educate in friendly co-operation with
the public schools and that the Roman Catholics educate in avowed
enmity to them. Wisely, therefore, did the Board, Dec. I9, I899, vote
"that measures be authorized looking toward the early inception of educational work in the Philippines on such lines as further investigation
shall seem to justify."
What then are these lines?
As to character they should beFirst.-Openly and decidedly Christian. There is no call for us to
give a purely secular education. The Government can do that far better
than we can. We educate for a purpose which the public schools do not
set before themselves, and that purpose should pervade and dominate
every department of our schools. We should tolerate no compromise on
this point.
Second.-They should be thorough. In justice to ourselves and to our
constituency, we cannot give superficial training. There need be no fear
that the public school officials will look with jealousy upon the very best
55




work we can possibly do. That is the very kind of work they prefer to
have us do. The more good schools there are in the Philippines the
better, from their view point. When I asked Superintendent Atkinson for
any suggestions, he particularly emphasized this. What he wants is sound
education, and he believes that there is ample room for all institutions
that will do solid work.
Third.-They should be chiefly of the higher grades. For the present
at least, primary and intermediate work should be left to the public
schools. Later, when we have a larger Protestant constituency, we may
find it expedient to train the children of our own families from the beginning. But for the present, we can get all the boys we can accommodate
for the more advanced classes.
As to number and location, I agree with Dr. Ewing "that in view of
the large outlay of the Government in education, we ought to confine our
educational work to two schools, the one at Dumaguete for Visayan and
another to be established for the exclusive purpose of raising up native
ministers and native teachers at Iloilo," that is, on the supposition that the
Baptists leave us a clear field in the Panayan dialect. Otherwise, this
school should be established elsewhere.
Naturally, I was deeply interested in the Silliman Institute at Dumaguete, the first mission school in the Philippine Islands, and the only
one we have yet started. The location is the most healthful and beautiful
that I saw in the Philippines. The land rises gently from a pebbly beach
to a noble mountain range. The lower levels are covered with plantations
of tobacco and sugar cane, 'higher slopes with hemp, and the summits
of the mountains with heavy forests of hard woods. Across the clear
water, the islands of Seguyor and Cebu are seen, while farther away, but
in plain view, are the outlines of Bohol and Mindanao. I drove for
several miles in various directions from the town in order to get some
idea of the adjacent country. The result was surprising. In this alleged
uncivilized land on the other side of the globe, I found such roads as I
had not seen in China, outside of the foreign settlements, and which would
be considered even in New England good country roads. Back from
the road were continuous cultivated fields, while lining it were the picturesque bamboo and nipa houses of the people nestling in groves of
banana, cocoanut, mango, papaw, and bread fruit trees. A more charming
drive could not easily be found.
The advantages of Dumaguete as the site for the Silliman Institute areIts accessibility by a large population. While the parish of Dumaguete has only about I2,ooo people and the whole Province less than
Ioo,ooo, yet, as already explained, the place is within easy reach of the
populous islands of Cebu and Bohol.
The absence of competing schools. Superintendent Atkinson told me
in Manila that while the Department of Public Instruction contemplates
the establishment of an agricultural college on the other side of the
Island of Negros and an industrial school at Cebu, it had no plans for.56




anything in Dumaguete beyond the public schools and that we could have
a comparatively clear field there for the development of the Institute.
The friendliness and intelligence of the officials and people. The
opposition to American occupation in this region was slight and there
would have been none at all if it had not been for malcontents from Cebu.
Now, an American can travel with perfect safety in any part of the island.
The influence of Rome appears to be small. The people have driven every
friar off the island, and the Roman Catholic churches are in charge of
native priests for whom the people apparently care little. The Governor
of the Province, Senor Demetrio Larena, and his brother, the Presidente
of the Municipality, impressed me as unusually fine types of Filipinosintelligent, able and broad minded. They, as well as the best people of the
place, are outspoken in their gratification over the location of the Institute
in their city, and give it their cordial support. The Governor sent the
prospectus of the Institute to every village in the Province and his own
son is one of the pupils.
The growth of the school is most encouraging. Within three weeks
of the opening day, August 28th, I9OI, the pupils numbered thirty-two,
and nine more have since applied for admission and are doubtless enrolled
ere this. Of the whole number, one is from Cebu, one from Iloilo and the
rest are from Dumaguete and its neighborhood. Though it was the design
of Dr. Silliman and of the Board to make the Institute an industrial school,
it has been impossible thus far to carry out this part of the plan. This
is partly because the illness of Mr. Hibbard hindered him in securing the
necessary tools and a man competent to take charge of such an industrial
department, and partly because nearly all the boys in attendance came
from the more prominent families who do not wish their sons to associate
with the crowd of a public school and who are too proud to have them
work. The rule of the Institute is that "all the students who are not able
to pay will 'be obliged to work three hours daily in the industrial department or in whatever labor they may be called upon to perform." But
only two of the boys are willing to do anything with their hands, and they
are employed to help about the house. All the rest prefer to pay the
required fees, $8.oo Mex. per month for boarding and $3.00 for day pupils.
They are as fine looking boys as I have seen in any mission school, and
with the white suits and red sashes, which they wore at the reception
given to us, they presented a striking appearance.
The first difficulty has now been partially removed by the employment
of Mr. R. Sammons as an assistant in the industrial department. Missionary appointment is not contemplated either by him or by the Mission,
but he appears to be well fitted for the special duties to which he has
been assigned. As he understands architecture and is a practical builder,
carpenter and cabinet maker, he will be invaluable in superintending the
erection of the necessary buildings, while the first trades to be taught
will naturally be those with which he is familiar. Printing should be
added as soon as possible, for there is no press of any kind in Dumaguete,
and with the development of the Institute, the public schools and the
American colony, there will be a demand for printing. Gardening should




also be taught as soon as boys can be obtained who will consent to do
that kind of work, for, oddly enough, while the Filipinos understand the
culture of sugar, tobacco, hemp, bananas, and cocoanuts, no vegetables
can be had in Dumaguete except a coarse, stringy sweet potato. The
Institute is to be admirably located on a beautiful, palm-shaded tract of
nearly five acres on the main street, near the Governor's residence, fronting the beach, and convenient of access. But the soil is not adapted to
cultivation. As the site is large enough for the buildings and grounds,
and as the adjacent land is equally unsuited to gardening, I doubt the
wisdom of trying to enlarge our holding at tthat place, particularly as the
owners of the adjoining property do not want to sell. We might through
official pressure force them, but they would be irritated and would demand
a high price. There is a ten-acre tract about a quarter of a mile distant
which can be bought for $6oo Mex. It has good soil and is on the main
road into the country. But it is not likely to rise materially in price,
and as we would have no use for it as long as our pupils come from a class
who consider manual labor in the field beneath their dignity, I advised the
station not to purchase at present.
There are, however, thousands of boys within the vicinage of the
Institute who need just such industrial training, need it as much as boys
anywhere. But here again the malay indisposition to labor comes in.
These people are utterly unable to understand why Americans always
want to work. They must ibe taught the necessity and the dignity of
honest toil. The curriculum is an excellent one, having been formed
in consultation with the Rev. Dr. J. C. R. Ewing after the model of our Ibest
India schools. It assumes that "students should not be less than ten years
of age," and it is divided into a Middle Department and a High School,
with electives in drawing, botany, natural history, book-keeping, and shorthand. The printed list of studies does not include the Bible, an omission which should be promptly corrected. It is only a nominal omission,
for the Bible is taught daily, and the spiritual influence of the school is excellent. But the Book of books ought to be on the printed schedule.
Building operations will call for patience both on the field and in
America. Mr. Hibbard, who until the arrival of Dr. Langheim, in October, was the only male member of the Station, has suffered all summer
from dysentery and has toiled in the school and in the general station
work when he ought to have been in bed. As it was, the Institute would
have suffered had it not been for the indefatigable labors of Mrs. Hibbard
and the generous assistance of Chaplain John R. Randolph of the Army,
a Southern Methodist to whose unfailing helpfulness and sympathy the
missionaries and the Board are greatly indebted.
Moreover, the purchase of materials presents difficulties which it is
hard to appreciate in America. No lumber can be bought in Dumaguete.
Splendid logs can be found in the mountain forests back of the town,
but no men can be hired to cut them. "Why should we climb those hills
and chop and saw wood in the hot sun? We have enough to eat and to
wear." Logs can be bought in Mindanao, brought over in lorchas and
sawed by hand. But it would require at least five months to obtain and
58




season the requisite supply, and then the sawing would be poorly done.
Two men will spend three days in converting a single log into boards which
are almost certain to be of uneven thickness unless the white man stands
over the workmen every minute. The nearest place where sawed lumber
can be bought is Cebu, but as Congress has not yet opened the forests
to the market, prices are alarming. A board one inch thick, one foot
wide, and twelve feet long costs $2.10 Mex. ($i.05 gold). I advised the
taking of bids in Cebu, Iloilo, Manila, Hongkong, and Singapore, acceptance of the lowest satisfactory one for delivery at Dumaguete within a
specified time, and then immediate pushing of the building. This was
agreed to and Mr. Sammons at once began to prepare the necessary
specifications.
The Board has not yet authorized a training school for Christian
workers at Iloilo or elsewhere, nor has the mission at present a man who
can be spared for another institution. But I think, we should have such
a school as soon as practicable. All the arguments for a native ministry
in other lands apply with equal force to the Philippines, and for the
reasons which I have already cited, we cannot expect to have such a
ministry unless we train it.
In addition to the educational institutions under the independent
control of their respective missions, the Rev. Dr. Stuntz, Presiding Elder
of the Methodist work in the Philippines, suggested to me that the Presbyterians join the Methodists in founding a McKinley Memorial College
in Manila. As the Philippine Islands were acquired under the administration of President McKinley, as their acquisition marked the emergence
of the United States as a factor in the Asiatic problem, and as our lamented President was a man of Christian character and purpose, it is
thought to be fitting 'that his name should be identified in our new possessions with an institution which is devoted to the cultivation of that
type of Christian manhood which is the great need of the Philippine
Islands and which he himself so strikingly personified. It is believed that
large gifts could be obtained in America for such an institution from
wealthy men who do not ordinarily contribute to other forms of mission
work. The Methodist Board approved the proposal of Dr. Stuntz for such
a memorial institution before the suggestion of joint control had been
made. But he told me that on second thought he had come to the conclusion that as President McKinley's relation to the Philippine Islands
was as our national Chief Magistrate and not as a Methodist, and as the
fact of his Christian faith was larger than his denominational membership, it would not be fair to use his name and the sympathies aroused by
his death for purely denominational advantage if other Christian bodies
desired representation in the institution. I understand that Dr. Stuntz
expects to go to the United States to aid in raising the requisite endowment, and I hope that a Committee of the Board and the Executive
Council will confer with him on the subject. If sufficient funds can be
secured from the class of givers whom he has in mind, I think that the
project should be given serious consideration. Details of aim, scale, joint
control by the two New York Boards and local management by a Board.59




of Directors in the Philippine Islands, would have to be worked out in
advance, but, with our experience in other lands to guide us, they should
present no insuperable difficulties. In my report to the Board on our
missions in China, I have expressed my views on several of the points
which should be guarded. Such an institution might be a powerful influence for good throughout the entire archipelago and strengthen and dignify
the cause of Christian education. There would be the competition of the
proposed Government University in Manila. But the Church has built
up prosperous colleges under the very shadow of great State Universities
in India and America, and it can do so in The Philippine Islands.
The language question is an important one. Should our missionary
work, especially our schools, be conducted in the Spanish, native or
English language? In response to the inquiries of Captain Todd, then
in charge of the Department of Public Instruction, Army officers expressed
the following opinions, and I quote them not only because they indicate
the purpose of the Government to Americanize the Filipinos, but also
because they have a bearing on the question as to the place which missionaries should give the Spanish.
Chaplain Ruter W. Springer said: "I have canvassed this question
quite thoroughly, and now have ~but one opinion. It would be impossible
to get out some forty different sets of text books, in as many different
Filipino languages. The native dialect must therefore be abandoned as
a basis of instruction.  Only a small portion of the native population
understand much Spanish; and there seems to be no good reason why
that language should be made by use the basis of instruction, and so
'boosted' into a prominence which, after centuries, it has been unable to
attain for itself."
Colonel William E. Birkheimer wrote: "It is not desirable to have
instruction in Spanish. We do not want to instruct in any language
except English if we can avoid it. That is the new language of this
country; it is the language we want by every means to push to the front.
It is true that Spanish will, for a long time, be an important language
here, but there is sufficient knowledge of it extant and common property,
as it were, to serve all necessary purposes." Brigadier-General J. F. Bell
replied: "The better class of educated people who speak Spanish would
like their children taught that as well as English. The great mass of the
people don't care anything about it. If there are parents who desire
their children taught Spanish, as a matter of cultivation, they should,
on a principle nearly universal in America, be required to have it done
at their own expense. If all are taught English only, they will know
as much as will ever be necessary to them. It might be well to teach
Spanish in high schools, as is done in America. All the people would
like their children taught their own dialect, I presume, as a matter of
sentiment. It is a practically unnecessary accomplishment, as scarcely
any literature exists in those dialects and any communication by writing
or printing will be better for the government if done in English. They
will learn the spoken language at home. The sooner this ceases entirely,
as has-come to pass in Zamboanga, the better. It was accomplished there
60




by teaching Spanish only in the schools. The same thing could be accomplished throughout the islands by teaching English only."
These views are fairly representative of the general opinion, and
accordingly the Act of Jan. Ist, I90o, stipulates that "the English language
shall, as soon as practicable, be made the basis of all public school instruction," the Commission explaining that "it is not practicable to make
the native languages the basis of instruction," and that "the majority of
the inhabitants of these islands do not understand Spanish, and it would
be a waste of opportunity to teach them this language with a view to
making it the basis of their future instruction."
While some of the argument for the exclusive use of English in the
public schools does not apply to our missionary work, the reasons adduced
against Spanish are more applicable. The first missionaries were forced
to learn Spanish, because they found it in common use by the people
of the larger cities to which mission work was then necessarily confined.
It is still, and for some years probably will continue to be, the language
of the upper classes who regard the native dialects with about the same
contempt that the French speaking court and polite society of medieval
England regarded English. But apart from the Mestizos, very few of the
Filipinos ever learned Spanish, and those who did, acquired only a smattering of it. The overthrow of Spanish rule has now destroyed the only
reason that ever existed for learning Spanish. That language is associated
with all that the natives hate and would gladly forget, and now that their
rulers are Americans, that English is the official language, and that the
public schools all over the islands teach it, Spanish has absolutely no
future in the Philippines.
I see no adequate reason, therefore, why our new missionaries should
give any considerable part of their time to the study of Spanish. It is,
indeed advisable at present for them to acquire some knowledge of it,
partly because in the cities, where our Stations are located, many of the
men whom we wish to reach affect to despise their native tongue, and
have not yet had time to learn English, partly because all the grammars,
dictionaries, and phrase-books which must be used in studying the vernacular are Spanish-Tagalog or Spanish-Visayan, so that until the missionaries can develop an English-Filipino language apparatus, the native
tongues must be acquired through the medium of Spanish. But I would
have only so much attention given to Spanish as will suffice for these
temporary purposes, and have the main effort expended on the native languages. It will be at least a generation, and perhaps a century, before
English will be as freely used by the common people as their own language. We have already seen how little Spanish they learned in three
centuries in spite of the persistent efforts of autocratic officials and priests.
Besides, no matter how well a man may learn to use a foreign speech, the
language of his affections will always be that of his native land. The
Welshman understands English as well as we do, but to this day the
straight road to his heart is the Welsh. Said the wise and friendly Governor of Oriental Negros to me: "The missionaries should thoroughly
learn the Visayan language if they wish to largely influence my people.
61




Few of them know Spanish and it will be a long time before they will use
English in their homes."
The missionaries realize the importance of this, though they have
thus far been able to give but little time to the study of the native
language. In the older Missions, the recruit finds text books and courses
of language study already prepared, with experienced missionaries to
carry on their work while he devotes his first year or two chiefly to the
language. But in the Philippines, men new to the field, and, with the
exception of Mr. Rodgers, with no previous experience in missionary
work, had to bear the whole burden of pioneering and to lay foundations in every department. It was necessary to begin with Spanish as
that was the only language which would serve their original purpose,
and which could be quickly acquired. In these circumstances, I think
that the Board should give Mr. Rodgers, Dr. Hall and Mr. Hibbard and
their wives considerable latitude in this matter. All speak and preach
Spanish. Dr. and Mrs. Hall have made considerable proficiency in Visayan, having already translated a part of the New Testament into it and
being able to use it in conversation and to some extent in preaching.
Manila responsibilities have limited Mr. and Mrs. Rodgers to Spanish,
while the recent transfer of Mr. and Mrs. Hibbard to Dumaguete changed
their dialect from the Panayan, in which they were making good progress.
All three of these missionaries and their wives may be trusted to learn
the native languages as soon as they possibly can. But the newer missionaries and all who follow them should be held as closely to the Manual
rule on language study as the new members of other Missions, India, for
example, where no one imagines that British rule obviates the necessity
for a thorough knowledge of the native tongues. The burden of leadership does not at present rest upon them in the same degree as upon their
older colleagues, and the Mission should immediately lay out a course of
language study, and hold its younger members to strict accountability in
their fidelity to it.
In our school work, Spanish must have a place for a time, for the
reasons already indicated. Indeed, it may be expedient to retain it for
a considerable period, for most of our pupils thus far come from the
upper classes among whom the use of Spanish is more general than among
the common people. But Spanish will ultimately become in all schools,
public and mission, what French is in our home-schools-an accomplishment to which only subordinate attention is given in the higher grades.
The real work of our schools must be done in English and Tagalog in
Luzon, and in English and Vasayan in the other stations. The Silliman
Institute proposes that "after the first year of study, the studies will be
entirely in English." But whether or not this may be found practicable as a
school rule the teacher who expects to get into closest sympathy with
his pupils and to intelligently guide their studies, must know their native
tongue. The objections to the use of English, which are urged in some
other mission fields, do not wholly apply in the Philippines. The relation
of English to the future of these Islands and its place in the public
schools make it virtually obligatory in our Mission schools. We could
62




not hold our constituency without it, nor if we could, would it be just for
us to refuse to our pupils the advantages which a knowledge of English
can alone bring within the reach of a Filipino. As for the native languages, their use is necessary to our missionary influence. It is absurd
to suppose that the vernacular will become extinct or that loyalty to our
Government's purposes requires us to ignore it. There is no sign that the
European languages will ever cease to be spoken by immigrants in
America, and we not only permit their use, but teach them in our schools
and colleges so far as they are called for. If this is the result when
Europeans come to America, much more is it to be expected when Americans go to the Philippines. Egypt and India show that the native
speech of millions of people living in their own land will never be
wholly displaced by a comparative handful of a different race from the
other side of the planet. Wisdom dictates that in this as in other departments there be no unnecessary interference with the customs of the
Filipinos, and while we are justified in insisting upon a knowledge of
English and in ignoring as soon as possible the Spanish that is doubly
alien, yet we should also frankly recognize that the native dialects have
a right to exist. Perchance by our legitimate honoring of them in our
preaching, and teaching, and translating, we may so improve and dignify
them as the German and English were improved and dignified by Luther
and Wiclif.
As for Bible translations, they should, of course, be in the vernacular
and not in Spanish. The sectarian features of the Baptist translation in
Panay, already referred to, haive unfortunately forced Dr. Hall to begin
another translation upon which he has made considerable progress. The
agent of the American Bible Society in Manila is very desirous that
this and other translations should be rapidly pushed to completion. I
strongly sympathize with his desire. We cannot hope to evangelize the
Filipinos unless we give them the Word of God in their own languages.
Such translations laid the foundations of Protestantism in Europe, and
are equally indispensable here. But with our present scanty force, it is
well-nigh impossible for a missionary to spare any considerable portion of
his time for this purpose. Dr. and Mrs. Hall are now the only ones who
have the requisite knowledge of the language for translating, but until
Mr. Hills learns Visayan, practically the whole burden of the station work,
both medical and evengelistic, falls upon them. They are being overworked as it is. I hope that the Bible Society can meet the difficulty by
itself furnishing some one who is competent to continue this important
work.
COST OF LIVING-SALARIES.
American occupation has put an end to the era of cheap living in the
Philippines. The heavy expenditure for military and naval operations,
the spendthrift prodigality of American soldiers, sailors and visitors, the
ill-concealed surprise of Americans at the low prices they found, and
the introduction of the United States gold standard have all combined to
inflate prices. The silver peso was the Filipino standard of exchange.
It is about the same size and shape as our silver dollar, but as there is
63




no governmental guarantee to accept it as the equivalent of gold, it
is worth but fifty cents of American money. The Filipinos do not understand why one of our silver coins should be worth two of theirs, and so
they demand the same number of dollars as they formerly received pesos
for a given labor or commodity, thus doubling prices. Both coins are
legal tender at the rate of two to one, but more and more prices are approximating the gold level of a United States dollar or two pesos for what
could once be had for one peso. The high protective tariff has intensified
the situation until now the conditions of living resemble those of "fortynine" in California.
That the Board may obtain a general idea as to the relative cost of
living, I have prepared the following table of the prices charged for a
few staple articles at our three stations. All figures are in pesos:
DumaManila.    Iloilo.  guete.
Flour, per lb......................................10
Beef, per lb. (other meats are more expensive)..50.20.20
Sugar, per lb. ("Coffee C" grade)...............20.8.20
Coffee,  per  lb..................................70.60.oo0
Butter, per lb. tin...........................  I.oo.90       i.oo
Potatoes, per  lb...............................08.10.20
M ilk,  per  lb.  tin..............................  50.40.50
Oatmeal, per lb............................33 I-3.33 I-3.33 I-3
Kerosene, per gallon.........................  48.55.60
Fuel, wood, for one man load..............62 I-2
Coal,  per  ton.............................     24.00      24.00
Cheese, per  lb...........................60.60.60
Fish,  per  lb....................................20.20.15
Lard, per  lb................................. 45.45.45
Eggs, per dozen...........................    40.40.25
Chickens,  each.................................75.30.20
Servants, average per month.................15.25     I1.25     13.75
Rent, per month (for living rooms, kitchen and
basement.)..........................   0.00
(Second floor only, six rooms and kitchen...        75.00
(Six rooms, kitchen and basement)..........                  o00.00
In all three cities, vegetables are scarce. Only a few kinds can be
obtained, and at about New York City prices.
A pony and caleso (a small two-wheeled carriage with one seat) are
a necessity, for distances are great and much walking is impracticable in
this humid, tropical climate, where the least physical activity causes profuse perspiration. Jinrikshas are unknown, and while there are a few
street car lines in Manila, the cars run at such long and irregular intervals that they cannot be depended upon. I saw only three cars in ten
days. The missionary must have 'his own conveyance, for not only are
livery rates exorbitant, but, as I had occasion to find, it is often impossible
to hire a cab at any price. A serviceable caleso, new, costs 300 pesos, and
Mr. McIntire had to pay 230 pesos for a second-hand one in good condition
64




The single harness costs 40 pesos, and the wretchedest ponies I saw in all
Asia cost from Ioo pesos up. I think it would be cheaper to pay "up," for the
only one I saw at oo pesos would have made a Kentuckian weep. No whipping that the tenderhearted missionary would inflict could induce it to
go faster than a wobbly trot, and even then a three-mile drive in the
morning so exhausted it that it could not be taken out of the stable for
the rest of the day, so that the owner had to walk on his afternoon trip. The
"keep" of that aged little beast costs the missionary $14.oo a month, and
the pony will be half-starved or foundered at that unless the missionary
personally sees that his native "boy" does not steal the feed, or water the
pony while it is reeking with sweat. If any "globe-trotter" charges our
missionaries with driving fast horses, I am prepared to take the witness
stand in their defence.
I made inquiries outside of missionary circles as to the cost of living.
The Taft Commission reports: "A present question in the civil service is
the high cost of living in Manila. There are not enough houses in Manila
to make comfortable places of residence for the civil servants who come
here from the United States. If one is well housed in Manila, it is a very
pleasant city to live in. If he is not thus fortunately placed, he can but
have an unpleasant impression of life here and impart it to others. It
is the duty of the Insular Government to look after its employees, and
to see that they are comfortable; for only under such conditions can the
best work be obtained from them."
At Police Headquarters I was told that ordinary patrolmen receive
$900 gold per annum, and Sergeants $I,200, both having free quarters in
addition.
At the Department of Education, General Superintendent Atkinson
very kindly showed me his salary list, from which it appears that 223
teachers receive $I,200 gold each, 20 receive $1,500 and I59 get $900, though
the latter are chiefly untrained discharged volunteer soldiers.. Native teachers are paid from $60 to $300 gold. But the American teachers also had
the privilege of buying their provisions at the United States Army Commissary Depot, and as the Army buys in enormous lots at the lowest wholesale prices, pays no freight, rent or salaries, and sells at cost, this privilege
was equivalent to a substantial sum. But when the Islands passed under
civil control, July 4th, last, the teachers, being no longer under the military establishment, lost this privilege. They immediately made strenuous
protest, signing a communication to Washington in which they declared
that they could not live on their present salaries unless they could buy
their supplies at the Commissary rates. Accordingly, the Government instructed the Chief Commissary in Manila to furnish the Department of
Public Instruction provisions in bulk, and they are then distributed by the
Department at a slight advance over the Army rate, but so much less than
the market price that the concession is equal to a considerable addition to
the teachers' salaries. Moreover, the teacher receives an increase of $.00oo
gold a month if he learns the native language, and $15 a month if he
teaches a night school three evenings a week, though the total must not
exceed $I,500 a year for one teacher. However, if he has a wife who
65




teaches, and marriages among the teachers are frequent, she gets from
$9oo to $I,2oo more, so that several couples are drawing $2,000 and upward. Children make no difference, some of the teachers being mothers
of several children. But teachers pay their own rent and medical bills and
there are no extras except the privilege of returning to the United States
on a transport if they remain two years.
But in spite of this apparently liberal provision, individual teachers with
whom I talked complained of the financial embarrassments to which they
were subjected. Many of them came to the Philippines with the idea of not
only seeing something of the world, but of saving enough in the three years
of their term to give them a little start in life after their return to America.
But they say that they cannot save anything. One unmarried man on the
island of Panay told me that he was forced to economize on $1,200 gold a
year and that after an experience of two years and a half, he had given up
all hope of getting ahead. He said that all the teachers had to live closely.
I, therefore, think that the salaries which the Board is now paying in
the Philippine Mission are reasonable as long as present conditions prevail. The missionaries are living as modestly as any missionaries I have
seen in Asia. A radical change in the tax law may, however, justify a
reduction in all salaries after a time. The Taft Commission reports:
"The effect of the old Spanish system was to throw practically the whole
burden on those who could least afford to bear it. The poor paid the
taxes and the rich, in many instances, went free, or nearly so, unless they
were unfortunate enough to hold office and thus incur responsibility for the
taxes of others which they failed to collect. There was a considerable
number of special taxes, many of which were irritating and offensive to the
people, and yielded, at the best, a pitifully small revenue."
General order No. 40 continued many of these objectionable taxes and
business men complained to me that the more rigid enforcement of the
law by American officers made the situation even more intolerable than
it was before. But November ist of this year the Taft Commission promulgated a new tax law, which it explains as follows: "It has been our
purpose, first, to do away with all taxes which, through irritating those
from whom they were collected or through the small amount of resulting
revenue, were manifestly objectionable; second, to remove the so-called
industrial taxes, except where levied on industries requiring police supervision; third, to abolish special taxes, such as the tax for lighting and
cleaning the municipality and the tax for the repair of roads and streets;
fourth, to provide abundant funds for the legitimate needs of the township by a system which should adjust the burden of contribution with
some reference to the resources of those called upon to bear it. To this
end, provision has been made for a moderate tax on land and improvements thereon."
I was informed by an official, high in authority, that this law was
expected to reduce the cost of living nearly fifty per cent., though others
with whom I conversed were inclined to think that merchants will continue
to charge as near the old charges as they dare, and thus pocket the saving
in taxes instead of giving it to the consumer. Time will tell. I, therefore,
66




recommend that after the new law has been in operation six months,
that is, on or about May ist, 19o2, the Mission be instructed to inform the
Board what reduction in the cost of living has been effected, so that the.Board can intelligently consider what change, if any, should be made in
the salaries of missionaries, and that, meantime, appropriations for the
ensuing fiscal year should be made on the present basis.
HEALTH CONDITIONS-FURLOUGHS.
Health conditions in the Philippines are happily more favorable than we
had at first supposed My personal experience is not valuable for I was in
the islands at the best season, September and October, when we had what
in America would be called "glorious June weather." But Army surgeons
informed me that for a tropical region the climate is not unhealthy. At
Dumaguete, Sergeant Paulin of Co. F., 6th U. S. Infantry, says that he
kept the heat record during two hot seasons and that the thermometer
never rose above ninety. On the Island of Negros, out of a force ranging from two hundred and fifty to four hundred and during a period of
two years, only two soldiers died, and one of them drank himself to death,
the other dying of dysentery. Not a single case of typhoid fever occurred
in all that time. This, however, is an unusually fine record, but that for
the Islands as a whole is far from bad, the chief maladies from which
the soldiers suffer being due to immorality, intemperance, drinking unboiled water and exposure to the sun, which a missionary can avoid easier
than a soldier who must wear a felt hat and march when he is ordered.
Iloilo, Dumaguete and Cebu, though farther south, are cooler than Manila,
on account of a freer exposure to the sea breezes. The great difficulty
lies in the fact that, as in other tropical lands, a foreigner from the northern
temperate zone of America must be constantly on his guard, for carelessness about water, food, sun and perspiration may quickly cause trouble.
Then the never ending summer in time debilitates one and affords no bracing change.
In determining the policy which the Board should adopt on this subject,
the following extracts from the report of the Taft Commission will be
helpful: "That health conditions are, on the whole, surprisingly good in
the Philippines is conclusively demonstrated by comparing the sick reports
of our troops while in camp in the United States with the reports for the
time during which they have been engaged in active service in the Philippines. It is believed by this Commission that no tropical islands in the
world enjoy a better climate than do the Philippines. While this is true,
two classes of diseases have to be reckoned with here. These are, first,
diseases common to temperate and tropical countries, and second, diseases
especially characteristic of the latter regions. Under the former head
would fall smallpox, cholera, bubonic plague, and leprosy. Smallpox is
epidemic in these islands. The natives have very little fear of it, and are
apt to neglect the necessary precautions to prevent its spread, unless compelled to adopt them. There have been more or less destructive epidemics
of Asiatic cholera in the Philippines in the past, but they have occurred
at long intervals. The last was in 1888-89. Cholera has not appeared in
X67




the islands since that time. Bubonic plague appeared in Manila in December, I898, but has never made any considerable headway. The disease was
almost entirely confined to Chinese and natives. At the present time, rare
sporadic cases occur at long intervals. We now come to a class of diseases
which, while not confined to the tropics, are apt to occur in their severest
and most dangerous form in hot countries, such as diarrhea, dysentery,
malarial troubles, and beri-beri. While many of the islands of this group
are extremely healthful, they vary widely in this particular, as do different
localities on the same islands. Mindoro and Balabac, for instance, have
deservedly bad reputations, while Sibuyan, Guimaras, Siquijor, and Cebu
are considered especially healthful. Recuperation from severe wounds or
wasting diseases takes place slowly in this tropical region. Thus far it
has proved necessary to send a considerable number of sick soldiers either
to Japan or to the United States for recuperation. This involves very
heavy expense and frequently loss of life as well. Experience has shown
that an occasional change to a cooler' climate is very desirable, even for
those who live in the more healthful parts of the archipelago. Especially
is this true of white children, who usually do very well here up to the age
of eight or ten years, and then often seem to require a change.
"In view of the facts above set forth, it becomes a matter of great
practical importance to ascertain whether or not there exists within the
limits of the archipelago any accessible region presenting suitable climate
and other conditions for the speedy recuperation of sufferers from wounds,
tropical diseases, wasting illnesses of any sort, or from the injurious effects
of long continued residence in a hot climate. It has long been known
that in northern Luzon there are extensive highland regions with a
strictly temperate climate. The southernmost of these regions, and therefore the most accessible from Manila, is comprised in the province of
Benguet. The bracing character of the atmosphere is attested by everyone.who has visited the province of Benguet, and its purity is shown
by the fact that fresh meat keeps without ice for from three to six days
according to the season. It is hard to conceive of a region affording a
more delightful temperature than Bagino, where it is always cool and
yet never cold. The highest temperature recorded during August, September and October is 76.8~. The distinguished physician, Don Elias
Cony Tres, first surgeon of the military health department for the islands
under the Spanish regime, after a thorough discussion of the physiological
effects of the climate of Benguet concludes that individuals debilitated
by illness or the effects of the hot climate of the lowlands, or with scrofulitic tendencies, or those suffering from anemia, malaria, inflammation
of the kidneys, disease of the digestive canal, asthma, neurasthenia, neuralgia arising from malarial trouble, chronic catarrhs of the bladder and
urinary channels, nostalgia, and hypochondria would be greatly benefitted
and in many instances cured."
The commission then proceeds to cite the reports of United States
Army surgeons Frank S. Bourns and Louis M. Maus and of Commissioners Wright and Worcester, all of whom were sent to Benguet for a
special investigation, and it concludes by recommending the immediate
68




extension to Benguet of the railroad which is already within fifty-five
miles of it and the erection of suitable buildings with a view of making
it a health resort for all Americans connected with the Government service. This road has already been surveyed and the work of construction
begun. The contractor declares that "the scenery of the Rocky Mountains
is not to be compared with the beauties of the path of the Benguet road.
Steep cliffs, ravines, and precipices greet the eye on every side, which
will make it a tourists' Eden."
It seems to me that it would be a wise expenditure for the Board to
purchase in this region a suitable tract for a missionary sanitarium. A
few acres would be ample and the cost would be very small if the purchase were made before expensive improvements are undertaken. The
Board should be at no expense for buildings, as each missionary can build
his own temporary house of the ever present bambo and thatch it with
the leaves of the nipa palm. Such a house can be built by the natives
in a few days at an insignificant cost and it is quite good enough for a
vacation in that climate. I advised the Mission-to have some one visit
Benguet, select a site and report to the Board as soon as convenient.
The possession of a place of this kind might prevent many long and
costly trips to America and render possible a longer term of service than
would otherwise be practicable.
It is too soon to decide how long the term of service should be. The
uniformly tropical temperature will not be as conducive to the continuance
of physical vigor as Japan, Korea and northern and central China, where
the heat of summer is followed by the bracing cold of winter. On the
other hand, American rule, American institutions and the presence of a
considerable number of fellow-countrymen will relieve to some extent
the feeling of isolation and expatriation which is one of the most trying
features of missionary life. So far as we can judge at present, the furlough regulations should be about the same as those for Siam or India.
The hottest and unhealthiest season is from the middle of April to the
middle of June. Missionaries should therefore, if practicable, leave for
their furloughs about the first of April and be at their stations again about
the first of August of the following year. This would involve a total
absence including travel of sixteen months. New missionaries should
arrive in September.
THE ROMAN CATHOLIC QUESTION.
The Roman Catholic Church in the Philippine Islands is a factor in
the situation which I would gladly avoid. But "it is impossible to ignore
the very great part which such a question plays." The quotation is from
the Report of the Taft Commission, Nov. 30, I9oo, and if that purely
civil body finds it necessary to face that question, much more do the
Protestant churches which are confronted by it at every turn.
The numbers and the power of the Roman Church in the Philippines
Archipelago are great. The ecclesiastical registry for I898 claims 6,559,998 souls, or the entire population of the Islands except the Mohammedan
Moros and the scattered wild tribes of the mountain fastnesses. The
69




Islands are divided into 851 parishes of which 746 are "regular" and o05
" mission."  In addition there are 116 missions, so that the total number
of subdivisions is 967. Augustinian, Dominican, and Franciscan monks
administered 596 of the regular parishes.  Forty-two Jesuits, sixteen
Capuchins, and six Benedictines were engaged in various missionary and
educational capacities, and 150 Filipino priests were assigned to the
smaller secular parishes and a considerable number were assistants of
the friars in the larger ones, so that the total ecclesiastical force reached
formidable proportions. This extensive system is, or was at the time of
the American occupation, ruled by one Archbishop, who resided in Manila, the four Bishops of Vigan, Jaro, Cebu and Nueva Caceres, and the
Provincials of the orders; of St. Augustine, St. Francis, St. Dominic and
the Recolletos. These dignitaries formed a part of the Council of Administration in Manila "advisory" to the Governor General. A royal octavo
page of minion type would be required to even summarize the civil functions of the friars as described by the Provincial of the Franciscan order
to the Taft Commission. It is not necessary for me to quote that summary in view of the statement of the Commission that "it is easy to see
from this that the priest was not only the spiritual guide, but that he
was in every sense the municipal ruler.... The truth is that the whole
Government of Spain in these islands rested on the friars. To use the
expression of the provincial of the Augustinians, the friars were the
pedestal or foundation of the sovereignty of Spain in these islands" which
being removed, "the whole structure would topple over."  The number
of Spanish troops in these islands did not exceed 5,000 until the revolution. The tenure of office of the friar curate was permanent. There was
but little rotation of priests among the parishes.  Once settled in a
parish, a priest usually continued there until superannuation. He was,
therefore, a constant political factor for a generation. The same was true
of the archbishop and the bishops. The civil and military officers of Spain
in the islands were here for not longer than four years, and more often
for a less period. The friars, priests, and bishops, therefore, constituted
a solid, powerful, permanent well organized political force in the islands
which dominated policies. The stay of those officers who attempted to
pursue a course at variance with that deemed wise by the orders was
invariably shortened by monastic influence."
The Franciscans cannot own any property except in the form of convents and schools, but the three other Orders hold about 403,000 acres of
the most fertile land in the Archipelago, besides very valuable business
property in Manila and other cities, and large sums in cash.
All the world knows how this enormous power was wielded. Happily,
it is not necessary for the Protestant missionary to recount the facts.
Writers like Worcester and Foreman, and a host of others, who cannot
be accused of undue partiality for Protestant Missions have told the painful
story. After having requested through Archbishop Chapelle an opportunity to state their own case before the Taft Commission, and after that
body had given them a full and patient hearing, it officially reported to
the Secretary of War:
70




"The friar witnesses denied the charges of general immorality, admitting only isolated cases, which they said were promptly disciplined.
The evidence on this point to the contrary, however, is so strong that
it seems clearly to establish that there were enough instances in each
province to give considerable ground for the general report. It is not
strange that it should have been so. There were, of course, many educated
gentlemen of high moral standards among the friars. The bishops and
provincials who testified were all of this class. But there were others,
brought from the peasant class in Andalusia, whose training and education did not enable them to resist temptations, which, under the peculiar
conditions, were exceptionally powerful."
So far from denying the facts, the Bishop of Jaro actually had the
self-possession  to make the following extraordinary defence: "You
must bear in mind it would be very strange if some priests should not
fall. To send a young man out to what might be termed a desert, the
only white man in the neighborhood, surrounded by elements of licentiousness, with nobody but the Almighty to look to, with the climatic conditions urging him to follow the same practices as surround him, it is a
miracle if he does not fall. For instance, you take a young man here
in the seminary, who is reading his breviary all the time in the cloister,
under discipline all the time, seeing nobody, and suddenly transplant
him to a place where he is monarch of all he surveys-he sees the women
half clothed, and as he is consulted on all questions, even of morality and
immorality, his eyes are opened, and if he is not strong he will fall."
As to the attitude of the great body of the Filipinos toward the
Roman Catholic Church, opinions differ.   The Commission 'has expressed the opinion that the natives were not particularly shocked by the
immorality of the friars, that their hatred of them is political and agrarian,
and that "the Philippine people love the Catholic Church., The solemnity
and grandeur of its ceremonies appeal most strongly to their religious
motives, and it may be doubted whether there is any country in the
world in which the people have a more profound attachment for their
Church than this one.
It would be absurd for me to set my own opinion against that of
the Commission. I can only report the fact that in a month's incessant
traveling and asking of questions of Tagalogs, Visayans, Army officers,
business and professional men, as well as missionaries, a Roman Catholic
Bishop was the only one who expressed such an opinion to me. Nor
is it supported by the facts which are most patent to the traveler. Of the
many stately Roman Catholic churches that I visited, not one, so far
as I could learn, had an attendance anywhere near commensurate with
the reported size of its parish. The Dumaguete Church on the Island of
Negros, for example, can muster a congregation of five hundred only on
unusual occasions, and yet it claims a parish of I2,000 souls. The McKinley Memorial service in the Manila Cathedral, though indefatigably
worked up and advertised, drew together no more natives than the Protestant service in the Rizal Theatre. I attended both services and therefore speak from personal knowledge. Wherever I went, the testimony
71
I




of those familiar with the facts was that beyond a comparatively small
number, "chiefly women and old people," the attendance on Roman
Catholic churches is largely confined to those who come, not from
"profound attachment for their Church," but from superstitious fear that
the priests would keep them out of Paradise. High Filipino officials
seldom attend. A Presidente I met laughed at a priest who furiously
threatened him with excommunication because he would not contribute
any more funds to the Church. In another town which I visited, the
priest ordered the Presidente to prevent our missionaries from preaching
in the market place. When the Presidente not only declined to prevent
them, but actually encouraged them, the angry priest tried to bring him
to terms by refusing to allow his dead parent to be buried in the cemetery. Whereupon, the Presidente compelled the ecclesiastic to officiate
under an armed guard. Both these priests were Filipinos, so that no
anti-Spanish feeling was involved. Evidences could be multiplied that
the Roman Church is a terror no longer. There still stands on the statute
books, Article 226 of the Philippine Penal Code, which reads: "A person who publicly performs acts of propaganda, preaching, or other ceremonies not those of the religion of the State, shall incur the penalty of
prison correctional in its minimum grade." But it is a dead letter, as the
Presidente of Cabuyao found to his chagrin after he had arrested two of
our native evangelists, October 7th, for preaching without a license from
the Archbishop. It was the first case of the kind and it will probably be
the last in a land where four years ago such preaching anywhere would
have meant death.
The Protestant services are everywhere thronged with Filipinos.
When I asked a high Visayan official what form of mission work he would
advise us to press as most acceptable to the Filipino people, he replied:
"Preaching; otr people have had three hundred years of the friar's religion and now they want a better one."
The Taft Commission itself reminds us that by "the revolutions of
1896 and 1898 against Spain, all the Do/minicans, Augustinians, Recolletos,
and Franciscans, acting as parish priests were driven from their parishes
to take refuge in Manila. Forty were killed and 403 were imprisoned and
were not all released until by the advance of the American troops it
became impossible for the insurgents to retain them. Of the 1,124 who
were in the islands in i896, but 472 remain. The remainder were either
killed or died, returned to Spain, or went to China or South America."
The Commission continues: "We are convinced that a return of the
friars to their parishes will lead to lawless violence and murder, and that
the people will charge the course taken to the American Government, thus
turning against it the resentment felt toward the friars. It is to be remembered that the Filipinos who are in sympathy with the American
cause in these islands are as bitterly opposed to the friars as the most
irreconcilable insurgents, and they look with the greatest anxiety to the
course to be taken in the matter."
If this hostility to the friars were confined to a comparatively small
number of individuals, it might not argue any breaking away from the
72




Church. But when a people hate their ecclesiastical leaders, as a class, so
fiercely and persistently, that a Civil Commission is forced to report to
Washington that if those who are not killed return, the infuriated population will resort "to lawless violence and murder," and when those people
are turning in such multitudes to the Protestant services that the few
missionaries are fairly overwhelmed, surely a legitimate inference is not
that they "love" a Church which is associated in their minds with all that
is iniquitous and cruel, but that they are on the eve of a religious revolution comparable only to that of the German and English revolt against
Rome in the sixteenth century. There was just as much reason then
as there is in the Philippine Islands to-day, to say #h'at while the people
hated the priests they loved the Church. The result showed that they
-drew no such fine distinction, but that to them the priest meant the
Church and the Church the priest, and that they were determined to
have no more of a system all whose outworkings were so bitter. Indeed,
one thoughtful American official said to me that so far from the Filipinos
remaining Roman Catholics, the danger was that they would swing so
far from Rome that they would go to the other extreme of atheism, and
that it would be wise to resist the movement away from Rome until other
moral restraints were recognized.
That the Papal leaders feel that their cause is in peril was clearly
shown in my conversation with a prominent Bishop. In accordance with
my custom of seeking information from every practicable source, I called
upon him as I had upon many other Roman Catholic priests and prelates
in Japan, Korea, and China. Without exception, they had welcomed me
cordially and talked with me frankly. This prelate did the latter, but what
little cordiality he manifested apparently cost him a supreme effort. I
wanted to see in a typical Spanish dignitary the Roman Catholic attitude
towards Protestants, and I saw it. As he knew no English and I knew
no Spanish we talked through one of our Presbyterian missionaries who
understood Spanish. I wish I had an artist's power to sketch the profiles of the two men. They typified the whole wide-world difference between American Protestantism  and Spanish Romanism-the missionary
with his high forehead, frank blue eyes, clear cut features, whose every
line and expression betokened temperate living and high thinking; and
the Bishop-well, there was a noticeable difference.
After a few introductory generalities had led up to the issue, the
Bishop said: "If you come to preach to Americans, I welcome you and
wish you well. But the Indians are all Roman Catholics, and if you
preach among them and try to wean them from the Church, we must combat you."
I replied that we could only reach those who were willing to be
reached, that thus far the Indians had been coming to us, and that as
some were evidently leaving the Roman Catholic Church it was simply
better that they should become Protestants than that they should have no
religion at all.
He replied: "This is a Catholic country. The Catholics formerly
73




had everything in the Philippines, but now (and his tone and manner
became more bitter) the Church has lost all."
I answered: "The people of the United States are overwhelmingly
Protestant in membership and sympathy, but they, nevertheless, give entire freedom to the Roman Catholic Church. Why should not Protestants be as free to preach in the Philippines as the Roman Catholics are
to preach in America?"
He brusquely said: "Conditions are very different here."
I said that we did not desire to interfere with the liberty of any who
preferred the Roman Catholic faith, that one of our cardinal principles
was the right of every man to worship God according to the dictates
of his own conscience, and that our purpose was not merely to be in
opposition, but to present the positive teachings of Christ.
He sharply replied: "Don't say that." He then began to harangue on
the divisions of Protestantism, closing by asking, "How many classes of
Protestants are there?"
I replied: "Less in the Philippines than there are Orders of the Roman
Catholic Church, for while you have Dominicans, Franciscans, Augustinians, Recolletos, Jesuits, Capuchins and Benedictines, seven in all,besides
secular priests and sisters, Protestants have six-Baptists, Presbyterians,
Methodists, United Brethren, Episcopalians and Christians."
He answered: "You are mistaken. Catholics all teach the same truths,
so that there is no difference between an Augustinian convert and a Dominican convert. All are united under the same head. You have no
head."
I did not deem it courteous to state that the mutual enmities of the
Roman Catholic Orders were notoriously more bitter than the differences
which we were now discussing in a fraternal spirit with our Baptist
brethren. But I did say that so far as I could judge the Protestant bodies
in the Philippines were working together as harmoniously as the Roman
Catholic Orders were, that while it was true that we had no earthly head,
it was because we held that Christ alone should be head, that our ideal
was a spiritual unity in Him, rather than an external unity in man, and
that our divergencies were rather those of method and emphasis than of
fundamental truth."
He queried: "While only Presbyterians are here now, how do I know
how many more classes of Protestants will come and teach different
things. With us the Dominicans take one province and the Augustinians
another, except in Manila."
I then explained the Evangelical Union which had recently been
formed in Manila and which was dividing the islands territorially between
the Protestant Churches, just as the Orders had agreed upon a like division
for themselves.
The conversation then turned to the fortitude of the Christians in
China, and he listened with interest and a softened expression as I described the heroic defense of Bishop Favier in Peking, and the bullet and
shell holes I had seen in the walls and roof of the great Cathedral.
In closing the interview, which was of considerable length, I said
74




that I had not called to argue, that I, of course, recognized the differences
between Roman Catholics and Protestants, that in view of the relation
into which Americans had now come with the Philippines, we believed that
it was our duty to come here and to preach the truth as we understood
it, but that we wished to do so in the spirit of Christian courtesy and
fairness.  But he again said:  "Do not say that."  He plainly knew
little of America and of American Protestantism, but he felt in a halfblind, instinctive, almost ferocious way, that American Protestantism
was a kind.of Satanic manifestation, which threatened the very existence
of society and of the true Church, and that its missionaries were to be
resisted as emissaries of moral anarchy and ruin. Of course the interview accomplished nothing except to give me an opportunity to personally
note the type of character and ability which leads the Roman ChurSh in
the Philippines, and the position from which it will fight Protestantism.
Everything was about what I had been led to expect, the really significant
admission being: "The Catholics formerly had everything in the Philippines, but now the Church has lost all."
And yet the Bishop would probably object to a literal interpretation of
this statement, and I certainly do not intend to conclude from it that the
whole population is to leave the Roman Catholic Church. That Church
has shown a remarkable ability to adapt itself to changing conditions. It
has lost its temporal power and it will lose many of its members. But
according to expert legal opinion, it cannot be deprived of the major part
of its vast properties. It will retain its hold upon a considerable part of
the population, especially in the lower classes. The atmosphere of civil
and religious liberty has not been fatal to it in the United States, and it
will not be in the Philippine Islands. That atmosphere and the presence
and activity of Protestants-and we may expect this to be one of the good
results of our missionary labor-will compel the Roman Church to do in
this Asiatic archipelago what it has done on the North American continent-retire its profligate priests, improve its schools and abate many of
its iniquities. It will still be Rome at heart. It will make no essential
change in character, but making a virtue of necessity, it will concede just
enough to enable it to deceive many. But even this change will be long
in coming. Archbishop Chapelle was sent from the United States to
adjust the Roman Catholic Church in the Philippines to its new environment. It is an open secret in Manila that he utterly failed, that he
became the tool of the unscrupulous Spanish bishops and Provincials, and
that he finally left in despair not unmingled with disgust. The system
is too rotten for any hasty and superficial reform to suffice.
Meantime, the desire of the civil authorities to strictly preserve the
American policy of the separation of Church and State is certainly proper.
We do not complain, therefore, because Protestantism is not officially
recognized. We neither expect n0r desire such recognition. All we
ask is a fair field and no favor. I go further and say that I believe that
the Commission is wise in avoiding, as far as practicable, all that would
unnecessarily disturb religious faith, and in endeavoring to convince the
people that the American Government is not hostile to the Roman Catholic
75




or any other Church which conforms to the civil law. Many Americans
in the Philippines deem it important that the Filipinos should not be
allowed to suppose that all Americans are Protestants, and that they
intend to overthrow the Papal Church. They fear that if such an impression were to be created, the pacification of the islands would be
indefinitely postponed. Again we do not object. We are American
citizens as well as Protestants, and we are loyal to our country's policy
in relation to all Churches. Indeed, we prefer it, as better for ourselves.
Besides, we want the Filipinos to become Protestants in a vital personal
sense, as regenerated individuals, and we do not want a merely nominal adhesion because Americans are now the ruling class.
But, on the other hand, we may fairly insist that the policy of conciliating Rome shall not be carried so far as to virtually discriminate
against Protestant missionary work, and against that already considerable
and rapidly growing class of Filipinos who have left the Roman Church.
In its published report to the Secretary of War, the Taft Commission has
officially declared: "As the Catholic Church is and ought to continue a
prominent factor in the life, peace, contentment, and progress of the
Philippine people, it would seem the wisest course, wherever it is possible
to do so, without infringing upon the principle that Church and State
must be kept separate, to frame civil laws which shall accord with views
conscientiously entertained by Catholics-priests and laymen-and which
shall not deal unfairly with a people of a different faith. It would seem
clear that any government organized under the sovereignty of the United
States cannot devote public money to the teaching of any particular
religion. It has been suggested, however, that in any system of public
education organized in these islands, it would be proper to afford to every
religious denomination the right to send religious instructors to the public
schools to instruct the children of parents who desire it in religion,
several times a week, at times when such instruction shall not interfere
with the regular curriculum. This is what is understood to be the Faribault plan. It is not certain that this would meet completely the views
of the Catholic hierarchy, but it is likely that it would avoid that active
hostility to a public school system which might be a formidable obstacle
in spreading education among these Catholic people. The Commission
has reached no definite conclusion upon the matter, but only states the
question as one calling for solution in the not far-distant future."
Our country has been singularly fortunate in the character and
ability of the first Civil Governor and his associates. They are noble
men, who are displaying superb qualities of leadership. Their task is
one of colossal magnitude and difficulty. Every true American owes them a
maximum of support and a minimum of criticism. But the Roman prelates, both in America and in the Philippines, are doing their utmost to
convince them that "the Philippine people love the Catholic Church," and
they are bringing tremendous pressure to bear upon them to induce them
to legislate accordingly. In these circumstances, it may be a real help to
the Commission if the Protestants of America watch its policy in this
respect and occasionally express opinions upon the subject.
76




Meantime, no small number of Americans, who, in the United States
were connected with Protestant churches, are scrupulously avoiding the
Protestant services in Manila for fear of angering the Roman Catholics.
As this is a personal matter, we cannot prevent them from stifling their
faith to secure favor with Rome. But when those very men deprecate
Protestant missionary work and preach caution to our missionaries on
the ground that "the natives are Roman Catholics and it is not wise
to disturb their faith," we may reply that the American governmental
doctrines of religious liberty, and of the separation of Church and State,
and the American public school system are doing ten times more to
disturb the Roman Catholic Church than all the Protestant missionaries
combined. One of the leading Bishops in the Philippines has plainly stated
that the Roman Catholics object to the public schools more strongly than
they do to the Protestant missionaries. There is an element of contempt in their attitude toward the missionaries. They see that there are
only about a score of them in all the Archipelago, that their financial resources are comparatively small, that their buildings are of the humblest
kind, and that there is no immediate prospect of the influx of a large reinforcement.  But they already see over six thousand public school
teachers, the appropriation of vast sums for their maintenance and for
the erection of elaborate institutions, and the whole authority and resources of the Civil Government openly arrayed in their support. It is
odd to hear men who are frightening Roman Catholics into a panic by their
vigorous and powerful pushing of these public schools solemnly express
their apprehension that the handful of Protestant missionaries will alarm
the Roman Catholics!
Archbishop Ireland and his sympathizers in the United States, the
Roman Catholic bishops and priests in the Philippines and a considerable number of Americans, both at home and abroad, never tire of reminding us that the Filipinos had a form of the Christian religion before
the Americans came, and that it is neither expedient nor just to attempt
to change it.
I reply that the Filipinos had a form of civil government before the
Americans came, and, also, a form of public education, forms which
were as adequate to their needs as was their form of religion. Indeed,
all competent testimony is to the effect that the dissatisfaction of the
people with their civil governors and their schools, was less than their
dissatisfaction with their priests. Nevertheless, Americans have deemed
it their duty to forcibly overthrow the entire governmental and educational systems, and to replace them with our own radically different ones.
The wishes of the people were not considered. The Taft Commission
reports: "Many witnesses were examined as to the form of government best adapted to these islands and satisfactory to the people. All
the evidence taken, no matter what the bias of the witness, showed
that the masses of the people are ignorant, credulous and childlike, and
that under any government the electoral franchise must be much limited,
because the large majority will not, for a long time, be capable of intelligently exercising it." So Americans have proceeded on the supposition




that as the people did not know what was good for them, that good
must be imposed by the strong arm   of military power and civil law,
confident that in time the Filipinos will see that it is for their welfare.
Any argument that could be framed for the inadequacy of the former
civil and educational systems would, mutatis mutandis, apply with equal
force to the Roman Catholic regime. Indeed, if disinterested writers are
to be trusted, the rottenness of the ecclesiastical administration was the
source of nearly all the evils from which the Filipinos were suffering. Our
missionary methods are not a tenth part as drastic and revolutionary as
the American civil and educational methods. We ask no assistance from
regiments or policemen. We do not wish the Filipinos to be taxed to
support our work, as they are taxed to maintain the public schools to
which the Roman Catholic Church so strongly objects. The Protestant
Churches of the United States rely wholly upon moral suasion and the
intrinsic power of the Truth which they inculcate. They send to the Philippines as missionaries, men and women who represent the purest and highest
types of American Christian character and culture. They propose to
pay all costs out of voluntary contributions. Now we insist that our
justification for this effort is as clear as the justification of the Department
of Public Instruction, for example, in superseding the educational control
of the Roman Catholics, and that our methods are far less apt to alarm
and anger the Roman hierarchy and its followers.
But Archbishop Ireland says: "Catholics are there in complete control." Is he, then, prepared to assume for the Roman Catholic Church
"complete" responsibility for the situation which existed in the Philippines
when the Americans took possession-a situation so intolerable that the
English author, Foreman, wrote: "In one way or another, the native
who possesses anything worth having has either to yield to the avarice,
lust, or insolence of the priest, or to risk losing his liberty and position
in life"-a situation so disgusting that another author told me that he
could not put in print a hundredth part of what he had seen or heard on
credible testimony, without making his book unfit to be read in decent
society.
The Archbishop pleads: "Give the Catholic Filipinos at least a chance
to know us as we really are." I reply that the Filipinos had such a
"chance" for three hundred years, and that as a result they so thoroughly
"know" the Roman Catholic methods as they "really are," that multitudes
of them are determined to continue no longer in that bitter school of
instruction. In the name, not only of pure religion, but of common humanity and decency, give them a chance to know American Protestants as
they "really are." It is our turn, and if we cannot produce better results
in three decades than the Roman Catholics have produced in three centuries, we shall merit a share of that execration which an outraged and
oppressed people are now visiting upon the Roman friars.
Americans are to be congratulated on the character of many of the
officials and teachers in the Philippines. Those whom I met impressed
me as men and women of sterling worth. But we have no reason to fear
comparisons with our Protestant missionaries. The Boards have been
78




fortunate in the personnel of their force. The wife of an Army officer
told me that she was proud of our Presbyterian representatives in Manila,
that while many Americans had made promises to the Filipinos that had
never been kept, Mr. and Mrs. Rodgers were the preiminent Americans
who had shown them sympathy and justice, that they had won the
confidence of all classes and had done more to pacify the Filipinos than
all the Army and all the Civil Commissions. In Iloilo and Dumaguete,
men of all parties, Filipinos, business men, Army officers, American officials,
and school teachers, spoke to me in equally high terms of Dr. and Mrs.
Hall, and Mr. and Mrs. Hibbard. Indeed, from all I heard, I come to
the conclusion that the Americans who, apart from any official prestige,
appear to be personally the most popular with the Filipinos, are the Presbyterian missionaries above named, and Dr. Stuntz, of the Methodist
Church. Presbyterians in the United States may rest assured that there
are no other Americans in all the Philippines who can give our missionaries there any points on tact.
And the work to which Protestant missionary effort addresses itself is
even more indispensable to the welfare of the islands than the civil and
educational efforts. From Governor Taft down, men with whom I talked
agreed that the vital need of the Filipinos is character. The defects from
which they are suffering are not so much governmental and intellectual as
personal. There can be no regeneration of society until there is a regeneration of the individuals who compose society. In the language of
Herbert Spencer, "there is no political alchemy by which you can get
golden conduct out of leaden motives," or, in the pithier phrase of Moody:
"If you want good water, it is not enough to paint the pump; you must
clean out the well."
It is not in a government to do this. Wise legislators frankly admit
that personal character is beyond the sphere of civil law. Its enactments
can regulate the outward manifestations of evil, but they cannot change
the heart from which the evil motive springs. Was I not told by a high
official in Manila that the reason why the Government is justified in making stated examinations of prostitutes and in maintaining a public hospital for those who are found to be diseased lay in its inability to prevent
immorality and that it could only regulate it and deal with its effects?
Nor is it in education to produce the requisite change in character.
Education is as necessary as government. But there is no power in
English, drawing, engineering and physics to make bad boys good. The
first use of English by an Asiatic is usually to say "damn." Skill in drawing sometimes makes an expert counterfeiter. Every railroad yet built in
Asia has been attended by a brutality which has aroused the fiercest hate,
and the improved steamers which have just been completed for the
Pacific coast and Oriental route will, like their predecessors, carry a
hundred times more beer and whisky than school books and Bibles. The
worst scoundrels in New York City are college graduates. To educate a
rascal is ordinarily but to make him a sharper rascal. This is not the fault
of the public schools. They teach morals as far as they can, but they are
forbidden by their very constitution from teaching the basis of morals.
79




They have no Bible, no prayer, and are avowedly purely secular. The
religious is as much beyond their domain as it is beyond the domain of the
law. Indeed, at a recent meeting of the Association of Colleges and Preparatory Schools of the Middle States and Maryland, Professor Joseph
French Johnson, of the University of Pennsylvania, bluntly said: "It
seems to me it must be recognized, not only by the university, but by the
public, that the university is not responsible for the character, for the
morals, the vices, or anything else of the community or of its graduates.........  If its graduates turn out criminals and land in prison, it is
not to blame...... The university is not responsible for character."
As for the Roman Catholic Church, is any sane man prepared to urge
that the Philippine type of Romanism is capable of producing the desired
character? Dare any man familiar with history assert that the Roman
Catholic Church has ever or anywhere developed such character in large
masses of people save in lands like America, England and Germany, where
the example and competition of a dominant Protestantism have forced
it to make reforms which it would never have made of its own accord?
Was not the Counter Reformation of the Papal Church in Europe born
of the unwelcome knowledge that something had to be done to prevent
the Protestant Reformation from wresting everything from Rome? Is
not Romanism to-day hopelessly corrupt wherever it has untrammeled
power? Witness not only the Philippines, but Mexico and Central and
South America. Henry Norman, who visited the Philippines shortly
before the American occupation, wrote: "Manila is an interesting example
of the social product of the Roman Catholic Church, when unrestrained
by any outside influences. Here the Church has free sway, uninterrupted
by alien faith, undeterred by secular criticism. All is in the hands of
the priests." What that "social product" is he proceeds to state as follows: "The people are plunged in superstition, and their principal professed interest in life, after cock fighting, is the elaborate religious pricession for which every feast day affords a pretext...... It is
hardly necessary to add that the people as a whole are idle and dissipated.......A remarkable and instructive example of the free natural
development of 'age-reared priestcraft and its shapes of woe.'"
Since the Roman Catholic Church in the Philippines has conspicuously
and lamentably failed to produce character, and, since neither the civil
law nor the public school can effectively enter that realm, who shall do
this vital work? There is only one who can, only one who is in the
Philippines for that specific purpose, and that is the Protestant missionary. His ideas of God and man, of truth and duty, are as much
superior to those which existed before his arrival as our American political and educational ideas are superior to theirs. Draper, in his "Intellectual Development of Europe," truly says: "The civil law exerted an
exterior power in human relations; Christianity produced an interior moral
change."  That change which mediaeval Christianity effected only in a
comparatively small number of individuals who, as a rule, lived apart
from the world in cloisters, modern Protestantism now seeks to accomn80




plish in many Filipinos who will become active co-workers for righteousness in their respective communities. If the Protestants do not succeed
in producing such a change, our Government in the Philippines is doomed
and the last hope for the Archipelago is extinguished. The effect of
American political ideas and of American public schools will inevitably
be to break the power of superstition and to develop in multitudes that
which will make it impossible for them to remain in the Roman Catholic
Church as it now exists. As an American official already quoted truly
says: "The danger is that many will go from Rome to the other extreme." While, as I have shown, there will always be a Roman Catholic
Church in the Philippine Islands, the defection from it is already becoming so extensive that the colossal question really is:  "Shall they go
to Atheism or to Protestantism?" Our free institutions cannot rest on
Atheism. A Republican form of government cannot live in an atmosphere of impurity and dishonesty. A stream cannot rise higher than its
source, and in a Republic, the source is the people.
For these reasons, I think we are justified in expecting for our Protestant missionary work the sympathetic interest and, as far as practicable,
the active co-operation of every true American patriot. Calls for money
to send out and to maintain missionaries and to equip Christian schools
and hospitals should be received and heeded in the spirit of a moral
obligation which is involved in our occupation of the Philippines, and
which is none the less binding because it is not enforced by law. The
Hon. John Barrett after a year's residence and study in Manila, said:
"I believe the Philippine Islands offer, perhaps, the most interesting and
the most fruitful opportunity for missionary work in any part of the
world at present. The people are wedded to old habits and customs of
the Church; yet, on account of these changes that are coming in, and this
new life, they are looking out for what may be better along the line of
religion. There is imminent danger that this vast population, dissatisfied
with the conditions that existed before, will become agnostic, unless
the great evangelical Churches of the world will master the situation by
using the opportunity offered by this unrest and willingness to change that
form of worship which the people have been following."
An equally solemn responsibility rests upon the Boards of Missions
and their representatives in the Philippines as to the policy that should
be pursued. In its main lines, I believe that policy should be:
(a) POSITIVE. We must not allow our work to degenerate into the
merely negative one of fighting the Roman Catholic Church. It will
require self-restraint to avoid this. The opposition of Rome will be persistent, bitter and unscrupulous. Our foes are men who hold that the
end justifies the means, and the end they seek is Protestant overthrow.
Moreover, instances of priestly cruelty and immorality will frequently
develop and the temptation will be strong to ring the changes upon them.
For example, when I was in a certain town, the child of a poor Filipino
died. The father was in Manila and the mother was so prostrated with
grief that she was confined to her bed. A son went to the sacristan of
the Roman Catholic Church to ask the priest to conduct the funeral ser81




vice. He was asked how much he could pay, and when he replied that
the family was very poor and the father away from home, the sacristan
roughly ordered him off the sacred enclosure, brutally sneering that he
and his dead sister were no better than cattle. In his mingled bewilderment and rage, a friend suggested that he apply to the Protestant Missionary. I was present when he arrived and told his story. The missionary promptly opened our mission chapel and conducted a sympathetic funeral service. It was pitiful to see the gratitude of that small
group of poverty-stricken people as they bore away the plain, little coffin
of one who was evidently as dear to them as if she had been a princess.
I confess that for a moment I felt like preaching a crusade against that
heartless Roman Church, especially when I learned, not from missionaries,
but from other residents, that the sacristan was a fair representative of the
spirit and practice of his superiors, that three women on one street were
known to be mistresses of the priest, and that it was notorious that the
Bishop was the father of several children. But there is no use in our missionaries devoting their time to exploiting facts like these which everybody
in the Philippines knows, and which the people of the United States also,
know. Enough has already been written and enough more will be written
to enable the world to understand the character of Spanish Filipino
Romanism. We may be obliged, from time to time, to do, what I have
attempted to do in part in this report, vindicate our right and duty to
conduct missionary work in the Philippine Islands. But, as a rule, the
missionaries can spend their time to better advantage in preaching a positive Gospel. The Filipinos know their own sore, what they need is the
remedy.
(b) VITAL. The Filipinos have known little of genuine religion. Rome
has exacted from them only a nominal faith, an external obedience to
prescribed forms. They are accustomed'to the wholesale methods of the
Roman Church, and as they received Romanism with their Spanish conquerors, so many. of them imagine that they must receive Protestantism;
with American rule. Our conceptions of personal faith are strange to
them. I was in a Negros market one evening, when "the Angelus"
sounded. Instantly a hush fell upon the crowded booths and every native
rose and stood with uncovered head and reverent attitude while the deep
tones of the church bell rolled solemnly and yet sweetly through the
darkening air. It was a beautiful scene. But a moment later, the people
turned again to their gambling and bickering and bino (rice whisky),
evidently without the faintest idea that there was any connection
between worship and conduct. It not infrequently happens that those
who have left the Roman Catholic Church tell the missionaries that they
want to join the Protestants. During my visit in the island of Panay, one
of Aguinaldo's generals expressed to me his desire to connect himself'
with our Mission and he was plainly mystified when I tried to explain to
him what it is to be a Christian in the Protestant sense of the term. The
Christianity of the Filipinos is only a veneered heathenism. It will not
be easy in such circumstances to build up a Church of truly regenerated
souls, to make the people realize that a Christian must not gamble or be.
82




immoral, or spend Sunday afternoons at cock-fights, but that he must.
seek to know and to follow Christ in his heart and life. Missionaries in
other lands understand what a weary task this is. But it must be faithfully persisted in here as elsewhere. Our work in the Philippines is to
preach a vital religion, which changes the heart and controls conduct.
The Roman Church has done one service to us by familiarizing the popular mind with the terms for God, sin, repentance, and kindred doctrines.
Very'crude the ideas often are, but they are better than the blank, uncomprehending ignorance which we encounter in Buddhist lands. The
vocabulary of Christianity has been created at least, and that is a great
help.
(c) TACTFUL. All reasonable consideration should be shown to those
customs and sentiments of the people which do not involve a violation
of principle. Care should be exercised not to unnecessarily embarrass the
civil authorities. Official aid should never be invoked except in extreme
cases and even then on the approval of the whole Station, and if practicable of the Mission.
(d) UNSELFISHNESS. We must insist that the work in the Philippines shall be conducted in harmony with those principles of self-support
which are now so generally recognized as sound. But in doing this,
special effort must be put forth to prevent our motives from being misunderstood by a people who have so long grievously suffered from extortion, and even robbery, for the enrichment of the Church, that they now see
it gorged with riches and claiming as its exclusive property, not only the
churches and schools for which the people furnished all the money,
but their lands and the very cemeteries of their dead. In these circumstances, we must emphasize the common fact that the Protestant missionaries have no selfish object, that while the people are expected to
systematically and proportionately contribute, not one peso will be used
for the missionary or sent to the Board, but that all they give will be expended on their own work-the building of their churches, schools and
hospitals, the support of their own native preachers, teachers and helpers.
The Board on behalf of the Protestants of the United States will support
the missionaries and spend other sums to help in starting the work,
but it will receive nothing in return. So careful will the missionaries be
on this point, that they will not even accept gifts of money for personal
use, but will apply such sums to the authorized work. This, it is true,
is the recognized principle on which our missionaries act in all lands, but
after the sore experience of the Filipinos with a greedy and covetous
priesthood, it is particularly important that they should be made to clearly
understand that "we seek not yours, but you."
(e) BROAD. Let us not shrink from the logical consequences of that
principle of comity to which we have so publicly committed ourselves,
which the General Assembly has specifically approved, and which our
missionaries in the Philippine Islands are so loyally endeavoring to exemplify. Roman priests laud their external unity and emphasize the divisions of Protestantism. It is notorious that the jealousies and strifes
of the orders are more bitter than any of the disputes between the Protes83




tant denominations. But not simply to deprive Rome of a favorite argument, but because it is right and in accordance with our own convictions
of duty, we should seek to minimize our differences and magnify our
agreements. It is necessary that the Filipinos should be true children of
God, but it is not necessary nor is it desirable that they should be divided
into a half-dozen or more sects. If they separate later along their own
lines of cleavage, we may not be able to prevent them. But as far as
possible, we should refrain from imposing our own differences upon them.
Let us preach the essential truths of our holy religion, a broad and truly
catholic faith. Let us abstain from  entering fields which are already
adequately occupied by sister-evangelical churches, and insist that only one
form of Protestantism  shall be presented in a given district. If other
denominations enter our fields, let us, as I have recommended in the
case of Iloilo, frankly present the facts to the Board concerned, in the
hope that it will withdraw, and if it does not, let us reconsider our duty
in the circumstances which will then exist. "There remaineth yet very
much land to be possessed."
(f) FRANK. We cannot afford to make any compromise of faith in
the conduct of our schools or hospitals. We are in the Philippine Islands
as a missionary agency solely because we believe that Christ is their
supreme need. It would be a fatal mistake for any missionary to hide
Him in the alleged interest of expediency. I was struck by the contemptuous references of some soldiers I met to a certain Army Chaplain
When I asked them why they esteemed him so lightly, they replied that he
drank wine and played cards. "But," I said, "you do these things."
"True," they sturdily answered, "but we don't want our Chaplain to do
them. If he is to be like the rest of us, what's he here for. If a man
pretends to-be a minister, we like to see him stand up for his colors." I
did not meet that Chaplain, but others who knew him told me that he meant
well and that his object in using wine in moderation and in playing a
friendly game of cards, without betting, was to make himself popular
and avoid the reputation of being Puritanical. He probably does not
realize that the path to popularity is not compromise, but manly consistency. There is no danger that any of our missionaries will ever make
compromises of that sort. But the missionary, both in the Philippine
Islands and elsewhere, is often tempted to keep his spiritual purpose in the
background for fear of alienating support. One missionary in another
land admitted to me that during an entire year she had not spoken to a
single pupil of the boarding school under her care on the subject of
personal religion lest any direct effort to lead souls to Christ would cause
parents to remove their children from the school. I told her that we
would rather have twenty pupils with freedom to influence them to dedicate
their' lives to God than to have a hundred on the condition that we must
not try to convert them. Taking our mission work the world over, the
missionary who tactfully and sensibly, but, nevertheless, uncompromisingly
presents God in Christ, loses nothing in popularity and gains much in
spiritual results. Everybody in the Philippine Islands knows what the
Protestant missionaries are there for. The priests and friars have left
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no doubt on that point. Missionaries are expected to preach their faith,
and will be respected in doing so if they show reasonable tact and wisdom.
In all their relations to the Philippine Islands, the American Government and people should resolutely hold themselves to a stern and selfsacrificing sense of duty. It is a gigantic task to radically reconstruct the
life of eight million people of a widely different race, separated into many
tribes, differing in language, in customs, and in religion, and scattered over
a territory which is not only 114,0oo square miles in area, but which is
divided into nearly a thousand islands, the southernmost of which is nearly
two thousand miles from the northern end of Luzon. We obtained them
in a clearly Providential way. In the beginning of the year I898, Americans knew little and cared less about this extensive archipelago, and
when it began to be talked about, there was a great rummaging of maps
to find out where it was. But when war broke out we learned that
Spain had a fleet in the Pacific whose existence menaced the safety of
our Western coast. So the commander of our Asiatic Squadron was
ordered to find and sink it. Humanly speaking, it was a mere coincidence that the Spanish ships were in Manila Bay. So far as our purpose
was concerned, they might have been anywhere else on the coast of Asia.
But in Manila Bay they were, and there Dewey went, not for the Philippines, but for the Spaniards. When on that bright May morning he
had so triumphantly vanquished the foe, the Philippines were upon our
handsl What were we to do? Hitherto we had pursued a self-centered
policy. We had said, no doubt wisely, that we were young and that our
present territory was vast enough, our present problems grave enough to
tax all our energies. But the shock of war rudely forced other territories,
other problems upon us. Of course we did not want them. But how
could we rid ourselves of them? Return them to Spain? Impossible.
We had destroyed Spain's sovereignty, and her power to reinstate it.
Leave half-civilized Malays to cut one another's throats and make the
last state of the Islands worse than the first? Equally impossible. Aguinaldo, according to some reports, is an able man, but he is an Oriental
despot, and his government would have been as bloody as that of the Sultan of Turkey. Give them to some European Power? Every man who
has a scintilla of political information knows that such an attempt would
have precipitated a war which would have drenched the world in blood.
Had we a moral right anyway to vacate our responsibilities? A nation
like an individual, does not live unto itself. A just man cannot shut himself within the four walls of his house with the excuse that its cares demand all his energies.  He has obligations toward the community of
which he is a member. Its poor, and sick, and weak are his responsibilities before God and man. So the United States can no longer be a
hermit country. It has entered the community of nations, and it must
accept its share of the world's work. The wrongs of feeble and oppressed
people are our affair, and we cannot pass by on the other side, pleasant
though it would be if we could. It was Cain, the murderer, who said that
he was not his brother's keeper.
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We are solemnly told that if George Washington were living, he
would warn us against this extension of our domain. I grant that some
of his utterances were in superficial harmony with this supposition. But
Washington lived when a comparative handful of colonists merely fringed
a mighty and then unexplored continent, and when the question was
whether we could preserve our national existence at all. The wildest
imagination did not dream of the situation which confronts us to-dayeighty millions of people occupying the whole region from the Atlantic
to the Pacific, and with an enormous surplus of wealth and power. That
oft-quoted warning against "entangling alliances," was spoken with reference to a specific relationship with France, which was then under discussion. It has no bearing whatever upon the question of our duty in the
Philippines. Washington himself freely changed positions when time
showed the necessity for change, for while he had advocated alliance
with France as a General, he opposed it as a President. As his own
acts demonstrate, he was the last man to assume that an iron rule could
be laid down beforehand for the guidance of a nation's policy under circumstances then unforeseen. What Washington would do to-day is not
to be deduced from what he said in the comparative gloom of I799, but
from what common sense and Christian patriotism and obedience to' God
dictate in I9OI, and as the Father of our Country was characterized by
all these qualities, I do not doubt, that if he had been President at the
end of the nineteenth century, he would have done about what the equally
wise, patriotic and Christian William McKinley did.
These new problems are appalling, I grant. But nations gain in character by boldly facing responsibilities, not by pusillanimously dodging them,
and when the United States finds itself face to face with duties which
grow out of a Providence which has made it safe, and strong, and prosperous, it has no right to evade them, however little immediate profit may be
seen in their discharge. After more than a century of introspection,
the national need is some motive and demand outside of our own selfish
needs that will quicken the national conscience, remind a great people
that it, too, has duties to humanity and that it can no longer crouch between its oceans, like Issachar, beween its burdens, because he saw that
rest was good and the land was pleasant. The London Spectator well
says: "The world's future greatly depends upon the political character
of the Americans. When in 1950 they are two hundred millions, they can
crush any people except the Slavs. To fit them for that destiny the Americans should have difficulties, dependencies and complicated relations with
the remainder of mankind. At present everything is too easy to them.
They live too much to themselves. They must learn to govern as well as
to be governed. They must keep subordinate governments as free from
corruption as their Supreme Court." Kidd rightly declares that "the
tropics can only be governed as a trust for civilization, and with a full
sense of the responsibility which such a trust involves." And we must
accept our share of responsibility for that "white man's burden."
Here is a great population which, in the unanimous judgment of men
who know the Filipinos, is not yet capable of self-government, a.nd t
$6 




which a Christian nation must give order and justice, not primarily for its
own sake, but for the sake of the Philippines, and of the world. We are
acting on this principle all the time at home, for the State intervenes,
often forcibly and against angry protest, to give to the child, the pauper,
the insane, the criminal, the care and restraint which they will not, or
cannot exercise for themselves. And we justly say that the welfare of
the community requires this course. There is essentially similar work
to be done in the community of nations, for there are defective members
of that community who cannot be allowed to fill the fairest portions of
the earth with anarchy, vice and blood. To reply that a monarchy like
England or Germany can do this, but not a Republic, is simply to plead
the baby act, confessing the weakness and incapacity of that form of
government which we have always boasted to be the strongest and best.
The greatest of the Christian nations will never adopt so childish and
cowardly a policy, nor, if it did, could it long endure. It would be condemned by the moral sense, not only of the world, but of its own people,
and when a nation has lost the approval of its own conscience, the
end speedily comes. The wrecks of a score of nations prove it.
But after all, the question whether we ought to have taken the Philippines is now largely academic. "It is a condition which confronts us
and not a theory." Says that profound observer, Benjamin Kidd, "We
have to recognize at the outset as a first principle of the situation, the
utter futility of any policy based on the conception that it will be possible
in the future to hold our hands and stand aloof from the tropics. There
can be no choice in this matter."  The real questions which we must
face are-In what spirit are we to keep them? Is our object to be selfish
or unselfish, the increase of our own wealth and power or the enlightenment and blessing of the Filipinos? The politician who sees nothing in
the Philippines but trade or a stepping-stone to Asiatic power is unworthy to vote on the affairs of the Archipelago. At the McKinley
memorial service in Manila, Major Elijah Halford truly declared: "There
is no reason for our being here; our presence in these islands cannot be
justified either to history or to our' own'consciences, unless we are here for
the sole purpose of assisting the Filipino people to the enjoyment of the
largest practicable measure of the liberty we delight in, and the blessings
of our own free institutions, and to the achievement of a better, and purer,
and stronger life than they could possibly have known but for our
coming."
The following words of our Martyred President should be posted
in every legislative chamber and school house in the United States and
the Philippine Islands:
"Confronted at this moment by new and grave problems, we must
recognize that their solution will affect not ourselves alone, but others
of the family of nations. In this age of frequent interchange and mutual
dependency we cannot shirk our international responsibilities if we would;
they must be met with courage and wisdom, and we must follow duty
even if desire opposes. No deliberation can be too mature, or self-control
too:,nstan. in this solemn hour of decision. We must avoidthe,temp87




tation of undue aggression and aim to secure only such results as will
promote our own and the general good.
"We cannot enjoy glories and victories without bearing the burdens
that may result from them. Resting upon all of us is a duty of carrying
forward the great trust of civilization that has been committed to us. We
must gather the fruits of victory, we must follow duty step by step, we
must follow the light as God gives us to see the light. And He has
strangely guided us, not only at the very beginning, but down to the
present hour, and I am sure He shall still guide and we follow.
"I would impress upon Congress that whatever legislation may be
enacted in respect to the Philippine Islands should be along these generous
lines. The fortune of war has thrown upon this Nation an unsought trust
which should be unselfishly discharged, and devolved upon this Government a moral as well as material responsibility toward these millions
whom we have freed from an oppressive yoke. I have on another
occasion called the Filipinos 'the wards of the Nation.' Our obligation as
guardian was not lightly assumed; it must not be otherwise than honestly
fulfilled, aiming, first of all, to benefit those who have come under our
fostering care. It is our duty so to treat them that our flag may be no
less beloved in the mountains of Luzon and the fertile zones of Mindanao
and Negros than it is at home, that there as here, it shall be the revered
symbol of liberty, enlightenment and progress in every avenue of development.
"Upon all officers and employees of the United States, both civil and
military, should be impressed a sense of the duty to observe not merely the
material, but the personal and social rights of the people of the islands,
and to treat them with the same courtesy and respect for their personal
dignity which the people of the United States are accustomed to require
from  each other.... High and sacred an obligation rests upon
the Government of the United States to give protection for property and
life, civil and religious freedom, and wise, firm and unselfish guidance in
the paths of peace and prosperity to all the people of the Philippine Islands.
I charge this Commission to labor for the full performance of this obligation, which concerns the honor and conscience of their country, in the
firm hope that through their labors all the inhabitants of the Philippine
Islands may come to look back with gratitude to the day when God gave
victory to American arms at Manila, and set their land under the sovereignty and the protection of the people of the United States.
"I have no light or knowledge not common to my countrymen. I do
not prophesy. The present is all absorbing to me, but I cannot bound
my vision by the blood-stained trenches around Manila, where every red
drop, whether from the veins of an American soldier, or a misguided
Filipino, is anguish to my heart; but, by the broad range of future years,
when that group of islands under the impulse of the year just passed
shall have become the gems and glories of those tropical seas, a land of
plenty and of increasing possibilities, a people redeemed from savage indelence and habits, enjoying the blessings of freedom, of civil and
religious liberty, of education, and of homes, and whose children and
88




children's children shall for ages hence bless the American Republic, because it emancipated and redeemed their fatherland and set them in the
pathway of the world's best civilization."
And to these lofty sentiments might be added that expressed by
Vice-President Roosevelt in Colorado Springs, August Ist, I90o, five weeks
before the death of President McKinley imposed upon him the heavy
responsibility of taking his place, and called forth the solemn pledge to
continue his policy "absolutely unchanged."
"In the great part which hereafter, whether we will or not, we must
play in the world at large, let us see to it that we neither do wrong nor
shrink from doing right because the right is difficult, that on the one
hand we inflict no injury, and that on the other, we have a due regard for
the honor and the interest of our mighty nation, and that we keep unsullied
the renown of the flag, which beyond all others of the present time, or of
the ages of the past, stands for confident faith in the future welfare and
greatness of mankind."
At such a crisis in our country's history, well may every Christian
patriot say with Oliver Wendell Holmes:
"God give us men I A time like this demands
Great hearts, strong minds, true faith and willing hands;
Men whom the lust of office does not kill;
Men whom the spoils of office cannot buy;
Men who possess opinions and a will;
Men who have honor, men who will not lie."
In this emergency the duty of the Church is clear. To borrow a figure,
the possession of the Philippines has "signalled the hour for a new alignment of the Christian forces of the country.   The character of its
Churches and other Christian organizations is being tested as never before. It is a wise Church which knows the time. Any Christian life in
high or in humble place will now be endowed with telling power, 'age on
ages telling,' which shall be quick to fall into line with the Divine timeliness as to the next things to be done. The Churches of America are either
decadent and dying affairs, or else, morally speaking, they are clearing
their decks for action, determined that the shiftless and treacherous
policy of everlasting retrenchment along our missionary lines shall be
ended. The issues of war have opened a new field for missions and
Christian education of the most inspiring opportunity."
The conflict of arms in the Philippines is now nearly over, but the
conflict of moral forces is only beginning. On one side are ambition,
avarice, godliness, and bigotry; on the other are the open Bible, the
Christian school and the pure Gospel. On this battlefield, no drums are
beating or trumpets pealing, nor does the eye see the serried columns and
flashing bayonets. But in the grim silence which often attends the most
portentous struggles, right is fighting against wrong, Heaven against Hell.
America lacked not martial colrage, grudged not material resources for
the physical warfare. Shall it want Christians of large hearts and broad
vision, and holy purpose, for the spiritual onset? Shall its ministers be
dismayed, its laymen recreant, because Sanballats advise us to come down
89




and,Shimeis throw stones, and Gallios care for none of these things?
Grant that the motive of the Filipinos who flock to the missionary may
not in every case be a disinterested desire for a purer faith, that hatred
and fear of the friars are driving some and that belief that Protestantism
is the religion of the new rulers is leading others. Grant that there may
be a temporary -reaction when they learn, as the Japanese did, that many
Americans ignore Christ. Have Anglo-Saxon motives always been above
suspicion?  Has Christianity suffered no reactions in England and
America* where it has won its mightiest and most permanent triumphs?
Worldly motives will be purified, reaction"prevented, if the Church of God
will do its duty and do it promptly, generously and in the power of Christ.
What a wonderful thing it would be if our country would signalize its
emergence as a world power by the spiritual as well as the material
regeneration of an oppressed people. The cruel Spaniard and the profligate priest have long cursed that beautiful, but unhappy Archipelago.
Now if I may venture to adapt the lines of Edward Everett Hale; an angel
again speaks to men:
"The sheet you use is black and rough with smears
Of sweat, and grime, and fraud, and blood, and tears;
Crossed with the story of men's sins and fears,
Of battle and of famine all these years;
When all God's children have forgot their birth,
And drudged, and fought, and died like beasts of earth;
Give me white paper; 
For all mankind the unstained page 'unfurl'
Where God 'may' write anew the story of the world."
Me Ping River, Laos, December 25, I901.


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