REPORT 
 
 OF A VISITATION OF THE 
 
 PHILIPPINE ISLANDS 
 
 By the Rev. ARTHUR J. BROWN, D.D. 
 
 Secretary of the Presbyterian Board ^/Foreign Missions 
 
 3P7 , 
 
 
 
 M 
 
 
 
 
 PRINTED FOR THE 
 
 1 ASIA 
 
 USE OF THE BOARD 
 
 
 
 AND THE MISSIONS 
 
 THE BOARD OF FOREIGN MISSIONS 
 OF THE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH 
 IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 
 156 FIFTH AVENUE, NEV^ YORK 
 
 1902 
 
 PRICE, TEN CENTS 
 
(Jbso^ CORNELL 
 
 ^ u UNIVERSITY 
 
 33^0 "^^^ 
 
Cornell University Library 
 BV 3380.B87 1902 
 
 Report of a visitation of tlie Philippine 
 
 3 1924 009 769 583 
 

REPORT 
 
 OF A 
 
 Visitation of the Philippine Islands 
 
 BY 
 
 THE REV. ARTHUR J. BROWN, D. D. 
 
 We are at the end of a victorious war, but at the begin- 
 ning 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 con- 
 sideration of our duty. By no scheming of our own, and in 
 ways very strange to us, we have been forced into govern- 
 mental relations with eight millions of people on the other 
 side of the planet. Some of them are partially civilized, many 
 are wholly primitive, and myriads are heathen with a thin 
 veneer of Romanism of the mediaeval-Spanish type. They are 
 variously judged. As in China, much depends upon the point 
 of view. 
 
 THE CHARACTER OF THE FILIPINOS. 
 
 Many oldiers, having come to the Philippines with a mili- 
 tary 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, 1901, to the present subordination to 
 civil power. The guerrilla warfare which is still being waged 
 in various parts of the Islands has resulted in some massacres 
 of our troops so treacherously atrocious that the typical sol- 
 dier 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 Con- 
 gress 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." Some of the best and wisest of the army 
 officers, however, do not sympathize with this view. They 
 realize that the Spaniards tried such a poHcy for three hun- 
 dred years, and that the results can hardly be considered sat- 
 isfactory. 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 have visited the Phil- 
 ippines. It is common among travellers and globe-trotters. It 
 judges the Filipinos by the standards created by centuries of 
 American arid European Christian civilization, and condemns 
 them out of hand because they fall short. But let us be rea- 
 sonable. How can we expect the Filipinos to immediately 
 tiust and love a foreign conqueror after their long and griev- 
 ous 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 condi- 
 tions tend to languorous existence, and where the results of 
 thrift, if achieved, would be filched by unscrupulous oppres- 
 sors? The more I learn of what these people have sufifered, 
 the greater is my wonder, not that they are not better, but 
 that they are not worse. It took Anglo-Saxons several centu- 
 ries to acquire the qualities of character which fitted them 
 for self-government, and shall we condemn Malays because 
 they have not acquired them in a couple of years ? 
 
 They impressed me as naturally intelligent and kindly. 
 Among the delightful memories of my life are receptions in 
 Iloilo, 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 Sefior 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." President McKinley truly said : 
 "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 per- 
 formed." They are not inherently degraded or vicious. 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 sub- 
 ject or to feel that it was possible for them to resist anything 
 a man might desire. Their church, which should have incul- 
 cated loftier standards, put a premium upon concubinage by 
 refusing to perform the marriage ceremony except for ex- 
 orbitant 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 civilization, 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 move- 
 ment in question; how profoundly their laws, institutions, 
 mental and moral training, ways of judging conduct, and hab- 
 its 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 con- 
 cerning 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, how- 
 ever consistent and concentrated, could ever entirely emanci- 
 pate 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 lone interval of time." 
 
 The unwillingness of the Filipino to work is a serious 
 problem in the development of the Islands. Rich soil, per- 
 
 3 
 
petual summer, and simple wants are not conducive to hard 
 labor. Little toil is necessary in a land where bananas, cocoa- 
 nuts, and hemp grow spontaneously, and where sugar cane, 
 once fairly started, thiives so vigorously that weeds cannof 
 compete with it. A few hours' work with a bolo will con- 
 struct 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 thetti- 
 selves 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 Duma- 
 guete 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 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 thou- 
 sand 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 
 
 4 
 
the Cebu deposits are also conveniently situated with refer- 
 ence 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 satisfac- 
 tory. 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 
 more 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 Phil- 
 ippines. Resources are here in abundance — rich soil, vast 
 forests, rare woods. But workmen 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 employ- 
 ers 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 our 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 mild- 
 ness of the tropics saps the energy and affords no recupera- 
 tion. 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 climate and he cannot com- 
 pete in wages with natives who, when they do work, accept 
 a scale of pay on which the well-fed and well-clothed Ameri- 
 can 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 thp Philippine Islands expecting to find remu- 
 nerative 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 desti- 
 tute and unemployed Europeans and Americans being con- 
 stantly on the increase. There is no difficulty in filling posts 
 of any sort from the American volunteers now being dis- 
 banded here in large numbers, many of them being men of 
 superior education." 
 
 The Chinese. 
 
 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 lieu- 
 tenant, 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 1603, 1639, 
 1660, 1763 and 1820, this race rancor resulted in a general 
 massacre, sometimes by the Chinese being goaded to revolt, 
 sometimes by the unprovoked attack of the fanatical popu- 
 lace. 
 
 But in spite of all this antipathy and opposition, the per- 
 sistent Chinese continued to come and to thrive. In 1638 
 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 nomi- 
 nal, 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 
 application of the United States exclusion law, so that John 
 is now in a worse plight than ever. 
 
 The reason for all this hostility is apparent. The Chinese 
 
 6 
 
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 Philip- 
 pines 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 frorh coming, but that you would drive 
 out those who are already here." "Why?" I queried. "Be- 
 cause 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 opin- 
 ion 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 centurv, 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 indus- 
 trious, 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 peo- 
 ple 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 
 their intermarriage with the Filipinos, they are introducing 
 a more virile strain into the native blood, so that the strong- 
 est 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 propor- 
 tion 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 com- 
 mercial development that unless our American capitalists 
 and employers can have the benefit of their labor, the Philip- 
 pines 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." The re-enactment of the exclusion 
 law at the last session of Congress has not ended this ques- 
 tion. It is a factor in the Philippine problem which cannot 
 be eliminated by a hasty vote. It enters deeply into every 
 phase of Filipino business and social life, and the American 
 people will do well to study it more carefully before giving 
 a final decision. 
 
 TRAVELING IN THE PHILIPPINES. 
 
 Traveling in the Philippines involves some unique ex- 
 periences. After much journeying among "the despotic 
 monarchies of the effete East," I glowed with patriotic pride 
 as I walked into a steamship office in Hong Kong and asked 
 for a ticket to Manila, -Where floats the flag of freedom. But 
 my ardor cooled under the shower of questions which the 
 gentlemanly clerk explained that the United States com- 
 pelled him to ask. Japanese, Korean, Chinese, French, Ger- 
 man and English agents had welcomed us without demur; 
 but before I could secure passage for American soil I had 
 to state not only my name, but my age, sex, "whether mar- 
 ried or single" ; "calling or occupation" ; "whether able to 
 read or to write" ; "nationality" ; "last residence" ; "seaport 
 for landing in the Philippine Islands" ; "final destination in 
 
the Philippine Islands" ; "whether having a ticket through to 
 such final destination" ; "whether I was paying my own pas- 
 sage or whether it had been paid by other persons, or by any 
 corporation, society, municipality or government" ; "whether 
 ill possession of money, and if so, whether upward of $30, 
 and how much if $30 or less"; "whether going to join rela- 
 tives, and if so, what relative, and his name and address" ; 
 "whether ever before in the Philippine Islands, and if so, 
 when and where" ; "whether ever in prison, or almshouse, or 
 supported by charity" ; "whether a polygamist" ; "whether 
 under a contract, express or implied, to perform labor in 
 the Philippine Islands" ; and finally my "condition of health, 
 mentally and physically, and whether deformed or crippled, 
 and if so, from what cause." 
 
 After answering as many of these questions as I could, I 
 clutched my ticket and tottered out of the office, feebly grate- 
 ful that I had not been requested to show my teeth or to 
 swear that there was not a hole in my socks. 
 
 The steamship connection with the Philippines is thus 
 summarized by the British Consul at Manila in a recent re- 
 port to London: "Six British steamers are at present run- 
 ning regularly between Manila and Hong Kong, occasionally 
 calling at Amoy, whence most of the Chinese settled in 
 these islands have come. Communication with Australia is 
 kept vip by a Japanese mail line and two small British lines 
 owned in Hong Kong. The British India Company's steam- 
 ers call every three weeks on the way from Calcutta to Japan, 
 and, with the exeception of the Spanish mail and one or two 
 small German steamers, are the only vessels running direct 
 between here and Singapore; the Spanish Transatlantic 
 Company sails monthly between Manila and Liverpool, via 
 Spain, and is the only regular line carrying goods to Eng- 
 land without trans-shipment. American transports run at 
 intervals between Manila and San Francisco, and occasionally 
 New York, but no regular line has yet been started under the 
 American flag between the United States and the Philippines. 
 A large number of colliers are employed bringing coal from 
 Moji, Japan, and Newcastle, New South Wales. A few of 
 the vessels from Newcastle are sailing ships, but the majority 
 of the coal laden vessels entering this port are steamers. A 
 considerable trade is also carried on in rice with Saigon, 
 mbstly in British bottoms." 
 
 The wise traveler will from Hong King inquire first for 
 one of the Australian steamers, for they are larger and more 
 comfortable than the boats of the three local lines. But as 
 they leave at intervals of three or four weeks he will prob- 
 ably leai-n, as I did, that one had just sailed, ' and he will 
 
 9 
 
therefore have to take one oi the other steamers. A couple- 
 of them are said to be fair, with a tonnage of 1,980 gross, 
 but the rest range from a thousand to fourteen hundred, and 
 have such ooor accommodations that whichever one the 
 traveler takes he will scrupulously avoid it for the return 
 trip. However, two new and better steamers are under con- 
 struction and will soon make the passage more comfortable. 
 The fare is $60, Mexican, for single passage, and $100 for 
 the round trip ; the return coupon being good on any of the 
 three local lines. The distance from Hong Kong is 660 miles,, 
 and the "schedule" time is sixty hours, though if our ex- 
 perience both ways is any guide it would be prudent to count 
 on three days. The problem is to get started. The steamers 
 run on the principle of never doing to-day what can be put 
 off till to-morrow. Our steamer was advertised to sail Fri- 
 day. But, on second thought, the company postponed her 
 departure till Saturday. Upon further reflection it was de- 
 cided to hold her till Monday at four, then till Monday night, 
 then till Tuesday morning, then tiU Tuesday noon ; more sol- 
 emn deliberation fixed the hour for sailing at five. Anchor 
 was finally hoisted at six, but after steaming a mile the cap- 
 tain appeared to regard this as too sudden, so we stopped a 
 while. 
 
 The reason for all this apparent indecision lay in the nat- 
 ural desire of the company to leave as little freight as possible 
 for the rival boat, which was scheduled to leave Wednesday, 
 and the convenience of passengers who had paid a good price 
 for poor accommodations was a secondary consideration as 
 long as sampans would bring off a few dollars' worth of 
 merchandise. But in the course of human events everything 
 in sight was taken aboard, and late Tuesday night we de- 
 parted. Fortunately for us, though we were in the typhoon 
 season and in an unsteady little steamer, we crossed in a 
 dead calm, But it was hard on the Chinese firemen. The 
 temperature in the stokehole was 160 degrees. It required 
 as much courage to descend into that stifling pit as to go into 
 battle. The coolies would hurry down, frantically shovel 
 coal a few minutes, and then be hauled on deck in a pitiful 
 state of exhaustion and distress. "Do these Chinese ever 
 refuse to work in such circumstances?" I asked the captain. 
 "Never," was the reply. "I have sailed with them for twenty 
 years. Thev get low wages, onlv $20, Mexican ($10, gold), 
 but in conditions which would kill a white man thev are per- 
 fectly reliable, and they never comnlain." 
 
 Calms, however, are exceptional on this passage. Our 
 return trip was a normal one, and enabled us to understand 
 why our captain called the China Sea "a nasty bit of water." 
 
 10 
 
Seventy hours on a small steamer in the trough of the China 
 Sea, with the northwest monsoon blowing a gale, will bring 
 to grief any but the most veteran sea dog. 
 
 Japanese, Korean, English and German customs inspect- 
 ors had passed our trunks with a smile and a bow, sometimes 
 remarking that the object of the law was not to interfere with 
 foreign travelers. Not so Uncle Sam's inspectors in Manila. 
 They were polite, but inquisitive and firm. We arrived at 
 five in the afternoon, but we were not allowed to remove our 
 two steamer trunks from the Custom House till the next 
 morning, on the ground that "the office closes at five." It 
 was with difficulty that by eight o'clock I succeeded in res- 
 cuing the valise containing my pajamas for the night. The 
 next morning, for the first time in eight months of travel, our 
 trunks were really examined. 
 
 Inter-island communication was hedged about with re- 
 strictions necessitated, I suppose, by the troubled condition 
 of the country. To prevent desertions from the army, and 
 to keep the government informed as to the movements of 
 Filipinos, the steamship companies were forbidden under 
 heavy penalties from accepting a passenger unless he could 
 present a passport to leave Manila from the captain of the 
 port. To enable the authorities to prevent the importation 
 of arms for the insurrectos, and to know who have weapons, 
 no one was allowed to have even a revolver without a per- 
 mit from the Adjutant General's office, registered and in- 
 dorsed by the Chief of Police. My telegram to Negros was 
 not accepted till it had been approved by the military censor 
 in another part of the city. But every official is courteous, 
 and the philosophic man makes no complaint, though the 
 excitable one frequently causes a great hue and cry. Euro- 
 pean travelers in particular are loud in their denunciations 
 of American red tape, and perhaps not without reason. 
 
 In making the tour of the islands the pace was not killing, 
 though the traveler who is in a hurry will probably find it as 
 nerve-racking as a more rapid locomotion would be. The 
 steamers are small and dirty, with Spanish officers, Filipino 
 crews ; staterooms (when there are any) musty and vermin 
 infested, and food flavored with garlic and cooked in oil. 
 Desiring to visit our mission stations at Dumaguete, Negros 
 and Iloilo, Panay, I learned that a steamer leaves Manila for 
 Dumaguete once in a while, and goes direct when no freight 
 reason can be found for going any other way. We were so 
 fortunate as to find this occasional steamer, and we made the 
 trip in three days, fare being $60 Mexican. 
 
 From there to Iloilo a steamer is supposed to run about 
 once in seven or eight days. She was due Friday. But the 
 
 11 
 
captain carried a score of picked fighting cocks. Coniident 
 that his favorite could whip the champion cock of the village 
 of Bias, he calmly anchored off shore for the Sunday after- 
 noon national pastime. Monday morning he appeared at 
 Dumaguete with an expansive smile and a hundred pesos 
 which he had won in the tournament. A Spaniard, who also 
 wanted to go to Iloilo, was not quite ready, so the captain 
 obligingly waited till night for him. Including stops, we 
 were three days on that steamer. There were no staterooms 
 of any kind, and the passengers slept on deck among the 
 coops and a miscellaneous jumble of Filipinos, Spaniards and 
 soldiers. Kortunately Mrs. Brown and I have become accus- 
 timed to sleeping in all sorts of circumstances in Asia or else 
 we would find it difficult to slumber peacefully amid the in- 
 cessant but good natured clatter of gambling, smoking fel- 
 low-passengers till midnight, while after that hour the trav- 
 eler finds himself with 
 
 Roosters to right of him, 
 Roosters to left of him, 
 Lustily crowing. 
 
 Rounding the northern end of Negros, a typhoon struck 
 us. Nothing less than a six thousand ton ocean liner would 
 have been my choice for such a tempest. Biit there we were 
 in a sixty-ton Spanish coaster, so old and rickety that the in- 
 spector had ordered her to be laid up for extensive repairs 
 after this trip. He afterward told us that he marveled that 
 the typhoon did not break her in two. We were better ofT 
 than our fellow-passengers, for the Spanish captain kindly 
 insisted that Mrs. Brown should take his room — the only one 
 on board. 
 
 After a day of tremendous buffeting off a coast which af- 
 forded no shelter, we succeeded in anchoring in a narrow pas- 
 sage in the lee of a coral reef, which ran out from a tiny 
 island, and which protected us from the heaviest waves. All 
 flight we were in momentary expectation that the furious 
 wind to which we were still exposed would drag our anchor, 
 and haul us on to the reef a few yards distant. But the anchor 
 held, and by morning the storm had so far subsided that we 
 were able to roll and tumble our way to Iloilo, glad, as Mrs. 
 Partington would say, "to set foot once more on vice versa," 
 and feeling that we had gotten our money's worth for our fif- 
 teen dollar fare. 
 
 From Iloilo to Manila "tri-weekly steamers" run regu- 
 larly once a week, the number forty expressing both the dol- 
 lars and the hours required. Including stops, the round trip 
 from Manila occupied eighteen days. To visit all the larger 
 islands would reqilire an indefinite time. The steamers hav- 
 
 12 
 
ing no partieu)iir schedule, and running for . freight rather 
 than for passengers, are, like the railway trains of a genera- 
 tion ago, to be expected when they heave in sight. A few 
 years of American occupation, however, will probably efifect 
 a marked improvement. There will be more steamers and 
 better ones, though, as the army transports will continue to 
 carry the officers and soldiers who constitute a large majority 
 of the travelers in these waters, it is doubtful whether the re- 
 maining passenger traffic will for a long time be important 
 enough to justify the companies in losing cargo opportunities 
 in order to make time. 
 
 But the wonders of this Archipelago are so numerous and 
 delightful that the traveler does not begrudge the time re- 
 quired for the inter-island tour. There is nothing in America 
 with which it can be compared, unless it be Puget Sound and 
 the trip to Alaska. But, whereas the islands on that north- 
 west coast are a wilderness of fir and spruce forests, wild 
 gorges and mighty glaciers, the shores of islands of the Philip- 
 pines are as a rule cultivated plantations dotted with villages. 
 It is enchanting, as one steams along, to watch the pic- 
 turesque nipa huts of the villagers, nestling among the 
 groves of cocoanuts, bananas and bamboo, to see the wide 
 lower slopes green with the rich fields of tobacco and sugar 
 cane ; to note on the higher reaches the vast areas of hemp, 
 while still above them tower the mountains clothed with for- 
 ests of rare and beautiful tropical woods. It is one of the 
 most beautiful as well as fertile of all tropical lands. 
 
 COMITY AND THE BEGINNINGS OF PROTES- 
 TANT 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 mis- 
 sionary call to American Protestantism. Two weeks later, 
 the Presbyterian General Assembly, in session at Winona, 
 Indiana, enthusiastically endorsed the following section in 
 
 13 
 
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 Mis- 
 sion work. The peace-speaking guns of Admiral Dewey 
 have opened the gates which henceforth make accessible not 
 less than 8,000,000 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 
 equalled in cruelty by the nation whose government has been 
 a bhght and bhstering curse upon every people over whom 
 her flag has floated, a system of religion almost if not alto- 
 gether worse than heathenism. * * * * w^g 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 popula- 
 tions, and has, by the very guns of our battleships, sum- 
 moned us to go up and possess the land." 
 
 From the mission field came like urgency. Several mis- 
 sionaries 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 win 
 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, 1898, 
 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 20th, 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 thp Philippine Islands, feel that the political and military 
 
 14 
 
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 rela- 
 tionship 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 co5peration in 
 men and money, one pastor having actually raised and paid 
 over to the Treasurer of the Board $i,ooo toward the sup- 
 port 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 dis- 
 posed to consider the question of their relation to these 
 opening fields. We feel that it would be quite unfortunate 
 if several Boards should enter any one of these fields at the 
 same time, thus unnecessarily duplicating expenses, and per- 
 haps 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 situa- 
 tion thus providentially forced upon us affords us excellent 
 opportunity not only for beginning this work but for begin- 
 ning it right from the viewpoint 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 representa- 
 tives 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 peo- 
 ple 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, 
 
 "Chairman, Committee on China. Secretary in Charge." 
 
 15 
 
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 th^ 
 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, how- 
 ever, 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 Commis- 
 sioners 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 recommend that the Caroline Isl- 
 ands 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 South- 
 ern Baptist Convention, the Missionary Society of the Meth- 
 odist Episcopal Church, the Board of Missions of the Meth- 
 odist 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 Meetins^ of Friends ; that three 
 Boards contemplate work in Porto Rico, namely, the Mis- 
 sionary Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church, the 
 Board -of Missions of the Methodist Episcopal Church, 
 South, and possibly the Southern Baptist Convention; and 
 
 16 
 
that three Boards are disposed to seriously consider the 
 opening of missionary work in the PhiUppine Islands, 
 namely, the Board of Foreign Missions of the Presbyterian 
 Church in the U. S. A., the Missionary Society of the Metho- 
 dist Episcopal Church, and the American Baptist Missionary 
 Union. 
 
 "We therefore recommend : 
 
 "i. That each of the Boards mentioned appoint a commit- 
 tee 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 equi- 
 table 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 mis- 
 sionary 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 ac- 
 tion 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 Com- 
 mittee on the Philippine Islands, to form, with like commit- 
 tees from the Baptist and Methodist Boards, the joint com- 
 mittee called for by recommendations one and two. Having 
 been requested to act as the convener of this joint commit- 
 tee, I called a meeting in our Board Room for November 
 17th, 1898. At this meeting — 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, nn the first military expedition to Manila, and for- 
 merly a member of the Baptist Missionary Union, to obtain 
 information for them, though thus far nothing had 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." 
 
 The Methodists also 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 Phil- 
 
 17 
 
ippines at once, and that we thought of locating our first sta- 
 tions at Manila and Iloilo. No objection was made, and our 
 Board thereupon proceeded with its arrangements on the 
 supposition that, as it was the only Board prepared to go for- 
 ward immediately, and as it had done all in its power to act 
 in consultation with other Boards, it had a clearly recognized 
 field. November 21st, 1898, 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 trans- 
 ferred from the Southern Brazil Mission, arrived in Manila 
 on the 2ist 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 English- 
 ;speaking people, evangelistic work among the soldiers, hospi- 
 tals 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 sta- 
 tions. 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. David- 
 son. 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 them- 
 selves led into the Philippines by the enthusiasm of their con- 
 stituents. Each followed certain leadings of individual op- 
 portunity which appeared providential, till Baptists, Metho- 
 dists, Episcopalians, Christians and United Brethren, as well 
 
 18 
 
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. 
 
 The first regularly appointed Methodist missionary, Mr. 
 T. H. Martin, arrived in February, 1900, and the first Bap- 
 tist, the Rev. Eric Lund, in May of that year. April ist, 
 1901, the Revs. E. S. Eby and S. B. Kurtz of the United 
 Brethren in Christ reached Manila, and August 3d the Rev. 
 and Mrs. W. H. Hanna landed to begin work for the Disciples 
 of Christ. The Christian and Missionary Alliance sent a 
 woman to Manila, but afterward decided not to undertake 
 work in the Philippines and withdrew its appointment. Three 
 clergymen of the Protestant Episcopal Church arrived in the 
 fall of 1901. 
 
 The following interdenominational agencies do not affect 
 the question of comity, as they cordially co-operate along 
 their distinctive lines with all of the denominational Boards, 
 but they are prominent among the forces which are working 
 for God in the Philippine Islands. The British and Foreign 
 Bible Society made a heroic attempt to give the Filipinos the 
 Word of God in 1889, which tragically resulted in the sus- 
 picious illness of both the agents, the Rev. M. Alonso Lallave 
 and Senor F. de P. Castells, the former dying and the latter 
 recovering only to be imprisoned and banished. But soon 
 after the landing of the American troops in 1898, the present 
 agent, Mr. C. G. Bartter, arrived. The American Bible So- 
 ciety began its permanent work with the arrival of its agent, 
 the Rev. Jay C. Goodrich, in November, 1899, while the 
 Young Men's Christian Association was early represented by 
 the Workers of the Army and Navy Department, who came 
 with the army of occupation in July, 1898. 
 
 Fortunately, the missionaries of the various denomina- 
 tional Boards were men of broad views who were in perfect 
 accord with the conviction of the conference in New York 
 that missionary work in our new possessions should be char- 
 acterized by the practical application of true comity. Ably re- 
 enforced by the Rev. 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, 1901. There were present mis- 
 sionaries of the following Boards and Societies : Presby- 
 terian, Methodist Episcopal, United Brethren in Christ, Chris- 
 tian and Missionary Alliance, Young Men's Christian Asso- 
 ciation, and the British and Foreign and American Bible So- 
 cieties. The Baptist missionaries, though not present at the 
 conference, immediately ratified the agreement. The mission- 
 aries of the Christian Church, who arrived later, also entered 
 
 19 
 
the Union. The Protestant Episcopal Mission '■judged it 
 wiser not to enter the Union pending the arrival oi tiaeir 
 Bishop." At this meeting the Evangelical Union of the Phil- 
 lipine Islands was formed, with the following constitution : 
 
 "Article I — Name; The name of this society shall be The 
 Evangelical Union of the Philippine Islands. 
 
 "Article II — Object. 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 Philip- 
 pine Islands may be members of the Union. Other Chris- 
 tians, lay or clerical, may be elected to membership by the 
 Executive Committee. 
 
 "Article IV — Management. There shall be a central Ex- 
 ecutive 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 Com- 
 mittee 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 Ofiicers. 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 nomi- 
 nation 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." 
 
 The by-laws are as follows : 
 
 "Article I — The Executive Committee shall meet once a 
 year, or at any time upon the call of the Secretary, for anv 
 special business to come before the Committee. 
 
 "Article II — The Union shall have an annual convention, 
 arrangements for which shall be in the hands of the Executive- 
 Committee. 
 
 "Article III — One of the duties of the Executive Commit- 
 tee shall be to meet and confer with workers of any Societies 
 that are not now parties to this agreement, and to confer with- 
 and advise representatives of 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. 
 
 "Article IV — The name Tglesia Evangelica' shall be used' 
 
 20 
 
for the Filipino Churclies which shall be raised up, and when 
 necessary the denominational name shall be added m paren- 
 theses, e. g., 'Iglesia Evangelical de Malibay (Mision Meto- 
 dista 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 oc- 
 cupation of the same districts by more than one Society, 
 which has marred the work in other and older fields, there- 
 fore: 
 
 "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 Metho- 
 dists shall become responsible for the work in the Provinces 
 of Bulacan, Pampanga, Tarlac, Nueva Ecija, Pangasinan, Ba- 
 taan 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 Union, 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 in- 
 volved, and in cases 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 mission- 
 aries in a certain field should not have the s^ame representa- 
 tion on such a Committee as the Board having forty mission- 
 aries." 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 hp-ving less than five 
 should have one member, and that a quorum for the transac- 
 
 21 
 
tion 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 
 Committee) and no native work at all has as decisive a voice 
 as a Board having a dozen missionaries, several stations and 
 a large work. It was doubtless wise to provide for the possi- 
 bility of readjustments by resolving that the assignment of 
 fields was "to be open to revision at the end of three years 
 by the Evangelical Union." But it might have avoided future 
 embarrassments if the resolution had added "subject to the 
 approval of the Boards concerned," for of course the Boards 
 which furnish the money and the men, and which are held to 
 strict responsibility by their respective constituencies, expect 
 to have a voice in decisions which vitally aflfect their plans. 
 We do not build churches, schools and hospitals in a given 
 field with a view to leaving it in three years. Probably this 
 is understood, but formal agreements should state under- 
 standings. 
 
 THE PRESBYTERIAN FIELDS. 
 
 Manila. 
 
 Our Manila Station, according to the action of the Evan- 
 gelical Union, includes about half of the city of Manila and 
 all that portion of the Island of Luzon south and southeast 
 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 re- 
 turn 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 population of the 
 Methodist and Presbyterian fields was estimated at about the 
 same figure, 1,300,000 each. 
 
 This gives us a large and splendid field for development, 
 though it is a harder one to work than the Methodist field, 
 for the population is scattered over a larger area, and as there 
 
is no railroad, as in the Metliodist territory, travelling is more 
 laborious. A steam launch would be a great help. Our Ma- 
 nila Station, therefore, must be equipped with a view not only 
 to our joint responsibility with other Boards for the great 
 city of Manila and its Province of Rizal, which has a popula- 
 tion, including the city, of half a milHon, but with a view to 
 our sole responsibility for the Evangelization of the Provinces 
 of Cavite, with a population of 132,567; Batangas, 312,192; 
 Laguna, 177,000; Tayabas, 105,576; Camarines, Norte and 
 Sur, 165,504 ; Albay, 148,425 ; Sorsogon, 98,650, and the 
 southern part of the population of Infanta, which, however, 
 is a sparsely settled province of only 10,100. Four families 
 should be considered a minimum force for such a field, and 
 six are urgently needed. Indeed, a large part of the field is 
 so distant from Manila and so difficult to reach from it that 
 we may ere long be obliged to divide the field by opening an- 
 other Station at one of the provincial capitals. 
 
 Iloilo. 
 
 Our second Station is at Iloilo, on the Island of Panay, 250 
 miles from Manila. The Philippines are not a region of great 
 cities, but of villages and plantations, so that though Iloilo is 
 the second city of, the whole group, it has but 16,000 inhabi- 
 tants. Immediately adjoining, however, is the market town 
 of Jaro, with half as many more, while smaller towns are nu- 
 merous. The Island of Panay, of which Iloilo is the metrop- 
 olis, is divided into four provinces : Iloilo, with a population 
 of 472,798; Capiz, 128,006; Antique, 114,483, and Conception, 
 19,600. The small Island of Cuyo, ten hours' sail westward, 
 has about 10,000 more. Across a narrow strait is the im- 
 portant Province of Occidental Negros, with a population of 
 296,995. Although this Province is on the Island of Negros, 
 its natural relation is with Iloilo. A mountain range and a 
 different dialect separate it from the Province of Oriental 
 Negros, but its dialect is the same as that of Iloilo. Daily 
 boats run across the narrow strait which divides it from Iloilo, 
 and as two-thirds of the sugar produced by Occidental Ne- 
 gros goes to Iloilo for shipment, the trade relations are very 
 close. To understand the situation we must remember that 
 the Visayan Islands are naturally divided by dialect into two 
 groups, which may be designated the Panayan and the Cebu- 
 yan. The difiference 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. Now Iloilo is the metropolis of the Panayan group, 
 which, according to the "Atlas de Filipinas," published by the 
 
 28 
 
Director of the Jesuit Observatory in 1899, and said to be the 
 most reHable obtainable, includes : 
 
 Islands. Area in square miles. Population. 
 
 Panay 4,7°^ 734,887 
 
 Guimaras 176. . . .(population included in 
 
 Panay, it being a part 
 of Province of Iloilo.) 
 Occidental Province of 
 
 Negros 3,200 '. 296,995 
 
 Tablas ' 250'] 
 
 Sibyan 131 L 38,000 
 
 Romblon and five smaller 
 
 islands 245J 
 
 Masbate 1,290 19.S17 
 
 Total 10,000 1,089,399 
 
 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 niountain range separating them, I have 
 had to roughly estimate their respective areas from the ap- 
 pearance of the map. The area of the whole Island is 4,854 
 square miles, the Occidental Province having approximately 
 two-thirds. The area of Romblon and its neighbors is not 
 stated, but it is small, though the city of Romblon is the cap- 
 ital of the Province and a port of call for the steamers be- 
 tween Manila ana Iloilo. 
 
 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 next important 
 centre in the Islands, we at once contemplated a Station there. 
 The disturbed condition of the Islands delayed actual occu- 
 pation, but at the earliest practicable opportunity a prelim- 
 inary visit to Iloilo was made. February 27, 1899, Secretary 
 Ellinwood's letter to the Rev. J. B. Rodgers referred to Iloilo 
 as "one of the two stations where we ought to have a physi- 
 cian." Search for a suitable man was early begun, and in the 
 fall of that year. Dr. and Mrs. J. Andrew Hall and the Rev. 
 and Mrs. D. S. Hibbard sailed for Iloilo, and in February, 
 1900, they began their permanent residence there. Three 
 months later (May 2d, 1900) the first Baptist missionary, the 
 Rev. Eric Lund; appeared, with Mr. Manikin, a converted 
 
 '34 
 
Filipino whom Mr. Lund had brought with him from Spain, 
 together with Visayan translations of the Gospel by Mark and 
 five tracts. They immediately began to work at Jaro, where 
 Mr. Maniken had been educated for the Roman Catholic 
 priesthood. Their work has greatly prospered, though its 
 nearness to our already established work and the disposition 
 of all the Filipino Protestants within a dozen miles to partake 
 of the Lord's Supper at both Baptist and Presbyterian 
 churches are causing some embarrassment to our Baptist 
 brethren. The Baptists, having only two men in the Philip- 
 pines, and they not being in Manila at the time, were not rep- 
 resented in the conference of missionaries at which the Evan- 
 gelical 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 indi- 
 vidually responsible." 
 
 This practically resulted in each group of missionaries con- 
 tinuing to work from the points where they were before — 
 Presbyterians at Iloilo and Baptists at Jaro and Bacolod. 
 But how should the outlying territory be divided, for Jaro is 
 only two miles from Iloilo and Bacolod is near the northern 
 end of the long Province of Occidental Negros. Manifestly, 
 if the former was understood to mean the right to develop 
 all the extensive region north and east of it and the latter to 
 involve the whole Province of Occidental Negros, Presbyteri- 
 ans would be shut up within impossibly narrow limits on 
 southwestern Panay, with only about a fifth part of the joint 
 field. Accordingly, fraternal representations were made to 
 the American Baptist Missionary Union with a view to such 
 readjustments as would carry out our original plan of comity 
 and at the same time secure justice to all concerned. A 
 delightfully harmonious conference of our Board with a dele- 
 gation from the Baptist Union clearly brought out the prior- 
 ity of Presbyterian plans for and occupation of Ilolio with a 
 view to the working of the whole Island of Panay, but it 
 also brought into equally clear relief the fact that our Baptist 
 brethren had entered the field without knowing of our earlier 
 plans and on the supposition that they were beginning pio- 
 neer work in an unoccupied and unclaimed field. The con- 
 ference further showed that both the Board and the Union 
 felt and with equally good reason that they had been Provi- 
 
dentially guided to this field, that they were being Providen- 
 tially blessed in it, and that they were so committed to it 
 before their respective constituencies that neither could 
 wisely withdraw. Accordingly, our Board cordially proposed 
 "that an equitable division of the Panayan dialect field should 
 be made by the mutual recognition as Baptist territory of all 
 that portion of the Island of Panay lying east of a line start- 
 ing between the cities of Iloilo and Jaro and running west of 
 north to the intersection of the eleventh parallel with the east- 
 ern boundary line of the Province of Antique, all of the Prov- 
 inces of Capiz and Conception, all the other islands of the 
 Panayan dialect lying north and northeast of Panay, namely : 
 Romblon, Tablas, Sibuyan and Mesbate, and also the north- 
 ern half of the Province of Occidental Negros ; and that there 
 be mutual recognition as Presbyterian territory of the city of 
 Iloilo, that portion of Panay lying west of the line above indi- 
 cated, including the southwestern part of the Province of 
 Iloilo and all the Province of Antique, the Island of Gui- 
 maras, and also the southern half of the Province of Occi- 
 dental Negros. The Board felt that this would involve con- 
 siderable sacrifice of Presbyterian interests, as it would con- 
 cede to our Baptist brethren not only the larger but the more 
 promising part of the field for which we established a Station 
 at Iloilo ; but the Board expressed its willingness to make the 
 sacrifice if necessary in the interests of comity and fraternal 
 feeling." 
 
 The answer of the Baptist Union had not been received 
 when this edition of the Report went to press. 
 
 While this adjustment would not leave us as large or as 
 easily worked a field as we had contemplated, it would give 
 us enough to justify a permanent force of about three families 
 and the expectation of considerable results. We shall more- 
 over be brought into closer touch with our work at Duma- 
 guete at the southern end of the Province of Oriental Negros. 
 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. More- 
 over, 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 Duma- 
 guete, and 'will bring the two Provinces of the Island into far 
 closer relations than at present. 
 
 3fi 
 
That Presbyterian work at Iloilo is already well estab- 
 lished and very promising will be seen in the fact that three 
 and four missionaries have permanently resided there for 
 nearly three years. Preaching has been regularly maintained 
 in the city and frequent evangelistic trips have been made to 
 the adjacent villages. About a hundred communicants have 
 been received, and the -ordinary attendance at the Sabbath 
 service is between four and five hundred, while large numbers 
 in the outlying villages are deeply interested. 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 ac- 
 quaintance 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 the 
 Hospital has powerfully aided in creating the conditions 
 which have made the Protestant work so successful. 
 
 Dumaguete. 
 
 Our third Station is at Dumaguete, on the Island of Ne- 
 gros. It is a charmingly located town. By the water side is 
 the plaza where every evening the people stroll and the Fili- 
 pino band plays. Back of this plaza are the buildings of the 
 town, most of which command a superb view. Beyond the 
 town lie rich plantations of sugar and tobacco, interspersed 
 with groves of banana and cocoanut, while above all rise the 
 foothills and a range of noble mountains. 
 
 The Province of Oriental Negros, in which Dumaguete 
 lies, includes only the comparatively narrow strip on the 
 coast east of the mountains, and the sparsely settled adjacent 
 island of Siquijor, eighteen miles distant— all told only about 
 1, 600 square miles and 94,782 population. The great Occi- 
 dental Province of Negros, with three-fourths of the area and 
 population of the Island, is, as already explained, tributary to 
 Iloilo. However, there is ample unoccupied territory in sight. 
 The southern end of Cebu is within six miles of Dumaguete, 
 while Bohol.with its 248,000 people, is only forty miles away. 
 The native sailboats are abundant, swift and fairly comfort- 
 
 37 
 
able, and in them the missionary from Dumaguete could 
 reach those islands far more easily than the average mission- 
 ary in China can get to his out stations. A tour in such cir- 
 cumstances would be easy compared with Dr. Corbett's toil- 
 some journeys of 125 miles on horseback in Shantung. As 
 the Silliman Institute will make heavy demands on the mis- 
 sionaries at this Station, the Dumaguete force, in order to 
 work its own Province and Bohol, should include not less 
 than three men besides the physician. 
 
 Cebu. 
 
 Our fourth center in the Philippines is Cebu, the capital 
 of the Island of that name, a city of 10,972 and the metropolis 
 of the Cebuyan group, as Iloilo is of the Panayan. The 
 Cebuyan group includes : 
 
 Islands. Area in square miles. Population. 
 
 Cebu 1,742 504.076 
 
 Bohol 1,439 248,000 
 
 Oriental Province of 
 
 Negros . 1,654 94,782 
 
 Siquijor 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 1,318,102 
 
 Cebu 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 fre- 
 quently expressed that Cebu will in the future be the more in- 
 fluential city. 
 
 The following table, prepared by General James F. Smith, 
 late Collector of Customs of the Islands, will show the rela- 
 tive trade of the chief ports for the year 1900. 
 
Year and 
 Port. 
 
 
 ■ Imports. 
 
 
 Eixpbrts, 
 
 All 
 other 
 Collec- 
 tions. 
 
 
 Free and 
 
 Dutiable, 
 
 yalue. 
 
 Dutiable, 
 Value. 
 
 Duty. 
 
 Value'. 
 
 Duty. 
 
 Coljee- 
 ■ tions. 
 
 1900 
 
 Manila 
 
 Cebu 
 
 Iloilo 
 
 Jolo 
 
 $38,665,618 
 
 2,090,738 
 
 2,896.4-.!0 
 
 237,598 
 
 89.054 
 
 28,652 
 
 $28,115,616 
 
 2,090,738 
 
 2,888,5.54 
 
 221,568 
 
 88,446 
 
 23.694 
 
 $8,641,410 
 
 546, 12i 
 
 883,601 
 
 69,926 
 
 13,399 
 
 t 
 
 $33,677,388 
 
 3,531:746 
 
 2,6-.ib,470 
 
 216.308 
 
 51,616 
 
 8,Ob2 
 
 $866,856 
 
 115,536 
 
 86Mb 
 
 5,056 
 
 256 
 
 
 
 $299,818 
 
 I9,8i.9 
 
 14,619 
 
 i,7'l2 
 
 134 
 
 
 
 $9,808,085 
 
 681.52? 
 
 986. -,88 
 
 'i6,724 
 
 12,?b9 
 
 
 
 Siassi 
 
 Zamboanga 
 
 Total.... 
 
 $38,967,980 
 
 $33,378,81(' S10,163,45h 
 
 $40,121,610 
 
 $l,0i6,270 $366,210,811,665,913 
 
 Both Iloilo and Cebu have regular steamer connection 
 with Manila and are occasional ports of call for some of the 
 Hongkong and Singapore steamers. 
 
 Tlie Panayan and Cebuyan groups are so related geo- 
 graphically to Southern Luzon that they give our Philippine 
 work a fairly compact field and permit a good Mission organ- 
 ization 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, su- 
 perior 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 fojr successful missionary effort and is 
 rather more compact and easily worked, the bulk of the terri- 
 tory being on the single Island of Panay, with fairly good 
 roads. The Cebuyan group, on the other hand, while includ- 
 ing no one island as populous as Panay, has a greater num- 
 ber of relatively important ones. In some parts of the group, 
 notably Oriental Negros, the people are most friendly, but in 
 Cebu and Samar the people have been more reluctant to ac- 
 quiesce in American rule. Spain never attempted a real oc- 
 cupation of the latter, and it was not till 1901 that the United 
 States undertook to pacify it. 
 
 While in Manila I learned that the Evangelical Union was 
 under the impression that Cebu was unappropriated ground. 
 I also found that the Rev. Dr. Stuntz, Presiding Elder of the 
 Methodist work, not knowing of our prior plans, was discuss- 
 ing the possibility of sending a Filipino preacher to Cebu, 
 which he regarded as an important center. I therefore held a 
 conference with the Evangelical Union and pointed out 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 at Dumaguete; that 
 there were now two Boards in the Visayan group. Baptist and 
 
 395 
 
Presbyterian ; that the entrance of a third would be contrary 
 to the basal principle on which the Union was founded; 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 ; that Dumaguete was not 
 a Station in our use of the term without its outlying popula- 
 tion, as it would be quite out of the question for us to think 
 of maintaining a permanent Station and developing our larg- 
 est school in so contracted a field as the narrow Province of 
 Oriental Negros, with less than 100,000 people, some of whom 
 will, of course, remain Roman Catholic. I stated, moreover, 
 that our Board had voted, December 18, 1899, "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 ac- 
 tion of the Union in giving the Methodists the Provinces im- 
 mediately north of Manila and the Presbyterians those south 
 of it, had made us hesitate in carrying out our original plan. 
 I therefore suggested that the Methodists consolidate their 
 work north of Manila by adding the northern valley, and that 
 the Presbyterians consolidate theirs southwards by adding to 
 our southern Luzon field the' Cebuyan group and such part of 
 the Panayan 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 ar- 
 rangement 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 geo- 
 graphically 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 Meth- 
 odists 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 under- 
 stood that the Executive Committee, which, under the consti- 
 tution of the Union, has the duty of acting in such cases, 
 would ratify this arrangement. I now learn that at the firit 
 annual meeting of the Executive Committee, January, 1902, 
 the following action was taken : 
 
 "Resolved, That the Provinces of the Cagayan Valley, i. e., 
 of Isabela, Nueva Viscaya and Cagayan, be added to the ter- 
 ritory of the Methodist Mission (they agreeing not to enter 
 the Visayas during the present term of three years of the 
 original resolution) ; that the Provinces of Bontoc, Abra and 
 Lepanto be added to the territory of the United Brethren 
 Mission; and that the Province of Benguet be considered 
 common territory for the said Missions ; that the Islands of 
 
 30 
 
Cebu, Bohol, Leyte, Samar, Romblon and Masbate be con- 
 sidered as part of the field of the Baptist and Presbyterian 
 Missions ; that the question of the field of the Christian Mis- 
 sion be left in abeyance until such time as they may be ready 
 to decide as to their own wishes in the matter." 
 
 So far as Cebu and Bohol were concerned, this action was 
 rather an inadequate recognition of an existing Presbyterian 
 field than the assignment of a new one, for, as I personally 
 explained to the Evangelical Union during my visit, we had 
 opened our Dumaguete Station and located there our leading 
 educational institution, with a distinct view to its relation to 
 those contiguous islands, with their homogeneous population, 
 the turbulent condition of Cebu at that time rendering im- 
 practicable the immediate occupation of that city. Leyte and 
 Samar, having the same dialect, naturally go with Cebu, while 
 Romblon and Mesbate as naturally belong with northern 
 Panay, toward which the Baptists are pressing their admira- 
 bly successful work. It would have been better, therefore, if 
 the Evangelical Union had been as explicit in recognizing 
 fields as it was in its action on Luzon. 
 
 However, our Ba.ptist brethren have never shown the 
 slightest disposition to enter the Cebuyan dialect, all their 
 work and literature being in the Panayan, so that we have 
 had a clear field in the Cebuyan group. In accordance with 
 our early intention of occupying the city of Cebu as soon 
 as military conditions permitted, I urged the Mission in 
 September, 1901, to send a native preacher there as soon 
 as possible. The lack of a suitable man who could be spared 
 prevented the Mission from doing this at once, and in the 
 spring of this year, 1902, the Board appointed another mis- 
 sionary for the Philippines in order that Cebu might be 
 formally opened as a station. A second ordained man and 
 a physician should be sent as soon as practicable, for the 
 field is wide and the opportunity urgent. 
 
 The America]! Church. 
 
 The American Church in Manila presents another ques- 
 tion, 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, 1901 : 
 
 31 
 
"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 favo/ably 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 gener- 
 ously 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. Neverthe- 
 less, 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 major- 
 ity, 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 con- 
 gregation, this scheme did not work. All three of the other 
 Protestant bodies, represented in Manila came to the conclu- 
 sion that the interests of their work and of the cause of 
 Christ justified them in establishing separate services 'for 
 Americans. Two of them bea;an preaching in other parts 
 of the city, but boneht 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 onlv one in- 
 
the city. On the other hand, the congregation lost the sup- 
 port 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 faihng to gain 
 the unity which it sought, but was under the same respon- 
 sibiHty 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 dur- 
 ing my visit, Oct. 17 (1901), 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 denomi- 
 nation 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 
 
 33 
 
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 Pres- 
 byterian Church of thetj. S. A." 
 
 This is in harmony with the report of the Board's Com- 
 mittee on the Philippine Islands and the Executive Council 
 that "while it would have been desirable for a time that the 
 various Protestant Missions working in Manila should unite 
 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 English-speaking 
 congregation in a broad and catholic spirit, but with the view 
 to its establishment as a Presbyterian Church in case a per- 
 manent 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 con- 
 duct 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 should have unhesitatingly turned over to 
 it our interests in the congregation, that while in accordance 
 with their vote the Church would now be known as Presby- 
 terian, 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 prefer- 
 ences might be. 
 
 Doubtless the situation in the Philippines will strengthen 
 the conviction of some who were already convinced that 
 ■comity is "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 confer- 
 ences held by the representatives of the Boards of Missions 
 
 34 
 
have discussed these topics in the most amiable arid enthu- 
 siastic way, yet we learn that not fewer than thirteen societieis 
 have expressed their intention of prosecuting missionary 
 work in Cuba ; ten have resolved to enter Porto Jciico, 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, I 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 cannot 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 com- 
 ing. Let us work for it and pray for it. Let us not be 
 discouraged by obstacles. Let us remember that every sensi- 
 ble 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 representa- 
 tives 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 religious press generally took this view, the New York 
 Independent even characterizing the 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 we have already offered 
 to yield to the Baptists the best part of our Iloilo field. 
 
 Consider, too, how much has been really gained for comity 
 in the Philippines. With tbe single exception of Pa;nay, the 
 Methodists, Presbyterians, United Brethren and Congrega- 
 
 35 
 
tipnalistS;.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 Evangelicas,," 
 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 tirne to time. The missionaries in the Philip- 
 pine Islands, like the missionaries in other lands, are the 
 products of American denominational Christianity, and 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 drawbacks, comity in the Philippines has made a more 
 practical start than in any other mission field. Let us see 
 to it that we maifitaiyi 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 irre- 
 ligious Americans. Of the approximately seventy thousand 
 people from the United States in the Philippine Islands when 
 I was there, only a few hundred identify themselves with 
 the Christian cause, while many are so conspicuous in their 
 vices that the evil disposed 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 resi- 
 dence 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. Sta- 
 tistical reports show that during the year 1900, 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 $411,616.00 gold. The Manila Times says 
 that "the people will no doulDt wonder what on earth was 
 
 36 
 
done with so much flour. The proportion appears to be one 
 soHd to four liquids." Before the arrival of Americans, the 
 native wine shops were numerous, but they seldom carried 
 more than a few pesos' worth of tuba (cocoanut beer) and 
 bino or vino (whiskey made from rice or the sap of the nipa 
 palm). The latter is a vicious liquor, almost as strong as 
 pure alcohol. But the Filipino always dilutes it with water 
 and adds sugar and oil of anise, and even then drinks but a 
 small quantity. He gasped when he saw the United States 
 soldiers gulping down whole glasses of the raw liquor, which 
 quickly resulted in stupor and shattered health. An army 
 surgeon writes : "The native — excluding those of the larger 
 cities, who have adopted civilized habits — does not get drunk. 
 It is a rarity to find a drunken native. Of the 500 or more 
 natives we had in our command we never had a case of 
 drunkenness. The only case of intoxication I ever saw 
 among the Macabees was our head servant, and he had sur- 
 reptitiously emptied a bottle of cocktails that belonged to 
 the commanding officer." Intemperance is not a Filipino 
 vice. He drinks moderately as cornpared with the Ameri- 
 can, usually in his home at night, and, in the opinion of the 
 Taft Commission, "consequently suffers comparatively little 
 harm." Iri 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." 
 
 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 sub- 
 ject; 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 Washing- 
 ton 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 
 
 37 
 
is- more rigidly and effectively regulated and ikept within 
 bounds in the" city of Manila:, than in any city of similar or 
 greater siz^ in the United States. A strict high-license law 
 is enforced, under which the native saloons or wine-shopS: 
 liave 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. AH of these saloons 
 are closed at half past eight in the evening, and are pre- 
 vented 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. 
 
 Washington 278,718 513 
 
 Cleveland 381,768 1,888 
 
 Cincinnati 325,902 1,727 
 
 New Orleans 287,104 1.370 
 
 liiilwaukee , 285,315 i,747 
 
 San Francisco 342,782 3,007 
 
 St. Louis S75>238 2,060 
 
 Baltimore ..,.,,. 508,957 1,988 
 
 Boston . 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 regu- 
 lations, 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, 1,058, 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 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- 
 
 38 
 
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 1,200 pesos for a "first-class bar" and 
 1,600 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 places 
 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 ofifence. A violation 
 of any provision of the act may subject the offender to hav- 
 ing 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 per- 
 son, 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 senti- 
 ment 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 Secretary of 
 War, Nov. 30, 1900, 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 
 
 3i) 
 
conception of a public officer than of one who is to be 
 reached by bribery if the sum ofifered 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 pecuni- 
 ary way, demoralization and dishonesty are much more 
 likely to follow than at home." 
 
 While there are splendid exceptions, including as noble 
 Christian men as are in the world, yet it is notorious that 
 the moral standards of foreign communities in Asia are lower 
 than in the lands from which the foreigners came. If it be 
 objected that they are the same men as those at home, we 
 may borrow Macaulay's thought regarding Englishmen in 
 the West Indies and reply: Precisely; that is the reason 
 we know that you are acting worse. You are men of like 
 passions with ourselves, but you are where your temptations 
 are greater and your restraints are fewer; therefore it is 
 certain that you commit offences from which we who are at 
 home are in some measure, at least, saved by the stronger 
 influences of family, of religion and of a purer public opinion. 
 The typical vacation resort and frontier community painfully 
 prove that the average man is apt to be more or less unfortu- 
 nately affected by emancipation from accustomed restraints, 
 and, as the Sage of Avon truly observes, give himself 
 
 " To barbarous license ; as 'tis ever common 
 
 That men are merriest when they are from home.'' 
 
 All the more, therefore, should our attitude toward our 
 sorely tempted fellows in the far-ofi Pacific Islands be one of 
 sympathy and helpfulness rather than of self-righteous con- 
 demnation. The Americans in Asia are no whit worse than 
 the Europeans in Asia. They are simply not an exception 
 to the general rule. 
 
 As for the soldiers, their conduct has been outrageously 
 misrepresented. During my long tour of Asia, I saw some- 
 thing of English, French, German, Russian, Italian and Aus- 
 trian as well as American troops, and our men were the best 
 behaved of them all. With the possible exception of the 
 Japanese, the American soldier is the best soldier in the 
 world. Some of the most faithful Christians I met in Manila 
 were enlisted men, and one of the most earnest and con- 
 sistent Christian laymen in all the Islands is an army officer. 
 Major Elijah W. Halford, the President of the Evangelical 
 Union. It must be borne in mind that among ten thousand 
 men in civil life in America there are daily brawls and crimes. 
 But disorders which are hardly noticed outside of police 
 courts at home instantly attract attention when the same men 
 
 40 
 
don the uniform of their couiitry. It would be fooHsh to deny 
 that some of our soldiers in the Philippines have been brutal, 
 lustful and drunken. They ought to be severely punished, and 
 officers who have participated in or condoned such offences 
 should be summarily court-martialed. But it is equally 
 foolish to blackguard the whole army before the world 
 because some of its members have committed crimes which 
 are far more common in European armies and which are 
 swiftly and sternly punished by the responsible superiors of 
 our military administration. 
 
 Still, it must be admitted that army life is not ordinarily 
 conducive to piety and that it is not possible to find enough 
 Christian gentlemen who are willing to enlist as private 
 soldiers at $13 a month. Shakespeare truly makes King 
 Henry V exclaim : "There is no king, be his cause never 
 so spotless, if it comes to the arbitrament of swords, can try 
 it out with all unspotted soldiers : some peradventure have 
 •on them the guilt of premeditated and continued murder ; 
 some of beguiling virgins with the broken seals of perjury; 
 some, making the wars their bulwark, ■ that have before 
 gored the gentle bosom of peace with pillage and robbery." 
 
 There are faithful army chaplains and Y. M. C. A. secre- 
 taries, but they need help and the re-enforcement of an 
 outside body of Christian opinion. I was greatly gratified 
 to find officers and soldiers in all the English congregations 
 to which I spoke in the Philippines. They impressed me as 
 fine men, but there are many, many thousands whose 
 example is demoralizing to the Filipinos. 
 
 Unfortunately, too, some Americans in the Philippines, 
 whose lives are upright and whose personal sympathies are 
 with our Protestant missionary effort, hold themselves pub- 
 licly aloof from it. In some cases this is due to that 
 lessening of the sense of Christian responsibility, that sag- 
 ging 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 connected. 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 
 telieve as strongly as any one in the separation of Church 
 
 41 
 
and State. But theyo 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 or composed almost wholly of 
 Europeans who usually have churches of their own nation- 
 ality. 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 peo- 
 ple. Protestant missionary effort cannot concern itself 
 wholly with the Filipinos while leaving this great Arrierican 
 community to set a demoralizing example of agnosticism 
 and vice. The Filipinos have never been taught to dis- 
 tinguish between Church and State. For three hundred 
 years they have seen the two united. The victory of the 
 Spariiards 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 conlpel 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 compul- 
 sory 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, prob- 
 ably 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. 
 
 Not only Governor Taft and his official associates, but 
 the Protestant missionaries themselves are trying to disabuse 
 tlie popular mind on this point. We do not want the people 
 to join our churches from any such motives, and so it wilt 
 not 'be long before the Filipinos will learn that loyalty to 
 the new Government does not require them to become 
 
 4S 
 
Protestants, a;id i^, . in addition, they see that Americans 
 themselves are personally indifferent or hostile to, all church 
 work, the regult can be easily 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 re5ponsibility 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 should 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 Ameri- 
 cans 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 Fili- 
 pinos. 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 Ameri- 
 cans 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 ade- 
 quate for the present, viz., a Sunday 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 prac- 
 tically -the whole time of Mr. Gelwick«, and after his 
 departure it took the whole time of Mr. Mclntire; So exacts 
 ing- are its demands that he is not' even learning the nati'\?fe' 
 language. This ■ is a sacrifice of our Filipino work which 
 
 43 
 
we cannot afford to make. It throws the entire burden of 
 that work upon Mr. Rodgers, a kiUing load. 
 
 A pastor for the American Church should therefore be 
 sent by the Board at once. At a meeting of the congrega- 
 tion, October 17th, "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 pos- 
 sible 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 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 indi- 
 vidually 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 meet- 
 ings 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. 
 
 A church building is an immediate necessity. The con- 
 gregation is now worshipping in a rented residence, at ig8 
 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 voted — 
 "That, in accordance with the previous instructions of the 
 Board, the Mission be requested to take immediate steps 
 
 44 
 
for the acquisition of land necessary for the erection of a 
 church." 1 
 
 In company with Mr. Rodgers, I inspected seven different 
 sites in Ermita, which is the quarter where the largest Ameri- 
 can population centers and where, from present indications, 
 it always will center. Our first choice is either of two corners 
 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 and the latter from the Bay through all the residence 
 district eastward. The other sites are in the same neighbor- 
 hood 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 con- 
 gregation 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 $8,000 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 sub- 
 scribed $400 Mexican 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 
 $1,067 Mexican. 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 under- 
 standing 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 
 
 45 
 
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 reduc- 
 tion in the price of lumber, and it was hoped that the reduc- 
 tion 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 for a fall in prices which may be several years in com- 
 ing. 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 were 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 Mexican, 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 con- 
 fusion of readjustment to new conditions, the restriction of 
 Chinese immigration, the ravages of rinderpest, the enforce- 
 ment 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; $10,000 gold will 
 build only a very modest American church in Manila, and 
 part of that must come from America. 
 
 OUR FILIPINO CHURCHES. 
 
 The work among the Filipinos in Manila is remarkable, 
 particularly when one considers how recently it was inaugu- 
 rated. The permanent congregations are two. 
 
 The oldest is the Trozo chapel congregation in the 
 
 46 
 
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. Un- 
 fortunately, a native pastor is not yet available, but as soon 
 as one can be found the people can contribute a considerable 
 part of his salary, especially as the Board gives free rent. 
 This is because the chapel, a spacious, comparatively new 
 two-story 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 fdr 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 possibly 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, $115 
 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 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 meet- 
 ings, 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 Seiior Felipe Buencamino. This congrega- 
 tion 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 Gov- 
 ernment 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 ApostoHc Delegate with the American 
 
 47. 
 
authorities strengthened this report. The matter was dis- 
 cussed 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 sepa- 
 ration of the religious and the political movements, explain- 
 ing 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 Seiior Buen- 
 camino himself, actively identified themselves with Protes- 
 tantism. In January, 1901, 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 begin- 
 ning 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 politico-Protestant 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 ofificially 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 Philippines, with an average attendance of from four 
 to five hundred, and on special occasions of nearly a thou- 
 sand. 
 
 I am aware that some question the motives of Seiior 
 Buencamino. But, after having seen something of him per- 
 sonally and after having made inquiry of those who have 
 had ampler 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 in all the Islands. He has nothing to gain in a 
 worldly way from his identification with Protestantism. His 
 profession of evangelical faith has cost him the friendship 
 
 48 
 
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 Protes- 
 tant 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 mis- 
 sionaries, told me that they believed him to be a changed 
 man since his acquaintance with Mr. Rodgers. Though he 
 is not rich, he offered in my hearing to give $i,ooo Mexican 
 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 theater 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 accus- 
 tomed to churches. We must have a tabernacle for God." 
 
 As to capacity, opinions varied from i,ooo 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 slid-partitions 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 Theater, 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 Ave- 
 nue 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 of cost of the 
 building averaged about $16,000 Mexican. Thus far, not a 
 word had 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 
 
 49 
 
$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 which 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 con- 
 ference 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 pur- 
 chase 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 special funds which, I understand, are being raised 
 by Col. Bird, of Washington, may be 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 Protes- 
 tants. 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 sub- 
 ject by this bitter experience, they may not consent to have 
 the title to all Protestant Church property solely vested in an- 
 other outside religious corporation in which they have no 
 voice. On the other hand, the Board cannot risk a repetition 
 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 FiUpinos 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. 
 
 The law under which Protestants can hold property was 
 framed by that accomplished jurist. Governor Taft, when his 
 attention was called to the fact that under the old Spanish 
 
 50 
 
laws the Roman Catholic Church was the only religious or- 
 ganization which could secure title. It is as follows : 
 "An Act Authorizing the Holding of Land by Religious Cor- 
 porations or Associations of Whatever Sect or Denomi- 
 nation. 
 
 "By authority of the President of the United States, be it 
 enacted by the United States Philippine Commission, that — 
 "Whereas, Under the Spanish regime and law it was not 
 lawful for any church or religious association except the 
 Catholic Church and its dependencies to hold land in the 
 Philippine Islands for the purpose of the construction of 
 churches, parsonages, or educational or charitable institu- 
 tions, and 
 
 "Whereas, By the Treaty of Paris the Philippine Islands 
 passed under the control of the United States, which recog- 
 nizes no state religion and treats, all sects and denominations 
 alike, therefore : 
 
 "Section i — It shall be lawful for all religious associations 
 of whatever sect or denomination, whether incorporated in 
 the Philippine Islands or in some other country or not in- 
 corporated at all, to hold land in the Philippine Islands upon 
 which to build churches, parsonages, or educational or chari- 
 table institutions. 
 
 "Sec. 2 — Such religious institutions, if not incorporated, 
 shall hold the land in the name of three trustees for the use 
 of such associations ; the trustees shall be selected by the 
 directing body in the Philippine Islands for such associations, 
 and vacancies occurring among the trustees by death, resig- 
 nation or other cause shall be filled in the same manner as the 
 original selection. 
 
 "Sec. 3 — All laws in conflict with the provisions of Sec- 
 tions I and 2 hereof are hereby repealed. 
 
 "Sec. 4 — The public good requiring the speedy enactment 
 of this bill, the passage of the same is hereby expedited in ac- 
 cordance with Section 2 of 'an act prescribing the order of 
 procedure by the commission in the enactment of laws,' 
 passed September 6, 1900. 
 . "Sec. 5 — This act shall take ef3fect on its passage. Enacted 
 October 19, 1901." 
 
 Fortunately, it does not appear to be necessary at present 
 to acquire expensive property at any of the stations we now 
 occupy in the Philippines. Fairly good Spanish houses 
 adapted to the climate can be rented. True, rents are high, 
 but so are land and building materials. In Iloilo 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 with reasonable help to 
 
 51 
 
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 probably 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 af- 
 ford to wait a little while 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, 
 1901. 
 
 In Dumaguete, the site already purchased for the Institute 
 is sufficient for the present, for reasons which are given later 
 in this Report. In Cebu we can doubtless rent temporarily. 
 As a general rule, I believe it is wiser to pay a little more, if 
 necessary, for property which we definitely know to be ac- 
 tually required than it is to tie up money in land for an un- 
 certain 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 load- 
 ing itself up with unprofitable ventures. 
 
 With the exception, therefore, of the American and Fili- 
 pino churches in Manila, and hospitals in Iloilo, Dumaguete 
 and Cebu, there is no pressing need for acquiring 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. 
 We cannot permanently or even long do our work to advan- 
 tage without property of our own. 
 
 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 commo- 
 dious chapel can be cheaply built out of the bamboo and nipa 
 of which the people construct their own houses. Such build- 
 ings 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 im- 
 poverished 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 carabao (water buiTalo), while a large part of the prop- 
 erty remaining, including vast areas of the best land, is held 
 
 53 
 
by the Roman Catholic Church. Time will be required for 
 readjustment to normal conditions. 
 
 But this does not mean that the principle of self-support 
 should be ignored. We should start right. Painful experi- 
 ence in other fields has shown that if mission work is begun 
 wrong, it is exceedingly difficult to change it afterwards. The 
 Filipinos have been 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 not 
 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 ef- 
 fect of such a reduction will be as great and far more bene- 
 ficial to all interests concerned than a pauperizing policy of 
 absolute charity. 
 
 EVANGELISTIC WORK. 
 
 The evangelistic work of the Mission is inspiring, con- 
 sidering 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 cot- 
 tage meetings are held all over the city and 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 quali- 
 fications 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 of 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 our 
 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 
 
 53 
 
without suggestion or aid from the missionary. No mission- 
 ary has ever visited Pena Frane, but one or two faithful fol- 
 lowers 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 has since been vigorously 
 opened. But at Iloilo the effort has borne the same quick 
 fruitage as in Manila. About four hundred people regularly 
 attend the Sabbath preaching service. One of the most nota- 
 ble 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 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 Sunday service. So 
 many regularly do this, coming Saturday and remaining till 
 Monday, that the missionaries have 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 con- 
 tentedly sleep on the floor. I wish that those critics who in- 
 sist 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 pom- 
 pous stone church in their own village there is certainly 
 something more than curiosity in their hearts. 
 
 Rising early the following Monday morning, I rode horse- 
 back with a missionary and a native helper, over a good coun- 
 try 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 fin- 
 ished 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 
 
 54 
 
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 rever- 
 ent Sunday morning congregation in America. No one left 
 until the benediction had been pronounced, and even then 
 dozens remained to buy tracts and hymns and Gospel por- 
 tions. The service was repeated in another part of the mar- 
 ket, this time with 150 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 typi- 
 cal 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. 
 
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 56, 
 
Our Chinese Work. 
 
 Our missionary plans for the Philippine Islands cannot 
 ignore the 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 mis- 
 sionaries there, and with some assistance at the outset from 
 the Board and under the wise supervision of our missiona- 
 ries 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 con- 
 servative 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 Chi- 
 nese 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 dis- 
 covered, 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 consrregation 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 thou- 
 sand Chinese in the city. Nor can this comparatively intelli- 
 gent congregation be permanently built up by the necessarily 
 
 57 
 
unstudied talks of Chinese who must devote their energies 
 to a trade or a shop. We can continue to give the congrega- 
 tion 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 
 $1,250 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 attend- 
 ance increases. If such a man were enabled to give his whole 
 time and strength to the preparation of sermons and to pas- 
 toral 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 thou- 
 sand Chinese, of whom four-fifths are from Amoy and the 
 rest from Canton, wor"k has sprung up in a remarkable way. 
 When the missionaries arrived, they discovered two Chris- 
 tian 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. Hall 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, say- 
 ing 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 per- 
 suaded 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 
 
 58 
 
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 attended 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 con- 
 gregation 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 Presbyterians and 
 Methodists m 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 subsidiarv as compared 
 with the Filipino work. In our other stations, of course, we 
 have the Chinese field to ourselves. 
 
 Church Organisation. 
 
 Church organization is yet inchoate. Only a few of our 
 congregations have been formally constituted churches, and 
 no central ecclesiastical body has been formed. The thought 
 of the missionaries on this subject is suggested by the follow- 
 ing 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 confer- 
 ence and mutual helpfulness. Such conferences would de- 
 velop, naturally, into truly representative bodies, which would 
 soon grow into provincial and then into national assemblies. 
 The foreign missionarv should be on the outside of this or- 
 ganization. He should exercise no authority except over 
 such workers as may be employees of distinctly missionary 
 enterprises, such as schools and colportage work. He can 
 
 59 
 
be an advisory member and exercise quite as much influence 
 in that way as when he has a vote. If the foreigner is a mem- 
 ber 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 differ- 
 ent 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 sup- 
 port 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 at- 
 tempted 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 offi- 
 cers, calling them elders, or deacons, or stewards, or ward- 
 ens, or whatever term seems best? The Filipino system of 
 government by cahozaz 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 Com- 
 mittee could be easily formed and the work of spreading the 
 Gospel taken up by them. There are, of course, many diffi- 
 culties 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-supportig Filipino 
 Church." 
 
 MEDICAL WORK. 
 
 Medical work is as necessary in the Philippines as in other 
 mission lands. Manila, it is true, may be an exception, for 
 there the number of physicians in private practice is already 
 considerable, and it will doubtless increase. There are sev- 
 eral large and well equipp'ed military hospitals in which civil- 
 ians are, within reasonable limits, received as private patients, 
 an excellent Women's Hospital for foreign women, public 
 
 60 
 
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 hospital 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 Presby- 
 terian Hospital after the model of similar institutions in our 
 own home cities. In the provincial towns, however, medical 
 work is as needful as anywhere in the world. The masses of 
 the people know as little about the proper treatment of dis- 
 eases 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 in- 
 competent. 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, 
 1899, it authorized "the opening of medical work in the Phil- 
 ippines as soon as the best place or places shall be found 
 therefor." Both Iloilo and Dumaguete have been properly 
 designated as such places, and Cebu should be promptly 
 added. 
 
 In Dumaguete, Dr. Langheim, newly appointed medical 
 missionary, opened a dispensary in the fall of 1901. He found 
 a good field awaiting him. There is no other physician, na- 
 tive or foreign, except the army surgeon, and a small drug" 
 store kept by a native represents the only permanent medical 
 aid outside of our Mission. 
 
 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 contrib- 
 uting. The amount was not large, but in that respect, also. 
 Dr. Hall showed his good sense. An expensive institution- 
 was not required at first ; and was leased for two years at 
 $3, Mex., a month, and for $550, Mex., a neat building oi 
 bamboo and nipa was erected. It includes a dispensary, re- 
 ception room, operating room, and two small wards of four 
 beds each, one for men and one for women. This olant serves: 
 
 61 
 
admirably for a beginning, but a more permanent one will 
 soon be needed. The dispensary attendance has already 
 reached 150 in a single day, and the hospital is powerfully aid- 
 ing the mission work. In-patients pay ten cents a day for 
 their food, and dispensary patients furnish their own bottles 
 and pay 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. 
 
 There are medical missions and medical missions. Dr. Hall 
 rightly practises the latter. He does not argue "that the or- 
 dained man should look after the souls, while the physician 
 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 spirit- 
 ual, but of his physical disease. To him the foreigner who can 
 relieve that is the great man. 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 every- 
 where, as in Iloilo, the medical missionary should have the 
 direct charge of and should actively participate in the evan- 
 gelistic work of the hospital and dispensary. He may, and 
 usually should, 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 opportuni- 
 ties, and in re-enforcing 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 
 in calling upon them. This being the case, and the population 
 of Iloilo, Dumaguete and Cebu 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 17, 1900: "The 
 supplies were generally of inferior character, the text books 
 being mainly pamphlets, poorly printed, and capable of im- 
 parting but meagre knowledge. Moreover, much of this in- 
 struction 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 Isl- 
 ands. Brigadier-General 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." Lieutenant Russell C. 
 Langdon said that "these schools seem to be generally the in- 
 formal gathering of a few pupils, in each case, for instruction 
 during a portion of the day, under some one of sufficient edu- 
 cation 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 the report of 
 Brigadier-General W. A. Kobbe on the 175 Jesuit schools in 
 Mindanao and Jolo states that "the parish priest was inspec- 
 tor 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. . . . This system in its practical working might be 
 compared to American systems 100 years ago, the teacher do- 
 ing 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. Un- 
 der 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 cho- 
 rus, the section being heard standing, and making such a din 
 that the others can do little more than listen to them." 
 
 The Taft Commission sums up the testimony as follows: 
 "It has been stated that in 1897 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 regime was a strictly sectarian, ungraded school, with 
 
 63 
 
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 cannot 
 do this. The Spanish Minister for the Colonies, in a report 
 made December 5, 1870, points out that, by the process of 
 absorption, matters of education had become concentrated 
 iu 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 in- 
 fluences, which every day become more and more evident, 
 rendered secularization of instruction necessary.' " 
 
 All this accords with the statement made to me by a prom- 
 inent 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 introduce 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, 1900, General 
 Otis formally constituted a Department of Public Instruction 
 for the Islands, and placed Captain Albert Todd, of the Sixth 
 Artillery, in ternporary 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 prac- 
 
 64 
 
ticable, and that the use of Spanish or the dialects be only for 
 a period of transition. 
 
 "4. That English teachers, well trained in primary in- 
 struction, be brought over from the United States in suffi- 
 cient 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." 
 
 These recommendations have been substantially followed 
 by the Civil Commission under Governor Taft. September 
 I, 1900, Dr. Fred W. Atkinson, formerly principal of the 
 High School of Springfield, Mass., assumed the office of Gen- 
 eral Superintendent of Education, and January i, 1901, the 
 Taft Commission enacted a general school law which, in addi- 
 tion 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 sec- 
 ondary schools shall be established, to prescribe plans for the 
 construction of school houses to he built by the municipal- 
 ities, to make all contracts for 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 su- 
 pervision over the entire department." In the discharge of 
 these very extensive powers, he is assisted by a "superior ad- 
 visory board of four members to be appointed by the Commis- 
 sion," 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 Divi- 
 sions, the city and barrios of Manila constituting one. Schools 
 are to be established "in every pueblo of the Archipelago 
 where practicable." All orimary instruction "shall be free," 
 pnd authority is given to the General Superintendent of Pub- 
 lic Instruction to obtain from the United States one thousand 
 
 m 
 
trained teachers. Under this authority 850 American teach- 
 ers had already arrived at the time of my visit, while about 
 200 soldiers had been detailed to teach in the smaller towns, 
 pending the arrival of more teachers from America. There 
 are, besides, 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 en- 
 terprise, 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 ap- 
 pointments. The qualifications required are : (i) Either nor- 
 mal 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 per- 
 sonal habits; (4) A satisfactory examination in arithmetic, 
 political and physical geography, American history and gov- 
 ernment, general history and current topics, English composi- 
 tion, 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 ignora'nce of the pupils, 
 for as all instruction is in English, which very few of the chil- 
 dren understand, and as almost non^ of the American teach- 
 ers can speak Spanish or the native languages, teaching, 
 necessarily, begins with A B C's, 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 de- 
 veloped 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 Pro- 
 vincial capital. In addition, there are to be a Normal school 
 and a Trade 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 Dagupan (Luzon), 
 and Tagloban (Leyte). All these trade or industrial schools 
 will teach carpentering plumbing, printing, mechanical draw- 
 ing, 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 (December 15, 1899), 
 and the Commission adds that "eventually orphanages, re- 
 
 66 
 
form schools, schools for the deaf and dumb and blind, sup- 
 ported by public funds, will have to be established." 
 
 This elaborate system for giving the Filipinos a better 
 education is costing a sum which is m 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 travelling 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 $b,ooo, the City 
 Superintendent of Manila $3,000, and the Division Superin- 
 tendents a lesser sum fixed by the General Superintendent. 
 Dr. Atkinson told me that the annual pay roll is now one mill- 
 ion dollars, gold. In addition, $400,000 have been appro- 
 priated 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 $15,000 each for 
 the Manila Trade School and the Negros Agricultural Col- 
 lege, a total of $945,000 more, or a grand total for the year 
 of nearly two million dollars. 
 
 And yet, as in our missionary work, the aim is self-controi 
 and self-support. 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 munic- 
 ipality there is to be a local school board, consisting of four 
 or six members, in addition to the Presidente or Alcalde of 
 the Municipality, who shall be a member ex officio. One-half 
 of the members, except the member ex officio, shall be elected 
 by the Municipal Council, and the remaining half shall be ap- 
 pointed by the division superintendent. As far as practicable, 
 school buildings are to be provided by the local communities, 
 either by rent, purchase or erection. I saw several buildings 
 constructed of the bamboo or nipa used by the common peo- 
 ple for their homes. Two buildings are required, no matter 
 liow 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 jurisdic- 
 tion. 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 
 
 67 
 
attach a part of one pueblo to 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 an- 
 nual school expense of the latter." 
 
 Considering that attendance is not compulsory, the at- 
 tendance 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 100 on those of the girls'. 
 The average attendance in these schools is eighty per cent, 
 of the enrollment. A recent school census showed i,7P0 
 children in Iloilo between the ages of five to sixteen, of whom 
 about 300 are bound servants. In other words, out of a pos- 
 sible 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 Instruc- 
 tion, 150,000 pupils are enrolled throughout the Islands, and 
 the actual daily attendance is 75,000, 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 the 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, 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 com- 
 plete, 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 plod- 
 ding 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. Oi course this work 
 must be done by degrees, as it has already begun. The 
 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, 1901 : 
 "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 re- 
 establishment 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 judg- 
 ment 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 
 
 69 
 
fault and the shame will be ours, and ours alone. Speaking 
 for my fellow scholars of the pubHc schools of Lawag, I 
 trust that, with God's grace, by our own steadfast efforts, by 
 perseverance, by industry, by integrity, by loyal and mutual 
 cooperation, 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 demon- 
 strated 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 assump- 
 tion that a twelve year old Filipino prepared those Johnsonian 
 sentences unaided is a little too much even for my credulity. 
 The style suggests an old-time Presidential, message to Con- 
 gress rather than the natural expression of a youthful Malay. 
 
 The superintendents and teachers in the Philippine Islands 
 should have the cordial support of the American people, irre- 
 spective of creed. Amid conditions of almost unparalleled 
 difficulty, they are toiling to establish free schools in a land 
 which sorely needs them. In my examination of them I 
 found little to criticise and much to commend. The officers 
 and teachers whom I met impressed me as men and women 
 of high character and intelligence, good representatives of 
 the best type of American citizenship and culture. As an 
 American, I am proud of them and of the superb service 
 which they are rendering to the Filipinos and to our country. 
 
 Mission Schools. 
 
 It may be asked — With such an elaborate system of 
 public schools under American management, why should 
 we have mission schools ? 
 
 I answer — For the same reason that we must have Chris- 
 tian schools in the United States, where the same system of 
 free public schools and universities has had complete develop- 
 ment ; 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. 
 1st, iQOi, 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 anv Church 
 
 70 
 
established in the pueblo where a public school is situated, 
 either in person or by a designated teacher of religion, to 
 teach religion for one-half 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 discourag- 
 ing the attendance of pupils at such public school, of creating 
 a disturbance of public order, or of interfering with the dis- 
 cipline of the school, the Division Superintendent, subject to 
 the approval of the General Superintendent of Public Instruc- 
 tion, may, after due investigation and hearing, forbid such 
 oflfending 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 wish 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 reso- 
 lutely 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. Atkin- 
 son 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 our policy. 
 
 To one who has been in the Philippine Islands the cur- 
 rent charge that the public school system is being used as 
 a proselyting agency for Protestantism is simply preposter- 
 ous. Nearly if not quite all the native teachers, who consti- 
 tute an overwhelming majority of the teaching force, are 
 Roman Catholics. The American teachers were chosen 
 without reference to religious qualifications, but solely on 
 their merits as teachers, and the proportion of Protestants 
 
 71 
 
and Catholics is about what it is among the public school 
 teachers in the United States. If anything, the proportion 
 of Catholics is higher than it is at home. Indeed, a Roman 
 Catholic editor in the United States states that in his efforts 
 to obtain a suitable supply of teachers for the Philippines 
 the Secretary of War appHed to several Roman Catholic as 
 well as non-Catholic colleges. 
 
 Superintendent Atkinson and all the assistant superin- 
 tendents with whom I conversed impressed me as very 
 desirous that the public schools should not be considered 
 anti- Roman Catholic. Indeed, 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 
 work. But Dr. Atkinson told me, and several of the local 
 Superintendents confirmed the statement, that the prohibi- 
 tion 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. Still, every 
 Roman Catholic school teacher in the Philippine Islands 
 unhesitatingly and openly identifies himself with the Roman 
 Catholic Church, while a considerable number of the Protes- 
 tant school teachers are not as active in church work as 
 they were in the United States, for fear that such activity 
 might excite criticism. It is plain that strenuous effort will 
 be made to keep the influence of the public school system 
 as an institution purely secular, that it will powerfully rein- 
 force an already strong secular tendency, that unless teachers 
 have decided strength of Christian character they will suc- 
 cumb 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." 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. It is true that the divorce of the 
 
 72 
 
schools from religion is su complete that, apart from the 
 local assistance that may be rendered in a few places by 
 teachers who, as private individuals, attend the Protestant 
 services, the only advantage that the public schools will be 
 to Protestantism will be indirect, in creating those conditions 
 of intellectual freedom in which Protestantism best thrives. 
 In other words, we favor the public school system because 
 we are^American citizens rather than because we are Protes- 
 tants. But this should not prevent our hearty and unquali- 
 fied cooperation with the public schools as individual 
 citizens. We believe in the separation of Church and State, 
 and we do not ask or expect any recognition or assistance 
 as Protestants. 
 
 However, free schools, like free government, do a pre- 
 liminary work for Protestantism which are as much beyond 
 their intention as they are beyond their control. Intellectual 
 freedom and enlightenment are fatal to the type of Romanism 
 which prevails in the Philippines. Its superstition cannot 
 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 needs and, indeed, depends upon an atmos- 
 phere of intellectual freedom. It wants men to think, and 
 insists that they shall do sO; The public schools in the 
 Philippines, secular though they are, will do, quickly, effec- 
 tively 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 infi- 
 delity 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 cooperate with it, 
 helping, and not hindering, in every practicable and prudent 
 way. 
 
 Nevertheless, there are some things which we cannot 
 fairly expect a public school system in the Philippines, ham- 
 pered as it is by an ever-present 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. 
 
 73 
 
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 
 Worlds, Madrid, 1877." In this volume there is a petition 
 from Fray Domingo Salazer, Bishop of Manila, to the Presi- 
 dent of the Council of the Indies in Madrid, dated December, 
 1585, 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 con- 
 science, as well as mine, and it befits the interests of the 
 natives, that orders be issued to the effect that those con- 
 verted 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 min- 
 istry. 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 Chris- 
 tian 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 spiritu- 
 ally 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 differ- 
 ence being that Protestants educate in friendly cooperation 
 with the public schools and that the Roman Catholics educate 
 in avowed enmity to them. Wisely, therefore, did the Board, 
 Dec. ig, iSgg, vote "that measures be authorized looking 
 toward the early inception of educational work in the Philip- 
 pines on such lines as further investigation shall seem to- 
 justify." 
 
 What then are these lines? 
 
 As to character they should be : 
 
 First.- — Openly and decidedly Christian. There is no call 
 for us to give a purely secular education. The Government 
 can do that 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 
 
 74 
 
of our schools. We should tolerate no compromise on this 
 point. 
 
 Second.— They should be thorough. In justice to our- 
 selves 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 work 
 that 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 viewpoint. When I 
 asked Superintendent Atkinson for any suggestions, he par- 
 ticularly emphasized this. What he wants is sound educa- 
 tion, and he believes that there is ample room for all insti- 
 tutions 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, Dr. Ewing recommended 
 "that, in view of the large outlay of the Government in 
 education, we ought to confine our education 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 was wise 
 counsel at that time of beginnings ; but, of course, as our 
 work develops in other fields, more institutions will be 
 required. The whole Cebuyan group is too extensive a 
 region to be permanently tributary to one school at almost 
 the extreme southern end of it, while in the great territory 
 which has been assigned to us on the island of Luzon, there 
 will be in time many boys who will be prevented by both 
 distance and dialect from going to our schools in the 
 Visayan Islands, who might be unfavorably afifected by the 
 atmosphere of such a city as Manila and whom we must 
 therefore provide for in some central provincial town in 
 southern Luzon. 
 
 Naturally, I was deeply interested in the Silliman Insti- 
 tute 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 Philip- 
 pines. The land rises gently from a pebbly beach to a noble 
 mountain range. The lower levels are covered with planta- 
 tions 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 Sequyor and 
 Cebu are seen, while farther away, but in plain view, are the 
 
 73 
 
outlines of Bohol and Mindanao. I drove for several rniles 
 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 pictur- 
 esque bamboo and nipa houses of the people nestling in 
 groves of banana, coacoanut, mango, papaw and breadfruit 
 trees. A more charming drive could not easily be found. 
 
 The advantages of Dumaguete as the site for the Silliman 
 Institute are — 
 
 Its accessibility by a large population. While the parish 
 of Dumaguete has only about 12,000 people and the whole 
 Province less than 100,000, yet, as already explained, the 
 place is within easy reach of the populous islands of Bohol 
 and lower Cebu. 
 
 The absence of competing schools. Superintendent 
 Atkinson told me 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 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 Cebvi. Now an 
 American can travel with perfect safety in any part of the 
 island. The influence of Rome appears to be comparatively 
 weak. 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, Seiior Demetrio Larena, and his brother, 
 the Presidente of the Municipality, impressed me as unusu- 
 ally fine types of Filipinos — intelligent, 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, 1901, the 
 pupils numbered thirty-two, and nine more were admitted, 
 by October. Of the whole number, one was from Cebu, one 
 from Iloilo and the rest were from Dumaguete and its neigh- 
 
 76 
 
borhood. Though it was the design of Dr. SilHman and of 
 the Board to maice 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, $8.00 Mexican 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 recep- 
 tion given to us, they presented a striking appearance. 
 
 The first difificulty has now been partially removed by the 
 employment of Mr. R. Sammons as an assistant in the indus- 
 trial department. Missionary appointment is not contem- 
 plated 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. There 
 is a ten-acre tract about a quarter of a mile distant which 
 can be bought for $600 Mexican. It has good soil and is 
 on the main road into the country. There was no immediate 
 necessity for buying it when I was in Dumaguete, as our 
 
 77 
 
pupils then came from a class who could not have been 
 induced to till it. But with the growth of the school that 
 or some similar tract will be a necessity. There are thou- 
 sands of boys within the vicinage of the Institute who need 
 just such industrial training, need it as much as boys any- 
 where. 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 be taught 
 the necessity and the dignity of honest toil. 
 
 The curriculum of the Institute is an excellent one, hav- 
 ing been formed in consultation with the Rev. Dr. J. C. R. 
 Ewing after the model of our best 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, had suffered all summer from dysentery and had 
 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 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 twelve board. costs $2.10 Mexican ($t.o5 
 
 78 
 
gold). I advised the taking of bids in Cebu, Iloilo, Manila, 
 Hongkong and Singapore, acceptance of the lowest satis- 
 factory one for delivery at Dumaguete within a sp'ecified 
 time, and then immediate pushing of the building. This was 
 agreed to, and Mr. Sammons at once began to prepare the 
 necessary specifications. 
 
 In addition to the educational mstitutions under the inde- 
 pendent control of their respective missions, the Rev. Dr. 
 Stuntz, Presiding Elder of the Methodist work in the Philip- 
 pines, 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 pos- 
 sessions with an institution which is devoted to the cultiva- 
 tion 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 sug- 
 gestion 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. 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. 
 In my report to the Board on 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 com- 
 petition of the proposed Government University in Manila. 
 But the missions have built up 'prosperous colleges under 
 the very shadow of great State Universities in fndia and 
 America, and they can do so in the Philippine Islands. 
 
 79 
 
LANGUAGES. 
 
 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 desir- 
 able 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 chil- 
 dren 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 peo- 
 ple 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 print- 
 ing 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 by teaching Spanish only 
 
 80 
 
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, 1901, stipulates 
 that "the English language shall, as soon as practicable, be 
 made the basis of all public school instruction," the Com- 
 mission 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 under- 
 stand 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 arguments for the exclusive use of 
 English in the public schools do not apply to our missionary 
 work, the reasons adduced against Spanish are more applica- 
 ble. The first missionaries were forced to learn Spanish, 
 because they found it in common use by the people of the 
 larger cities, to wh'ich mission work was then necessarily 
 confined. It is still, and for some years probably will con- 
 tinue 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 mediaeval Eng- 
 land 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 mis- 
 sionaries 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 afifect 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 only 
 so much attention should be given to Spanish as will suffice 
 for these temporary purposes, and the main effort should be 
 expended on the native languages. It will be at least a 
 generation, and perhaps a century, before English will be 
 as freely used bv the common people as their own language. 
 
 81 
 
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 under- 
 stands 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. 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 
 the senior members of the Mission were at first able to give 
 ^but little time to the study of the native languages. In the 
 ■older missions, the recruit finds text books and courses of 
 -language study already prepared, with experienced missiona- 
 ries 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 of laying 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. But 
 the Manual rule on language study should now be enforced, 
 as in other Missions, India, for example, where no one 
 imagines that British rule obviates the necessity for a thor- 
 ough knowledge of the native tongues. The Mission should 
 immediately lay out a course of language study, and hold its 
 younger members to strict accountability for their fidelitv 
 to it. 
 
 In our school work, Spanish must have a place for a 
 time, for the reasons already indicated. 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 Taga- 
 log in Luzon, and in English and Visayan in the other sta- 
 tions. The Silliman Institute proposes that "after the first 
 year of study, the studies will be entirely in English." But 
 while this may be wis'e 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 
 
 82 
 
virtually obligatory in our mission schools. We could 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 neces- 
 sary 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 hand- 
 ful 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 
 t:he vernacular and not in Spanish. The sectarian features of 
 the Baptist translation in Panay have 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 consider- 
 able portion of his time for this purpose. Dr. and Mrs. Hall 
 are now the only ones who have the requisite knowledge 
 of the lang-uage for translating, but they are being over- 
 worked with their station duties. I hope that the Bible 
 Society can meet the difficulty by itself furnishing some one 
 who is competent to continue this important work. 
 
 83 
 
COST OF LIVING. 
 
 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 vi^as the Filipino standard of 
 exchange. It is about the same size and shape as our silver 
 dollar, but as there is 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 tarif? has 
 intensified the situation, until now the conditions of living 
 resemble those of "forty-nine" in California. 
 
 That the Board may obtain a general idea as to the rela- 
 tive 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 : 
 
 Manila. Iloilo. Dumaguete. 
 
 Flour, per lb lo .10 .10 
 
 Beef, per lb. (other meats are 
 
 more expensive) 50 .20 .20 
 
 Sugar, per lb. (Cofifee C" grade. .20 .18 .20 
 
 Cofifee, per lb. . . , 70 .60 i.oo 
 
 Butter, per lb. tin i.oo .90 i.oo 
 
 Potatoes, per lb 08 .10 .20 
 
 Milk, per lb. tin 50 .40 .50 
 
 Oatmeal, per lb 33 1-3 .33 1-3 .33 1-3 
 
 Kerosene, per gallon 48 .55 .60 
 
 Fuel, wood, for one-man load. . . .62 1-2 
 
 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 11.25 13-75 
 Rent, per month (for living 
 
 rooms, kitchen and. basement).! 10.00 
 
 (Second floor only, six rooms 
 
 and kitchen) 75-00 
 
 (Six rooms, kitchen and base- 
 ment) . . 100.00 
 
In all three cities vegetables are scarce. Only a few kinus 
 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 walk- 
 ing is impracticable in this humid, tropical climate, where the 
 least physical activity causes profuse perspiration. Jinrik- 
 shas 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 costs 300 pesos, and Mr. Mclntire had to 
 pay 230 pesos for a second-hand one. The harness costs 40 
 pesos, and the wretchedest ponies I saw in all Asia cost from 
 100 pesos up. I think it would be cheaper to pay "up," for 
 the only one I saw at 100 pesos would have made a Ken- 
 tuckian weep. No whipping that the tender hearted mission- 
 ary would inflict could induce it to go faster than a wobbly 
 trot, and even then a three-mile drive in the morning so ex- 
 hausted 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 after- 
 noon trip. The "keep" of that aged little beast costs the 
 missionary 14 pesos 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-trot- 
 ter" 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 Ma- 
 nila. There are not enough houses in Manila to make com- 
 fortable places of residence for the civil servants who come 
 here from the United States. If one is well housed in Ma- 
 nila, 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 employes, 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 $1,200, both hav- 
 ing 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 $1,200 gold each, 20 re- 
 ceive $1,500 and 159 get $900, though the latter are chiefly 
 
 85 
 
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 comniis- 
 sary buys in enormous lots at the lowest wholesale prices, 
 pays no freight, rent or salaries, and sells at cost, this privi- 
 lege was equivalent to a substantial sum. But when the 
 islands passed under civil control, July 4th, 1901, the teach- 
 ers, being no longer under the military establishment, lost 
 this privilege. They immediately made strenuous protest, 
 signing a communication to Washington in which they de- 
 clared that they could not live on their present salaries unless 
 they could buy their supplies at the Commissary rates. Ac- 
 cordingly, 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 De- 
 partment 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 $10 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 $1,500 a year for one teacher. However, if he 
 has a wife who teaches, and marriages among the teachers 
 are frequent, she gets from $900 to $1,200 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 med- 
 ical bills and there are no extras, except the privilege of re- 
 turning 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 em- 
 barrassments to which they were subjected. Many of them 
 came to the Philippines with the idea of not only seeing some- 
 thing of the world, but of saving enough in the three years 
 of their term to give them a little start in life after their re- 
 turn to America. But they say that they cannot save any- 
 thing." 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 
 
 86 
 
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 ofiSce 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 objection- 
 able 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 No- 
 vember 1st, 1901, the Taft Commission promulgated a new 
 tax law, which it explains as follows : "It has been our pur- 
 pose, first, to do away with all taxes which, through irritat- 
 ing those from whom they were collected or through the 
 small amount of resulting revenue, were manifestly objec- 
 tionable ; second, to remove the so-called industrial taxes, 
 except where levied on industries requiring police super- 
 vision ; 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 a high official 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 giv- 
 ing it to the consumer. Time will tell. I, therefore, recom- 
 mend that after the new law has been in operation six 
 months, that is, on or about May 1st, 1902, 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 should 
 be made on the present basis. 
 
 HEALTH CONDITIONS. 
 
 Health conditions in the Philippines are happily more fa- 
 vorable than we had at first supposed. Mv personal experi- 
 ence was not valuable, for I was in the islands at the best 
 
 87 
 
season, September and October, when we had what in Ame'r- 
 ica would be called "glorious June weather." But Army sur- 
 geons 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 dur- 
 ing two hot seasons, and that the thermometer never rose 
 above ninety. On the Island of Negros, out of a force rang- 
 ing 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, drink- 
 ing unboiled water and exposure to the sun, which a mis- 
 sionary 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 ac- 
 count 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 con- 
 clusively 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 com- 
 pelled to adopt them. There have been more or less de- 
 structive epidemics of Asiatic cholera in the Philippines in the 
 past, but they have occurred at long intervals. The last was 
 in i888-'89. Cholera has not appeared in the Islands since 
 
 88 
 
that time.* Bubonic plague appeared in Manila in Decem- 
 ber, 1898, but has never made any considerable headway. 
 The disease was almost entirely confined to Chinese and na- 
 tives. 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 diarrhoea, 
 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 dififerent localities on the 
 same islands. Mindoro and Balabac, for instance, have de- 
 servedly 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 acces- 
 sible region presenting suitable climate and other conditions 
 for the speedy recuperation of sufferers from wounds, tropi- 
 cal 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 at- 
 tested by every one who has visited the province of Benguet, 
 
 *Sad exception to this statement must now be made, for since 
 the issuance of the Taft Commission's report, above quoted, an 
 awful epidemic of cholera has occurred, the total number of cases 
 reported up to Sept. 29th, 1902, being 70,222, of which 48,402 were 
 fatal. The scourge started in a suburb of Manila and quickly spread 
 through Luzon and the other islands. As in all epidemics in Asia, 
 the heaviest mortality has been among the lower classes of natives, 
 whose careless and unsanitary habits make them easy victims. But 
 many soldiers have also succumbed, the death rate being nearly 
 sixty-five per cent, of those who were stricken in General Bell's 
 brigade. At this writing, however, none of the missionaries have 
 been attacked, though they have freely exposed themselves in their 
 tmceasing efforts to relieve the sick and dying. 
 
 89 
 
and its purity is shown by the fact that fresh meat keeps'- 
 without ice for from three to six days, according to the sea- 
 son. 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 dur- 
 ing August, September and October is 76.8 degrees. 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 physiologi- 
 cal effects of the climate of Benguet, concludes that indi- 
 viduals debilitated by illness or the effects of the hot climate 
 of the lowlands, or with scrofulitic tendencies, or those suf- 
 fering from anemia, malaria, inflammation of the kidneys, 
 disease of the digestive canal, asthma, neurasthenia, neural- 
 gia arising from malarial trouble, chronic catarrhs of the 
 bladder and urinary channels, nostalgia and hypochondria 
 would be greatly benefited and in many instances cured," 
 
 The Commission then proceeded 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 concluded its report by recommending the immediate 
 extension to Benguet of the railroad, which was already with- 
 in fifty-five miles of it, and the erection of suitable buildings,, 
 with a view of making it a health resort for all Americans con- 
 nected 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 small if the purchase were made before expen- 
 sive improvements are undertaken. The Board may not be 
 at any expense for buildings, as it may be found practicable 
 for each missionary to build his own temporary house of the 
 ever present bamboo and nipa palm. Such a house can be 
 built by the natives in a few days at an insignificant cost, and 
 it might serve for a vacation in that climate. Still, something 
 more permanent may be advisable, as the lack of a suitable 
 house might prevent a sick missionary from going to Ben- 
 guet, and thus defeat our object. 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 
 
 90 
 
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 shotild 
 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, 1900, 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 1898 claims 6,559,998 souls, or the entire popula- 
 tion of the Islands except the Mohammedan Moros and the 
 scattered wild tribes of the mountain fastnesses. The Islands 
 are divided into 851 parishes, of which 746 are "regular" and 
 T05 "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 was ruled by one Archbishop, who 
 resided in Manila, the four Bishops of "Vigan, Jaro, Cebu 
 
 91 
 
and Nueva Caceres, and the Provincials of tlie orders of St. 
 Augustine, St. Francis, St. Dominic and the Recolletos. 
 These dignitaries formed a part of the Council of Adminis- 
 tration 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 Com- 
 mission. 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 superannu- 
 ation. 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. Fortunately, 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 Com- 
 mission, and after that body had given them a full and 
 patient hearing, it officially reported to the Secretary of War 
 as follows : 
 
 "The friar witnesses denied the charges of general im- 
 morality, admitting" only isolated cases, which they said were 
 
 93 
 
promptly disciplined. The evidence on this point to the 
 contrary, however, is so strong that it seems clearly to estab- 
 lish 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 before the Commission: "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 ele- 
 ments 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 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 peof)le 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 travelling and asking of questions of Taga- 
 logs, 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 traveller. 
 Of the many stately Roman Catholic churches that I visited, 
 not one, so far as I could learn, has an attendance anywhere 
 near commensurate with the reported size of its parish. The 
 Dumaguete Church, on the Island of Negros, for example". 
 
 98 
 
can muster a congregation of live hundred only on unusual 
 occasions, and yet it claims a parish of 12,000 souls. The 
 McKinley Memorial service in 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 of those 
 familiar with the facts was that beyond a comparatively 
 small number, "chiefly women and old people," the attend- 
 ance 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 otherwise 
 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 
 that 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 laring 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 Presi- 
 dente of Cabuyao found on his chagrin after he had arrested 
 two of our native evangelists, Octo1)er 7th, i^oi, for preach- 
 ing 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 accept- 
 able to the Filipino people, he replied: "Preaching; our 
 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 i8g8 against Spain all the Domini- 
 cans, 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 
 
 94 
 
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 1896, but 
 472 remain. The remainder were either kihed 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 compara- 
 tively small number of individuals, it might not argue any 
 breaking away from the Church. But when a people hate 
 their ecclesiastical leaders, as a class, so fiercely and persist- 
 ently that a Civil Commission is forced to report to Wash- 
 ington 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 over- 
 whelmed, 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 Philip- 
 pine Islands to-day to say that 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 out- 
 workings 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 recog- 
 nized. 
 
 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 informa- 
 tion 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 
 
 95 
 
welcomed me cordially and talked with me frankly. This 
 prelate did the latter, but what httle 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 Pres- 
 byterian 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 Ameri- 
 cans, 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 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 over- 
 whelmingly Protestant in membership and sympathy, but 
 they, nevertheless, give entire freedom to the Roman Cath- 
 olic 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 sav 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 Domini- 
 cans, Franciscans, Augustinians, Recolletos, Jesuits, Capu- 
 chins and Benedictines, seven in all, besides secular priests 
 
and sisters, Protestants have six — Baptists, Presbyterians, 
 Methodists, United Brethren, Episcopahans 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 discus- 
 sing 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 re- 
 cently 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 soft- 
 ened 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 that I had not called to argue ; that I, of course, recog- 
 nized the differences between Roman Catholics and Protes- 
 tants, 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 half -blind, 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 
 
 97 
 
and ability which leads the Roman Church in the i'hilip- 
 pines, and the position from which it will fight Protestantism. 
 Everything was about what 1 had been led to expect, the 
 really significant admission being: "The Catholics tormerly 
 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, arid I certainly do not intend 
 to conclude from it that the whole population is to leave the 
 Roman CathoHc Church. That Church has shown a remark- 
 able 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 labors- 
 will compel the Roman Church to do in this Asiatic archi- 
 pelago 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, there- 
 fore, because Protestantism is not officially recognized. We 
 neither expect nor 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 Gov- 
 ernment is not hostile to the Roman CathoHc 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 Ameri'-ans are Protestants, 
 and that they intend to overthrow the Papal Church. Thev 
 
iear that if such an impression were to be created, the pacifi- 
 cation 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 Protes- 
 tants in a vital personal sense, as regenerated individuals, and 
 we do not want a merely nominal adhesion because Ameri- 
 cans 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 Commis- 
 sion has officially declared: "As the Catholic Church is and 
 ought to continue a prominent factor in the life, peace, con- 
 tentment and progress of the Phihppine people, it would 
 seem the wisest course, wherever it is possible to do so with- 
 out 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 re- 
 ligion. 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 Com- 
 mission 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 char- 
 acter 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 dif- 
 ficulty. Every true American owes them a maximum of 
 support and a' minimum of criticism. But the Roman orel- 
 ates, both in America and in the Philippines, are doing their 
 
 99 
 
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. Let us hope that the Secretary of War and the 
 Governor of the Philippines may not have new occasion to 
 exclaim with Shakespeare's King Henry VIII : 
 
 . . . . "I may perceive 
 These cardinals trifle with me: I abhor 
 This dilatory sloth and tricks of Rome." 
 
 Meantime, "no small number of Americans, who, in the 
 United States, were connected with Protestant churches, are 
 avoiding the Protestant services in the Philippines 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, though I could hardly repress a 
 fervent "Amen" when, at the McKinley memorial service in 
 Manila, Major Elijah Halford said: "President McKinley 
 was never ashamed to attend the church of his fathers 1" 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 rein- 
 forcement. 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 Govern- 
 ment 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 sol- 
 emnly express their apprehension that the handful of 
 Protestant missionaries will alarm the Roman Catholics ! 
 
 100 
 
HAVE PROTESTANT MISSIONARIES A RIGHT IN 
 THE PHILIPPINES? 
 
 Archbishop Ireland and his sympathizers in the United 
 States, the Roman Catholic bishops and priests in the Phihp- 
 pmes, 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 educa- 
 tion, 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 dissatisfac- 
 tion with their priests. Nevertheless, Americans have 
 .leemed it their duty to forcibly overthrow the entire govern- 
 nental and educational systems, and to replace them with our 
 own radically dififerent ones. The wishes of the people were 
 not considered. The Taft Commission reports : "Many wit- 
 nesses 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 sys- 
 tems 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 administra- 
 tion 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 regi- 
 ments of 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 truths which they inculcate. They send to the 
 Philippines as missionaries men and women who represent 
 
 101 
 
the purest and highest types of American Christian character 
 qind culture. They propose to pay all costs out of voluntary 
 contributions. No.w. 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 educa- 
 tional 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 Amer- 
 icans 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 Cath- 
 olic methods as they "really are," that multitudes of them are 
 determined to continue no longer in that bitter school of in- 
 struction. 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 fortunate in 
 the personnel of their force. The wife of an Army officer 
 told me that she was proud of our Presbyterian representa- 
 tives in Manila, that while many Americans had made prom- 
 ises to the Filipinos that had never been kept, Mr. and Mrs, 
 Rodgers were the preeminent Americans who had shown 
 them sympathy and justice, that they had won the confidence 
 of all classes and had done more to pacifv the Filipinos than 
 all the Army and all the Civil Commissions. In Iloilo and 
 Dumaguete, men of all parties, Filipinos, business men. 
 
 102 
 
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 mission- 
 aries there any points on tact. 
 
 And the work to which Protestant missionary effort ad- 
 dresses itself is even more indispensable to the welfare of the 
 islands than the civil and educational efforts. From Gov- 
 ernor 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. "Nations and men," declares Mat- 
 thew Arnold, "whoever is shipwrecked is shipwrecked on 
 conduct. In vain do philosophical radicals devise fine new 
 programmes which leave it out ; in vain does France trumpet 
 the ideas of '89 which are to do instead. Whoever leaves it 
 out of his programme, whoever fancies that anything else 
 will do instead, is baffled and confounded by the sure event ; 
 experience keeps again and again sending him back to 
 learn better, like a schoolboy with an illgot lesson.' 
 There can be no regeneration of society until' there is a re- 
 generation 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 
 franklv admit that personal character is beyond the sphere 
 of civil law. Its enactments can regulate the outward mani- 
 festations of evil, but they cannot change the heart from 
 which the evil motive springs.. Was I not told by a high offi- 
 cial in Manila that the reason why the Government is justi- 
 fied in making stated examinations of prostitutes and in 
 maintaining a public hospital for those who are found to be 
 diseased lay in its inabilitv 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 some- 
 
 103 
 
times 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. Some 
 of the worst scoundrels in America 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. 
 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 univer- 
 sity, 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 pre- 
 pared to urge that the Philippine, type of Romanism is capa- 
 ble of producing the desired character? Will 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 un- 
 welcome knowledge that something had to be done to pre- 
 vent 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, unde- 
 terred by secular criticism. All is in the hands of the 
 priests." What that "social product" is he proceeds to stite 
 as follows : "The people are plunged in superstition, and their 
 principal professed interest in life, after cock fighting, is the 
 
 104 
 
elaborate religious procession for which every feast day af- 
 fords 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 de- 
 velopment 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 Philip- 
 pines 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. Arnold justly adds to the statement already quoted 
 that "as it is true that men are shipwrecked on conduct, so il 
 is true that the Bible is the great means for making men feel 
 this and for saving them." Draper, in his "Intellectual Devel- 
 opment of Europe," truly says : "The civil law exerted an ex- 
 terior power in human relations ; Christianity produced an in- 
 terior moral change." That change which mediaeval Christian- 
 ity effected only in a comparatively small number of individ- 
 uals who, as a rule, lived apart from the world in cloisters, 
 modern Protestantism now seeks to accomplish in many Fili- 
 pinos who will become active co-workers for righteousness in 
 their respective communities. If the Protestants do not suc- 
 ceed in producing such a change, our Government in the Phil- 
 ippines is doomed and the last hope for the Archipelago is ex- 
 tinguished. 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 oflficial 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 exten- 
 sive 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 m expectmg 
 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 Philip- 
 pine 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 im- 
 minent 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." 
 
 OUR MISSIONARY POLICY IN THE PHILIPPINES. 
 
 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 degen- 
 erate 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 un- 
 scrupulous. Many of 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 im- 
 morality 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 see about the 
 funeral service. 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 sis- 
 ter 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 
 
 106 
 
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 prac- 
 tice of his superiors, that three women on one street were 
 known to be mistresses of the priest, and that it was noto- 
 rious 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 Philip- 
 pines 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 charac- 
 ter 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 mission- 
 ary work in the Philippine Islands. But, as a rule, the mis- 
 sionaries can spend their time to better advantage in preach- 
 ing 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 accus- 
 tomed 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 Protestant- 
 ism 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 un- 
 covered 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 Fili- 
 pinos is onlv a veneered heathenism. It will not be easy in 
 such circumstances to build up a Church of truly regen- 
 erated souls, to make the people realize that a Christian must 
 not gamble or be immoral, or spend Sunday afternoons at 
 cock fights, but that he must seek to know and to follow 
 
 107 
 
Christ in his heart and life. Missionaries in other lands un- 
 derstand 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 con- 
 trols 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, uncomprehend- 
 ing 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 exer- 
 cised 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) Unselfish. We must insist that the work in the 
 Philippines shall be conducted in harmony with those prin- 
 ciples of self-support which are now so generally recognized 
 as sound. But in doing this, special effort must be put forth 
 :;o prevent our motives from being misunderstood by a peo- 
 ple 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 build- 
 ing 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 recog- 
 nized 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 vmderstand that "we seek not 
 yours, but you." 
 
 ("el Broad. T.et us not shrink from the logical conse- 
 
 108 
 
quences of that principle of comity to which we have so pub- 
 licly 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 dis- 
 putes between the Protestant 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 evan- 
 gelical churches, and insist that, as far as possible, only one 
 form of Protestantism shall be presented in a given district. 
 If other denominations enter our fields, let us frankly present 
 the facts to the Board concerned, in the hope that reasonable 
 readjustments may be made. 
 
 (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 be- 
 cause we believe that Christ is their supreme need. It would 
 be a fatal mistake for any missionary to hide Him in the al- 
 leged interest of expediency. I was struck by the contempt- 
 uous 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 mis- 
 sionaries 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 
 
 109 
 
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 dedi- 
 cate their lives to God than to have a hundred on the condi- 
 tion that we must not try to convert them. Taking our mis- 
 sion 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 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.- 
 
 THE DUTY OF CHRISTIAN AMERICA. 
 
 In all their relations to the Philippine Islands, the Amer- 
 ican Government and people should resolutely hold them- 
 selves to a stern and self-sacrificing sense of duty. It is a 
 gigantic task to radically reconstruct the institutions of eight 
 million people of a widely different race, and scattered over 
 a territory which is not only 300,000 square miles in area, but 
 which is divided into nearly a thousand islands, the southern- 
 most of which is nearly two thousand miles from the north- 
 ern end of Luzon. Those at home who so strenuously insist 
 on the right of the Filipino people to govern themselves ap- 
 parently do not realize that, in the sense in which they use the 
 term, there is no Filipino people, but only a heterogeneous 
 collection of tribes, diiifering widely in language, in customs 
 and in religion. As well expect Russians, Germans, English 
 and French to act together as the Tagalogs of Luzon, the 
 Vlsayans of Samar, the Moros of Sulu and the Igorrotes of 
 Benguet. The inhabitant of Tagloban knows nothing of the 
 inhabitant of Jolo, and the man of Jimalalud cannot speak 
 the tongue of the man of Cabancalan, fifty miles away. Prof. 
 Otis T. Mason, Curator of the National Museum, Washing- 
 ton, declares that "there are in the Philippines one hundred 
 and fifty native tribes with names. Some never succumbed 
 to Spanish rule or the Catholic religion, while others are 
 vastly more numerous than all the Indians that were ever in 
 the United States at one time." In the Philippine Arch- 
 ipelago we are not dealing with a homogeneous people, but 
 with such variant populations that there is no present possi- 
 bility of united action. 
 
 110 
 
We obtained the islands in a clearly Providential way. 
 In the beginning of the year 1898, 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 coinci- 
 dence that the Spanish ships were in Manila Bay. So far 
 as our purpose was concerned, they might have been any- 
 where 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 hands ! What were we to do ? Plitherto 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 terri- 
 tories, 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 sov- 
 ereignty, 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. 
 
 Have we a moral right anyway to vacate our responsibil- 
 ities? 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. „r , • 
 
 We are solemnly told that if George Washmgton were 
 living, he would warn us against this extension of our do- 
 
 111 
 
main. 1 grant that some of his utterances were in super- 
 ficial harmony with this supposition. But Washington lived 
 when a comparative handful of colonists merely fringed a 
 mighty and then unexplored continent, and when the ques- 
 tion was whether we could preserve our national existence 
 at all. The wildest imagination did not dream of the situ- 
 ation which confronts us to-day — eighty 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 "entanghng alliances," was 
 spoken with reference to a specific relationship with France 
 which was then under discussion. It has no bearing what- 
 ever upon the question of our duty in the Philippines. Wash- 
 ington 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 
 wfiat he said in the comparative gloom of the eighteenth cen- 
 tury, but from what common sense and Christian patriotism 
 and obedience to God dictate in the twentieth century, 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 eighteenth 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 Provi- 
 dence 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 de- 
 mand 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, between its burdens, because he saw 
 that rest was good and the land was pleasant. The London 
 Spectator well says : "The world future greatly depends upon 
 the political character of the Americans. When in Tg^o they 
 are two hundred millions, thev can crush any people except 
 the Slavs. To fit them for that destiny the Americans 
 should have difficulties, dependencies and complicated rela- 
 tions with the remainder of mankind. At present everything 
 is too easy to them. They live too much to themselves. 
 
 L113 
 
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 in- 
 volves." Kipling might have addressed to us the stern ex- 
 hortation with which he stirred all England — 
 
 "Take up the white man's burden! 
 
 Have done with childish days — 
 The lightly-proffered laurel, 
 
 The easy, ungrudged praise: 
 Comes now, to search your manhood 
 
 Through all the thankless years, 
 Cold, edged with dear-bought wisdom, 
 
 The judgment of your peers." 
 
 Here is a great population which, in the unanimous judg- 
 ment of men who know the Filipinos, is not yet capable of 
 self-government, and to 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 por- 
 tions 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 con- 
 dition which confronts us and not a theory." Says that pro- 
 found 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 
 
 113 
 
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 noth- 
 ing in the Philippines but trade or a stepping-stone to Asiatic 
 power is unworthy to vote on the affairs of the Archipelago. 
 Are we never to rise above the level of cigarettes and mo- 
 lasses ? Must these eight millions of souls be sacrificed to 
 out national ambition? 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 con- 
 sciences, unless we are here for the sole purpose of assisting 
 the Filipino people to the enjoyment of the largest prac- 
 ticable 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 the martyred McKinley should be 
 posted in every legislative chamber and schoolhouse in the 
 United States and the Philippine Islands : 
 
 "Confronted at this moment by new and grave problems, 
 we must recognize that their solution will aflfect not our- 
 selves 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 ma- 
 ture, or self-control too constant in this solemn hour of de- 
 cision. We must avoid the temptation of undue aggression 
 and aim to secure only such results as will promote our own 
 and the general good. We cannot enjoy glories and vic- 
 tories 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 legisla- 
 tion 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 tow- 
 ard 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 
 
 114 
 
lightly assumed ; it must not be otherwise than honestly ful- 
 filled, 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 sym- 
 bol of liberty, enlightenment and progress in every avenue of 
 development. 
 
 "Upon all officers and employes 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 re- 
 quire from each other. . . . High and sacred an obliga- 
 tion 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 sover- 
 eignty and the protection of the people of the United States. 
 "I have no light or knowledge not common to my coun- 
 trymen. 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 g-lories of those trop- 
 ical seas, a land of plenty and of increasing possibilities, a 
 people redeemed from savage indolence and habits, enjoying 
 the blessings of freedom, of civil and religious liberty, of edu- 
 cation, and of homes, and whose children and children's chil- 
 dren shall for ages hence bless the American Republic, be- 
 cause 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 ex- 
 pressed by Vice-President Roosevelt in Colorado Springs, 
 August 1st, 1901, five weeks before the death of President 
 McKinlev imposed upon him the heavy responsibility of tak- 
 ing 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, 
 
 115 
 
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 un- 
 sullied 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." 
 
 I am frequently asked, "What is the prospect for Amer- 
 ica in the Philippines ?" I reply that much depends on what 
 sort of prospect one has in mind. If it is for financial gain, 
 the prospect is small. The material resources of the islands 
 are enormous, but, as I have already explained, the Filipino 
 cannot be depended upon to develop them, the Americans are 
 not able to perform the necessary labor in such a climate, and 
 the Chinese, who are the only people able and willing to 
 work in the Philippines, are being excluded by our Govern- 
 ment. True, our exports to the Philippine Islands have 
 jumped from $94,597 in 1897 to $5,261,867 in 1902, while our 
 imports from the islands in the same period have risen from 
 $4,383,740 to $6,612,700. The Treasury Bureau of Statistics 
 classifies as follows our exports, exclusive of Government 
 shipments for the maintenance of its forces and civil list : 
 
 1897. 1902. 
 
 Iron and steel manufactures $9,036 $957,342 
 
 Cotton manufactures 2,164 246,645 
 
 BreadstufiEs 10,068 435,444 
 
 Gold 210,474 
 
 Hay 358,816 
 
 Malt liquors 663 466,404 
 
 Paper manufactures 284,788 
 
 Provisions 544 156,863 
 
 Distilled spirits 185,188 
 
 Wood, manufactures of 393 418,806 
 
 Mineral oils 95,9o8 235,397 
 
 Cars, carriages, etc 1.707 101,213 
 
 Manufactures of leather 220 121,003 
 
 Undoubtedly our trade with the Philippines will continue 
 to increase, and the revenues of the islands are already suffi- 
 cient to meet the expenses of its government. But unless 
 Congress does some very wise legislating, it is a question 
 whether our country will soon be reimbursed for the heavier 
 military and naval expenditure which our occupation will al- 
 ways necessitate. Besides the force required for ordinary pur- 
 poses in such a peculiar and exposed place, we must remem- 
 ber that in the event of a war with any foreign power, our 
 
 116 
 
enemy would steam straight for the Philippines. We might 
 as well understand that Asiatic possessions mean a larger 
 permanent military and naval expenditure. 
 
 If the inquirer means prospect for anxiety, it is large. In 
 the Philippine Islands America has assumed a considerable 
 part of "the white man's burden," and we must expect to 
 have our full proportion of the trouble which that thankless 
 task involves. It will be — 
 
 " No iron rule of kings, 
 But toil of serf and sweeper — 
 The tale of common things." 
 
 If, however, the inquirer means prospect for doing good, 
 it is unparalleled in the history of our country. Our plain 
 duty, therefore, is not to exploit the Filipinos for selfish ends, 
 as Spain did, but to try to help them. If we undertake our 
 duty in the right spirit, we may be the means of bringing 
 to them untold blessings. 
 
 At such a crisis in our country's history, well may every 
 Christian patriot say with Oliver Wendell Holmes : 
 
 "God give us men! 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." 
 
 As American citizens, we may cherish a pardonable pride 
 that during the emergence of our country as an Asiatic 
 power, our national policy has been shaped by such men as 
 President McKinley, President Roosevelt, Secretary of State 
 Hay, Secretary of War Root and Governor General Taft. 
 No other Americans since Washington have had to grapple 
 with more stupendous problems. Our history furnished no 
 precedents to guide, the new peoples no intelligence to help. 
 Order, liberty and justice had to be new created out of 
 chaos, bondagfe and oppression. Amid these extraordinarily 
 difficult conditions, these men have shown a boldness of 
 initiative, a wisdom of execution, a fertility of resource and 
 a breadth of mind and heart which place them among the 
 greatest statesmen that the world has seen. There should 
 be no politics in our support of their policy, no sectarianism 
 in our prayer that the God of Nations may continue to 
 guide them aright. 
 
 THE DUTY OF THE CHURCHES. 
 
 The duty of the churches is clear. The possession of 
 the Philippines has "signalled the ' hour for a new align- 
 
 117 
 
ment 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, mor- 
 ally speaking, they are clearing their decks for action, deter- 
 mined 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 Chris- 
 tion 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 trum- 
 pets pealing, nor does the eye see the serried columns and 
 flashing bayonets. But in the grim silence which often at- 
 tends the most portentous struggles, right is fighting against 
 wrong, Heaven against Hell. America lacked not martial 
 courage, 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 Sanbal- 
 lats advise us to come down 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 rehgion 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 sus- 
 picion? Has Christianity suffered no reactions in England 
 and America where it has won its mightiest and most perma- 
 nent 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 should 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 
 
 118 
 
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 Pino Ritek, Laos, December 85, 1901. 
 
 Second Bdltion. 156 Fifth Avenue, New York, September, 1902. 
 
 119