C - - 7, Z_- - - 111.1 % aT e- i '-. %o tQ f.:f - v 'I ^d rr1 cc^^^^^^^^^^^^ __HI^^4 ~~csJ slu_ __~~~~~~ 14, is N1 A t/ all -la The Cross of Christ in Bolo-Land I* C I z"Ws~as~:.~~-"u U"~".~~s~~s.B-a,~,,l~~cl,,.:::-,,i:: U~~:-~~ —~:~~lc ~ -::~-;;~; -c~~~-::-_:~:::~::: i:.;;~:::::I-~:-:;~:H~ ~i:~::~~: ~~~~s,~;is:~~:- ~ ~ $~~)~:~~: ~ ~~q: ~_ i~~~~4 _~::::iH1 p~,:~:~:1:::-~iC:~:i ~~~~" ~ i~~i — ~::~;::-:II:;:-:::H: H::::-;::~~~~ H-:~~~~-. H~"a " "I- -- -;' — ~ -- - -- - -- The Cross of Christ in Bolo-Land BY THE REV. JOHN MARVINeDEAN Formerly an Army Secretary of the International Committee of Young Men's Christian Association in the Philippine Islands Fleming H. Revell Company Chicago, New York e Toronto Publishers of Evangelical Literature MCMI I 6s COPYRIGHT, 1902, BY FLEMING H. REVELL COMPANY March TO THE MEMORY OF LEONARD P. DAVIDSON THE FIRST CHRISTIAN MISSIONARY TO FALL ASLEEP IN CHRIST ON PHILIPPINE SOIL CONTENTS CHAP. PAGE Introductory..... 7 I. A Long Sea Furrow.... 3 II. Manila and Iloilo.... 40 III. Ten Days among the Garrisons.. 6o IV. The Presbyterian Mission in the Visayas. 75 V. A Patchwork of Journal Pages.. 88 VI. The Baptist Mission in the Visayas..112 VII. An Interview with the Enemy.. 28 VIII. Manila Again.... r146 IX. Northern Luzon...., 68 X. Missionary Conditions of To-day.. I97 Appendix....... 226 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS PAGB Present Headquarters Army Y. M. C. A., Walled City, Manila..... Frontispiece Conference of Army Association Secretaries at Manila, February, 190o... 13 View from a Missionary's Window, Iloilo.. 40 Army Y. M. C. A. at Dagupan, Luzon... 60 Visayans Unable to Get into a Baptist Service at Taro, Panay, on account of Crowd... 2 Visayan Archer... 128 Residence of Missionary Lund at Iloilo...146 Old and Young at Dagnpan, or a Pangasinane Grandmother.. x. 68 Spanish Friar...... 197 Home, Sweet Home..... 226 Map, Showing Field of Missionary Operations. 226 ' *,./ * B~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~y Introbuctory E ARE certainly justified in K\ { calling the three completing years of the last century a most tI momentous epoch both in our national life and i the history of Christian missions. The significance of American con*t1.w W, trol in the Philippine N [, Islands and the conse'~';. ~ quent extension of the Republic's influence throughout the Orient has been well emphasized in recent literature. The meaning of the period in its relation to the world's evangelization has not been so ably interpreted. In all the history of modern missions we have never seen Protestantism and Catholicism confronting one another on even terms in any field of world importance. Missions in Italy, Spain and the South American states have been compelled to fight for their very existence against governmental opposition, while at the same time attempting to evangelize ignorant and prejudiced peoples. They have had arrayed against them both procurator and publican. Since the time when 7 8 Introductory the mighty spiritual impulse of the Reformation died away into scholasticism and formalism we have been humiliated by the knowledge that a geographical line of demarkation crosses Europe from the Polish border to the North Sea, on the south of which all is Catholic and on the north all Protestant. Not a nation has been carried into the Protestant cause since the day of the reformers. And this line, standing as it does at present perpetuates the partial failure of Protestantism for it is the line upon which the reformers retreated. To the south of it lie Bohemia, Belgium, and the Huguenot provinces of France, all once Protestant to the core but now thoroughly Romanized. Stranded mountain communities in Italy and a few secondary centers of population in southern France alone remain true to the faith of Luther and Calvin-isolated witnesses of the lost ground. This thought is so disheartening to some that they feel quite forced to abandon all hope of ever seeing a united Protestant Europe. They half admit that our cold Protestantism is more adaptable to the sturdy northener and showy Catholicism more acceptable, if not even more suitable to the sunny southerner. It is with especial interest then that those of us who believe the gospel of Christ substantially identical with the Protestant position and both intended and destined to be a world-conquer Introductory 9 ing power knowing no racial or geographical limits, view the unique situation in Cuba and the Philippine Islands to-day. Here at last we have a Catholic population thoroughly permeated with the spirit of the sixteenth century papacy and as completely under priestly influence and Romish institutions as any people have ever been, but controlled by a government pledged to neutrality in religious matters. Truth is at last to meet error in a fair field and the adjourned struggle of the sixteenth resumed in the interested and intelligent arena of the twentieth century. To students of missionary history an additional interest attaches itself to the opening up of the Philippine Islands before the advancing gospel in that there, for the first time, we are to behold a Malay Christianity. In some way the Malaysian peoples have been largely evaded or overlooked by missionary pioneers. Something has been attempted for them in Sumatra and other East Indian Islands under the Dutch regime. The results have not been large but sufficiently promising to prophecy decided success for a larger effort. A mission established at Singapore for the express purpose of reaching the Malays at that center has almost entirely abandoned the original programme, finding it much easier to secure a hearing from the Hindus and Chinese who 10 Introductory form so large a part of the population of Straits Settlements. We are thus to see a new race transformed. It is idle to refuse to admit that while Christianity has meant eternal life to all nations and races alike, it has yet manifested itself differently in differing peoples. This is not because the gospel is so weak as to be modified and altered by racial characteristics. It is because the gospel is so strong as to be universal and adaptable. John was not Peter, nor Peter Paul, yet all were Christ's. The Saxon is not the Latin nor the Latin the Kelt, yet all have been transformed by the Gospel and have contributed to its glory and extension by their racial peculiarities. Germany could not have given Christianity a St. Francis nor Italy a Luther. What then shall be the Christianity of the Malay tropics? What peculiar glory of the Gospel shall show forth in them as in no other people? What apostles shall they give to the church? These considerations taken together with the strange ignoring of the islands by evangelical forces in the past and the remarkable way in which they have recently been placed in direct touch with that nation most nearly Christian of all, lead me to feel that even the crudest testimony of an eye-witness concerning the formative period in Philippine affairs and the beginnings of Christian activity will not be Introductory II _ i i I - - entirely valueless. It will not be possible to avoid giving the Christian work among the troops in the Philippines a large place in these pages. My apology is not alone the fact that my own standpoint is necessarily that of the barrack and camp but that Christian work for the benefit of the soldier has always proven to be strategic. Soldiers in war-time represent the best manhood of the nation-representative, young and greatly tempted, and have focused upon them the attention of the nation. The soldier, too, has a larger part in the Word of God than we are apt to concede him. The Old Testament is essentially martial. The campaigns of Joshua, even apart from their miraculous element, are the worthy a critical study by a military expert. The strategy of Gideon; the victories of David; the wars of Judah and Israel; the rise of the great warpowers, Assyria, Babylonia, and Persia, the story of Nehemiah, the "Cromwell of Judea"; the war songs of the Psalter; the records of army-defying prophets-all go to make the Old Testament intensely dramatic and of absorbing interest to the martial mind. As to the New Testament the soldier is found at the cross and tomb, questioning John the Baptist, guarding the apostles, and exercising faith in Christ at Philippi, Caesarea and Rome. It is a soldier who astonishes the Master by his faith 12 Introductory and a soldier whose conversion is given the most prominence in the Acts of the Apostles. "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ," was an apostle's advice to a soldier and a captain and one private opened the door of faith to the Gentiles. The soldier-life furnished apostles with their texts and the imagery of war is used to describe the expected advent of the coming Lord. Revelation itself is a book of flame and sword and will probably never be satisfactorily interpreted until illuminated by the red light of some future day of war and persecution. The Roman system under which the Apostles labored naturally made the legionary prominent in the records of the early churches. The Saxon is the modern Roman, and it is very fitting that unusual efforts to reach and save the men who compose the world-belting legions of our race, should mark this time of expanding empires. The work then of the Young Men's Christian Associations among both American and English troops can be justified and applauded from many standpoints. Not only does such activity mitigate the evils of war, recruit the Kingdom of Christ with young and promising manhood and succor those in most temptation, but among the soldiers of a world-circling nation it proves a valuable factor in foreign lands as an adjunct of Christian missions. '=~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ d::-in~~~~~a:-::::::~~~~~~~~:::;::::::::: -:~~~~~~~~~:::li-~~~~~:l:~ tAS000::Vff,:f::: ~~:I:~~::::~::i~~l: I~~:J:~:S:::::?i:,~~~~~~,::;: ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~I::::~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~:~~~~~~~~::I-: ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ W:Xm i::::f f:d'I:: S i~: ~i~ zil-):: f:~ ff:;:;:- - f:::f fff:;f2:f::-: t::~~~ > <: ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~;:: ~~~~~!~~~a:; ~~~~~~p:~~~?;:~~~~~~:::~~~~~~~~~::: a~~~~:X0:00:0 H?: ~:_~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~:ff:::::: X:?::~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~a:<::\i~at?'i':0:,fX i~::::c-~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~0::::90q H:000U:0: H:X H\0 \ z00 \fVi 0:Xt Qtfa X^:0 \0<:: Ht t00~00 Hf:0Xt000 Utf0QX:a z:f ~:: H000 0H5 0 H:0|0:9:; 6 tt Ui0tff 0 — he CROSS OF CHRIST IN BOL O-LAND I ta ono Sea furrow _ i Z., HILE spending a few weeks in England in the summer v\/ vW/7 ~of '99 I picked up a newspaper and began the customary search 'It_^SL "'for the obscure corner reserved for American - '# H affairs. Nothing more effectually subdues the native pride of the American traveler in the > ^ ~ '- ~ old country than the incidental way in which his country's affairs are treated by the daily papers. The slightest continental or colonial news is magnified into columns and gravely pondered in the editorials, while the few paragraphs allotted to"news from the states" largely consist of impossible "wildwest" stories and amusing forecasts of coming I4 The Cross of Christ in Bolo-Land elections. This spoils the morning coffee for the ardent patriot who has wearied of the parliamentary debates and the decorous advertisements of Epp's cocoa and Lipton's teas. On this occasion, however, a little echo of our Philippine insurrection had found its way into the sober columns and I was at once interested in the news that twenty-five additional regiments were to be recruited for service in the islands. Circumstances had prevented me from participating directly in the work of the Army Young Men's Christian Association among the troops during the Spanish-American war and, being both strongly drawn to the soldier as such, and convinced that this new mobilization presented the greatest present opportunity for service, I hastened to offer my services by letter to the International Committee at New York City, and returned to the United States in order to be in readiness should the offer be accepted. After a considerable correspondence I was informed that the Army and Navy Department of the International Committee, already carrying on a large work among the men of the army of occupation in Cuba and Porto Rico as well as in the camps and posts of our own land, had decided to avail itself not only of my services but those of several other men as well, and was perfecting plans to use us to greatest advantage among the A Long Sea Furrow 15 newly raised troops. The way soon opened for a most effective work. Congress had failed to provide chaplains for the new regiments and the Secretary of War, realizing the need of religious and social work among the men, requested the International Committee to provide workers to accompany the troops to the tropics, acting as chaplains on the transports, and ministering in all ways possible to the comfort and well being of the men. Believing this to be a door opened of the Lord, the committee at once acceded and five of us were assigned to as many transports. I, after conference with the secretaries of the Army and Navy Department of the Assocaition at New York City, sailing from that port for the Philippine Islands via Suez in the United States Army transport "Logan," having on board the entire Forty-first regiment (Colonel Richmond), a hospital corps, some twenty army nurses and three hundred of a crew-in all seventeen hundred and sixty souls. This on the twentieth of November, I899. The British military attache, during our Santiago campaign, in reporting to his government, praised the American soldier as a fighting unit because of his "power of initiative"; when his officers were shot he went right on with the battle. The Christian soldiers on board the "Logan" deserve the same i6 The Cross of Chrst in Bolo-Land commendation, for while spending the first three days out of New York in a manner best treated with silence I was searched out by an embassy of privates and urged to begin services between-decks. When they beheld my condition they excused me from duty and commenced song-services without my assistance. The second day out brought us a rough sea which lasted until we sighted the Portuguese coast, and while I was lying in my bunk adjusting myself to the swaying of all things, I was immensely cheered by the sound of the gospel songs carried by the heavy wind past the port-hole above me. On the fourth day I was able to crawl about enough to confer with Post-Chaplain R. W. Springer, who had been temporarily assigned to the Forty-first regiment and was en route to Manila, and with some of the Christian soldiers as well, and arranged a regular service for the evening. The ship was pitching badly and the mess-deck, being covered with ironplates, was slippery with spray, but the soldiers poured up from below and we had an enjoyable time, the audience being limited only by the size of the mess-hall. From this time Chaplain Springer, Colonel Charles Bird (now General), and myself constituted ourselves a committee of three and conducted nightly evangelistic meetings and daily Bible classes, and A Long Sea Furrow 17I with most blessed results. Night after night the men would assemble in such numbers that we often found it difficult to make our way through them to the improvised pulpit. The singing was an inspiration and the men listened to the Gospel as only those can who are looking forward to danger and death. When our forty-five days' journey was completed some fifty men had decided for the Christian life and those already Christians greatly developed and encouraged. Ten months later I was riding through a little Philippine village on the line of the Manila and Dagupan railway when a sentinel on duty at the platform accosted me through the window and informed me that a company of my old friends, the Forty-first, were holding the town. I at once inquired concerning those who had professed Christ on board the "Logan," and was rejoiced to hear, that while some had fallen, others had given proof of the strength of their Redeemer by steadfastness in great temptation. A work hardly less important than the classes, entertainments and services, was the distribution of supplies. I had succeeded, after a struggle with red tape at the Brooklyn piers, in placing on board nearly seven tons of reading matter, writing material, books, Testaments, games and other conveniences. x8 The Cross of Christ in Bolo-Land The monotony of the long journey made the demand for these very great. Appearing on deck with an armful of writing paper or old magazines I would be instantly mobbed by a good-natured crowd of blue-coats, every mother's son anxious to write a letter or kill time by a little reading. The good people who supplied these things through the Army Y. M. C. A. would certainly have rejoiced to see the way in which they were received. The calm seas of the latter part of our trip crowded the upper deck with every man off duty and it was pleasant to look down the decks from the bridge on a balmy day and see the men grouped about on the deck poring over papers and books, circled about crokinole boards, writing letters on the "flag-paper" of the Association, with the deck as a table, and even reading their little red Testaments. The generosity which had prompted Christian people to provide these supplies was not unappreciated by the men. At the Christmas Eve entertainment in the Indian Ocean one feature was the announcing and cheering of illustrious names. The Army and Navy favorites had one by one received a hearty measure, but it was when some humble private, astride a boom high above the crowded deck, shouted down the insinuating query, "What's the matter with Helen Gould?" that A Long Sea Furrow 19 the explosion took place. I was well up in the rigging myself and for the first time in my life looked down into the roaring crater of a volcano of gratitude. She was not there to see the sight, but some of us were not at all sure that the echoes did not carry as far as Tarrytown-on-the-Hudson. Our Atlantic experience of twelve days was prevailingly grey and stormy and our first sight of land-the Portuguese coast-was decidedly welcome. We hardly saw more than the bold outline of Cape St. Vincent, however, before night came down upon us, the following morning finding us close in to the southern coast of Spain and just off the famous little port of Tariffa, now hardly more than a ruin. Doubtless, the interesting coast line would have held our attention more closely had we not been straining our eyes ahead to catch first sight of famous Gibraltar. We were gratified at eight o'clock and at ten were anchored under the imposing face of the stalwart "Sentry of the Straits." No novice eye can look upon the fortress with indifference. Rising boldly into the clear sky with rows of meaning embrazures dotting its steep, scarred slopes, and a heavy fleet of black-andyellow battle-ships in leash at its foot, no recollection of its stirring history was needed to impress us with Gibraltar's enormous 20 The Cross of Christ in Bolo-Land strength and its importance to British supremacy in the Mediterranean. And here, at the threshold of the old world, are traces of its many civilizations, past and present. The Rock itself brought memories of the Phoenician and Ionian mariners, the architecture of the old walls, the castle and the Spanish town brought back the days of Roman and Moor and the mixture of races in the picturesque streets of the clambering town gave types as widely separate as Latin and Saxon, African and Persian. Representatives of Morocco and Algiers, Italy and Tunis, Egypt and Greece jostled each other in the little town of ten thousand. Here, too, we first met the cosmopolitan coinage of the old world; we purchased bananas and oranges and received in change a suspicious handful of Spanish pesetas, French francs, English shillings and Moorish pennies. Although we knew it not, at the time, we held in our hands the key to every Oriental heart. We drew out from the massive fortress at sunset. The last rays of light blazed the rockface into red and orange and turned the lowlying clouds on the far-away Atlas mountains into a crown of misty gold. The anchored warships of the Queen made ready to bid us a kind farewell and as we passed each battleship three rousing cheers came throbbing over A Long Sea Furrow 21 the waters. We answered with more heartiness than harmony, sending, as was befitting from a regiment drawn from twenty states, a mixture of northern cheer and "rebel yell." The cheers subsiding, the "Star Spangled Banner" was answered by the strains of "God Save the Queen," and we sailed away into the dusk of the evening feeling glad that AngloSaxon friendship had at last triumphed over a century of misunderstanding. Between the straits and Malta we sailed an ultra-marine flood-a cloudless sky above, a deep blue sea below, and a fresh wind whitening the wave tops into harmless plumes of spray. As we passed the coast of Tunis the classical scholars crowded to starboard to view the long blue line that in the old days gave evidence to mariners of their approach to the city of Dido. Tales of the long Punic duel were revived and on the sailless stretch of waters busy thought created the contending navies of Rome and Carthage. We approached Malta at night, quietly sleeping our way into the coast which Paul had approached with a terrified crew on a sinking Alexandrian cornship. We awoke to find ourselves entering the charming port of Valetta. Maltese bumboats of Venetian shape crowded the great transport's sides and anxious fruit vendors and fruit-hungry soldiers were soon finding a point 22 The Cross of Christ in Bolo-Land of contact. The little harbor was crowded with vessels from all Mediterranean points. Trading steamers from Greece and Italy, British warships with the never-failing threat of 12 -inch rifles protruding from their barbettes, sailing sloops with lateen sails, reminding us of the piratical craft of old Algiers, and nondescripts of many shapes and sizes, lined the docks and quays, or lay at anchor in the deeper water. Salutes from the shore batteries in honor of an entering Russian cruiser added to the interest of our first hour in the harbor and when the heavy battle-ship "Rameses," flying the cross of St. George, dressed ship in passing us, our enthusiasm was complete. We cheered and voted Malta all right. Upon obtaining shore-leave a party of us immediately left by carriage for St. Paul's bay, the scene of his shipwreck while being escorted by the legionaries to Rome for trial. We gathered on the rocks to read the graphic description in the twenty-seventh chapter of Acts, and then united with Colonel Bird in the prayer that our devotion to the cause of truth might, in some measure, approach that of the one who, long centuries ago, counted not his life dear unto himself that he might win the approval of Christ the Lord. The ride from Valetta to St. Paul's Bay was full of interest: The terraced gardens, the well-kept roads, the A Long Sea Furrow 23 Italian and Maltese types along the way and the towering cathedrals all invited our attention. The island is almost destitute of timber, but the Valley of the Magdalene and the many terraced gardens furnished the necessary green to set off the cream-colored masonry. And the gently sloping land everywhere falling away to the sea is very attractive to the eyes of those who have passed a number of days with the monotony of sea and sky and lonely sail. The many traditions of the Knights of St. John, who from Charles the Fifth to Napoleon the First occupied this island and held the Ottoman empire in check by desperate valor, largely center in St. John's church and the municipal palace. Accustomed to the loftiness, and cold grandeur of cathedral interiors some of us were, but we were not prepared for the heavy splendor of the Cathedral of St. John, its every flag-stone the tomb of a hero and its many chapels enriched by gifts and ornaments from many nations. Beggars and cathedrals are not to be separated, but we did not begrudge running the gauntlet at the door after viewing the splendid interior. We were fortunate in having Colonel Spence, of the British Army, as our escort through the palace. The great armory with its rows of steel-cased figures, its ancient culverins and its priceless parchments, relics of the halcyon 24 The Cross of Christ in Bolo-Land I ITI I days of the Order, held our chief interest. Banquet halls and art gallery and the inevitable "Prince of Wales' Room" (remember the Saxon is now in the land) completed its charms for most. But a few of us, worshippers of the Corsican, went to view the humble room where Napoleon spent his one stirring week at Malta. After enjoying the hospitality of the Officers' Club and wandering through the curious shops in search of the famous Maltese lace, we returned to the ship with much to say and considerable to exhibit. The next morning found us again churning along toward Manila. From Malta to Port Said is a four days' journey by slow steamer and our first glimpse of the land of Rameses and Cleopatra was given us on the Ioth day of December. The Nile delta is as flat as a board and to those whose imagination had lined the northern shore of Egypt with towering pyramids, broken-nosed sphinxes and foaming cataracts the thin grey line on the horizon was doubtless a disappointment. To add force to the disillusioning the cheap sheet-iron buildings of Port Said began to push themselves up over the horizon. I presume it would be difficult to find a more un-Egyptian place than Port Said, a "boom town," built by the French constructors of the Suez canal and fed by all the A Long Sea Furrow 25 wickedness of the land and the vice of the seas. Of course Egyptian beggars throng the tourist and eastern sin invites at every corner, but this is no distinctive mark of Egypt. The only satisfactory thing about the place was the prevalence of the fez, a real mark of later Egypt. The Turkish fez is tall and stiff and looks much like an inverted flower-pot set on the head at a dangerous angle. The Egyptian fez is generally a brighter red, an easier shape and adorned with a gayer tassel. So we focused our kodaks on this small oasis of interest and felt glad when we had exchanged cheers with the Italian, French and English warships and slipped gently by the statue of De Lesseps into the still waters of the famous desert highway. As night came on we went to the bow of the vessel and felt the strange awe of a first night in the desert. The ditch is some eighty odd miles in length, cut from north to south across a flat sandy plain. The geological indications are all to the effect that the Mediterranean and Indian oceans were at one time united. There are no mountains or hills in the direct line of the canal which does not contain a lock along its entire course. It is quite narrow-say a hundred to a hundred and twenty-five feet and the "block system" is a necessity, vessels only passing at some one of several stations at which the canal is wid 26 The Cross of Christ in Boo-Land ened. The narrowness of the canal compelled the use of our powerful searchlight, for night was upon us as we began to cut the continent. A heavy fog made our progress still more difficult. Until a late hour we remained on the gloomy deck watching the playing of the glowing eye of the slowly-moving steamer and the mysterious outline of the embankments on either side. To any unsophisticated Ishmaelite I fear our appearance must have powerfully revived the malignant genii of Arabian lore. While we slept that night the ship crossed the line of the ancient Syrian caravan trail, over which El Tob, king of Jerusalem two thousand years before our era, dispatched the famous letters since uncovered at Tel-el-amarna and now to be read in the British Museum. It was over this same route, too, that the hurrying feet of Joseph passed as he carried the infant Saviour beyond the wrath of the Idumean. We awoke in the morning to find ourselves within the covers of those volumes of Oriental travel and description so often half incredulously read. Stretching straight before us was the blue ribbon of the canal, the high banks flanking it marking the tremendous labor of the thousands of "fellah-heen" who had died like gnats in their enforced labor for the world's commerce. On either side the desert, a dun-colored plain flattened out like a A Long Sea Furrow 27 map to the sky line its monotonous surface broken only by an occasional hummock, a clump of palms about a white stone building or a far-away line of moving black dots that our field-glasses resolved into a trading caravan. To the eye a place that every man should shun, but to the student the theater of the world's greatest conflicts, this region needed no tribute from the present to loan it interest; its past was sufficient. The unchanged desert about us had presented the same tanned face to the hosts of Rameses and Sargon, Alexander and Augustus, Mohammed and Napoleon, the Sultan and the Sirdar. But the present is bound to intrude itself. The past has to live in such corners as the present sees fit to give it. Soon certain black figures appeared in our wake and we forgot the perished hosts of vanished empires. As we were moving but slowly the runners were soon abreast of us and affording a great deal of amusement by their wild gesticulations for "bak-sheesh." At first sight we were sure that it was clothing they were in crying need of but we soon found that anything would be acceptable. An old shoe created quite a sensation among them and old shirts, coats, hats and pennies kept them in our company the greater part of the day. The friendliness of the desert climate gave us an excellent opportunity 28 The Cross of Christ in Bolo-Land to study the anatomy of these racing sons of the desert. We were surprised to find such excellent types of physical manhood. About one o'clock Ishmailia appeared with its red-roofed hospital and'the khedive's summer palace setting back among the royal palms. Ishmailia marks the beginning of the Bitter Lakes, through which the canal takes its course for some miles, and with a vessel or two in its little harbor and its grateful green foliage it is no doubt a pleasant sight to weary camel drivers from Arabia. Ishmailia boasts of a railroad, being on the line of the CairoSuez. An important caravan trail here crosses the canal and we were so fortunate as to pass several camel caravans, some camping on the shore, others crossing on the dilapidated ferry. We had often heard of Eastern conservatism and were glad to find we had not been misled. The squatting Arabs sitting among their kneeling camels might well have been the band of Ishmaelites who sold unwilling Joseph to Potiphar of Pharaoh's guard. The flowing garments and twisted turbans, the clear-cut features and proud and graceful bearing all told of the pure Semite, the descendants of Hagar, the followers of the conquering Crescent and the strength of the Mahdi's fanatical kingdom. We blessed the day of kodaks as we made this world ours and passed A Long Sea Furrow 29 on into the broader water of the Bitter Lakes, feeling that we had, by some magic, gone back three thousand years in time and taken our cameras with us. The course of the canal is marked out by buoys for some fifteen miles or more through the shallow lakes and as we left Ishmailia low on the desert horizon to the rear of us we could look away to the south and west and see the rising bulk of what we knew to be old Mount Migdol of Moses' time. We were in sight of this historic height for some seven hours. The careful Biblical scholarship of the world is well agreed as to where the despairing host of Israel were given passage though the sea. It was under the scarred and terraced side of the frowning purple mountain in whose very shadow we were slowly creeping at sunset that the frightened mob of Hebrews was crowded in despair. The waters of the Red Sea have slowly receded through the centuries and the sullen waters of Moses' day have given place to an absolutely level plain some six miles across, stretching from the base of Migdol to the distant heights of Baal-zephon. To open the Word of God and read its inspired account of the deliverance of the terrified nation in the orange light of the declining day upon the very spot where God was pleased to show His power was a privilege not soon to pass from 30 The Cross of Christ in Bolo-Land memory. The famous old mountain was ablaze with the radiating shafts from the setting sun and in the south the beginnings of the awful wilderness was softened into delicate colorings "of pink and grey and purple. The physical features of the landscape fit so perfectly the references in the ancient account that one marvels at the Providence which has not only given us an Inspired Message but preserved it from serious impair through three millenniums. As the sun descended and shadows multiplied we, in our thought, turned the twilight into dawn, beheld the crossing Israelites hurrying over the sand with many a fearful backward glance at the camp of the hostile host, the stern figure of Moses calm in a wonderful faith and the pouring flood of returning waters roaring and frothing upon the helpless pursuers. A far-off caravan crawling toward Suez became to us the terrified survivors of the buried host hastening to Bubastis with the awful news. But imagination has no play with a railroad train. The desecrating Occidental has built his railroad under the flank of the rugged range and the whistle of a freight engine pulling a long line of dumpy cars toward Ismailia put a decisive period to our meditation. The West is moving East; the graveyard of Pharaoh's host is desecrated four times a day by the im A Long Sea Furrow 31 - '- -, Ill I'u, pertinent toot of a locomotive; let the student of the old East hasten his visit or he may find Cairo in a London fog and Jerusalem's narrow streets pre-empted by a red-and-yellow trolley line. We ended our desert travel at eight in the evening, anchoring off the lights of Suez with the waters of the Red Sea about us. Alas for the literalists on board who arose early next morning to view a blood-red tidel For the Red Sea was as like to the grey-green aqua of other seas as it can well be. Had it not been that we kept in toward the Sinaitic shore the long trip through this hottest of places would have been worse than monotonous. The sailors endeavored to arouse our enthusiasm over a line of twelve wave-splashed islands which they pointed out triumphantly as the "Twelve Apostles," but our only day of real sight-seeing was the first of the four that we spent on our way to Aden. The Sinaitic shore, with its sharp lined range clear cut in the dry eastern atmosphere, flowed by us for some forty miles or more. The most interesting peak to Jew and Christian was hidden from our view by the larger mountain which rises to the west of it. At only one spot on the Red Sea can a glimpse of the Mount of God be secured, but a splendid idea of the peninsula, as a whole, can be obtained at almost any point off the coast. 32 The Cross of Christ zn Bolo-Land Without as much as a single shrub or stream or hut in sight the desolate plain, slowly rising to the base of the rainless range behind, presented the most abandoned appearance conceivable. To an astronomer a half-adequate idea of the barrenness and thirstiness and awfulness of Sinai can be suggested by the appearance of the moon as seen through a powerful glass. Towering peaks, cracked, scarred, and wasted, and deserted plains void of any sign of animal or vegetable life, presented a landscape as withered and leathery as the wizened mummies of Ghizeh. To read the wilderness experiences of Israel with the commentary of the awful desert fitting into the narrative was to find a vividness and reality in the account and an aptness in the events never before realized. December's sixteenth day brought up the white barracks of Steamer Point above the horizon, and a little later the more fortunate of us landed in leafless rocky Arabia for a drive of four miles to the ancient aqueducts and squalid buildings of the typical Mohammedan town of Aden. Aden was old in Solomon's day and, in spite of all its squalor, contains many a curious sight. It boasts but a single sickly tree, and is surrounded by bare rocky ridges. This setting and the added fact that at the time of our visit there had been no drop A Long Sea Furrow 33..I. I of rain for four years, combined to make a forsaken effect. But its bazaars were a joy to the heart. Somalis, Soudanese, Arabs, and every shade (and tint!) between, eddied in and out of the low buildings. We had arrived at an opportune time-a winter festival being on. The Ferris Wheel in embryo, made of bamboo and turned by hand, whirled happy black and brown children into the same ecstasies as the far-away American babies enjoy in their swings and hammocks. The "red-lemonade man" looked quite familiar in spite of his turban and gown, and the occasional small-pox patient walking socially about did not keep the general attention a moment from the candies and cakes, baskets and sandals, trinkets and fruits. In all spaces not otherwise occupied were innumerable beggars ranging from two-year-old children to lepers old and grey. The younger of them even raced along by our carriages and tangled themselves up into knots of vociferous pleading under our feet. They coaxed many a penny from "the rich Americans." The most effective formula was to pat the stomach, in dramatic anguish and cry aloud: "No fadderl No mudder! You richl You my fadder! Daisy- Daisy- give - me - your- answertrue! Bak-sheesh!!" This exhibition of an English education brought many a harvest to the fortunate few whose contact with traders 34 The Cross of Christ in Bolo-Land and soldiers had given them so powerful a command of Saxon grammar and poesy. A friendly call upon the dark-skinned representative of the British and Foreign Bible Society-a converted Mussulman-and the purchase of an Arabian Testament, completed my Aden experiences. We re-embarked in the evening, cumbered with raw-hide sandals, Somali baskets, wicked-looking date-knives and revised ideas of Arabian hospitality. Twelve long days to Singapore. Flying fish, spouting "fin-backs," the distant coast of fair Ceylon, a fleet of catamarans, and the shores of beautiful Sumatra were the changing interests of the journey. The Malacca Straits are lined with swelling emerald shores. With the aid of our glasses the native huts, clearings and cocoanut groves were all appropriated. Remembering the scarcely past period of Malay and Chinese piracy, we swept the horizon line for rakish craft, but a clumsy Italian gunboat and the omnipresent British "tramp" steamers (jocularly known, for good reasons, as "lime-juicers") were our only prizes. The difficulties of navigation at the southern end of the Strait were safely overcome and after a rather exciting night's adventure with gloomy shores and cheering lights we came safely into the outer anchorage at Singapore. In order to enter the city we were compelled A Long Sea Furrow 35 to enjoy two pleasing experiences: a "sampan" ride from ship to shore and a 'rickshaw ride from the landing across the promontory to the city. It is unnecessary to say that a jinrikisha ride is the joy of the Orient. At first you are inclined to pity the sturdy coolie who runs in the shafts before you but soon perceiving the ease with which he handles the conveyance you resign yourself to pure enjoyment and feel dangerously near to giggling and crowing. At Singapore our most quaint pre-conceptions did not suffer. It is both beautiful in situation and pretty in itself. Within this single city one may live in China, India, Malaysia or Europe. The European quarter is a fairy-land of spacious bungalows half hidden in tropical foliage. The business blocks are of English style and present a good appearance. Chinatown has delights galore. After evening dinner at a French hotel we entered 'rickshaws and were rolled along the dusky harbor road with a maze of ships' lights glimmering over the water and streams of jinrikisha lamps pouring about like fire-flies among the trees of the park. Joining a current of shining traffic a ride of a few blocks brought us to the enchanted land of the Chinese quarter. By day this place is drowsy and uninviting, but by night it is transformed. 36 The Cross of Christ in Bolo-Land Trade is largely carried on in the streets and as each booth demands several oil-lights and the streets are lined with booths, the effect can be imagined. Between these two banks of stationary lights flows the moving stream of carriage lamps; and the thousands of lights, showing up the strange faces and figures of the Celestials, together with the continual weaving in and out of the crowd, gave a light-andshadow effect charming in the extreme. A play-house with stage open to the street collected a good thousand of complacent-faced Mongols, all deeply interested in the endless struttings and posturings of the actors. I halted my'rickshaw to await the death of the villain but though the sword came dangerously near him numberless times, I was compelled at last to go away leaving him in good health and the drama seemingly no nearer an end than when it first attracted my attention. While the city of Singapore is outwardly beautiful it is not an Eden of innocence. A long conference with the sole American missionary in the city, Mr. Morgan, of the Methodist Episcopal church, ended with a plea on his part for a Singapore branch of the Young Men's Christian Association. He assured me that the moral condition of the European, Eurasian and native young men of the city was appalling. A "tiffin" in Mr. Morgan's A Long Sea Furrow 37 pleasant bungalow with a profusion of native fruits and a cup of Anam tea was not the least of Singapore's claims on our remembrance. And never shall we forget our first (and last) experience with the highly-prized "durian." This fruit has a power incredible over the Malay palate; we confess that its effect upon us was so marked as to clear the verandahs upon which it was opened, for our delectation. The "durian" has the appearance of a green pineapple, the odor of an onion poultice and a flavor all its own. On the thirty-first of December the "Logan" turned the long peninsula of IndoChina and the China Sea was bearing us to our final port; to others, often a stormy body of water, but to us a pleasant and unruffled journey. Not treading headlessly on the tail of a resentful typhoon we found the last days of voyage passing swiftly away. The routine work of the ship, the morning drills and evening services, the "siestas" in the shade of the superstructure, and the little odds and ends of life filled the time, from the bugler's morning complaint to his evening lament. Four days out of Singapore and we picked up an interesting grey daub on the horizon-a group of sentinel islands thrown out from the main bulk of Luzon and the first sight of American (!) soil since losing the Jersey high 38 The Cross of Chrzst in Bolo-Land lands. A few hours more lifted the mountains of the mainland above the sky-line and famous Corregidor appeared as a blue dot directly over our bows. The entrance to Manila Bay is a scene of great impressiveness. Few of the hundreds who crowded the guard rails of the "Logan" as she cut between Corregidor and Mount Mariveles will forget the beauty of the hour. The sun was dipping to the sea at the time and the broad channel was swept with its last glory. Lights and shadows were contending for mastery along the shores, the islands farther out in the sunset were purple patterns in a sea of gold, and above the white buildings of the Convalescent Hospital on Corregidor a familiar piece of bunting fluttered in the warm light, the magnet which had drawn us thirteen thousand miles from those we loved. As we turned the shoulder of the island and placed it between us and the now crimsoning west the buglers swung into the rythm of "Retreat," and with the flag-staff on Corregidor bare and black against the sky and our own ensign slipping down the halyard to the deck the regimental band sent out the throbbing query to the shadows of the bay: "0 say can you see by the dawn's early light What so proudly we saw in the twilight's last gleaming?" The glory soon departed but the stars came A Long Sea Furrow 39 out as we steamed in the twilight across the wide expanse of the noble bay and when our anchor chains rattled out at half after seven, and we swung with the tide off Manila, a maze of winking lights twinkling against the darkness of the land-mass eastward, told us that our journey was done, our last port made, the time of sight-seeing over and the time of dangerous activity at hand. The last link was a launch from headquarters which shot out of the gloom and ran alongside the gangway at eight o'clock. The boarding officer brought dispatches for the C. 0. and general news for us all-the war was still on, Aguinaldo still at large, important movements even then going on in the "south-lines" and anticipated general activity. We passed the gap between supper and bed leaning on the starboard rail and staring over at the city lights, conversing in the subdued tone of men who feel the game of death at hand. Then the little bugler stepped out of the guard-room, brought his body to "Attention," raised his instrument to his lips and gave the long, plaintive, brazen "Good-night" call, and as four bells tinkled from the bridge we turned in to dream of the unknown future. II ~Dantla an6 Iloilo ANILA at last. And dull must be the voyager who fails to be l J, impressed, not with the city zw AJ itself, but its magnificent setting. The frame is more _Blv s imposing than the picture. Our morning view from the deck of the "Logan" showed tus to be riding at anchor some nii- two miles off the city-front in company with a large fleet of transports and tramp-steamers, among which already bustling little launches were threading in and out-some with huge native "cascos" in tow. But the fleet and the glimpses of the city could not hold our first attention. Back over the bay, twenty six miles to the west, bold Corregidor had dwindled to a point and resembled, in the distance, nothing more glorious than a threatened fish escaping from the mountainous jaws of the blue promontories to the north and south. From the triple-peak of the Cavite range on the south of the entrance the circle of the shore swept grandly around to the city, its distant blues changing to warm sun-lit 40 VEW; FROMW*:*:':;'^MN A MSN S WNO IIL Manila and Iloilo 4I greens opposite us, and with occasional white dots punctuating the shore-line, marking the stone church towers of clustering pueblos. At Manila itself the country flattened out into a monotonous level but some miles back of the city rose several beautiful peaks. Turning to the north the shore-line disappeared altogether beneath the curvature of the surface of the bay, and seeming to stand directly out of the water while, in reality, far up in the Rio Grande valley, the peculiar sugar-loaf bulk of Arayat challenged admiration. To the west of Arayat the shore-line reappeared in the Zambales range, flowing in rocky waves against the sky, which, finally closing down on the bay, formed the northern jaw of the harbor entrance and terminated near Corregidor in the graceful peak of Mariveles, behind which the Manilans daily see their gorgeous evening skies. In such a vast arena the greatest metropolis of the world could not dominate the scene. A dozen cities might stretch along the beach and stretch their fingers of masonry and smoke into the air and yet hardly arrest the sweep of the casual glance. Towers, elevators and skyscrapers are all forbidden here by the frequent earth-shocks, and Manila, limited to two-story dwellings, and spread out along the vast rim of the Bay, cannot raise itself into either grace or dignity. 42 The Cross of Christ in Bolo-Land However, our chief interest soon led us to study out the long brown line of Old Manila with the convents, monasteries and churches lining its ancient wall, and continuing it on the left, the long rows of iron roofed warehouses marking the modern business suburb of Binondo, and still father along the shore the native quarter of Tondo, its large white church alone breaking the monotonous line of yellowbrown bamboo houses. To the right of the walled city the famous Luneta, or pleasure ground, occupied the shore and beyond it we had glimpses of the tree-hidden suburbs of Malate and Ermita. My instructions were to report to Mr. Glunz at the headquarters of the Army and Navy Y. M. C. A., and after the quarantine and customs officers had approved of us I boarded the Q. M. D. launch at the side and was carried up the famous Pasig between the grim walls of the old and the bustling docks of the new city, and landed in front of the large warehouse occupied as a headquarters by the Quartermaster's Department. It is needless to say that my first impression of Manila street life Was very confused. My walk from the wharf through Binondo's crooked ways across the Bridge of Spain to the old Spanish barracks assigned by the Government to the Army Young Men's Christian Association, flashed too Manila and Iloilo 43 many impressions in my mind to produce a clear negative. Creaking bull-carts, "carromattas" and "calesas" drawn by ragged little ponies, huge army-wagons with double mule teams, clumsy two-wheeled drays dragged along by slate-colored water-buffaloes, all rattled and clattered over the cobble-stones and disputed the way with the most dilapidated single-track horse-car line I shall ever behold. We afterward, for serious reasons, labeled these trams "dhobie-itch cars." On, in and among these conveyances was a weaving mass of little brown Filipinos in straw hats and soiled white clothes, Chinese coolies in blue clouts, black-moustached Spaniards, helmeted Europeans and American soldiers in campaign hats and khaki; all this framed in by rows of two-story shops and dwellings, stone below, wood above and roofed with tiles or corrugated iron. In addition odors of many kinds as yet unclassified and a liberal sprinkling everywhere of brown urchins and yellow dogs. So shall I remember Binondo, the New Manila. For a sober view of it and the entire city the best idea obtainable can be secured by reading Dr. Lala's chapter "Manila," in his work "The Philippine Islands," and mixing in a little flavor of Major Younghusband's description in "The Philippines and Roundabout." I shall attempt a further descriptive word later on. 44 The Cross of Christ in Bolo-Land Upon reaching our headquarters, an old Spanish barracks known as the "Cuartel Fortin," I was heartily greeted by Messrs. Glunz and Jackson, the veterans of the Army Association in the Philippines. These two men had sailed from San Francisco in the summer of I898, landing at Camp Dewey before the city of Manila capitulated, and entering the city with the troops after the engagement of August I3th. To them belongs the honor of conducting the first public Protestant services ever held in the city of Manila, under the canvas of a large tent hastily erected at the southern end of the Puente de Espafia, just without the walled city. This continued to be their headquarters until the outbreak of the Filipino insurrection in February, I899. During the fierce fighting about the city these two brethren were compelled to discontinue their services, every man being needed on the "firing-line." They met this condition by visiting the trenches, distributing stationery, reading matter and Testaments, and doing personal work. At last the tent, rotted by the exposure, was destroyed by a typhoon, and the chief quartermaster of the Eighth Army Corps, recognizing their invaluable work, turned over to them a partially demolished barracks, formerly occupied by Spanish infantry. By a great deal of hard work this long, low building was fitted Manila and Ilozlo 45 up with office, reading-room, correspondence room, game room, auditorium, baths and dormitory. It proved a God-send to the troops in and around Manila and fairly swarmed with soldier life. It made an excellent temporary heardquarters for the Association for some ten months. The heroic work of these two quiet Californians cannot be too highly commended. Beside Mr. Glunz and Mr. Jackson I also found at the "Cuartel Fortin" Messrs. Carlisle, Phipps, and Hunter, who had arrived in the islands but a few days before myself, having accompanied transports from San Francisco and New York. Mr. Gloeckner, who had sailed with the Forty-fourth Regiment from San Francisco on the same day I left New York had not stopped at Manila but passed through the group to Cebu, landing on that island with the regiment he had accompanied. These seven names composed our entire force, and we began at once our first task, a survey and division of the field. The problem before us was not a simple one. How could seven men so distribute themselves as to best attempt the reaching of 60,000 soldiers scattered in small detachments through some three hundred towns and hamlets over eight large islands, only connected with each other by a few delapidated coasters by sea and the most primitive of roads and trails by land. It must 46 The Cross of Christ in Bolo-Land be remembered that the Army of the Philippines, during 900o, was doing police duty and but little campaigning. The organized troops of the so-called Filipino Republic had been defeated and scattered and, with the exception of southern Luzon, and the mountainous districts of other islands, no insurgent force of importance remained to strike at. The breaking-up of the larger bodies of insurgents, however, aggravated matters by producing a great number of guerilla bands, numbering from a dozen rifles to a hundred. In order to control this situation the American troops were compelled to occupy all the more important native towns, thus forming a vast network of posts, many of them almost inaccessible to supply trains. The garrisons in these posts were necessarily small, numbering from a couple of companies or a battalion at provincial capitals, down to a single platoon, in small "barrios." In taking this whole problem to ourselves we did not ignore the fact that several chaplains were already in the islands. But they were so few as to be practically lost to view and so poorly equipped with supplies, the government furnishing them none, that even their best efforts were handicapped. There were, I think, in January, I9oo, but three chaplains in the islands outside of Luzon. Of those on Luzon I believe four were at Manila alone and Manila and Iloilo 47 only two were working among the small garrisons and in the field. Looked at from the Christian standpoint, here were sixty odd thousand young men, the bulk of them of an age when their army experience was to make them or break them for life. The prospect of foreign adventure and actual fighting had raised the level of enlistments and many had turned from home, business, and even college, to serve with the colors. But the excitement of campaigning was dying out. Tiresome patrolling and scouting, and monotonous barrack life remained. Their time was to be spent in isolated garrisons, in wretched native villages with scorching weather and awful monotony, driving them to the deadly native drinks and vicious native habits. In the interior posts there was nothing to read, nothing to drink but the insipid "boiled-water," not a white woman's fair face and purifying presence within leagues and not one minister of the Gospel to five thousand men. Take an American town, remove its churches, schools and amusements, turn the place into a waste of bamboo shacks on crooked dirty streets filled with an alien population of strange habit and tongue, unleash the drinking places, turn on the relentless tropic heat and then you have something akin to garrison life in the Philippine villages. 48 The Cross of Christ in Bolo-Land After prayerful conference it was decided to leave the important work centering in Manila in the hands of Messrs. Glunz and Jackson-Hunter to begin work with the sailors and marines at Cavite, Phipps to make his headquarters at Aparri in the extreme northern tip of Luzon, Carlisle to open up work at Dagupan at the northern end of the Manila & Dagupan Railway, Gloeckner to remain at Cebu, and I to have for my bishopric the Island of Panay with Iloilo as a headquarters. Such supplies as were on hand were divided between us. I immediately made preparations for leaving Manila, purchasing an "outfit" and securing transportation from Colonel Miller, the chief quartermaster. My transport, however, was not to sail until the gth and the interval was pleasantly spent in adjusting myself to my new life, and in meeting the friends of Mr. Glunz's circle. Among these was the Rev. James B. Rodgers, of the American Presbyterian Church. Already Christian missions flourished in Manila. To Mr. Rodgers belongs the honor of being the first regularly appointed missionary to the Islands. His eleven years' experience as a missionary of the Presbyterian Board in Brazil, added to his natural abilities and spiritual grace combined to fit him for his responsible and delicate position. There is no ___~ __ ~ Manila and Iloilo 49 harm now in saying that the American military government was, at the time of Mr. Rodgers' arrival, none too cordial toward the idea of Protestant missions. The general in command assumed that to start a religious controversy in addition to the troubles'already on hand would array the natives even more bitterly against American supremacy. Believing that the Catholic church was the strength of the insurrection and its chief support derived from the encouragement of the native padres, it was the policy of the military governor for a period at least, to'reassure and conciliate the church in all honorable ways. It was this purpose which led General Otis to send his own launch out into the bay to meet the transport upon which Archbishop Chapelle, the accredited agent of the Pope, arrived. This act of courtesy was widely discussed among the natives, and was misunderstood by them to mean that the American Government was in sympathy with the hated friars, whom they were clamoring to be rid of. This erroneous impression was strengthened by the appearance of General Otis at the reception given the Archbishop by the Spanish and Filipino clergy. As he had refused all social functions for some weeks his presence was given the more significance. These two incidents of the launch and the reception would not be worth 50 The Cross of Christ zn Bolo-Land the chronicling were it not for the importance given them by the native mind. Even some Americans thought themselves compelled to seek the reason for the over-friendly attitude maintained by the military governor toward the Catholic church in his own conversion to Rome. There appears to be no foundation for such an opinion other than the appearance of the name of Col. E. S. Otis in the list of "Prominent Converts to Catholicism" in the appendix of the fifth edition of "Catholic and Protestant Countries Compared." Certain it is that for political or other reasons Mr. Rodgers was little more than tolerated in Manila when he first arrived. No governorgeneral's launch took him in honor from ship to shore, and it is safe to say that an indiscretion on his part would have resulted in his deportation and a serious postponement of missionary activity. By his unfailing tact he was able to open services and awaken a decided interest among the natives without giving the authorities an excuse for interference. Thus, in January, 900o, with the assistance of his recently-arrived colleague, Mr. Hibbard, services for Filipinos were being conducted weekly in Binondo and Ermita and an English service maintained as well. The most loyal native supporter of this work was Seiior Zamora, a prominent Filipino who had Manila and Iloilo 5x befriended Castells and the martyr Llave during their brief work in the Islands under the Spanish regime. In addition to this Presbyterian work a Christian business man, Mr. Prautch, with the assistance of Zamora's bright young son, Nicholas, was conducting services which afterward developed into the Methodist Mission. To reinforce these centers of gospel light both the British and Foreign and the American Bible Societies were at work in the city, the former under the charge of the Rev. H. F. Miller and the second under the supervision of the Rev. J. C. Goodrich. I understood from these brethren that many doors were opening for the sale of gospels and Bibles both among natives and soldiers. In addition to the work conducted among the troops by the Army Association at the Cuartel Fortin and in the hospitals and barracks, a so-called Anglo-American Church (Epis) had been organized by Chaplain Pierce, U. S. A., with a weekly service for officers and men in the walled city. A social and religious work was also being carried on for the troops in Ermita by a representative of the Brotherhood of Andrew and Philip. These agencies, with the handful of chaplains and Y. M. C. A. secretaries composed the organized Christian activity of the Archipelago in January, 00oo. 52 The Cross of Christ in Bolo-Land As I was to sail on Monday, the gth, for Iloilo a farewell service was arranged with Chaplain Springer and the Forty-first Regiment on Sunday. I found the men disembarked and quartered in the "Nipa Barracks" at the edge of the city, very novel and welcome quarters after the cramping of a forty-five days' journey by sea. While we sang our hymns and prayed, we were accompanied by the noise of artillery firing several miles to the south. We afterward heard that an engagement had taken place near Paranaque. On the morning of the 9th I went on board the U. S. A. T. "Warren," accompanied by Mr. Rodgers who had determined to tour the southern islands of the group and decide upon a strategic point for a second mission center, and soon passed a second time through the Corregidor Straits. With perhaps the exception of a trip through the Inland Sea of Japan no more attractive waters tempt the tourist than the great canals which separate the thousand islands of the Philippine group. The passage from Manila and Iloilo may be made either by way of Romblon and the eastern coast of Panay or along the eastern shore of Mindoro and the west and south of Panay. The latter was our course. Mindoro is the island of mystery, being avoided by Europeans because of its dreaded fevers. Its population is Manila and Iloilo 53 sparse and no American troops were stationed on it at the time of our passing. Its suggestive name, "The Mine of Gold," added to the alluring beauty of its cloud-wrapped range. So far as I am aware Dean Worcester's hunting trip after "timarau" represents the most extended experience of an American on the island. In passing and repassing Mindoro subsequently I noticed that at sundown it was always glorified by a covering of heavy mist, for its high mountains act as a curtain to the west winds which pile up clouds of mist against its western face until they rise above the summit of the range, pour through the defiles, and lap around the peaks, moulded into wreaths and crowns by the breath of the monsoon. Many smaller islands dot the sea of Mindoro and kept our interest alive until we sighted the Antique Mountains of Panay's western coast, and they flowed by in constant panorama until we made our port. The second route from Manila to Iloilo is even more interesting, including as it does extended views of southern Luzon, Samar, Masbate, Tayabas, Romblon, Negros and Panay. We arrived in the Straits of Iloilo, between Guimaras and Panay, on the eleventh and landed the following day. Colonel Bird kindly introduced me to General R. P. Hughes, commanding the Department of the Visayas. 54 Tke Cross of Christ in Bolo-Land The General was very pleasant, expressing himself pleased that at last Panay was to have religious services and assured me of his sympathy. As to providing me with a building in which to open up our work in accordance with the circular letter of the War Department,* he assured me that it was out of the question as the town had been well-nigh destroyed by the insurgents upon evacuating and such buildings left standing as were suitable for government use were all occupied, some being rented at high figures in order to obtain sufficient accommodation for headquarters, department offices and officers' quarters. This I found to be true. Iloilo, although the second city of importance *"The Secretary of War directs that permission be granted to the International Committee of the Young Men's Christian Associations to establish their work among the regular and volunteer soldiers of the various posts and camps of the Army in the United States, Cuba, Porto Rico and the Philippine Islands, and commanding officers are enjoined to facilitate the efforts of this committee to provide helpful social and unsectarian religious influences by providing such suitable quarters as are available; the privileges thus granted to be subject to the control of commanding officers, so as not to interfere with military operations." By order of the Secretary of War (Signed) H. C. CORBIN, War Department, Adjutant General. Adjutant General's Office, Washington, Oct. I9, I899." Manila and Iloilo 55 in the Islands on account of it being the port of entry for Negrcs sugar, Cebu hemp and Panay rice, could only boast of a population of ten thousand. The town, for it does not deserve the name of city, stretches along a flat sandy point between the Jaro River and the Strait of Iloilo. The insurgents had occupied the town for some time and only withdrew, when the place was bombarded by an American fleet, after firing the larger part of the houses and shops. In consequence of this wanton destruction Iloilo presented a very mournful appearance when I first walked along its streets. The corrugated iron roofing of the ruined stores and warehouses, blackened by the flames and rusted by the rains, had been appropriated quite generally for repair purposes. Smoke-stained stone walls temporarily roofed with this discolored sheeting everywhere met the eye. I easily verified the General's statement as to the utter lack of a building suitable for our use and my first religious service was of necessity held in the open air on the little "plaza" in front of the Catholic Church. There were present some 200 soldiers out of a garrison of not more than 400 and beyond them, listening to the hymns and address, stood a thick fringe of curious Filipinos who were for the first time witnessing the outward manifestation of the American's religion. 56 The Cross of Christ in Bolo-Land On the Island of Panay were three regiments of infantry, a battery of light artillery, three hundred patients in the Brigade Hospital at Iloilo, seventy military prisoners confined at the old stone fort on the point and a detachment of mounted scouts beside an uncertain number of clerks, teamsters, and other civilians. In all not far from 4,000 young American men without a single chaplain or Christian worker among them other than myself. My little open-air service, held on Sunday evening, the 14th of January, was the first service enjoyed by the attending troops since leaving America eight months before. On the Igth I was able through the courtesy of the major in charge of the Brigade Hospital to erect a borrowed hospital tent on a vacant lot near the Convalescent Ward and fit it np with my supplies as a reading and social room for the men off duty from the barracks and convalescent from the hospital. It was instantly appreciated by the soldiers, the place being crowded even in the hottest hours of the day. My arrival developed the presence of a number of Christian soldiers who at once co-operated with me in the organizing of the work. It soon seemed best, considering the large attendance at the tent, to conduct a series of evangelistic services. Night after night the men gathered under the canvas and sang by Manila and Iloilo 57 the light of a few candles stuck about on the tables and benches. Beside definite decisions for the Christian life these services cheered the sick fellows lying on their cots in the hospital just opposite, the songs reaching the ears of many who were unable to leave their wards. At the time of my arrival in Iloilo typhoid fever and dysentery were claiming many victims, especially among the men who indulged carelessly in the native liquors. Although the funerals were usually under the charge of the Adjutant of the Provost Guard, I was occasionally called upon to read the burial service over the remains of some poor lad in the desolate cemetery at the edge of town. Sometimes the band of the Twenty-sixth Regiment headed the cortege but more often an officer, a firing squad, a bugler, and a few curious natives made up the pomp of the occasion. The funeral procession usually formed at the hospital -why, I do not know-and the sick men in the wards had the gloomy privilege of listening to the sad slow strains of the musicians or witnessing the scant ceremony with which many a comrade was buried in the tropics. There was a great deal of room for Christian cheer, naturally, among the patients. Five female nurses had recently arrived from Manila and to them belongs no end of credit for their work in the wards. The chief nurse, Miss 58 The Cross of Christ in Bolo-Land Genevieve Russell, was to the patients a second Florence Nightingale, and with her able assistants made so much of an improvement in the condition and management of the wards that the death-rate soon matreially decreased. That these women were salaried by the government does not for a moment obviate the fact that their labor was largely a labor of love and in time of emergency no sacrifice was asked of them but that they cheerfully gave. No mother whose boy was brought back from the gates of death by the unceasing care of one of these women will ever be tempted to place a money value on that nurse's services. Our nightly song-services at the tent seemed productive of so much good-cheer that Col. Edmund Rice, commanding the Twenty-sixth Regiment, suggested that I visit the inland towns garrisoned by the men of his regiment, conducting at least one service at each point. Skirmishing was quite common in the interior and even in the outskirts of Iloilo rarely a week passed away without a fusillade on some outpost. This necessitated traveling with an escort, for, as the colonel put it, "By traveling the roads alone you will not only get shot but the newspapers will spell your name wrong in reporting it." Armed with an imposing revolver and a kind letter of introduction to Manila and Iloilo 59 company commanders, mounted on a Filipino pony and accompanied by an escort guarding not only myself but an ambulance carrying convalescents to their companies for duty, I started for the interior on the 13th of March. III Zen Mapta o mono tbe Oarrtoons E started in mid-afternoon, passing through the in~x mlr^:- "" teresting town of Jaro t ''/:,. and making our first!1^@I, ' ff < evening halt with the little garrison at Santa ^,-' 'Barbara. The journey,, I-" ',l' after the sun was well l. ' - ~down in the west, proved very pleasant. The Filipino shack, no -", ',"-ir- matter how dilapidated, is always picturesque when it has its proper setting of chequered rice paddies, bamboo thickets, palm groves and far-away blue peaks, and this is the invariable landscape in the Visayas. Between Jaro and Santa Barbara we were much interested in several lines of well-constructed trenches crossing our road. The insurgents had been driven from them with some difficulty a few months before and the cocoa palms showed many evidences of the American shell fire. A little beyond this battlefield, I regret to say, we ran across a "lemonade spring," or, in civilian English, a native drinking booth, and several of the escort 60 j1~1:1~";-_::~,:- ~::::::-: -:,-~:a:. -::::___-:_~ g::,::_ a:,-:_i:,::: :_; CW g' ; .r-,*.l:::::i :a-':- R-_:=;!11111::::::::::,: ul:::::::6:::.:- ::-:::;I :i:::;::::::-:I:::::::::,I::: I,:_::i::::::ei.,:B;.- ~I:s- ::,,:_::;::,::.:,i~:-::::::-::: :::::~ai;,: —=:sn::I:::::'.::: a:: :::::~i::.1:~=RXe I::::::::::::!!I:r::i--i:::::::l -:I: 4a :: :::s:::--=i =a-~, ~s::g:s --::::::; -;::-::: a=:J: ss JiAk "xa=3=:;:::::,-::-: :"= = ail sui p —=" -:::::!.::::;::_a::::;,I:,::::::::- i~::::~::: .:,::,:::: i: i, Lk :::-I: I:!::.::I':-:::::: ; x:(l:Y:-_~l; -- -:::.:: I:lrll::a4;:-:::::::::::-;:i::i: '::: i:I::,:!::;::::: — '!:-:il:::::!!-::!ll!:i: i:t :_,;l:i!:l: -:: s ::::::::::::: II::;:::::i;: j:::i:::I:,::: :::.:;::I ::!:::::::-:"::::-::::::::-:-:::::::::::1.::.:ra:: i::::I!::-::::::::~:::::::::::;:: ~::::-::::;i:: -:::::i::::~:i::'I:-;::::::: I::: ~:: I:::i:_ s:- 1':;:-: -:::::-:-:rQ:~a :::,,:::::, — p, I i -i:-:;_- - i; —: -;::::: ---:~~ ::;,,:_.;_:,i::: —:aBsF__, cs"LV-; cS:al, = 8~ Ten Days Among the Garrisons 6I showed their contempt of death by drinking "tuba" from a bamboo joint. Upon reaching Santa Barbara I was cordially welcomed by the lieutenant in command and turned over to the care of his first-sergeant, Sulnol, who took me over to the "convento" used as a barracks and introduced me, first to the cook and kitchen (beans, hard-tack, prunes and coffee) and then to the company in general. A preacher was a great novelty and every man off duty gathered in the barracks to an informal service of song and testimony. Before leaving Iloilo I had filled several sugar sacks with old magazines, newspapers, flexibleback hymn-books, Testaments, writing paper, pencils and envelopes. After the service I opened up the Santa Barbara sack and could have been no better appreciated had I been Saint Nicholas himself. The value of these few old papers and our little service was not only mental and spiritual but social as well. Monotony is the worst enemy to a soldier's morals and discipline and any break in the dreary round of garrison duty is eagerly welcomed. Some weeks after my visit to the men of Santa Barbara I picked up from the floor of an abandoned barracks a soldier's diary. It is a good window through which to see soldierlife in the many little garrisons. I give it verbatim: 62 The Cross of Christ in Bolo-Land (i) "I bought a money-belt Thursday. I paid one dollar for it, and then I bought this bookIfor ten cents. (2) "I paid a debt of two dollars to the canteen. (3) "I lost four dollars and a'half shooting craps. (4) " I lost another dollar and thirty cents shooting craps. (5) "I paid thirty-five cents for smoking tobacco. (6) "I paid fifteen cents for hair-cut (company barber). (7) "I paid two dollars and a quarter for a barber's outfit. (8) "I spent one dollar at the canteen for eatables. (9) "I spent one dollar for milk (condensed) and other things to eat. The total of the first month's pay that I spent, $13.65. (The private's pay is $I5. 60 on foreign service.) (16) "One of my mates had to go to the hospital yesterday evening. I borrowed one dollar from Gury McMarns. (I7) "I loaned thirty-five cents to BenlBallard. When I get my next month's pay and pay up I will have $13.90 clear money. I will have to send "about I$o.oo home, so I can have some to sport on when I get back. (25) "I borrowed five cents of Ben Ballard to get a sack of tobacco with." The fact that this man kept a diary at all showed him to be out of the ordinary. Usually a soldier's pay lasts but a day or two after the paymaster's visit. If there is no beer to be obtained at the post-canteen the cunning get up what is known as a "quiet" (!) game and the company's cash flows to the pockets of the man of lowest moral level. Then monotony reigns until the next monthly or hi-monthly Ten Days Among the Garrisons 63 visit of the paymaster. But while pay-day is "devil's day" mail day is "angel's day," and even the old magazines which I spread so liberally about Panay reminded of Home and possessed no little moral force. A friend states that on one occasion he saw a poor homesick fellow weeping over a fragment torn from the advertising pages of some American publication. After playing my little r6le as "Santa Claus with a Sugar Sack," Sergeant Sulnol insisted upon taking me across the plaza to the house of the village padre. I found him to be a bright little man in black "soutane," Mansuete by name, who treated us with exaggerated courtesy and kept me busy dodging wines and cigars. Upon learning that my next destination was the town of Cabatuan, four miles west, the padre kindly suggested that I ride over with him in the morning, as he had planned to go. I accepted the offer and in the morning after spending a comfortable night in the barracks I left the ambulance and its escort to pursue its way north and with a second sack of supplies in the rear of the rickety rig drove west behind the padre's two hardy little ponies. In spite of the rusty appearance of both ponies and vehicle (the latter a nondescript affair that I refuse to describe), and the difficulties of the road, which was quite hilly, 64 The Cross of Christ in Bolo-Land we soon attained a furious pace, for the holy father's sporting blood was up. With his "soutane" pulled up over his knees, his legs spread out and firmly braced, his hat off, his cigar desperately clinched between his teeth, and his whip-hand going, he certainly made a figure to be admired. It was my first experience with a racing parson and proved both exhilarating and instructive. Everything we met-carabao carts, bull-carts and pedestrians dived promptly for the bushes. One or two who hesitated on the edge of the road had such maledictions shouted upon them that they not only jumped into the ditch but snatched their grass hats hastily off in humble obeisance. The dogs alone seemed Protestant. Upon arrival at Cabatuan I presented myself to Major Anderson, in command, and then, as I had determined to return to Santa Barbara before evening, visited the troops in the town, gave my supplies for them to the orderlysergeant, promised them another visit and a gospel-service in the near future and accompanied Padre Mansuete in a friendly call upon the Cabatuan priest. It must be understood that before American occupation Filipinos were debarred from the full priesthood, not being allowed to conduct the service of the mass. They were in fact, and still are, but secondary clergy,or "presbyteros." Ten Days Among the Garrisons 65 At the present time the Spanish friars (i. e., members of the various orders) thoroughly hated by the natives, have been compelled to abandon the interior and gather behind the walls of old Manila. Outside of this refuge there are but a handful of them scattered among the larger ports and keeping well sheltered by American bayonets. I only know of one case where a Spanish priest remained safely in his parish. At the town of Talisay, on the island of Negros, the aged parish-priest was so beloved by his people that they interceded with the insurgents for him and he is still in his parish undisturbed. This is the exception which proves the rule. While the Filipinos have a real regard for the native presbyteros known as padres by courtesy, they are extremely bitter toward the "frayles." I have several times heard drastic tales of the murder of priests during the rise and triumph of the insurgents in '97 and '98. The friars are now compelled to administer the parishes through the padres who are, of course, exercising all the prerogatives of the full priesthood. For an unprejudiced view of priestly intelligence and morality that of Foreman, himself a Romanist, deserves the most attention. He says, speaking of the Spanish friars: "They are usually taken from the peasantry and families of low station. As a rule, they 66 The Cross of Christ in Bolo-Land have little or no secular education, and regarding them apart from their religious training they may be considered a very ignorant class. It is very natural that amongst the large body of them dispersed over the Philippines there should be found a number of black sheep, especially when it is taken into account the unrefined class from which the majority are recruited. If self-indulgence is to be accounted a sin, then they are sinful indeed. And it would be contrary to fact, too, to pretend that the bulk of them support their teaching by personal example. I have been acquainted with a great number of the priests, and with their offspring, too, in'spite of their vows of chastity; whilst many live in comparative luxury, notwithstanding their vow of poverty." These words are well inside the mark and I quote them because they apply to the padres as perfectly as to the friars. The general hatred of the friar, however, is largely due to his Spanish blood, and it does not as yet extend to the system which produced him. The native priest is, in immorality, bigotry, ignorance and avarice, a reflection of his predecessor, but his being "of the people" gives him, unhappily, a great prestige. Already, however, there are significant movements headed by the more intelligent of the natives in the larger towns, a revolt not merely against a foreign Ten Days Among the Garrisons 67 priesthood but against a religious system which is the nursery for avarice and selfishness, and has as its best fruitage an ignorant and degraded priesthood, I was not surprised that even the most loyal Catholic soldiers in our regiments were half-ashamed to own their affiliation. This word on the priesthood is largely a parenthesis and born of a fair acquaintance with them, not only on Panay but on Luzon as well, during which I have even been invited by them to share their sins and only occasioned surprise by my refusal to do so. But my experiences at the Cabatuan "convento," or priest's house, were rather pleasant than otherwise. The local priest was a sternvisaged fellow, emaciated and awkward, but he was entertaining a fellow-padre from a neighboring parish who was not only his opposite but a veritable Friar Tuck. My Spanish being quite elemental we had some difficulty in finding a point of contact. It was discovered at last in a very interesting old library, largely of Latin titles, doubtless the property in the past of some Spanish friar who was compelled to evacuate hastily and leave his treasures behind. After examining some of the quaint volumes and explaining our respective positions religiously by means of an improvised sign language which would have done credit to a peace-talk among the Sioux we had our 68 The Cross of Christ in Bolo-Land luncheon together in quite brotherly fashion. This luncheon was no small matter. There were a number of courses, composed largely of weird mixtures of chopped meats served with oil and garlic. Avoiding these vigilantly I dwelt happily on an oasis of finely-cooked rice. The ending was, of course, wine and cigars. After the tonsures had bobbed over the table for little short of an hour they announced a siesta, in preparation for which I had the unusual sight of a padre without his gown and it is surprising how much holiness a "father" owes to his robe. Without it the only thing remaining to remind you of his superior sanctity is the little bald spot on his head and imagination can easily attribute that to other causes than the wear and tear of carrying a halo. I sickened of the siesta first and the padres came to life in due time. I was surprised to find Friar Tuck the first out of bed and into his gown, but the mystery was explained when he drew out a greasy euchre deck and almost sobered his jolly face in a game of solitairecigars and burnt chocolate at his elbow. Mansuete and I left him so, ourselves rattling back to Santa Barbara in fine style with only a single stop, during which my companion arranged a horse trade with the Cabatuan schoolmaster, the pupils of the latter being left to their fate while the matter was clinched. A second service in Ten Days Among the Garrisons 69 the Santa Barbara barracks filled the evening and Mansuete from mingled courtesy and curiosity loaned us his presence. The use of his name some weeks later helped get me out of a disagreeable position as I shall soon relate. In closing the account of my first afternoon with the native priests let me say that my experience then, in common with all subsequent ones, leads me to the opinion that apartfrom all considerations of morality and religion they are, as the English say, "a good sort." On the morning of the I5th I rode north to Pototan, passing through several hamlets or "barrios" on the road. Two companies of infantry, composed the garrison at Pototan and services were arranged for them on the evenings of the 15th and I6th. The arrival of the paymaster during the first afternoon interfered somewhat with the attendance but all available men were present to enjoy the meetings. At this post I made arrangements for the establishing of a post reading-room, Colonel Dickman promising a section of one of the barracks for that purpose. After two days about Pototan doing such Christian work as came to hand I took the road for Passi, eighteen miles farther to the north. I had foolishly allowed my escort to get some distance ahead of me and as there had been a good deal of fighting of late along the Passi road I had some anxiety 70 The Cross of Christ in Bolo-Land especially in passing through the town of Dingle, which had recently been partially destroyed in retaliation for the brutal torture and murder of an American soldier. The place was sullen enough as I rode through it, pistol in hand, but no attempt was made to molest me and immediately beyond the town I found my escort. Just before entering Passi we dipped into a ravine and came suddenly upon several suspicious-looking natives. I was much amused to note the thorough way in which the Soldiers felt them over-to discover hidden war-knives or "boloes." They carried no concealed cutlery and were allowed to go in peace, grinning cheerfully. All interior towns in the Philippines have a melancholy sameness, being invariably built on the same plan. To begin with there is a square lot or plaza with a stone church, a priest's house (usually the best in the town) a tribunal and a few of the more pretentious residences fringing its four sides. To end the description up this fringe is backed by a miscellany of bamboo houses, thatched with grass. In some of the older districts these towns may affect the eye of the traveler favorably if well shaded with palms and neatly kept. Passi, however, turned out to be a desolate place, too far up in the foothills to have its dry bones covered with foliage. It was Ten Days Among the Garrisons 71 _. ii i i iiii ii i ii i i i i iiiiiiiii iii iii more of a rendezvous for the American forces than a permanent post, the troops making it a center from which to scout out through the hills after the light-footed guerrillas who abounded in the region. My visit proved quite opportune as two out of the three companies in the district were just in from a "hike" and were refreshing themselves with more than the usual amount of gambling and "tuba" drinking. Captain Connell was in command and treated me with every kindness, he and his brother officers attending the services for the men in their quarters that night. The interest taken in this service was such that I determined to remain for a second evening, day meetings being forbidden by the extreme heat. The rude quarters being used by the men as an improvised barracks were so cramped that I held the second service on the moonlit plaza. Gathering in a large circle upon the grass we sang such choruses as we could remember and had a decidedly informal but very helpful service. It was so much appreciated that I felt rather guilty next day in leaving, for from Passi I headed back toward Iloilo and comfortable quarters, leaving the soldiers to their hardship and discomfort, and my friend Connell, who was erstwhile a "society man" and held a commission in the New York Seventh, to the contemplation of some twenty 72 The Cross of Christ in Bolo-Land small-pox funerals a day passing by his headquarters-an epidemic of that disease being in full swing among the natives. From Passi I retraced my route to Pototan and from there branched east four miles to Barotac Nueva, a surrendered "insurrecto" shouldering my sack of reading matter for the Barotac garrison down the road ahead of me. I passed but a single day at Barotac finding the place much disturbed. The evening before my arrival a sharp skirmish had occurred and after preaching to the men I watched from the windows of the darkened quarters the waving signal lights of the insurgents in the hills a short distance to the north. This seemed to argue a night attack upon us and officers and men slept lightly. Nothing occurred to disturb us, however, and in the morning I took the road alone and returned first to Pototan and then on the 22d to Cabatuan by way of Janivay. The road was reputed dangerous and I had some apprehensions, but my fears were largely allayed by a number of little children whom I met while some miles out of Cabatuan. They carried school books under their arms and gravely removing their caps saluted me in good English, with "Good afternoon, sir!" A bullet would not have surprised me as much. I found, Ten Days Among the Garrisons 73 upon reaching Cabatuan, that Captain Boardman, of that garrison, was giving the local school an hour in English daily. After conducting the promised service with the soldiers at Cabatuan and enjoying many courtesies from the officers of the garrison I returned to Iloilo, being surprised on arriving to find my old hospital tent gone, but a new and much larger one erected in its place-a labor of love on the part of some men of Battery G, Sixth Artillery, and Companies E and F of the Twenty-sixth Infantry. This brief journey of ten days proved valuable to me. I was now able to appreciate better the condition of affairs at the interior posts and not only endeavored to supply the troops scattered over the island with reading and writing material but made other journeys from time to time, fitting out reading and social rooms with such scanty means as I had at my disposal and getting men detailed to care for them, preaching to gospel-hungry men and doing personal work. In my diary for April 6th I find this entry: "In response to a request from Colonel Scott opened up a reading and correspondence room for the men of the Forty-fourth Infantry at Jaro. They are ravenous for reading matter. Transported by a bull-cart from Iloilo one case magazines, 74 The Cross of Christ in Bolo-Land writing material, powdered ink, ink wells, and a few late San Francisco papers (six weeks old, of course). Private Ira J. Steidley, of Company B, is in charge. Splendid quarters given." 1V tbe Iresbptertan Mlosston tn the lfsaaas REC~UR new tent, twenty by forty, well fitted out with benches and improm i vised tables and dignified by A\' ~,,J$, X lamps in place of candles, f now became a popular re~lld 1 I sort. Regular religious serv" '~ti^t~"', ices were conducted both ~i':~-., on the Lord's Day and "...'-":' l"' through the week, and Satu- " urday evenings were given '~-. ~ over to impromptu entertainments. Among other contrivances for cheering up "the boys" we attempted a "donkey party" which proved so successful as to warrant repetition. By carelessly leaving the black cloth animal hanging to the tent wall we raised a curious misapprehension in the minds of the inquisitive Filipinos, who always formed an interested outer circle at our gatherings. Being pinned to the rear wall directly back of the desk from which I conducted the services, it was not many days before a surprising belief was current in the town among the more ignorant natives. It was to the effect that the 75 76 The Cross of Christ in Bolo-Land donkey was the sacred animal of the Americans, "for," argued they, "does not the 'padre protestante' both minister before it and gesticulate toward it!" It is needless to say that wounded American dignity soon dethroned the supposed idol. It was with a deeper feeling than mere amusement, however, that the Christian men amongst us observed the pitiful ignorance of the native mind and heart. Being utterly ignorant of the Visayan dialect, speaking but little Spanish and with my hands full of my work among the troops I was unable to do more than pray that God might send someone to open up for them a door of Gospel opportunity. This desire was speedily gratified. For months the Presbyterian mission at Manila had contemplated a forward movement and I had been in Iloilo but a few brief weeks when my heart was gladdened by the arrival of the first missionaries to the Visayans, Messrs. Hibbard and Hall. As Mr. Hibbard had acquired some knowledge of Spanish they were soon able to open up a service for the natives. In this they were greatly helped by the opportune arrival in Iloilo of a young Protestant Visayan, converted in the Baptist mission at Barcelona, Spain, who at first interpreted for them and later developed into an independent speaker of ability. There were in Iloilo not a few Chinese merchants Presbyterian Mission in the Visayas 77 whose shops lined the long stretch of Calle Real and in addition to the weekly services for Filipinos they were also led to take up work for their benefit. This was aside from the main purpose of the mission and was due to the providential presence in Iloilo of a second bright young convert, a Chinaman formerly of the London Mission at Amoy, who only needed slight encouragement to undertake a weekly Bible class among his countrymen. In addition to this two-fold work Mr. Hibbard opened up an English service for the benefit of officers and English and American civilians. Thus, but a few days after their arrival these brethren were in a position to reach every element in the place. I attended the first English service on Sunday, April 8th. It was held in a little rented hall on Calle Rosario, hastily fitted with bamboo chairs and a pulpit. My notebook briefly says: "Attended at 9:30 a.m. the first service conducted by Presbyterian missionaries, Rev. Mr. Hibbard and Dr. Hall. The service was in English. Attendance quite cosmopolitan. Chinese, Malay, Spanish, Mestizo, English and American. Text, Romans I3:13. This is the first service, outside of our army work ever held in Panay in the name of the pure Gospel. The isles of the sea shall praise Him." It was not long before the meetings for 78 The Cross of Christ in Bolo-Land natives were largely attended. Curiosity had a great deal to do with this but a genuine interest seemed to accompany the work at the outset. The chapel not only continued to be crowded but the attendance has since compelled the erection of a bamboo building to insure proper accommodation. When I last visited Iloilo in September, 900o, the mission had not merely a regular congregation but a little band of regenerated men and women who honored their master by faithful Christian living. It is generally admitted that the Filipino is not understandable. The Occidental and Oriental minds have never been able to exchange viewpoints. When we first landed in the Islands we accepted the Filipino at face value, taking sides strongly for or against him. He was either insolent, or courteous, honest or dishonest, lazy or industrious, treacherous or docile, intelligent or stupid. A few months of experience however, brought us to the conclusion that he was a little of all this, and, in the secret region of his motives and controlling principles a decidedly unknown quantity. The mental make-up of the islander is such that he can violate every Saxon view of consistency and yet be perfectly consistent with himself! I at first was somewhat effusive about him, for he was polite, cheerful, alert, Presbyterian Mission in the Visayas 79 friendly. I then suffered a shock in discovering him to be deceitful, insolent, and treacherous. I now dwell in the realm of the happy medium and declare him to be decidedly human and badly trained in the bargain. The American soldier's feeling toward him is capitally illustrated in a ballad now very popular in the barracks. It has some value in this connection. It is the complaint of an old regular to a less sophisticated comrade: THE GENTLE FILIPINO. I've chased the wild Apache through his God-forsaken land, I've tracked the daring horse-thief,where his foot-prints mark the sand, I've summered with the robbers down at Coney by the sea, But the gentle Filipino, say, he beats them all for me. He beats them all for me, son, the whole immortal lot, In his slushy, mushy country where the climate's good and hot. I've tracked the red and yellow, and I've tracked the wild and tame, But the gentle Filipino is high, low, jack, and game. With his timid little manner and his sweet and loving smile, And his easy way of swearing that he loves you all the while; With a white flag on his shanty, hanging out to catch your eye, And his little rifle ready to plunk you by-and-by; 8o The Cross of Christ in Bolo-Land For to plunk you by-and-by, boy, to shoot you in the back, And to skip away as swiftly as a sprinter down the track, To come 'round when they plant you, just to drop a little tear, For the gentle Filipino is a tender-hearted dear. But I know that he's an angel, pure and white as ocean foam, 'Cause I read it in the papers that they send to me from home; And I know I am a butcher 'cause the pamphlet says I am, But I think I'll keep a fighting just the same for Uncle Sam. The soldier believes that by not expecting too much of the Filipino he fills your every requirement. He is certainly cleanly, polite to the powerful, hospitable and intelligent. His Spanish training of three centuries has kept his mind in swaddling clothes and the Roman church has seen to it that he has not become too moral. The best standpoint from which to view the little brown man is that of the native himself. Dr. Ramon Lala, an educated Tagalo, has said: "The first thing that in the native character impresses the traveler is his impassive demeanor and imperturbable bearing. He is a born stoic, a fatalist by nature. Europeans often seem to notice in him what they Presbyterian Mission in the Visayas 8i deem a lack of sympathy for the misfortunes of others; but it is not this so much as resignation to the inevitable. Incomprehensible inconsistencies obtain in nearly every native. Students of character may, therefore, study the Filipino for years and yet at last have no definite impression of his mental or moral status. I, myself, with all the inherited feelings, tastes and tendencies of my countrymenmodified and transmuted, happily-have stood aghast or amused at some hitherto unknown characteristic suddenly manifesting itself in an intimate acquaintance. Though calm, the native is not secretive but often loquacious. He is naturally curious and inquisitive but always polite-especially to his superiors. He is passionate and cruel to his foes. He is very fond of his children, who are, as a rule, respectful and well behaved. The noisy little hoodlums of European and American cities are utterly unknown. He venerates and cares for the old. His guests are always welcome. He is rarely humorous and seldom witty. He is sober, patient and always clean. He is superstitious and credulous. He is ambitious socially and fond of pomp and glitter." It must be said for the Filipinos that they are to the eye of a traveler modest in demeanor. Public indecency is rare. Many causes, however, have combined to make the marriage 82 The Cross of Christ in Bolo-Land tie a very loose one, in fact, one that can be easily dispensed with altogether. Too much blame cannot be laid upon the church for this condition, as the exorbitant marriage fees of its agents were practically prohibitive. The Filipino, too, has had no lesson in chastity from foreigners. Even the Anglo-Saxon in the tropics becomes alarmingly lax. It is a common proverb in the East that "no Englishman takes the Ten Commandments beyond Port Said." The hatred shown toward mission work in the treaty-ports is sufficiently explained by the fact that nine-tenths of the foreign residents in these cities are living lives which, judged by their home standards, are immoral in the extreme. The missionary often stands alone as an example of chastity to an alien race and until I899 the Filipinos had not even the limited influence of such. I was decidedly interested in the labors of Mr. Hibbard and Mr. Hall as I desired to note, if possible, the effect which the hearing and reception of the Gospel would have on the native character. It is far too early to predicate the general influence on the race but I was pleased to notice in individual instances the transforming power of Our Saviour. It has already been said that the native was something of a stoic. On one occasion, while trying to find a hiding place to escape capture by Presbyterian Mission in the Visayas 83 a band of insurgents I came suddenly face to face with a Visayan peasant and thrusting a pistol against his head ordered him at once to guide me to a place of safety. Although, no doubt surprised and dismayed, his face was as stolid as a wall and he gave no sign of trepidation. In the many funerals I have witnessed I have never seen a single tear shed and among the Moros of Mindanao I am told that a funeral is a time for feasting and general visitation, the mourners (!) coming to the bereaved home and cheerfully playing Moro checkers and chewing betel-nut. In the face of this racial stoicism, it was refreshing to notice the conversion of a bright young Tagalo who attended Mr. Hibbard's services. I had become interested in him through living for a time in one end of a bamboo shack, only separated from him and his family by a matting partition. The pattered prayers which sifted through this screen each evening and the chants which the family sang around the cocoanut-oil lamp at night showed him to be a sincere religionist-a Catholic Cornelius awaiting his Peter-and I became convinced that the presentation of the pure Gospel would find him ready to receive it. I had presented him with a Spanish Gospel of John and a friend, Mr. James Borree, who was at home both in the Spanish language and the native dialect gave 84 The Cross of Christ in Bolo-Land him from time to time an idea of the Protestant faith. When, with the assistance of his native helper, Mariano, Mr. Hibbard opened up his first Filipino services both he and his wife attended and became decidedly interested. It was not long before he was deeply burdened with a consciousness of his guilt before God, and Nicodemus-like went by night to inquire the way of life-and in tears confessed his longing for forgiveness and peace. Both husband and wife were soon after received into full membership in the Presbyterian mission, Mr. Hibbard expressing to me the strongest confidence in their conversion. As might be expected, the successful opening of a heretical mission aroused the padres. The village priest at Molo, three miles west of Iloilo, where Mr. Hibbard had formed a class in English among the young men, canvassed the home of each member and, by his threatenings, induced the majority to abandon their teacher. A public meeting in the same town was invaded by a party of young Filipino bloods, instigated by this same padre, who proceeded to smash the furniture and frighten the congregation. Owners refused to rent their buildings for Protestant purposes and the sum total of petty persecution was considerable. But the unfailing tact and courtesy of these men of God soon won for them an Presbylerzan Mission in the Visayas 85 enviable place in the esteem of all classes of natives. In addition to direct evangelistic work the arrival of Mrs. Hall and Mrs. Hibbard at Iloilo made possible the opening up of a 'very successful day-school in which these selfsacrificing ladies teach some six hours daily, and a dispensary conducted by Dr. Hall has opened many hearts and homes to the missionaries. The doctor's experiences with the medicine-loving natives had their amusing side, but the decided value of his work has been shown by the increased esteem and affection given the missionaries, the opening of otherwise inaccessible homes, the gaining of the confidence of the women who are the more difficult to reach of the two sexes, and the definite personal work accomplished with the sick and dying. While my own first care was for the troops I endeavored, so far as I was able, to assist these brethren in their labor of love for the lost. In return they not only preached to the troops in our tent and the barracks in the vicinity of Iloilo but visited the hospital, did personal work among the sick and wounded in the wards and invited occasional groups of homesick soldiers to their tidy houses, where "the boys" would have a little glimpse of Heaven in an American woman's face. Army rations are usually good quantity and quality when they start from the purchasing 86 The Cross of Christ in Bolo-Land; L f I ll I I I I agent, but they are apt to suffer in the long transit to the Islands. Even when the soldier receives his full ration (and he will tell you that he seldom does) he soon finds it fearfully monotonous The soldiers about our tent grumbled so heartily that, upon discovering a copy of Fremont's bill of fare at Camp Desolation, in I848, I fastened it up where every eye could see. It ran somewhat as follows: BILL OF FARE CAMP DESOLATION-ROCKY MTS. Dec. 25, 1848 MENU Mule SOUP Mule Tail FISH Baked White Mule Boiled Gray Mule MEATS Mule Steak Fried Mule Mule Chops Broiled Mule Stewed Mule Boiled Mule Scrambled Mule Schirred Mule French Fried Mule Minced Mule Plain Mule Mule on Toast (without the Toast) Short Ribs of Mule with Apple Sauce (without the Apple Sauce) RELISHES Black Mule Brown Mule Yellow Mule Bay Mule Roan Mule Tallow Candles BEVERAGES Snow Snow-water Water Presbyterian Mission zn the Visayas 87 This sometimes reduced the angry hum of the grumblers but it did not make our fare more varied and the mission ladies will never know the high degree of angelic attainment to which those shy soldiers boys who partook of their cordial hospitality exalted them as they sat down before a table decently clothed in a linen cover, with shining knives, forks, glassware and china, a sufficiency of simple but nicely cooked food, not a sign of the hated prunes, canned corned-beef or salmon, and an American lady queen of the occasion! V a Patcbwork of 3ournal PDages 0 return to the more sober routine of my work among the /. troops I feel that I will both make my task easier and the 6 A!'f reader s idea of the Army As-,. Isociation's field work more vivid by presenting a patchwork of hurried entries from |d 2my notebook of the period. r.L h ~- I properly usher these ex* A v ~ —d - tracts in with an apology and can only hope that their crudeness will be passed over when it is remembered that they were scribbled in a variety of distracting scenes and with no view of their being reproduced: "Miagao, April 12.-Came down the coast to-day from Iloilo on the Q. M. D. launch 'Scotia,' carrying rations for the garrison here. While off Guimbal we were hailed by a large native casco beating up toward Iloilo against the wind. Being the only American on board the launch I took the liberty of ordering her alongside the casco, which turned out to be carrying two wounded ladrones (brigands) to Iloilo from Miagao under guard of 88 A Patchwork of Journal Pages 89 a sergeant and two men. The sergeant stated that one of his prisoners appeared to be dying and as his rate of progress against the wind was so slow desired to transfer the man to the launch, the probability being that, after making Miagao and discharging his load she would still beat the casco into Iloilo by some four or five hours and thus give the man a chance for his life at the hospital. I gladly consented. The two ladrones, bandaged and helpless, were brought out from the matting "shelter" on the casco's deck and placed as gently as possible in the bottom of the row-boat which we were towing. They were then lifted over the launch's side and stretched on the benches forward, not without considerable difficulty, as we were dancing on a lively sea. Leaving the clumsy sail-boat to its snail's progress in charge of the native crew and the two soldiers we headed on for Miagao with the sergeant and his prisoners. The appearance of the desperadoes was shocking. The heads of both were swathed in soiled and bloody cloth and the older of the two was badly cut about the body. They had, it appears, been captured by the native police of San Joaquin after a hard fight in a ladrone barrio in the foothills. These mountain brigands are cordially hated by the village people and they had been badly knifed in the struggle 90 The Cross of Christ in Bolo-Land and badly treated after capture. The skin was chafed from the neck and wrist of one and the hair of the other was a clotted mass of filth and blood. They had been held in the native guardhouse at Miagao two days without food or water and when we fed them rice, reached for it like starving dogs. They will be given treatment to-night at the Iloilo hospital if the launch gets there before the weaker of the two expires. "The C. O. at this place, Captain Barker, acting major of the district between Molo and the Antique line, is a splendid man for the place. His district is in the most satisfactory condition of any I have so far visited. The only disturbing factor is the ladrones, who are left largely to the tender mercies of the native police, a drilled, uniformed and armed detachment being stationed at four towns in the district, scouting and patrolling the country and guarding the town gates at night. Captain Barker has had considerable experience in municipal affairs in Rhode Island, and his efforts at organization here have been very successful. He kindly spent the greater part of the afternoon showing me his books and papers and explaining his methods and plans. Already the four chief towns (or, as we should call them, townships), San Joaquim, Miagao, Igbaras, and Guimbal, the second with a popu A Patchwork of Journal Pages 91 lation of 20,068, have well-organized municipal government, Presidente, council, clerk, school teachers and police controlling the affairs of each center with but little friction. "The question of 'church and state' has been settled with unflinching Americanism, not a 'daku' of the town money going to the village priests. General elections filled the offices, and the taxes are raised by the officers thus chosen. There is as yet no property tax, but a surplus over all expenses of local administration, which include of course the maintenance of the native police, shows the excellent condition of affairs. The Captain tells me that the American officers in the district, having set the machinery in motion, hardly do more than keep a watchful eye on affairs and act as a final and authoritative tribunal in extreme cases. The 'gift system' of Spanish days is sternly discountenanced, the officers (not only here but throughout the island) refusing all the many presents proffered them by natives who have 'axes to grind.' As these gifts range from a few simple vegetables up to a fine pony or even a pair, the American officer deserves no little praise for his self-denial. In the good old days of the Spanish occupation to attempt to secure justice from governor or judge without first warming the official's heart by a suitable offering 92 The Cross of Christ in Bolo-Land would have been as foolish as to expect the blessing of a stone Butsu without offering a plate of rice. "This is Holy Week. Before my arrival this morning a procession headed by the padre and composed of the representative men and village officials of Miagao had marked the beginning of the Passion Season by solemnly filing across the plaza to the church. Miagao is said to be the most populous pueblo on Panay and formerly possessed an unusually imposing church. Two Spanish Jesuits, always protected by a Spanish garrison, were associated in the work of the parish. When the events of the late war compelled the evacuation of the town the friars, knowing that to remain and fall into the hands of the insurgents meant certain death, withdrew with the soldiers. Before doing so, however, they filled the splendid interior of the church with combustibles, ignited the mass, and locked the heavy doors. Then entering the waiting boats they lay to off shore enjoying the pleasant spectacle. The insurgents who poured into the town an hour later found all efforts to save the structure unavailing, and only the lofty walls remain for me to admire. On the smokeblackened front of the building the stones are carved in a most curious series of designs, the chief being an immense man with the Christ A Patchwork of Journal Pages 93 child upon his shoulder, tugging at the stem of a palm tree, probably a St. Christopher. Clambering over the ruins at the entrance I found the interior strewn with wreckage, fragments of tiling, broken marble fonts, twisted iron and shivered carvings. I could not but be reminded of the Iconoclasts of Flanders. But this furnished no parallel. Here was a work not of wrath but of spite. Jesuitism ruined Miagao to build this church, alienated the people by continual exaction, stamped out in the spirit of gloomy Philip every spark of intelligent education, turned every commercial venture into a feeder for the padre's pouch, killed activity by tax, thought by edict, and truth by superstition. Then after years of this fine business the holy shepherds, unwilling to leave to the flock the fruitage of their own toil and sacrifices, destroy what to them was no less than the temple of God, and watch with grim satisfaction from their departing boats the tower of flame and smoke which rose above the grief and disappointment of their erstwhile spiritual children! Such an act was worthy of a sect that descended to the pettiness of forbidding to the common people the privilege of wearing shoes, made an immense sum by compelling all candles to be blest before burnt, and held a monopoly on women's veils! As I viewed, this afternoon, the desolate ruin 94 The Cross of Christ in Bolo-Land on its beautiful site, I could not but wish that the melancholy mass might be symbolic of the complete destruction of all that is coercive, bigoted, tyrannical and superstitious in religion. "This parting shot of Jesuitism had left Miagao without a church, and a long bamboo frame, patched over with the burnt roofing of the destroyed building, is compelled to meet the demands of worship and ceremonial. "This evening, in company with the officers of the garrison, I reviewed a typical religious procession. It started from the make-shift church at dusk and beside the large number who directly participated it had drawn out an immense crowd of spectators. The native padre engineered the affair and acted a great deal like the distressed marshal of a county Sunday-school rally, as he shoved the various detachments ahead, attempted to right things that were going wrong, and at the same time preserve the dignity necessary for such a solemn occasion. "The affair started out with the little boys of the town, each one tricked out in his best, carrying tapers and marching in single file at either side of the street. Well toward the head of this juvenile advance and between its two lines stalked a fatherly parishioner in top-hat, black dress-coat and white trousers. The A Patchwork of Journal Pages 95 supply of boys becoming exhausted, the procession was continued by the little girls, each in a fancy dress with a train and high-heeled slippers and consequent vanity very apparent. But this time the padre saw fit to punctuate the line by a candle-decked float-an image of the Saviour carried upon the shoulders of a number of faithful adults. In its rear the local damsels flaunted black silk skirts, pifia waists and cream mantillas before our eyes, and carried their long tapers with a fairly graceful air. More floats appeared, 'Christ in the Soldier's Cloak,' and 'Christ Bearing His Cross,' the latter accompanied by twelve old men dressed as monks to represent the twelve apostles(!), one amongst them ostentatiously dangling a huge Petrine key. The older people now fell into line and streamed by, and the native band, which had been playing at the church door, fell in before a huge float covered with glass globes and surmounted by an image of the Virgin Mary. A native choir of boys followed singing Latin hymns, and last, in a hollow square of young Visayan dandies attired in evening dress, came the padre himself, with his best black gown well sprinkled with golden ornament and his holy eyes flitting from the open missal in his hand to the admiring people along the route. The blue uniforms of the police closed up the affair. 96 The Cross of Christ in Bolo-Land "After passing us the procession descended into the quickly-gathering shades of the lower town. Going around the plaza we awaited its reappearance, and had the privilege of seeing it come back toward us in two long undulating lines of waving, shimmering, blinking lights, the tapers all stars, the floats all constellations, the band still bravely blowing, and the police marching by fours and fairly prancing, while above our heads in the bell-tower of the ruined church vigorous natives rattled bamboo clappers with diabolic skill. ~"To-morrow and the next day (Easter) will be great occasions. Ripples of fire will run from the altar out over the tapers of immense congregations, girls dressed as angels will sing from bamboo stands, flowers will be scattered, more processions formed, and last of all, the bells, prohibited from Thursday to Sunday, will ring out the Easter joy. The American band will come up from Iloilo and play on Easter morning, and there will be cockfights, horse fights, bull fights, and a splendid native spree to end up everything on Easter afternoon. In short, a regular Fourth of July, Rally Day, Sunday-school Picnic, Torch-light Procession, Election Day combination. "Conducted a service for the troops immediately after the native procession had disbanded. A pretty bamboo bandstand on the plaza A Patchwork of Journal Pages 97 served for a pulpit. All men off duty present and a large crowd of natives in addition. Left reading and writing material in the hands of the orderly-sergeant to distribute as the men had need. "Guimbal, April r3.-Left Miagao at I:30 p.m., and walked to this post. Eight miles in the hottest part of the day and the hottest season of the year. The sun's power is beyond the telling. I had hardly stepped into the dusty road before my shoes seemed on fire. Tried the sea-beach for relief, but found it too circuitous. All the natives along the route fast asleep under the palms. The seashore from Miagao to Guimbal is dotted with the huts of the salt-makers and fishermen, half hidden in the edge of luxuriant palms. Waded first river and was carried by two natives across the second. Entered Guimbal at 5 o'clock, both dirty and tired. The garrison consists of a detachment of eighteen men under a sergeant, occupying a roomy old stone convento built against the church. Heartily received and invited to a very welcome supper of excellent coffee and pan-cakes. I find my usual service impracticable here, a large Good Friday procession of natives filling the evening. Much the same as that of last night at Miagao. Being the day of the Saviour's death, however, black predominated. The native band ap 98 The Cross of Christ in Bolo-Land peared in white suits trimmed with crepe, the ladies' veils were confined to the sombre color, and even the lamps on the floats were tied with black ribbon. As the procession formed, the native drummer rumbled out the long roll. Guimbal is not a large town, but fully 3,000 men, women and children were in line. To-night I have a room to myself, a cot and blanket, yea, and a pillow. As I write this entry at my candle, bands of children are still carrying torches about the plaza from one extemporized shrine to another. I understand the exercises continue in some shape all night. The awful clapper still continues. "On the Road to Tig-banan, April 14, 8:2o a. m. -Am resting on the top of an old stone watchtower on the seashore. It appears to have been erected as a protection to the fisher folk in the old days of Moro piracy. The top is attained by means of a bamboo ladder some forty feet in length, and from it the view up and down the coast and out over the sea is excellent. There are a number of fishing boats off shore as I write. It is not hard for fancy to bring up a pirate 'proa' over the horizon line from Mindanao, and reconstruct old days of pillage and murder. There are several of these rude defences on the southern coast of Panay. g'Leon, April I4.-Reached Tig-banan at it A Patchwork of Journal Pages 99 a.m. Only four miles from Guimbal but the heat is terrible to a northerner and makes the road seem very long. Many natives passing to and from the 'fiestas' and markets, and all seemingly peaceable. Just out of Tig-banan met a private of the Signal Corps and an infantryman hunting up a break in the newlyconstructed military wire from Iloilo to San Joaquim&/ The intention is, I believe, to continue the lines across the mountains to San Jose de Buena Vista. This will mean a great deal of patrolling as the ladrones and insurgents have a pleasant way of cutting the wire at two points a quarter mile apart and then dragging the severed section off into the jungle by means of a sturdy carabao. It is not difficult to locate the 'break'(!), but it is a matter of days to get sufficient wire from headquarters to replace the missing link. It is even more exasperating when some sly old native severs the wire with his bolo at some point where, instead of following the road, the line runs through the thick brush. Such a break cannot of course be seen, but must befeltfor, and the Signal Corps men have the pleasant task of following along the wire for miles in thorns and thickets, over rocks and through streams, dragging their extra coil with them and all the while furnishing an excellent target for foliagehidden riflemen who use smokeless powder and Ioo The Cross of Christ in Bolo-Land cannot be located after their volley has been delivered. "At Tig-banan the detachment consists of fourteen men of Company I, 26th Infantry, Sergeant Scott in command. Pressed to remain to dinner. Yielded to pressure. Baked fish! After dinner the sergeant entertained me with ladrone tales and accounts of recent skirmishes in the vicinity. Left at 2 o'clock for Leon on foot, in company with Private Leary. Stopped to secure a drink of dirty water from a cocoanut shell at the half-way barrio of Cordova at 3: 30, and reached Leon about 5 o'clock.{ The distance from Tig-banan is nine miles, the road rising steadily as we got away from the coast. Leon nestles in the edge of the foothills and is very pretty for a Filipino town, in spite of a dearth of palm trees. A hearty welcome was given me at the officers' quarters by Captain Greig, Lieutenant Rice and Dr. Tukey. Greig and Rice are Massachusetts men, while Tukey hails from Maine. As I was New York I received the welcome of an old neighbor! X'After supper and a little base-ball with the men on the plaza, we sat in the windows of the roomy officers' quarters, drank lime-juice and listened to a concert in our honor by the Leon native musicians-a village band of unusual merit. The charms A Patchwork of Journal Pages ioi of a moon-lit tropical evening have never been too strongly written. Given a soft, balmy night with the fragrance of the 'ilang-ilang' hanging heavily in the air, the music of a good band at just the right distance, and the weird frame of moon-lit palms and picturesque nipa houses, and one is almost ready to forswear the rugged life of the temperate zone for all time. The surprise of the program this evening was the concluding number. Captain' Greig had a week before called the native band-master up into his quarters and industriously whistled into his ear the air of the 'Star-spangled Banner.' The band had apparently practiced it in secret session all the week, for as they drew together for their last number they suddenly swelled up into the familiar strains and played them to the end without a noticeable error. It was decidedly appreciated by that lonely little garrison in the foothills. We, at the windows, clapped our hands and dropped down what little silver we possessed, while shrill yells of approval came over the plaza from the barracks. "'Taps' had hardly been sounded from the guardhouse when a native spy (an 'amigo') came in with the report that Montor del Moro, a desperate character who with a band of cutthroats behind him has been harrying the neighboring barrios for some months past, had o02 The Cross of Christ in Bolo-Land been located in a certain house at the town of Almodian, seven miles to the northwest. I gather from the men here that Montor has had quite a remarkable history. As his name indicates he is not a Visayan but a Moro, being born in Mindanao of Mohammedan parents. He had served for a time in the Spanish army in that island, but deserted to join the insurgents on Panay. After the capture of Iloilo by the American forces he came into their lines and gave himself up. Being intelligent, bold and apparently trustworthy, he was given the responsible position of chief of police. His pro-Americanism lasted but a few months, his restless spirit leading him into the Antique mountains, where he soon became the head of a band of outlaws as desperate as himself. I had been shown at Guimbal a bloodstained wall and told that during a raid on that town previous to its being garrisoned by American troops he had taken the village presidente's infant child and dashed its head against the masonry and had boloed to death two other children of the same family. These murders are but a small part of his crimes, and he has terrorized all but the boldest. American scouting parties and patrols have pressed him hard on several occasions. Four days ago a squad of infantrymen under a non-commissioned officer even succeeded in surrounding a A Patchwork of Journal Pages 103 house in which he was hiding, but leaping boldly from the window, unharmed by their shots, he escaped safely to the brush. "Upon hearing the report of the spy, Captain Greig and a dozen mounted men immediately started out to round him up. I was too tired to accept the Captain's offer of a mount and a share in the evening's adventure. "Leon, April I5.-Early this morning the detachment returned entirely successful. The barrio had been raided, the house surrounded, the doors battered in, the place searched and the bandit dragged out from under the fireplace. q Montor's presence in the house and without his followers was explained by the fact that the searching party also found his wife and father-in-law in the same building. The woman was very ill, having given birth to a child but a few days before, and Greig was much touched by the anguish she showed at her husband's capture. Montor and his father-inlaw were both brought in with the detachment and placed in the guard-house. In company with Lieutenant Rice I wont over to see the man who could equal a Mohawk in ferocity and yet run his neck into a noose to comfort his sick wife. He proved to be far from ugly in appearance, and to judge by his looks (a poor way to judge a Filipino) not more than thirty years of age. A quite prepossessing manner, Io4 The Cross of Christ in Bolo-Land smooth face and sturdy build. The father-inlaw, a slight, stooped, grey-haired man, is suffering badly from beri-beri, and remained lying down while the Lieutenant and I talked with his son-in-law. "Service for the men of the company to-day at 4 o'clock. The three officers of the garrison and all men off duty present-some sixty in all. The Captain has granted the use of a large room for social purposes during the rainy season. I will forward from Iloilo upon my return such supplies as I can spare to assist in fitting it up. The final religious processions of Holy Week were held to-day. Hundreds of red and purple dresses as a sign of Easter joy. The humble American Easterbonnet withers in comparison. One saffron-yellow skirt patterned with red splashes will always be a bright spot in my memory! Neither Joseph nor Solomon could have matched the goods. X "Tried the Krag-Jorgensen rifle on the garrison range to-day. An excellent shooting gun, almost no recoil, easily handled and rapidly fired. Leave to-night for Iloilo in company with a guard of sixteen men who will escort Montor del Moro and his father-in-law to the strong walls of Fort Iloilo. The Captain has kindly loaned me one of his horses for the journey. "Iloilo, April I7.-Last night left Leon at 9 A Patchwork of Journal Pages I05 o'clock, traveling as far as Tig-banan in company with Montor's guard. Those of us provided with mounts, a sergeant, a private, a Filipino sefior returning to his home at Tigbanan, and myself, riding in advance, found the road by moonlight a very pleasant one. Every shadow was sharply'cut, and the palms and bamboos made a silver and black lacework against the sky, while the ridged rice fields stretching away to the indistinct bulk of the hills and the ripples of light on the water as we splashed through the fords made a charm of scene to which we gladly yielded. Best of all the cool night air. At Tig-banan I left the escort and pushed on ahead, as I was anxious to reach here by morning. The road from Tig-banan to Iloilo had the added charm of a mysterious moon-lit sea appearing at intervals through the arches of the palm groves, with the friendly wink of a revolving light flashing up over the horizon from Guimaras Island. But while the scenery was pleasant enough the road soon revealed serious disadvantages to the lonely traveler. The bridges over the numerous streams are often missing, and the rice-workers and fishermen of the district, fearful of the ladrones, have gathered in closely-built barrios, each surrounded by a forbidding zareba of fire-hardened bamboo, and protected by gates thrown directly across the xo6 The Cross of Christ in Bolo-Land main road which invariably forms the one street of these hamlets. This leaves the country desolate and forbidding, and, as it is impossible to ride a horse through the surrounding rice fields, compels the traveler to arouse each barrio from its slumbers in order to continue his journey. Having an easily-frightened horse who sniffed and balked at every unusual stir in the gloomy shadows of the thickening groves, my peace of mind was somewhat disturbed, and I confess that my revolver was hardly out of my hand from the time I left Tig-banan until I saw the sky redden as I entered the outskirts of Molo. Between these points there are neither soldiers nor organized police, and several of the barrios have an unsavory name. Being neither controlled from Iloilo or Miagao the district is considered good ground to operate in both by the outlaws and the insurgents proper. Fully twenty different gates barred my way and had to be opened by sleepy villagers who, but halfaroused, first stared through the obstructions and fingered unpleasant looking knives, and then, yielding to the magic of the words 'Americano!' and 'Pronto!' clumsily undid fastenings, lifted out bars and shoved the bulky gates jealously back. Then, after a hasty inspection of their appearance to satisfy myself of their class and intentions, I would A Patchwork of Journal Pages 107 ride down between the long lines of huts toward the second gate, which would admit me again to the open country. From the moment of my first hail to the barrio to the glad moment when I slipped out into the fields again I had no lack of dispiriting dog music-whines, growls, howls, moans, hisses and yelps-all emanating from an astonishing number of narrow-sided, pointed-eared mongrels. By the time I reached Oton my patience had leaked away, and when one cur in a pack attempted to bite my horse's foot I leaned over and shot him. I got little satisfaction from it, however, as my horse, frightened by the report, threw me from my saddle and gave me a lively chase back through the now aroused and heartily amused village! "While being conducted to a ford near Oton I happened to notice the scabbard of a war-bolo showing beneath the shirt of my guide. An order having been issued to confiscate all war-bolos found, and arrest all natives thus armed, I took the liberty of persuading the man to part with his weapon -which he was somewhat loath to do. It proves by daylight to be quite murderous enough to hang up on my study wall in coming days and inspire thrilling stories of its capture. After using the man to direct me on my road and providing myself with a souvenir xo8 The Cross of Chrst zn Bolo-Land at his expense, I hardly felt it in my heart to march him to Iloilo as a prisoner, and so turned him loose. Iloilo at 9 o'clock, having spent eleven hours in the saddle. "April 2o.-Dr. Monasterio returned from the Island of Negros to-day, and I resumed my Spanish with him. He finds his sugar-plantation deserted of its hands, and its hacienda burned. He will leave it to its fate until American supremacy is established. Am attempting to find permanent quarters for the Army Association here. The tent will be beaten down, I am told, by the driving rains of early June. Rode Hike out to Jaro today to inspect the reading-room at that point. Found that the private detailed in charge at my last visit has been transferred. As a result the room is untidy. A new man will be detailed to-day. The Jaro garrison seem very appreciative of the reading, writing and game facilities. New lamps have been hung recently. Sent case of supplies to-day to Pototan for reading-room at that point. Skirmish north of Januiay, on the road to Limbanao. Thirteen Americans wounded. It is quite generally feared that the guerrilla evil will increase as the rainy season comes on. "Aprl 22, Sunday.-Attended Mr. Hibbard's English service this morning. Our service in the tent in the evening largely attended. The A Patchwork of Journal Pages o09 testimonies in the after-service were excellent. Two men announced their decision for Christ. One of these stated that his decision was due to a word spoken to him while in the hospital, sick, discouraged and facing death. A little message from one of us had brought him peace of mind and heart. A sailor from the 'mosquito-fleet' gunboat 'Paragua' gave in some ringing words on resisting temptation. The Master has given him some definite victories of late, and his face was shining as he spoke. "Apnrl 26.-Yesterday morning we experienced a considerable earth-shock, my quarters shaking and the furniture rattling. This continued for fully thirty seconds, and was a sickening sensation. "Lieutenant Plummer. wishes a permanent reading-room opened up at Miagao. The troops in this vicinity are being shifted about. The battalion of the 44th at Jaro will soon leave for the Island of Cebu, a detachment of the 26th will occupy Jaro and a company of the I8th will reinforce the provost-guard at Iloilo. Upon visiting the Brigade Hospital this morning I found Wilhelm of Battery G at the point of death. He was discharged from the hospital some weeks ago, supposedly well, was placed on guard, fell asleep on post, was sentenced to six months in the military i io The Cross of Christ in Bolo-Land prison, and being again taken sick will die in the ward while under sentence. His nurse and the men of the Hospital Corps speak very highly of him, notwithstanding his offence, and it seems a pity that he must go into the grave while under disgrace. "April30, Monday.-Two services yesterday. At three in the afternoon went out to the old Spanish fort on the point, now used as a military prison for the Department of the Visayas. "A large number of native prisoners, including General Garcia, former insurgent governor of Concepcion Province, occupy the barracks. There are also some sixty American prisoners. It was for these latter offenders against military law that the service was held. The men were allowed to gather in one of the large rooms and listened earnestly to all said. Out of the sixty, forty-five were men who had been dishonorably discharged ('bob-tailed'). Every dishonorable discharge carries with it anywhere from a six months' to a life sentence in addition. The highest sentence in the audience yesterday was ten years. There is something unusually sad to me in the sight of these men, whether huddled in their quarters at the Fort or working on the hot Iloilo roads, breaking stone under guard. They are largely the dregs of the army, but one cannot but think of the fact that they will return to the home-land A Patchwork of Journal Pages III after serving out their sentences, in shame of soul, reaping nothing but bitterness and disgrace from a service to which doubtless at one time they looked forward with eager anticipation. I will attempt to make these meetings for their benefit a regular thing. "After our service was over and we had chatted awhile with the men, Sergeant Bartlett took Mr. Hibbard, Dr. Hall and myself to the ramparts, where we examined the old cannon, and enjoyed the cool breeze sweeping down the Strait.' VI Abe Xapttst Ditsston in tbe Dtsapas 3 HE point upon which Iloilo is built lies so low as to render Lj ~ proper drainage impossible,.*..._ and the approach of the rainy season now made a change in our quarters imperative. * >! During the wet season large - ^ - sheets of water cover the streets and vacant sites for — = a~_~ hours after each downpour, - ~ -- I and our tent, having no fly ^j~~ CF"- and being provided with no other floor than the bare ground, was obviously no fit headquarters for the Association. I had been looking for a suitable building for some time, and at last was able to secure a large room in rear of the postoffice, and during the first week in May we transferred our furniture and remaining supplies, lowered the tent, and, after a deal of hammering, scrubbing and sawing found ourselves under a good corrugated-iron roof and ready for the million drumming fingers of the first heavy showers. 112 0 f() N0VN V JA O a V7l VAI The Baptist Mission in the Visayas I 13 It was during this same week that we were cheered by the arrival in Iloilo of the pioneers of the American Baptist Missionary Union, and at our first service in our new quarters the Reverend Eric Lund and his native helper, Sefior Manikin, were both present. At my earliest opportunity I visited Mr. Lund at his rented quarters on Calle Concepcion, and learned from his lips the very interesting story of the events which led his denomination to take up work in the Islands. Mr. Lund, like Mr. Rodgers of the Presbyterian Board, was already a veteran. For twenty-two years he had labored as a missionary in Spain, and for the last half of that period in charge of the Spanish Mission of the Baptist Union. The headquarters of the work being at Barcelona, Mr. Lund naturally came in touch with some of the many Tagalos and Visayans who frequent that port. Some of these became regular attendants at his services, and among others he became interested in a young Visayan named Manikin, who deserves more than a passing word. Manikin had come from a well-to-do Visayan family in northern Panay, his father being honored with the office of presidente of Ibajay, and had determined upon the church as his profession. He accordingly entered the Jesuit Seminary at Jaro, with his eye fixed on the goal of a pleasant, indolent 14 The Cross of Christ in Bolo-Land parish life. After finishing his course, however, he became dissatisfied and determined to defer taking orders until he should have visited Spain. It was while drifting pennilessly about the port of Barcelona that he providentially met Mr. Lund and became interested in the Evangelical Mission. His conversion soon followed. During the Spanish-American war Mr. Lund was able to make a flying visit to America, and in conference with the secretaries of the American Baptist Missionary Union, plans were at once formulated for the planting of a mission in the Philippines. As the disturbed conditions in '98 and '99 seemed to forbid the actual occupation of the new field, Manikin's services were utilized and a tentative Visayan translation of the New Testament begun in Barcelona. This work of necessity proceeded slowly, but at the time of Mr. Lund's arrival at Iloilo a considerable portion of the Gospels had been finished, and a number of Visayan tracts both written and printed ready for distribution. Mr. Lund's plan had been to establish his initial work at Iloilo, but finding that point already occupied by the Presbyterian Mission, he determined to retain his house at Iloilo and carry on the translation there, but to open up evangelistic services at Jaro, three miles to the north. Several reasons influenced him in this The Baptist Mission in the Vzsayas I 15 decision. Sefior Manikin had received his education at the Jaro Seminary (now occupied by the troops as a barrack); the town itself was one of the best in the island, and contained a market, to which several thousand natives gathered weekly; by occupying Jaro the Presbyterians, who had an out-station at Molo, would be free to work from Iloilo to the west, while the Baptist advance would naturally be to the north and thus avoid all possible friction and confusion. Mr. Lund and Manikin therefore began their two-fold labor. They earnestly resumed the writing of Visayan leaflets, and the translation of the Testament, and in addition opened up first a weekly and then a semiweekly service at Jaro. I was, unfortunately, suffering from the after-effects of a severe attack of "dangue," and was unable to attend the initial meeting. A decided interest was at once apparent among the people of Jaro and the surrounding country, and not a few of the more intelligent natives were interested enough to frequent Mr. Lund's house at Iloilo as inquirers. The majority of these were doubtless merely curious, but others were deeply interested in the truth. Two things greatly militated in Mr. Lund's favor. The first, to our astonishment, was the fact that he was sightly bald and somewhat portly. The more ignorant of the natives had preconceived notions as to 16 The Cross of Christ in Bolo-Land: i i i ii _1 i1 ____l the proper appearance of a padre, and his accidental tonsure gave them confidence that he was playing a genuine part. He was not slow to explain that his likeness to a Spanish friar was both unintentional and distastefull His perfect command of the Spanish tongue was, however, the real cause of his immediate influence, and his twenty odd years in Spain had given him a knowledge of the Papal system which stood him in good stead in his new field. As a consequence his sermons at Jaro soon attracted the presence of all who could understand Spanish, and many who could not, came to listen patiently to Manikin's translations. The work in the New Testament was of the first importance, but many obstacles prevented rapid progress. The educated Filipino is invariably educated away from his native tongue, and Mr. Lund found it very difficult, even with Manikin's help, to secure a sufficiently simple version, one that would be intelligible to the common people. Then, too, there is a considerable variation in the Visayan tongue. The Visayan dialect of Panay and Negros differs materially from that of Cebu or Samar, and even in Panay itself the dialect varies in different districts. The few grammars and dictionaries prepared by the Jesuits were of little use to the missionaries, many of their Te Baptis Mission in the Visayas I17 most common terms being either obsolete or arbitrary coinages, and unintelligible to the people. The mixture of Spanish with the Visayan complicated matters still more and the utter lack of native equivalents for many New Testament expressions and terms necessitated the actual making of occasional words and compounds. For instance, I have in mind a futile search for an equivalent for our word "justified." The consequent coining of a new yet logical word was not a matter of a moment's decision, but of hours of study. To see Mr. Lund, Sefior Manikin and their assistant Mata, seated at a table littered with versions, lexicons, grammars and notes, poring, discussing and copying in the close, hot air of an Iloilo June, gave me an increased appreciation of those gigantic labors of the past which have given us in the present nearly four hundred versions of the Word of God. It was my privilege to assist in securing the services of a native reviser as Mr. Lund deemed it necessary to secure a thorough revision of Manikin's version of Matthew. By inquiry among native friends he found that the man best qualified for such a work was an excaptain of the insurgent army, Fernando Salas, then incarcerated in Fort Iloilo. Securing permission from the officer in charge, we interviewed the Captain in his cell and found him a 1 8 The Cross of Christ in Bolo-Land very pleasant fellow. He laughingly confessed that time was hanging heavily on his hands, and willingly undertook the work for a consideration. His work proved satisfactory, and not only Matthew but other portions of the Testament as well were revised in Salas's cell. Outside of Manikin and Salas, Mr. Lund's most valuable helper was an old schoolmaster, Senor Mata, who consented to leave the interior and live with Mr. Lund in order to facilitate the work. While unwilling to accept the Good Tidings himself, his hatred of the friars and padres made him eager to assist any movement to which they were opposed. He was of peasant parentage and unusually valuable for that reason, his vocabulary being a simple and generally intelligible one. The work of translation had hardly gotten good headway when the native priests at Jaro, Molo and Iloilo began to threaten dire penalties on all who should assist it. This raging had the effect of frightening away many timid sympathizers, but Mata and Salas remained faithful, and the work went steadily on. As I write these sentences I rejoice to be able to state that the Visayan Testament has been completed and is now being printed in Spain under supervision of Mr. Lund, whose ill-health compelled his return to that country in the summer of 1901. The Baptist Mission in the Visayas I 9 To the east of Panay lies the beautiful Isla de Negros, the most prosperous and peaceful of the Visayas. From my quarters in Iloilo I could see the blue peaks of its graceful mountain range rising into the air beyond the low stretch of Guimaras Island. Already Mr. Hibbard had traversed the Island and had selected the town of Dumaguete at its southeastern end as the point at which to establish a second Presbyterian work among the Visayans when additional workers should arrive. As the Baptist plan had also included the occupation of some point on Negros, Mr. Lund determined to visit the northern part of the island and look over the ground with a view of establishing work at or near Bacolod, the capital. I had already supplied garrisons on Negros with such bundles of papers, magazines, books and Testaments as I could spare from the work in Panay, and determined to make the trip with Mr. Lund both for the purpose of getting in touch with the troops on Negros and observing the reception accorded by the natives of that island to Mr. Lund. Securing passage on the little sugar steamer "Molefio," we left Iloilo for Silay on the 6th of June. While churning along the Panay coast we were permitted an interesting sight. We were some nineteen miles up the coast from Iloilo and perhaps a mile off the marshes which surround 120 The Cross of Christ in Bolo-Land _. — i- - 1.......... the important town of Dumangas, the churchtower of which alone was visible, when a puff of black smoke suddenly shot up over the marsh and spread its stain in the clear sky. A moment later a second and a third succeeded, and I knew that Dumangas was being fired either by soldiers or insurgents. Five minutes from the first appearance of smoke the entire coast was black with billowing clouds of it, and the church-tower was flaming luridly. The authorities at Iloilo, twenty miles away, seeing the smoke and thinking our little steamer had caught on fire up the coast, dispatched a launch to our rescue, but were soon undeceived. Upon our return to Panay we learned that the American garrison at Dumangas had been surrounded by a heavy force of insurgents who, after a fierce rifle-fire of some thirty-six hours, had compelled the little band of twenty Americans to evacuate their bullet-riddled barracks. In dashing across the plaza to break through the insurgent line one man was killed and others wounded. The little band, however, fought its way through to Barotac Nueva, where they were reinforced by a hundred men hurried over from Pototan. Thus strengthened they returned to Dumangas, recaptured the town and destroyed it. Dumangas had long been a troublesome place, but it would probably have been spared had not The Baptist Mission in the Visayas I21 the returning soldiers found the body of their dead comrade lying on the plaza frightfully hacked with bolos, a piece of barbarism not uncommon among the Filipinos. The enraged men immediately spread out and fired the houses, which, dry as tinder, fairly exploded. There had been a stiff exchange of shots with the insurgents during the destruction of the town, but we were too far off the coast to hear the firing. The waters on the western coast of Negros are too shallow to permit even a small coaster to fasten to the wharves except at flood tide, and we were transferred from the steamer to the wharf at Silay, in small boats. After a call upon the officer in command of the garrison in the little town we hired a native bullcart and proceeded down the coast to the capital, Bacolod, passing through the quaint little pueblo of Talisay. The road stretches along through a perfectly level country bordering well on the sea and lined on the shore-side by long fenceless sugar-plantations, which at the time of our visit were fresh with the deep green of the new cane. Back from the road at intervals appeared the brown roofs and chimneys of the haciendas, and far over the spreading fields the foot-hills rolled up, clothed in heavy tangled growth and terminating in three stately blue peaks, around which the clouds 122 The Cross of Christ in Bolo-Land were settling. The shadows of the late afternoon stretched in long reaching fingers from every isolated group of palm and bamboo. Bacolod at 7 o'clock and into the local "fonda" (hotel) for the night. A Filipino of some intelligence kept the place, and several American officers found his fare sufficiently good to coax them away from their mess, but Filipino cooking has no delight for me, and I had a scanty time for the three days of our stay with mine host. To his surprise I dodged all his elaborate creations and subsisted on rice, bananas and guava jelly. The room assigned to us for sleeping quarters contained two stiff bamboo benches for beds, but neither blankets nor pillows, towels nor soap. To add to our discomfort even the few snatches of sleep that our hard beds made possible were broken by the irritating grunting of a large and persistent iguana, which, flattened out on a beam above us, defied all our efforts to dislodge it. For two days following our arrival in Bacolod, I accompanied Mr. Lund about the town, meeting the newly-elected governor of the island, the "cacique" and many other prominent natives, as well as visiting the sol diers of the Sixth Infantry in the barracks and the patients in the District Hospital. As Mr. Lund had brought with him a supply of Visayan The Baptist Mission in the Visayas 123 tracts, he was able to secure no little interest both among the Spanish-speaking planters and their more ignorant cane-workers. The American General then in command of Negros had his headquarters at Bacolod and was a pronounced Romanist. The Filipino churches are rarely supplied with benches, and the General was at pains to have a pew constructed for his use in the local edifice and attended mass regularly. I rather anticipated that Mr. Lund's religious conversations in the homes of the natives and his tract distribution might cause some trouble, but the General proved either oblivious or tolerant. I had arranged to conduct a service in the large store-room beneath the hospital on the third night of our stay, aud Mr. Lund received permission to invite the natives to the same place directly following our service and to address them there. A number of officers and men interested themselves in getting the place in shape, arranging for the lighting and seating. I began my service at 6: 30 and closed an hour later. Immediately a large number of the well-to-do Filipinos of the town flowed in and refilled the room to its utmost capacity. They were of both sexes and dressed in their best, many driving up to the door in "calesas." After some preliminaries Mr. Lund arose and gave the first Gospel proclamation ever heard 124 The Cross of Christ in Bolo-Land on the Island since the hand of Omnipotence formed its hills. The address was an exposition of the Parable of the Prodigal Son, and by his excellent Castilian, clear reasoning and intense earnestness Mr. Lund seemed to carry his audience away, many responding to his more telling points with affirmatory ejaculations. At the close of the service the preacher was compelled to hold quite a levee, being urged by many not merely to repeat his visit to Bacolod, but to make the town his permanent residence. He was even assured that, as the local padre seldom condescended to prepare a sermon for his flock, the church would be placed at his disposal whenever he wished to occupy its pulpit! In fact, the propriety of offering his pulpit to Mr. Lund was actually urged some days later upon the padre by some of his prominent parishioners. We can imagine his reply to the audacious committee! In this connection let me say that I have even been offered by certain of the more ignorant among the priests the use of their churches for my services with the soldiers, but never accepted these offers, as I understood the law of their church better than they themselves, and beside had no desire to be under obligation to them. Having thus spied out the Promised Land Mr. Lund returned with me to Silay on the The Baptist Mission in the Visayas 125 morning following our double service, having fully determined to occupy Bacolod as an outstation as soon as his Mission was reinforced. On the return journey to Silay we created quite a sensation along the road among the poor people who were going to their work on the plantations, by handing out to them copies of a little Gospel tract in Visayan, "The Words of Jesus Christ." Many of them could read a little, and these first words of the Gospel in their own tongue were eagerly perused. Our "quilez" stopped often while Mr. Lund attempted to drop a seed thought into the minds of the more eager. I had so often stood helplessly by when a knowledge of the native tongue would have enabled me to bring light and blessing to some Visayan's life, that this little experience as a colporteur was a great pleasure to me. Upon returning to Iloilo, Mr. Lund at once resumed his translating and preaching, and I my work among the troops. In the middle of July, I was compelled to close my work temporarily at Iloilo and proceed to Manila to assist in the more important activities of the Army Association in Luzon, but in September I was ordered as a witness on a military commission at Jaro, and thus came once more in touch with Mr. Lund and the Baptist Mission, and noted the excellent progress made in the 126 The Cross of Christ in Bolo-Land three months. Being requested by him to address his congregation, I complied and ap. peared before a. crowded audience assembled in a large bamboo "casa" near the entrance to the thriving market. The assemblage consisted largely of the poor rice workers from the many outlying barrios. My address was of course in English, but given sentence by sentence so as to permit Pastor Lund to translate each into Spanish and Mata from Spanish into the vernacular. I do not know what shape my outlines of truth were in by the time they reached their destination, but the people seemed gravely interested in the remarks of the "Americano." At the conclusion of the service a band of natives from a barrio near Santa Barbara followed Mr. Lund down the three hot miles of road to Iloilo, eager for a second meeting. They were not denied, and on this occasion Mr. Lund surprised them by singing a little Visayan hymn which he had recently written, and set to a familiar Moody and Sankey tune. It was pleasing to see their delight, and it was not long before they were crowded about him and joining in the chorus with a great deal of gusto. The women sang quite well. The work at Jaro has since been strengthened by the erection of a commodious nipa-andbamboo chapel, a permanent congregation The Baptist Mission in the Visayas 127 gathered and a regular organization of Christian Visayans effected. The Mission had, and doubtless still has, petty persecutions to endure. A serious blow was dealt the work by the murder of the old school-master Mata, who was set upon by unknown assailants near Mindurriao and fatally knifed, supposedly because of his identification with the Protestant work. Both Mr. Lund and Senor Manikin (and Mr. Hibbard as well) received numerous threats of violence, and the country people who were most faithful in their attendance at the services were warned to abandon the practice or expect to have their houses burned over them. The last word, however, is one of peace, as Panay is largely tranquil at the present time, and both Baptist and Presbyterian work going on almost unhindered. Over the pulpit of the Jaro chapel, the first Protestant structure to be erected in the Visayas and the second in the Archipelago, is a rude motto in the native dialect, which is not only a reassuring statement, but an infallible prophecy of great future blessing to the Visayans, "Ginawali Namon Si Christo,"-or, as we have long been familiar with it, "We Preach Christ Crucified." VII an Intervtew wttb tbe Enemg Y last weeks on Panay found their reflection in the following entries in my notebook: lI | ~\ '"Iloilo, June 12.-The rains are now very heavy and frequent. As I write this line the roof above me is thundering in response to a rat[ L llll 8 Il tling shower. The clouds - gather quickly, discharge J2Rt *, ^,, ^ heavily and then- the scenery shifting-the sun blazes down on the watery streets and draws the moisture out of the puddles and the energy out of us. The atmosphere is very humid and enervating, and reminds us of the little girl's complaint, 'It isn't the hotness I mind so much, mamma, but the wetness of the hotness!'* * A graphic idea of weather conditions about this time in the year can be obtained by perusing the entries of a week in a friend's diary: "June xo-Rain in the morning till xo a.m.-clouds with occasional showers. "June x-Rained all day. Thunder and lightning. "June 12-Raining still. "June I3-Water about x8 in. deep on the level. Life preservers used by ladies for shopping purposes. 128 4 CV SAA IE 0 An Interview with the Enemy 129 New men are now being landed, recruits to fill up the depleted ranks of the Eighteenth Infantry. They are a fine-looking body of men, and we are trying to make them feel at home at the Association. Requests for supplies are coming in from Negros and points on the northern coast of Panay. We are almost at an end of our resources, but have managed to do something in response, and have given a few supplies into Chaplain Easterbrook's hands for distribution in Samar and Leyte. Chaplain Randolph of the Sixth Infantry is here from Damaguete for a few days, and will speak at the Association tonight. Will arrange a service for him at the old Fort on Lord's Day. Two lives are fluttering feebly to the brink of eternity to-night at the hospital. "June 24.-Mr. Lund has revisited Bacolod, this time in company with Sefior Manikin. They were most cordially received. The largest house in the town, formerly the official residence of the Spanish Governor, was opened for them, and its audience chamber crowded. With the exception of the native Governor all "June 14-Fine weather again. Street sprinkler used to keep down dust. "June 5S —'Hancock' sails to,=America. Wish I was going. Fine summer weather. "June 1 —Rained all night." 130 The Cross of Christ in Bolo-Land the leading Filipinos were present, the 'cacique,' the wealthiest man in the place, being most active in their behalf. Three services were conducted and much personal work done. There were several promising inquirers. Invitations were given Mr. Lund to return and make an extensive trip down the west coast of Negros, preaching in the villages. As Mr. Lund remarks, 'The Island seems to be ripe for Protestantism, but only God's grace can make it Christian.' 'July 12.-Recent mails from Manila have informed me of many important changes in our work. Messrs. Glunz and Jackson have sailed for America to take a long-deferred and wellearned furlough. The Ninth and Fourteenth Regiments are being hurried to China to assist the movement against Tientsin and Pekin. Dr. Phipps has gone with them to open up our work, first at Taku and later at Tientsin and Pekin, as soon as those points are occupied. Carlisle has returned home sick some months since, and Mr. E. W. Hearne has arrived in Manila from New York to take entire charge of the Army Association work in the Islands. Advices from Hearne first gave me to understand that he would visit me at Iloilo in the near future, but a second letter informed me that the departure of Glunz and Jackson had left his hands too full to permit of his leaving An Interview with the Enemy 131 Manila for some time. This information decided me to accept an invitation to revisit the garrison at Leon and deliver an address on Independence Day. Finding that an escort of three soldiers was to go over the San Miguel road on the morning of the 30th of June, I determined to accompany him. As I had recently disposed of my pony, the four of us trudged out of Iloilo in a heavy rain and pressed on through Mindurriao to San Miguel, the sky clearing as we advanced. Having made two-thirds of our seventeen miles, and being pretty well winded by our struggles in the clay, we halted at San Miguel and dined with the village padre, he being so kind as to welcome us to his board. We resumed our march at a little after one o'clock, and reached the first roll of the hills an hour later. Abandoning the main road at this point we struck directly across the ridge south of San Bias by means of a carabao trail, pausing on its summit long enough to enjoy the excellent view. The sun, shining on the white stone churches scattered out on the green plain over which we had just traveled, plainly marked out not only San Miguel and Jaro but Iloilo, Molo, Oton and Santa Barbara. Across the Strait of Iloilo Guimaras Island stretched out like a reliefmap, and still farther east the heights both of Negros and Cebu were clearly outlined against 132 The Cross of Christ in Boo-Land the horizon. Descending the northern face of the ridge we struck a second road, running from Alimodian to Leon, in a bare cup-like valley. Privates Fish and O'Hearne were marching ahead, Sergeant Spencer and myself walking abreast a dozen paces in their rear. Just as we swung fairly into the road and quickened our; pace for our last four miles, a rifle cracked on the ridge over which we had just passed, and a heavy volley poured into us, both from the ridge itself and a bamboo-lined ravine directly in advance. It was a decidedly unpleasant surprise, and O'Hearne apparently lost his head, as he disregarded the sergeant's order to stop and return the fire, and, leaving the road, ran north toward the hills on that side. I had dropped flat at the first report, immediately beside the road in the ditch. Fish and Spencer ran back into the adjoining rice-paddy, and, under a fearful fire from the insurgents' magazine rifles, fell down and returned the shots as best they could. Our foes, keeping under cover, and well armed, kept us close to the ground, their bullets cutting the air above us and fluttering in the grass about us. "Such an unequal combat could not be maintained, and being somewhat more exposed than I, the two men ran back a second time, unknown to me, to obtain a better position. By this move they secured some cover, but An Interview with the Enemy 133 were both wounded, Fish's right forearm being smashed by a leaden slug, entirely disabling him, and Spencer being grazed on the hip. A few seconds later both men were compelled to surrender. Hardly ten minutes after the attack began the insurgent bugle called 'Cease firing,' and a moment later blew the 'Advance.' As they came out of their cover in skirmish order I opened fire with my revolver, causing those immediately in front of me to hesitate and the man at whom I was directing my shots to dodge in a way which at any other time would have caused me a good deal of amusement. But while my fire halted the men in front of me, the wings of the long semi-circle came steadily on, and knowing it to be death to remain, I rose from my friendly ditch and ran back across a long swell of ground to the right of the road, looking for Fish and Spencer. "This movement was heartily cheered by the entire insurgent outfit, as it gave them something more than my head to shoot at, and they opened with their repeaters and gave me a hot fire as I zigzagged up the rise to discon. cert their aim. I considered this zigzagging as a great piece of strategy at the time, but have since been assured by my soldier friends that it was an extremely foolish thing to do, 'For,' say these oracles, 'those Khakiaks can't hit 134 The Cross of Christ tn Bolo-Land the broad side of a barn when they aim at it. You weren't in any danger as long as they shot atyou, but by zigzagging you ran the risk of running into their badly-started bullets!' I was surprised to find myself, however, safely over the rise and without a scratch. But, not seeing anything of Fish and Spencer, and knowing that my pursuers would be on me in a moment, I ran over a second swell and directly into the fire of a flanking party which had gained a position on my left. This compelled me to take another angle toward the west, where I soon found my way blocked by a deep water-course with perpendicular banks. Without hesitation I dropped into it and followed it up for some distance, wading through the foot or two of green slime which filled its bed. I was soon compelled to abandon the 'arroyo,' however, as it twisted back toward my pursuers, and in clambering out I was again exposed to the attentive rifles, and ran desperately toward a ravine some distance ahead of me, which seemed filled with bamboos and other growth and promised a hiding-place. As I poised on its brink and was about to plunge into its grateful shelter I realized that my last hope was gone, for in its bottom I made out at least two insurgents poking about the foliage with their guns, and knew that I was completely hemmed in. An Interview with the Enemy 135 "It was not a pleasant moment for me. My pistol was choked to the muzzle with mud, and could not be fired. I was too exhausted to attempt to run the gantlet, and I had known of too many tortured prisoners to relish surrendering. It seemed to be a choice between being shot while resisting and being boloed as a prisoner, and I naturally objected to either. But, remembering that there is always a chance for a prisoner, that occasionally the insurgents had treated their captives with courtesy, and that if wounded while resisting my captors would probably save themselves the trouble of transporting me by a stroke from a bolo, I fell flat upon the ground to avoid making too easy a target and waited for the circle to close in. This was done slowly, as none of them cared to run any risk where the game was so certain, and I seized the opportunity to rise, first to my knees and then to my feet, with my hands up in the mostapproved wild-west style, and shouted to the nearest of them in Spanish, 'Hey, hombre! no quero mas combate!' (No more fighting for me, please.) I was immediately covered with a rifle while others closed up and searched me, picking up my revolver from the ground and rifling my pockets. Spencer had given me his watch to carry as he had no suitable pocket in his blouse, and while being searched the time 136 The Cross of Christ in Bolb-Land piece nearly cost me my life, for as I stood as quietly as possible one of the excited Visayans felt the hard substance through my khaki coat, and thinking that I was concealing a knife or second pistol, brought his rifle up against my side and appeared anxious to pull the trigger. The Teniente in command, however, interfered, and assured me that I would be treated with all courtesy. I was at once marched back under guard of a half-dozen rifles to the point where the firing had opened up, and there found for the first time that both Fish and Spencer were wounded and captives. "We at once bandaged up Fish's arm as best we could with the contents of Spencer's first-aid package, and as he was losing a great deal of blood made him as comfortable as possible on the hillside while our captors either crowded curiously about us or conferred together concerning our fate. I was badly exhausted by this time, both by our long march and the excitement of the skirmish in the hot sun. Seeing this, one of the insurgents kindly handed me a bamboo joint filled with muddy water, and as I buried my face in it the hills of San Blas changed to the heights of Olympus. It was the draught of my life. I could appreciate for the moment the enthusiasm of Stevens, who declared that the quality of thirst that a man could raise in the Egyptian desert justified An Interview with the Enemy 137 him in braving all the discomforts of the campaign from Cairo to Khartoum. "After a short conference, in which I tried with some success to make myself understood by the insurgent commander, I was much surprised to have the band decide upon our release. They turned out to be, on close inspection, an organization known as the 'Jalendoni Guerrillas,' some forty or more in number and largely recruited (so they said) from the Santa Barbara district. They were, for the most part, neatly uniformed in dark blue trimmed with red, and armed with quite a respectable array of Mausers, Krags and Remingtons, in addition to their indispensable bolos. The Lieutenant, who gave me his name as Concepcion, expressed much surprise when I informed him that I was a 'predicado' (preacher). He seemed to take the statement as true, but apparently had decided doubts inwardly as to the propriety of a parson fellowshiping with a pistol, for some days after our interview he removed his uniform and came down through our lines to Iloilo to prove the truth of my statement. Peeping in at the Association room he beheld me at my desk, and departed without making himself known, satisfied (as he himself has since declared) that one 'Americano' at least had not deceived himl 138 The Cross of Christ in Bolo Land "Before putting the decision to release us into effect, Concepcion wrote a courteous note, addressed to Captain Greig at Leon, and handed it to Spencer to carry in. In return I scribbled out a penciled statement of the main circumstances concerning our capture, and added a word of compliment to the Lieutenant and his men. This I handed to him, to serve him in his report to his superiors, and aid him in getting courteous treatment should he ever fall in with a larger body of Americans and our positions be reversed. "We were then bidden to depart in peace, Spencer supporting Fish down the hill, while I tarried to shake hands all around, present the Lieutenant with my pocket Testament as a souvenir of the occasion, and bow as impressively as my muddy clothes and battered straw hat permitted-my own hat having been lost in the skirmish and a native affair clapped upon my head by my captors. Upon overtaking the men on the road below, I found Fish too weak from loss of blood to allow him to walk. We assisted him along until a bend hid the insurgents from our view, and then, with the help of some peasants who gathered curiously about the unarmed and bedraggled 'Americanos,' we tore up a bamboo rest-platform and laid him on the improvised litter. The load was beyond our unaided strength, but the An Interview with the Enemy 139 'amigos' cheerfully assisted, and the long four miles between San Bias barrio and Leon were covered at last. The jolting was hard for Fish to bear, as the splintered bones in his arm grated badly, and he found it impossible to stifle his groans until I placed a lighted cigar in his mouth and his teeth clinched on it with some relief. As I borrowed it from the mouth of a betel-chewing native and puffed it into a good light for him, I consider myself worthy of one of Raphael's largest halos. "Leon at 5: 30 o'clock-our arrival, dirty, disarmed, dejected, and bearing Fish on his litter, causing some excitement. Dr. Tukey at once went to work on the smashed arm, and Spencer and myself were given an opportunity to wash up. We had hoped to hear of O'Hearne's safe arrival at the post, but were disappointed, and the following day the greater part of the garrison was out in several detachments scouring the country for him. I was too much tired out to accompany them on their search, but on the 2d of July I went with a large detachment under command of Lieutenant Monahan, to the scene of the ambuscade, and beginning on the road searched the country back among the hills for several miles, questioning the natives, searching the barrios, and offering a reward for news of him, dead or alive. We were unsuccessful, however, and we are without word of x40 The Cross of Chn'st tn Bolo-Land him at the present time.* It is supposed that he must have met his fate at the hands of the ladrones. "I only remained at Leon long enough to deliver the promised address on the Fourth, leaving the following afternoon for Tig-banan, accompanied by Sergeant Sullivan and Private Stevens-the three of us mounted on good ponies. Just as we got into our saddles, word came over the line that a body of insurgents had passed Maasin and was moving south *O'Hearne's fate remained a mystery for some two months. His body was at last discovered in a pit near San Bias and was only recognizable by the teeth. As Spencer had been very intimate with O'Hearne, both being recruited in the same Massachusetts town, he was able to thus identify the remains. Confessions soon followed among the natives and the full story of his death came to light. It appears that he safely eluded the insurgents who were enveloping us but had been captured in a ladrone barrio in the hills while inquiring the way to Leon. He was held as a prisoner for some twenty-four hours, after having had his arm wantonly hacked from his body. He was then burned at the stake, petroleum being poured over him to assist in his torture. Fourteen natives were implicated in this fiendish act and were confined at Leon awaiting trial. Their guards, however, in a moment of uncontrollable passion, opened fire on them and killed them all. The saddest part of the story is that the day after O'Hearne had been captured and before he was tortured one of our searching parties passed within a few yards of the place where he was lying bound and gagged. An Intervzew with the Enemy 141 toward Igbaras and Tig-banan to attack the weak garrisons at those points. As this meant the possibility of running into them on the Tig-banan road-in fact, the probabilitywe galloped all the way from Leon to Tigbanan through the pouring rain. About halfway down to the coast we were stopped by an 'amigo,' who sprang into the road and told us that the insurgents were holding the barrio just in advance. On dashing ahead, however, no enemy was found, and we passed the gate of Tig-banan about six o'clock, I, for one, with considerable relief. My friend, Lieutenant Rice, was in command at Tig-banan, and had his fortress-like 'convento' barricaded for the expected attack. After getting into some of his old dry clothes I shared a good supper, greeted 'the boys'-only eighteen in all-and went to sleep. At two o'clock in the morning the expected alarm came, the sentry under the arched entrance firing his piece. All turned out at once, but found it to be a false alarm. I was too tired to even rise, determining to await a second or third shot before leaving my comfortable bed. "In the morning of the 6th I started for Iloilo in company with several soldiers and four Filipino prisoners. We at first thought to save ourselves miles of weary marching by confiscating a native sail-boat. But when off shore a 142 The Cross of Christ in Bolo-Land quarter mile a dead calm came on and, although the native crew and prisoners fasts ened a paper charm on the mast and whistled a dolorous wind-winning chorus, no ripple gladdened our eyes, and we were compelled to put back to shore and 'hike' to our destination. I need not add that we had hardly made a mile before the wind began to rise, and less than two before it was blowing in just the way best calculated to send a boat flying down-the coast to Iloilo. Trudged into Oton at noon and, having little to eat with us, proceeded to the padre's for hospitality. We found one padre away, a second (for this was a large parish) ill, and the major-domo in charge of the spacious 'convento' declaring that such a thing as a chicken was beyond his means. His almost tearful protestations were nicely punctuated by the crowing of the sacred roosters in the enclosure at the rear of the house. Believing from what the 'domo had just said that they were both orphaned and ownerless, we secured several after a sharp fusillade, and, seeing how determined we were to be friendly, the native servants about the establishment (and a village padre always appears to have a horde) speedily furnished the accessories, and the seven of us sat down at the long parsonage table to a very substantial meal. Toward its close the absent colleague turned up, and see An Interview with the Enemy 143 ing us so strongly entrenched gracefully surrendered and offered cigars. "Late in the afternoon we passed through Molo and halted long enough before the home of Dr. Hall of the Presbyterian Mission to enable Mrs. Hall to review the prisoners, she having expressed to me a desire to see some 'real insurgents' some time before. I rather fear that the group we were guarding was hardly as wicked looking as she had anticipated, but she covered her disappointment and tried her newly-acquired Visayan on them without startling success. A little farther down the road Private Chatelaine, of the escort, confided to me that, not having seen an American woman before since leaving the States, he was not even able to understand what Mrs. Hall said! "Iloilo safely reached at five o'clock. Received a French hug from Manikin and congratulations from all upon my escape from the insurgents. During my absence Mr. Hibbard had conducted our regular services with great blessing. Upon looking over my mail I found a letter from Mr. Hearne at Manila, stating that the work at that center seemed so important as to warrant the temporary closing of my work at Iloilo, thus enabling me to proceed to Manila and assist him. For many reasons I hesitate to leave, but from what I know of the 144 The Cross of Christ in Bolo-Land situation at Manila and in Luzon the move seems unavoidable. I will not, however, close up the Association quarters at this point. Mr. Hibbard, Mr. Borree, Dr. Hall and others will see to it that they are kept open for the troops and services continued during my absence." As I sailed from Panay for Manila on the 17th of July, and returned to Iloilo but once after that date and then only for a few brief days, I feel that this chapter can be no better ended than by a word of appreciation to the men who not only seconded me in all possible ways while on the Island, but carried on the Association work after my departure, and in fact until, months later, we were able to spare a secretary from our small number to once more do field-work on Panay. Hard-pressed as Messrs. Hibbard and Hall at all times were, they never failed to respond to any demand fot their service. The soldiers soon found them to be most genuinely interested in their welfare. It would be difficult to state how much the Association owed (and still owes) to them. Mr. James Borree was another man whose steadfast Christian life and practical help was a power to our work. Borree was formerly a sergeant in the California regiment. Remaining in the Islands after his regiment returned to the United States, he was given a respon An Interview with the Enemy 145 sible position under the Depot Quartermaster at Iloilo, and soon proved himself invaluable. His ability to handle the natives, all of whom entertained a surprising regard for him, soon caused the authorities to give him the difficult task of unloading all government stores. It was my privilege to live in the same house with Borree for several months, and his manly Christian character was an inspiration. In addition to Borree, Hibbard and Hall, gratitude compels a word in praise of a large number of men who wore the army blue, fellows whose earnest lives and cheerful help will not fail of reward in the day when our Lord Jesus Christ shall come to reward His own. Their fellowship was very sweet to the writer of these lines. May God bless them! VIII WDantla aoatn OUR Manilas sit side by side and front upon the Bay. Beginning at the north with Tondo, the most ancient of the four, ~\- ll$TJn ~we find ourselves in a trying va_,,.. -'~ pattern of dirt streets lined with bamboo houses. Along its water-front, which is nothing more than the natural beach, maybe generally found -'-. -- Gig a fringe of large-sailed, outriggered fishing boats, for Tondo is hardly more than an overgrown fishing village, and the only relief from its nipa thatch and primitive sloops is found in its large booth-lined market-place and its pretentious church. On this crowded site where, no doubt, each new generation witnesses a destructive fire and a new crop of shacks, General Legaspi landed in 157I and probably gazed upon the same prospect that the quarter presents to the eye to-day (minus the church). An advantageous treaty was easily made with the awed king of the bamboo metropolis, and a mile south of Tondo the Spaniards laid out the site of their new city and named it Manila, I46 ^l^^^-77 OO7777V ISI 7N . ~-~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Manila Again 147 running its northern wall along the Pasig River, thus placing that stream between themselves and their Tagalo friends. Protected by the river on the north, the sea on the west, and as early as 1590 by a massive wall and deep moat on all sides, Manila came to present the curious spectacle of a medieval feudal city in the heart of the tropics. The different religious orders naturally erected their massive churches, monasteries and convents within its protecting fortifications, and the remainder of its space was occupied by the palaces of the Governor and Archbishop, the offices of the colony, barracks and residences. While this new city grewlup out of the marshes year by year, the space intervening between it and Tondo was naturally encroached upon, first by natives and Chinese traders who were not allowed within the walls and found their most convenient place for trade and commerce with the Spaniards to be just across the Pasig from its gates, a bridge in course of time being thrown over that narrow but rapid stream. Later on, the limited space within the fortified city being pre-empted by the ecclesiastics and officials, such Spanish and foreign merchants as desired to do business in the Islands found it necessary to erect their shops, warehouses and factories in this new quarter and build their wharves for the loading and unloading of. 148 The Cross of Christ in Bolo-Land hemp, sugar, tobacco and rice, along the northern bank of the Pasig. Thus Binondo was born-with its Rosario of Chinese shops, its Escolta of European stores, its tobacco factories, hotels and warehouses. The rise of this second or New Manila firmly linked the two earlier cities together-only the narrow Pasig and the ancient walls preventing a complete blending of the three. While the necessities of trade were building up Binondo, the love of pleasure laid out a large plaza just to the south of the Walled City and ran a splendid boulevard around both it and three sides of the city wall, and the desire for comfort led hundreds of Spaniards and foreigners to abandon the unhealthy confines of the fortified quarter and build the pleasant suburb of Malate, which runs down to the Bay shore south of the Luneta and completes the water-front of the city. In time, too, another boulevard was projected back from the Walled City to higher ground, and along its curving length the Governor-General and high officialism reared residences and laid out spacious gardens, being reinforced by the consuls and the more prosperous of the landholders and merchants. Thus the suburbs of San Miguel sprang up. With Tondo, the native Manila, Binondo, the commercial Manila, Manila proper, the ecclesiastical and adminis Manila Again 149 trative Manila, and Malate, the residential Manila, all facing the sea in friendly touch and backed by the fashionable quarter of San Miguel, it was of course to be expected that natural growth would add other suburbs from time to time. Binondo overflowed into a Santa Cruz and Sampaloc and Quiapo; San Miguel went countryward under the name of San Sebastian; Malate was soon jostled by'Ermita, while thousands of loose human units settling in the interstices sewed the whole pattern together. As to architecture, the Walled City is stone and tile, no bamboo being allowed, and little wood used; Binondo is stone or brick on its ground floor, wood on its second or living floor, and mainly roofed with iron; Sampaloc and Tondo are matted and thatched, as are indeed portions of Ermita and Malate, though the greater part of these suburbs is of more substantial build and contains many pretty homes; San Miguel furnishes some pretentious residences, handsomely ornamented and artistically set, while some of the churches and religious houses which jostle so closely in Old Manila are grandly heavy in style and richly finished and furnished within. Having thus platted out the city in mind, the next thing will be to make our idea of it a live one by dropping into any one of its many thoroughfares and struggling on the narrow I50 The Cross of Christ in Bolo-Land side-walks with Tagalos, Spaniards, Chinos, Teutons, Saxons, Latins and the Omnipresent Khaki Uniform, or in the streets with carabaocarts, bull-carts, mule teams, ambulances, quilezes, carramattas, calesas, trams, crams and jams! Such an experience will aid us in singing the plaintive soldier's ballad: "Take me back to Old Manila With its fern-clad walls and moat. Give me fifteen per and rations, Cartridge belt and rubber coat." But we have tarried in the realm of poor description long enough, and must get to work. As already stated, the Association headquarters were located at the old Cuartel Fortin, on the bank of the Pasig, just at the Bridge of Spain and immediately without the Parian Gate of the Walled City. A better situation could not have been desired, as the Bridge of Spain was the most traveled of the three which span the river, and was, indeed, the main link between Old and New Manila with their respective suburbs. Here, busy at his desk, I found our new General Secretary for the Philippines, Mr. E. W. Hearne, and placed my services at his disposal. Mr. Hearne's selection by the International Committee for this responsible position was a most wise one. He was a typical Association man, alert, business-like, Manila Again 151 manly, consecrated. College Secretary for Iowa when the Spanish-American War began, he entered the volunteers and served as a first lieutenant of the Fifty-first Iowa, accompanying that regiment to the Philippines and campaigning through a good part of central Luzon. Upon his return with his regiment to America, he was promptly seized upon as the one man best fitted to direct the Association work in the Islands, and only remained in the States two brief months, returning to Manila in the capacity of General Secretary. Mr. Hearne's abilities, both advisory and executive, were of such a high order that, coupled with a deep spiritual life, they made his personality no small factor in the successful settlement of the many problems connected not merely with our work (of this he became the brain, nerves and a large share of the muscle), but in the inception and nourishment of the infant Protestant missions in and about the city. The departure of Glunz and Jackson to America and Phipps to China left the entire burden of the work among the troops in Luzon upon Mr. Hearne and myself as Mr. Hunter had all that he could well do among the Marines at Cavite. As Manila had, scattered through its different quarters, no less than an entire brigade of troops, while additional hundreds were sick in its hospitals or in the city "on v*~:\ 152 The Cross of Christ zn Bolo-Land pass" and detailed duty, and all arriving recruits (a continual stream) were invariably held for some time in its confines before being assigned to garrisons, the work at the old Cuartel itself was of the first importance. Here we maintained a dormitory and accommodated some eighty transient soldiers each night at a nominal figure, both to save them from robbery and temptation in the dives of the city, and to bring them under the influence of the Gospel. In addition to the dormitory the long covered court of the old barracks had been fitted out as a game-room, with crokinole, checkers, chess and other amusements, and the long building itself divided into library, reading-room, correspondence-room, office,bath-room, and an auditorium for lectures, entertainments and evangelistic services. Such attractions filled the place with men during the hottest hours of the day, and in the evenings its spacious entrance and cheerfully-lit rooms literally swarmed with "the boys in brown," who found the Association the nearest thing to a Home in all their army experience. With a lot of happy fellows at the games, lounging in the entrance, writing letters to the "home folks," reading the periodicals, crowded in the auditorium listening to the lectures or helping in the song-services, every bed in the dormitory taken, the "Stella" music-box playing Manila Again I53 favorites (anything but "Home, Sweet Home" allowed), the old Cuartel became a bright place to us, and our hearts were light with the thought that we were doing something for American manhood. In maintaining this good work the missionaries had no small share. Immediately upon my arrival in Manila, Hearne had driven me about the city to meet the entire "missionary tribe," as he genially called them. I found that my old friends, Rodgers, Goodrich of the American Bible Society, and Miller of the British and Foreign, had been reinforced by Rev. L. P. Davidson of the Presbyterian Board, Rev. J. L. McLaughlin of the Methodist Board, and several ladies. In addition to these missionaries two young Englishmen, who had been recently compelled to abandon colportage work in French IndoChina, were in Luzon and under Mr. Miller's direction, while the Rev. George Turner was acting as assistant to Mr. Goodrich. This welcome increase in the mission force since my last visit to the city meant, of course, a great impetus to the Protestant work in and about the city, while the Rev. Thomas H. Martin of the Methodist Board, still another recent arrival, had opened up a new station at Dagupan in Pangasinan Province. These brethren were not only in closest touch with 154 The Cross of Chnst in Bod-Land our work among the troops, but performed no small part of it in addition to their other duties. Both the Methodist Mission on the Plaza Goiti and the Presbyterian Mission in Ermita maintained services in English for the benefit of the soldiers, and Mr. Goodrich was exceptionally successful in evangelistic work at the Cuartel Fortin. During the fall months of I9oo the Methodists alone (Mr. McLaughlin, Mr. Prautch, and their lady assistants) conducted some twelve different services a week for the benefit of American soldiers in Manila and vicinity, in addition to as many more for Filipinos. There were three large military hospitals in the city, at each one of which a regular Sunday service was held, one by Messrs. Rodgers and Davidson, another by Mr. Smiley of the Anglo-American (Episcopal) Church, and a third by Mr. McLaughlin, who also maintained an interesting weekly service among the prisoners confined at Bilibid Prison. Four miles east of Manila was another hospital, Santa Mesa, the largest in the Islands, and its three hundred sick demanded at least one service of us each week. At Pasay Cavalry Barracks, south of Malate, we maintained a reading-room and a weekly service for the troopers, held other meetings with more or less regularity among the many barracks in Manila and occasionally took launch Manila Again i55 to Corregidor Island and cheered the patriots in the Convalescent Hospital with a song service. In this connection I notice in my notebook of July 24 the fact that, "I to-night took a trip out to Santa Mesa Hospital. It is entirely built of bamboo and nipa, well out of the city on high ground, and should be very healthy. 'Church call' was sounded, and I addressed all the patients who were able to assemble in the Hospital Corps quarters. An earnest and spiritual service. Many Christian men greeted me after it." On July 26 I write, "Spent the day in a trip to Corregidor Island to see about establishing regular services at the hospital. The trip across the bay from Manila occupied three hours. Major Gray, the Chief Surgeon of the Convalescent Hospital, welcomed the idea of religious services, and one is appointed for next Thursday. He desires to start a library for the use of the patients, and we will assist with some forty or fifty volumes. Visited the pleasantly-located wards, sheltered in the trees at the cove, chatted with the patients, and climbed up the bluff to call upon the company of the Twentieth Infantry, which guards the island. Corregidor is very healthy and exceedingly pretty. Its one little native village is a model of neatness, and from it a path covered with white sea-gravel winds up t 156 The Cross of Christ in Bolo-Land over the foliaged hills, past the barracks to the beacon on the summit of the bluff." On the 2d of August I was again at Corregidor, "with a good selection of books, writing paper, envelopes, hymn-books, and Testaments. In going through the wards and greeting the patients, I found a young trooper of the Fourth Cavalry stretched out on his cot reading a Testament. Introducing myself, we had a pleasant chat, and I discovered that he had found his Saviour recently, while reading the Word on his sick-bed. He expressed a desire to own a Testament of his own, as the one he was reading belonged to the ward. Having in my pocket one of the elegant little Testaments which Miss Helen Gould had sent us for distribution, containing her initials and a verse of Scripture in her own hand, I at once offered it to him, and when he exclaimed, 'Great Scott! I haven't any money with me!' explained that the gift was as free as the message it contained, and left him with a shining face. Later I held a service in Ward B. Major Gray made all arrangements, and 'church call' was blown by an old 'Logan' acquaintance, the chief musician of the Forty-first regiment, now a patient. This was the first service at the hospital in three months, and was greatly appreciated. The men as usual are hungry for reading-matter and Testaments." Manila Again 157 A third visit to the little sentinel island was attended with some danger. In the typhoon month of September, while crossing the bay in a small steam launch, we were caught in an ugly storm, blowing in from the China Sea. We were heading into it, and dared not turn back to the harbor for fear of being swamped as we swung around. After an entire forenoon on the wild bay we succeeded in making the lea of the island, and I landed in thankful mood. But the storm continued, and for five days no boat dared to brave the twenty-eight raging miles to bring us the usual stores. Provisions ran pretty low on the fourth day, and on the fifth a hunting party from the officers' ward climbed the windy bluffs after wild goats to reinforce the diminishing larder. The next day, however, the launch service was resumed and I escaped to Manila. A more ambitious trip was by Q. M. D. launch to Naic in Cavite Province, garrisoned by four troops of the Fourth Cavalry. I had not before worked among the troopers, but found them to be well up to the traditions of their branch of the service-open-hearted, alert, neat and dashing. I took with me one of the dozen traveling libraries which Miss Gould had furnished for circulation among the garrisons of the Islands, and from the garrison commander to the battalion mascot I was 158 The Cross of Christ in Bolo-Land hailed as a long-lost brother. Here for the first time I heard the brazen invitation: "0, come to the stable All ye that are able And get your poor horses some oats and some corn. For if you don't do it The top soldier will know it And then you will rue it as sure as you're born-n-n-n-n I" Another experience of the times was a trip up the Manila & Dagupan Railway, both for the purpose of seeing my old friends of the Forty-first, who were still scattered along its single track, and to arrange our work more satisfactorily at the northern terminal, Dagupan, where we maintained reading and correspondence rooms in a small rented building. Again referring to my notebook, I find that on August 6th I was at Angeles, in Pampanga Province. "Came up the Manila & Dagupan Railway at Chaplain Springer's invitation, to conduct services with the Forty-first. Had not seen an iron track for seven months, and the sensation of riding fifteen miles an hour was quite exhilarating. The road is operated by an English company, and naturally has a good road-bed and a poor lot of rolling stock. I understand that for a time the military operated the road, during which regime a run without disaster from Manila to Dagupan was spoken of as an accidentl Passed through Caloocan, ZI-* Manila Again 159 Malolos, Calumpit and San Fernando, through which the tide of battle rolled a year and a half ago. Everything peaceful now. Met old friends of the Forty-first all along the line. Was glad to be remembered. Greeted at this place by the Chaplain, who is looking and feeling far from well, and taken at once to regimental headquarters, where I had the pleasure of seeing Colonel Richmond, Surgeon-Major Smith, Adjutant Seone, Lieutenant Koch and other friends. At 8: 30 this evening attended a Filipino circus (tell it not in Gath, for I am a Roundhead!). It was held in an old sugarhouse. A small ring had been marked out, seats-or more properly, perches-rigged about it, trapeze let down from the rafters, and the whole lit by petroleum torches. The interior of the roomy nipa building was lined, when we arrived, with expectant Pampangans, a large percentage being, of course, the hopeful younger generation. The performance, to our surprise, was an almost exact reproduction of a cheap "one-ring" American show, and although the clowns cracked their jokes in Pampanga dialect they were perfectly intelligible to those of us who could go back in memory a few years. Juggling, balancing, contortioning, vaulting, acrobatic trickery, athletic tableaux, and clownish buffoonery filled the two hours. An American boy would have been highly 60o The Cross of Christ in Bolo-Land delighted and decidedly at home, and would hardly have distinguished the native clowns from his old friends of Forepaugh's larger arena." Angeles held other experiences-a call upon General Frederick Grant, who was kind enough to speak highly of the Association's work, a service both in the Regimental Hospital and in the Division Hospital, and a song service in the Post Chapel for the benefit of the men of the garrison. Blessing attended each of these services. The Division Hospital was nothing other than the large local church, its nave and transepts covered with cots, upon which the sick and wounded lay, and its choir used as an office and dispensary by the surgeons and nurses in charge. In common with all Filipino churches it was cruciform in plan, and in order to reach the ears of all the patients the Chaplain and I clambered up around one of the columns into the cathedral pulpit, over which a huge sounding-board hung and threatened to extinguish us. Here the Chaplain prayed, and I expounded the first paragraph of the fifth chapter of John-Christ at Bethesda. On the third evening of my stay I was piloted about the town and shown a rather unique sight-a native rice-pounding by music. The rice was poured into a rude mortar, around which a half-dozen natives, young men and Manila Again I6I maidens, stood with long-handled wooden mallets. Four musicians sat near by upon a split-bamboo platform, with their make-shift guitars in readiness. At a given signal they struck into a slow tune, and the hammers about the mortar began to carelessly tap the rice. Soon the music quickened, and the workers as well, several of them whirling their mallets about their heads and spinning around themselves, yet without missing their stroke as the blows fell in one-two-three-four-five-six order. The music then twanged faster and the mallets quickened in response until they were rising and falling as fast as the jacks on a piano in waltz time. This combination of music and muscle soon reduced the rice to the desired shape, the guitars stopped abruptly, and the workers perspired freely as they relinquished their hammers to the next shift who came forward from the spectators to continue the work upon the refilled mortar. From Angeles I took train to Dagupan and conferred with Mr. Martin of the Methodist Board, who was stationed at that point, kept a kindly eye upon our work, and was of great service in keeping up a weekly religious meeting at our building. The credit for keeping our quarters open and in order, however, was at the time of my visit due to two Christian soldiers of Company K, Thirteenth Infantry, I62 The Cross of Christ in Bolo-Land Poate and Nadeau, who were allowed to move their cots into the building from the barracks, and spent all their spare time in keeping the place neat and attractive and in issuing such supplies as we could spare from Manila. The four of us put our heads together and planned a three nights' evangelistic campaign, I not being able to remain longer at the time. Three companies of the Thirteenth formed the garrison of Dagupan and our little audience room was crowded. The inquiry meetings conducted directly after each address resulted in some eight decisions for Christ in the three days. No small part of Mr. Hearne's work and my own was incurred in the attempt to keep in touch with the many garrisons which we found it impossible to personally visit. In this attempt we were greatly helped by the courtesy of the Director of Posts for the Philippines, who determined to send all Association supplies to the garrisons postage free. We were thus enabled to put up innumerable bundles of periodicals, papers, magazines, games, "comfort-bags" and such other supplies as we had to hand, and mail them to the most isolated posts scattered not merely over Luzon but many other islands as well. The demand for these can hardly be credited by those who have never endured the monotony of foreign garrison life. From a multitude of soldiers' letters Manila Again I63 I quote the tenor of a few. From Balungao, Luzon: "Here at Balungao we are almost out of the world. We are but seventeen men in all and are four miles from Rosales and sixteen from Humingan, garrisoned by the Twentyfourth. We have not seen a Manila paper since coming here. It would be a great kindness if you could send us a batch of old Manila papers occasionally, even if they are two or three weeks old. We know absolutely nothing out here. Don't forget us. We are small but holding down a good slice of Luzon." From Maasin, Panay: "Your most welcome letter received, also a package of paper, envelopes, books, etc., for which receive the thanks of myself and fellow soldiers. It was certainly a welcome package, I can assure you. We have quite a number sick in our company. I suppose you know that ninety per cent of it is from drink and adultery. I am still trusting Jesus to guide me safely through my term of service and return me to my home once more-the only place that is dear." From Murcia, Negros: "Being a member of the New York Y. M. C. A. I write to you to secure some papers and books. I have purchased a house in this town for the benefit of the soldiers and would like to have a little assistance to continue the work of Christ. We have in this detachment thirty-five men and I want to do x64 The Cross of Christ in Bolo-Land what is right by the boys. I am the musician of this company. Hoping to hear from you soon." From Carranglan, Luzon: "It gives me much pleasure to acknowledge the receipt of a small box containing Testaments, songbooks, writing materials and reading matter. The men in the line appreciate your kindness and desire their sincere thanks conveyed. The supplies had been reboxed at San Jose, twentytwo miles below here. Mail leaves in the morning. The whole of the writing paper was given out. There were fifty-seven men and only three or four sheets to each. To-morrow it is my intention to distribute the song-books among the squad, giving them to responsible men who will put them to good use. Several have asked for Testaments. Will be glad to do anything I can to further Christian work in this post. Yours in the great cause." From a Catholic boy at Bantista, Luzon: "For Jesus, Mary and Joseph. The men here would like it very much if you could send a little writing paper and envelopes. Address them to me and those that want them can get them from me." From Mabalacat, Luzon: "The boys of Co. "M" send you their best wishes and are grateful for the paper, envelopes and books. Would be pleased to have you pay us a visit." From Naic, Luzon: "I write in behalf of the men of my troop. It rains almost all the time, Manila Again 165 compelling the men to remain indoors. As there is no reading matter about the quarters they take to games of chance. A little good reading would, I am sure, cheer many a dreary hour and diminish the amount of gambling. Copies of 'The Christian Herald,''Men,' 'Ladies Home Journal' etc., would be greatly appreciated, both by the troop and yours respectfully. P. S.: Please ship 'in care of orderly room.' " In addition to the forwarding of Association supplies we soon found ourselves considered by many correspondents as a convenient exchange through which they could get their many little commissions executed. In this way we became agents for the securing and forwarding of athletic goods, typewriter and kodak supplies, Spanish text-books, watches, and a hundred other things, and although our good nature was sometimes imposed upon, we were, on the whole, more than repaid for the considerable expense of time and trouble by the gratitude of the fellows benefited. The burden of this and much other work fell mainly upon Hearne, as I had a slow fever burning at my bones the most of the time and took every opportunity to rest; and although we increased our office force by the employment of honorably discharged soldiers (some of whom proved very valuable to us) the pressure was at last so great upon him that he became I66 The Cross of Christ in Bolo-Land badly exhausted, and kept doggedly at his work when he should have been under the doctor's care. In the latter part of September disquieting news came to us from Phipps. It appeared that he had hardly entered upon his work with the troops of the China Expedition when he was taken critically ill and for several weeks lay at Tientsin despaired of by the physicians. He was somewhat better at the time he penned his letter to us, but was unable to carry on his work. This news determined Hearne to leave the Manila work in my hands for a few weeks and proceed to Taku. As a side-light on our work and incidentally on Hearne's ability for details I refer to a letter received from him upon his arrival in the Gulf of Pechili: "We are just coming to anchor in a forest of masts, one of the fellows having counted over seventy ships at anchor here. The water is very shallow in toward the mouth of the Hoang-Ho and big tugs haul everything from ship to shore. Our trip has been without incident or accident. Found an 'old shipmate' of the 'Sumner' among the firemen. He asked first thing for 'yer moosic box.' Tell Joe to use the gramophone. The new sounder is in a small box with some fittings in the lower shelf of the big cabinet near the desk. Give Weston my best and Mr. Goodrich and the missionaries. I do Manila Again I67 not know what my work will be to-day but I hope to get ashore on the first launch and push on to Tientsin as soon as possible. (Later.) At last we are ashore. This afternoon am off for Tientsin. If you or Weston can rig up that stereopticon the instrument itself is at Mr.Davidson's with one box of slides. Other slides and the electrical outfit are in the box with the athletic stuff. The oil-lamp and screen are with the machine. Please give my regards to 'the regulars,' Humphrey, Gadbury, Whiteside and the rest of them. I remember you daily." I would like in closing this chapter to do justice to Hearne's month in China or to Phipps's longer service there, but it would be difficult to do so. As long as the American troops were held in force at Tientsin, Pekin and Taku, Phipps, recovered in part, did noble and effective service among them. Hearne, having found Phipps on the road to recovery and in company with him having opened up quarters both at Tientsin and Peking, returned to Manila in November. Meanwhile I had been gladdened by the arrival of an additional secretary for our work, Mr. J. C. Webb of Los Angeles, who immediately reinforced my efforts both at the building and among the hospitals and barracks. IX ^14 iix -ib 1Mortbern u30on EARNE having again taken up the heavy burdens at Manila I was V |,, once more released for field|,i iwork and able to carry out a plan which we had had in mind for some months-an extended trip through the ex-!A^At treme north of Luzon. Before, however, I was allowed that arduous privilege I spent some two weeks at the quaint little rWtaar town of Cavite assisting Mr. Hunter in his work with the Marine Corps. Cavite occupies the extreme end of a promontory which curves out from the shore-line some six miles southwest of Manila, enclosing in its fish-hook shape the shallow Bay of Bacoor. As the widened end of this peninsula-the site of the town and navy yard-is only connected with the remainder of it by an artificial causeway Cavite may properly be said to be built upon an island. As the area is limited the town is built closely together. Its age has given a fine gray to its several churches (one of which, I noticed, was a mute witness of Admiral Dewey's shell i68 77777i - O7Vdfl V77 N Q:i i' I Northern Luzon 169 fire) and has clothed its little plazas and parade-ground with beautiful turf, while its compactness has made it both possible and necessary that the town be neatly kept. Mr. Hunter showed me much of interest in the old fortifications and dungeons of the Spanish regime and the wrecks of Montojo's fleet, which still showed its rusted funnels and twisted superstructures above the waters near the island. Our chief interest was one, however, that concerned the living present. Nearly twelve hundred Marines lived in the barracks and swarmed through the streets of the town. Several companies of them had just returned from China and possessed trophies ranging from silver bars, gold bracelets and silks down to chop-sticks and recently-severed pig-tails! The Association had been granted a small but comfortable building for its use and under Mr. Hunter's supervision an excellent though limited work had been in progress for nearly a year. In fact a number of months before Mr. Hunter's arrival in the Islands, Private Cassels of the Marine Corps had taken the initiative and organized an Association at the suggestion of Mr. Glunz, maintaining services and raising no little money toward the securing of supplies both for themselves and others. The large number of Marines in the garrison, however, determined me to erect a tent on the 170 The Cross of Christ in Bol-Land Plaza San Pedro and conduct my services there -the building being far too small to accommodate them. This was accordingly done and an eleven nights' evangelistic campaign carried on. On the opening night the flag-draped tent, seated with camp-stools, was crowded to the flaps and the interest began at once. Hearty singing, brief addresses, testimonies and an after-meeting was the nightly program. Men were reclaimed from lives of sin at nearly every service and at the end of the serieswhich came all too soon-we could rejoice over not a few decisions for the new life. Among the most faithful attendants at these services was Lieutenant-Colonel Kelton, second in command of the garrison, and a most earnest Christian soldier. Colonel Kelton is known in Christian circles for many good works and not the least among them is the encouragement, advice and prayer with which he seconded Mr. Hunter's labors at Cavite. The most pleasant part of this ten days' experience was the nightly prayer services among the rusty cannon on the moon-lit bastion of the old ruined fort. During this stay in Cavite Mr. Hunter, Mr. Hearne and myself spent a day in visiting the still older town of Cavite Viejo, which lies across the Bay of Bacoor. At this place a company of the Fourth Infantry occupied the Northern Luzon 171 former home of the insurgent leader Aguinaldo, as a barrack. The house was unusually pretentious for so small a pueblo and contained a large panel upon the ceiling of the main room representing with no mean talent "The Vision of Aguinaldo," which is supposed to have inspired his efforts against tyrannical Spaniards and encroaching Americans. The painting is oval and perhaps fifteen by twenty-five feet. In it a young and charming Filipina is seated upon a marble terrace gazing out over the sea toward the rising sun, which appears above a triple peak. At her feet are shattered shackles, while in her left hand she trails a broken Spanish banner, and in her right waves the red, white and blue of the insurgent flag with its golden sun and attendant stars. As we stood admiring it, one of the men remarked that if the three peaks in the picture represented the Cavite range which they certainly resembled, then the sun which represented the longed-for golden day of Filipino aspiration was a setting sun! I could not but hope, however, as I gazed up at the allegory and then around at the stacked rifles of the guard, that the dream of the leader might come to pass after all and the sun of a tranquil and happy day soon shine over the entire archipelago. Upon concluding the services at Cavite I left my tent still standing to serve the Marines as 172 The Cross of Christ in Bolo-Land an additional social and reading-room, and returned to Manila to prepare for my trip to the north. Having lost my journal for the period, I am unable to give the date of my departure from Manila via steamer for Vigan, but I found myself at that important town on the 15th of December, having gotten a glimpse of the pretty little pueblo of San Fernando de la Union en route. Vigan is hardly less than twenty thousand in population and is the metropolis of the Ilocano country. The mountains which crowd the western coast of northern Luzon are at this point split by the rapid current of the Rio Abra and the town is built upon the delta which in course of time formed at the foot of the range. In itself Vigan is not interesting, but of no little importance as the District Headquarters of General Young, and the Regimental Headquarters of Colonel Davis of the Third Cavalry. Two troops of this command and two companies of the Thirty-third Infantry made up the garrison and in addition I found some thirty sick at the hospital. On the Lord's Day following my arrival I conducted services both at the hospital and from the band-stand on the Plaza de Weyler. This latter service was largely attended and developed the presence of a number of Christian men. We did the best we could with the Northern Luzon 173 after-meeting, the men who were especially interested being invited to come up into the band-stand after the service for consultation and prayer. We had the joy of seeing one decision for Christ even in this unique inquiry room. At the conclusion the Christian men of the commands represented formed themselves into a committee to provide a regular weekly song service. Having brought with me some few supplies, I was able to furnish them with hymn-books, Testaments and a few volumes of the Moody Colportage Library. The next morning I left for Bangued, the capital of Abra Province. It is hardly more than eight miles as the crow flies from Vigan to Bangued, but the Abra makes a long eighteen of it, twisting and screwing through the coast range. As no road had been cut through the canion it was necessary to raft it and I accordingly reported to Lieutenant Davis of the Fifth Infantry who was the vital link between the Supply Depot at Vigan and the exiled regiments back of the mountains-in other words had the dangerous task of conveying and guarding rations and ammunition through the Abra Pass. I found him four miles from Vigan at the barrio of Santa just getting his flotilla in shape for the weekly trip. The rafts which numbered on this occasion some thirty-five were merely 174 The Cross of Christ in Bolo-Land platforms of bamboo perhaps thirty feet in length and five in width, each manned by three muscular Ilocanes with fiber ropes for pulling and bamboo poles for pushing. Upon each raft a dozen or more boxes of rations and ammunition were stacked and an infantryman crowned the whole. In addition to the Lieutenant's fleet a second outfit accompanied us on the first day's journey, a detachment of nineteen engineers under command of Lieutenant Slattery, who were going up to San Quentin with the pleasant task before them of blasting a wagon-trail out of the side of the cation. There is nothing sluggish about the Abra in December and we had scarcely entered the mouth of the pass before the Ilocanes had all they could do to make headway against the rapids, and in fact the distance accomplished between six in the morning and six at night was hardly more than nine miles and found us no farther than the lonely barrio of San Quentin, a desolate half-dozen of weather beaten shacks perched upon a spur at a most forsaken part of the cafion. Here we tied up for the night and I was so happy as to enjoy the hospitality of Captain Schultz of the Thirty-third and a warm greeting from a hundred lonesome Southern boys in the dilapidated barracks, where I preached at seven o'clock to a considerable audience. Not only Northern Luzon I75 was all of "K" Company present, but Slattery and his engineers and Davis and his regulars came in to enjoy the novelty of a sermon. After getting acquainted with some of the more interested and taking the names of those who desired Testaments and reading matter mailed them from Manila I turned in for the night, sung to sleep by a sound unheard before for many hot months-the howling breath of a cold wind whistling down the pass. The next morning we continued our journey to Bangued, the boatman at times fighting desperately to avoid being carried down stream. We did not make fast to the bank at our destination until late in the afternoon, but the imposing scenery made the hours pass all too quickly. The great land-mark of the region is the peculiar peak of Bulagao, which was in sight the greater part of the day and rises several hundred feet alove the surrounding heights. The huge square bulk of Taal was also imposing and at all times the swift green river circling through the rocky hills and accompanied along its course by heavy music of its own making, compelled exclamatory admiration. The town of Bangued contained at one time some eleven thousand population and occupying as it did a high altitude and a comparatively cool climate, boasted not a few fine stone residences. But it met my gaze as a charred 176 The Cross of Christ in Bolo-Land ruin, only the church, barracks, and a ring of buildings immediately about the plaza remaining unharmed. This desolation was the result of the desultory guerrilla warfare which had flickered fitfully in the province ever since its occupation by the American troops. Abra is a succession of ridges billowing away from the coast to the Cagayan Valley and its countless hiding places made it a favorite retreat for the insurgent bands when too hard pressed to maintain themselves in the more open country to the south and east. As a consequence at the time of my visit to Bangued not only was an entire battalion of infantry quartered in its few remaining buildings but three additional battalions were operating in the province and using Bangued as a base. Davis had turned me over, upon arrival at his quarters, to the pleasant mercies of Captain Carnahan of the Fifth Infantry, and for the greater part of a week I was the recipient of many courtesies both from him and the officers and men of the post. The garrison consisted of two companies of the Fifth and two companies of the Thirty-third and among these latter I found that a Regimental Y. M. C. A. had existed ever since the regiment had left the Presidio at San Francisco, a year and a half before and a small building at Bangued had been neatly fitted up as a reading room Northern Luzon 177 and library by the members of the organization. In looking about the post I could discover no suitable place to conduct services indoors as the barracks were too crowded and the reading room was too small. This compelled me to again take to a band-stand on the plaza and on two differenf evenings held forth to the greater part of the garrison from that point of vantage. I had intended leaving on the day following the second service, but a committee of Christian soldiers waited upon me in behalf of their comrades and assured me that if I would remain over another night a better place would be secured for the gathering. I agreed and in the evening was conducted to the local school building which had been cleaned, garnished and brightly lighted and packed with men to its limit. One of the best services in my army experience followedsome eight men announcing their decision for the Christian life at its close. In coming up the river we had on the second day passed the town of Pidigan de Abra, merely stopping the rafts long enough to land a few boxes of rations and two precious kegs of sauer-kraut. But Captain Martin had naturally been drawn down to the bank by this powerful magnet and I had arranged with him for a service with his company upon my return. This promise I kept on the 22d and should 178 The Cross of Christ in Bolo-Land have dropped down the river the following day to Vigan, but both the Captain and his Lieutenant, Beck, urged me so heartily to share their Christmas "kraut" that I could not resist. The almost incessant bushwhacking along the river compelled the greatest vigilance in guarding the supply rafts. In addition to the guards stationed, accompanying the rafts on each trip, the garrisons at Pidigan and San Quentin threw out patrols for several miles down the canon on "supply day" to prevent the Filipinos from occupying the bluffs and firing down upon the helpless flotilla. On the 23d Lieutenant Beck invited me to accompany his detachment of thirty men on this duty. After a difficult march down the rocky sides of the pass for five or six miles we ferried across the river, threw out pickets along the bluffs, and waited until Davis and his outfit came pushing by, when we pulled in the men and camped for the night on the river's edge a short distance from a little Tinguane Indian village. By visiting their humble settlement I found them to be quite different from the Malays and resembling our own Indians quite closely, being similar in appearance, binding their long, coarse hair with bark and leather fillets, smoking small carved stone pipes and adorning their bodies with beads. Their houses Northern Luzon 179 were the regulation shack, devoid, of course, of any furniture worthy of the name, and from what I could gather from the soldiers they were friendly, quiet and for the most part fairly industrious. They certainly were more attractive in appearance than the Filipinos, with whom they have no intercourse, and not a few of the older faces possessed a strength and regularity of feature and a dignity and repose not far from patriarchal. Concerning their religion I could gather nothing during my single hour in their barrio. They were evidently not Romanized. The men of Beck's detachment stated that they were ignorant of coin and never willingly parted with their chickens, rudely woven cloth or carved pipes for a money consideration, preferring beads, wire or cloth. I have since learned that the Tinguanes are probably descended from shipwrecked Japanese sailors who were cast away on the Luzon coast two or more centuries ago. There is no conclusive evidence for the theory, however. The second day with Lieutenant Beck's detachment was one involving some exertion. He had received orders to scout up the mountains toward Bulagao near the base of which a newly-built barrio was supposed to be the rendezvous of an insurgent band. The band was to be bagged if possible and the i80 The Cross of Christ in Bolo-Land houses destroyed. We started on the errand early in the morning of the 24th and marched steadily for some hours up the stony bed of an almost dry mountain torrent, arriving in the vicinity of the doomed barrio not far from twelve o'clock. Here a halt was made, canteens, haversacks and blanket rolls discarded and placed under a suitable guard and rifles carefully examined. Then we pressed ahead at a double, dividing when near the barrio into two encircling detachments and closing down on the place from both sides and on the run. We had nothing for our pains, however, as the place was deserted and the destruction of the little hamlet immediately began. A dry bamboo shack with a thatched roof makes an excellent bonfire and as the air within the bamboos expands with the heat and bursts the joints a succession of reports, very similar to rifle shots, ring out in rapid succession. So close is the resemblance indeed that when a party of our men just out of our sight opened up with their "Krags" on some Filipinos whom they discovered up the valley and supposed to be insurgents, as all peaceable natives had been warned out of the vicinity, we remained in ignorance of the fact for some minutes, thinking the increased noise to be due to the firing of an additional shack. In a half hour the entire village was reduced to ashes and we Northern Luzon 18i returned to the place where we had left our haversacks, cooked our bacon and coffee, and after a short "siesta" in the shade resumed our impedimenta and returned tired out to our camp on the Abra. Here we spent our Christmas Eve. The Tinguane head man kindly sent over a chicken for the Lieutenant's mess and after our meal we built up the fires and held a little Christmas Eve service of song and prayer. The following morning we marched over to Pidigan and had a pleasant Christmas Day with Captain Martin and his men. The afternoon was filled with "gun-and-belt dashes," hundred yard, half-mile and potato races, vaulting and jumping by the soldiers and a variety of events in which the natives took eager part. No small part of the day's pleasure was the concert by the local band and a dance peculiar to the Ilocanes performed by a dozen brown youngsters, dressed in red and white, with much posturing, waving of batons and childish tableaux. At dinner under the mango tree on the plaza the grizzled old veteran who cooked for the Captain's mess smilingly brought out a dish of the trenchant "kraut" and we went to bed at night feeling that we had at least emphasized the occasion a little and had not allowed it to slip by in the same colorless monotony as other 182 The Cross of Christ in Bolo-Land days. But Christmas is not Christmas at ninety in the shade. The 30th of the month found me again at Vigan and the 3Ist saw me on board the little Spanish coaster "Tan-auco" bound north for the port of Aparri at the mouth of the Cagayan River. The "Tan-auco" deserves three pages of execration as it was not long enough to reach from one wave to another and behaved like a blue-billed diver throughout the trip. A heavy storm striking us just after leaving Vigan, we were two days in reaching our anchorage off Aparri and I saw the world at all angles and experienced a remarkable range of emotions within. Or to put it more soberly, I landed at Aparri some pounds lighter than when I left Vigan, soaked, exhausted, and feverish. My old friend, Chaplain Springer, however, had recently been assigned to Aparri and for a week I lay in his quarters kindly cared for and brought back to health. Dr. Phipps had occupied Aparri as his headquarters for some months and had distributed supplies and conducted services far up the Cagayan valley. When withdrawn for the more important work in China he had left behind in the rented quarters used for Association purposes several boxes of books and other supplies. Chaplain Springer had, immediately upon his arrival, revived the services at Northern Luzon i83 the building, reseated and decorated it, and commenced several lines of work for the benefit of the men. On the 6th of January I was able to speak for him at his Sunday evening service. In addition to an audience of a hundred and five Americans there were present no less than a hundred and forty Ilocanes and Cagayans, who understood no word of the service but greatly enjoyed it nevertheless. The Chaplain assured me that many of them were regular attendants. God grant that in the near future they may hear the Gospel in their own tongue. From the 6th to the I2th day of the new year the Chaplain and I preached alternately in the post-chapel and with some success in reviving the religious life of the Christian men and aiding others to make the great decision. During this period, too, I made myself acquainted with the port and its garrison. Aparri is not metropolitan in appearance, being largely built of thatched huts, but guarding the mouth of the largest river in the Islands and one whose open valley spreads southward some two hundred miles and contains the best tobacco lands in the archipelago, the little port is of present importance and assured of a future. It is, too, some two hundred and fifty miles nearer Hong-Kong than Manila and four hundred miles nearer San Francisco and this 184 The Cross of Christ zn Bolo-Land advantage will largely outweigh the fact that it has no harbor other than the river, the channel of which, at the mouth, changes quite nonchalantly each rainy season. The smaller coasting steamers ascend the river, however, some few miles, and flat-bottomed boats similar to the "tow-boats" on the Ohio would have no trouble in getting as far up as Ilagan in the flood season. Colonel Hood, a genial Christian gentleman, commanded not only the battalion of the Sixteenth at Aparri but the entire Cagayan District and upon my calling upon him expressed the hope that I would, while in the District, visit "all his boys." He assured me that if I would consent to ascend the river and conduct services with the garrisons under his command that he would be glad to put a cavalry horse and equipment at my disposal and attach me to a mounted party which was to traverse the valley soon. I had half intended to return to Manila overland and hearing that the Depot Quartermaster was running a small flat-bottomed steamer up the river as far as Cauayin I had intended to glide pleasantly along the first hundred miles of my journey on that. But not feeling like confessing to the Colonel that I was but an indifferent horseman and had hitherto ridden the native ponies largely because I could at Northern Luzon I85 any alarm find the ground without descending very far, I accepted his suggestion with thankful lips if not with grateful heart. It soon appeared that the detachment with which I was to travel was to ascend the river by the trail along its left bank, taking up a batch of newly-landed horses to distribute at the posts for scouting and patrolling purposes. A lot of recruits, or as the veterans term them, "rookies," had recently been landed from a transport at Aparri, and the expedition was to be largely made up from their ranks. It afterward appeared that these men, having been recruited in Brooklyn and New York, were for the most part no better cavaliers than Cervantes' Sancho Panza, but having been cramped on board a transport for fifty days and doubtless having read in pleasant books of travel of the many marvels and delights of tropical scenery they responded very eagerly when Lieutenant R. H. Hearne, who was to have command of the outfit, went over to their quarters with the query, "Who among you men can ride a horse?" None among them doubted their ability and the twenty men were easily secured. The day before we started the outfit was allowed a practice or field-day, each man of the favored twenty going down to the newlyreceived lot of Oregon horses at the corral and i86 The Cross of Christ in Bolo-Land leading his choice up to the plaza before the inspecting eyes of Colonel Hood, Captain Newton and other genial gentlemen who sat their horses with disgraceful ease of manner and waited for things to happen. It soon developed that many of these new horses had no great acquaintance with a saddle and accoutrements, for when the command Was given to saddle up there were strange times on the turf and some of the animals were only subdued sufficiently when hauled by a half dozen infantrymen to a tree and helplessly tied. When the last saddle was on and the last scuffle had subsided the relentless Lieutenant gave the command to mount, and not daring to disobey, each luckless fellow threw himself on his animal and cutting his cables cruised away over tempestuous seas. All the tricks which the horses of the past have bequeathed to the equines of the present and all the modern, up-to-date stratagems which our more inventive century has added to their lore were exhibited at their best before our eyes and "rookies" were jounced and bounced, bowled and rolled, in a most surprising manner. The inspecting officers were soon in a helpless condition from laughter while I, after gazing on the tournay for a few dismayed seconds, stole over to Veterinary Knepper and asked him to select me a mount such as he would consider Northern Luzon 187 ideal for a child of three! I consequently escaped playing so painful a part as the others and, on the day following our well-appreciated exhibition, rode out of Aparri on the back of an old stager whose hoof mark showed him to have been at one time an honored member of the Fourth Cavalry. Our starting day had its trials, however, as our one day's practice had not made us all graceful riders by any means, and now, in addition to the management of a horse and its equipments, each man was loaded down with a "Long Tom" rifle and a heavy cartridge belt and was leading three additional animals. We had hardly gotten beyond the Colonel's kindly farewell when insecure riders began to drop leading straps and horses began to stampede. As the Lieutenant, Dr. Knepper and myself were the only unencumbered riders it became our duty to round up the excited and snorting horses, several of whom even left the trail about dusk and swam over to a marshy island in the river. It was while being thus cheerfully engaged that I saw the comfortable Q. M. D. steamer paddling up the Cagayan in the sunset, making a very attractive picture with her gay flag showing against the foliaged banks and her rippling wake spreading out like an opening fan over the broad surface of the river. Alas! I was not on I88 The Cross of Christ in Bolo-Land board her and rode into Laloc nicely plated with mud, slopped around the horse-lines in a swampy field to get "Old Safety" his hay and oats and got to my own supper at a wearisome hour-far too late to allow of the hoped-for service with the Laloc garrison. The muletrain carrying our rations and forage did not get in until midnight, having met with difficulties in the carabao wallows along the road. The following day was even more vexatious and my notebook mournfully chronicles: "Left Laloc at 8:30 a.m. after numerous delays. Fair road for a mile and a half and then a fearsome ditch through which we almost swam our stock until both they and the men were decorated with telling patterns in Cagayan soil. A little further on and the ditch narrowed to a carabao track with heavy forest pressing us closely-the first real large timber I have ridden through on the Islands. Lacing these trees were masses of creepers and clambering vines whose clinging tendrils reached hospitably out to check us as we brushed along. A half mile within this jungle the only word fitly describing the route was the word appalling, as the trail wound up over ledges and down through ravines so that we were either stumbling and slipping over clay-plastered rocks on the ridges or sinking to the horses' girths in the hollows. It was impossible for Northern Luzon I89 the animals to get a footing in the center of the trail and we were compelled to encroach upon the jungle, taking the poisonous slapping growth in the face and scraping off large red ants to devour us. Halts were numerous at exceptionally muddy places as the stock was continually getting mixed, mules mired and riders either thrown or obliged to dismount from foundered beasts and trudge along in mud up to their legging tops, while the narrowness of the trail caused every accident to block the whole line. Becoming thoroughly exhausted we forgot about the beauty of the dense growth with its monkeys and bi'ds and festoons of blossoms and worked along with rough seas beneath our feet and poorly repressed tempests within our breasts. "Unable to make our intended destination we camped at nightfall in a cleared space near the misty bank of an old slough. More weary work looking after the animals and then another late supper, this time out of a crackertin and sardine-can, sitting on the floor of an abandoned and rotting shack. Just before partaking of this fare I inquired of 'Dad' Young, our chief packer, the whereabouts of my folding cot which had been placed on the crown of a mule-pack and was informed that it had been abandoned some miles back as it had been badly ripped by catching in the I90 The Cross of Christ in Bolo-Land bamboos. As we were getting our coffee off the fire he came up to add that the pack-train had come through with the loss of but one load but that load, unfortunately, contained my only other possession, my valise with all its clothing, papers and books. I regret this loss exceedingly as it includes my journal covering the past five months. I now possess only what I have on my person. Well, Paul the Itinerant was doubtless as short on more than one occasion and I'll warrant carried no valise or folding cot. (Here Satan suggests that I have suffered one pang which the apostle was not called on to endure!)" On the i8th, I wrote from Gataran: "Reached here after another hard experience in which one of the men, Murther, lost his rifle in one carabao wallow and nearly lost his life in another-his horse falling back upon him and burying him entirely with the exception of the face. He was rescued from suffocation with difficulty as the horse was too exhausted to rise and release him The dense growth continues. Lost the column once to-day by taking the wrong fork, but retraced my way and found the outfit again with the aid of a stray Ilocano. Reached this point at noon, picketed our horses and mules and got our first wash for two days. The garrison here consists of but twelve men and a corporal. Held a service Northern Luzon I9I for their benefit at seven this evening. Our men attended and we had a blessing." From camp on the following night: "Left Gataran at 4: 45 and tried to make Alcala. One man, Taylor, separated from us and fate unknown. Several horses refused a ford some miles back on the trail and tore away from their holders. The last seen they were en route to Aparri. 'Dad' has been sent on ahead to-night to Alcala with his arm sliced open by a mule kick. The pack train makes slow time without him. Late this afternoon the trail came up out of the mud and jungle and wound over high grassy hills from the summits of which we had an imposing view of the great valley with its broad ribbon of silver shining between green foliage and yellow rice fields. Not even the Hudson Valley furnishes a finer picture. Delays at some almost impassable ravines held us until darkness overtook us and we were compelled to camp in the pampas grass in a drizzle. Have been in the saddle thirteen hours and am honestly tired. Have the honor of being the dirtiest man in the crowd as 'Safety' rolled over with me in a pit of black loam. When I came to the surface and remounted the boys had me 'pass in review.' From Alcala: "Broke camp early this morning and saw an interesting sight as we pulled out. Some of the rice-paddies near by were I I92 The Cross of Christ in Bolo-Land ripening to the harvest and greedy rice-birds were settling in them. At Aparri I had noticed that scare-crows were used to protect the rice and in Negros a line of flag-wavers keep locusts from the sugar-cane, but here they have more genius. Around the field at large intervals tall bamboos are firmly planted, split down from the top for several feet. A little thatch-covered perch is erected at the field's edge with fiber ropes attached to each pole leading thither. A couple of 'muchachos' occupy the shelter and when the birds settle in a certain part of the field the youngsters jerk the ropes and shake the bamboos nearest the covey. The split poles make a great clatter and the frightened birds decamp. I noticed in one field an improvement on the systema horizontal bamboo being lashed across one of the uprights. On one end of this cross-piece was tied a large bunch of dried grass and the rope was attached to the opposite end. By jerking the rope the cross-piece swung the bunch of grass in a semi-circle just above the field, driving the birds from the grain. While the bamboos rattle the boys in the look-out shout their 'Wa-ee! Wa-ee-e-e!' and those working in the field reinforce them at intervals by a lusty and long-drawn 'Hoyee! Hoyee!' "The soldiers at this point belong to the Forty-ninth (colored) and the captain received Northern Luzon I93 us very heartily. At seven I held the usual service, the first the company had enjoyed since coming to the Islands. The colored men sang finely and the brethren among them encouraged me with earnest 'Amens!' The men off guard were all present and several packers belonging to our mule-train as well. We rest here to-morrow as several of the horses are badly used up." Thus the notebook prattles on. To avoid its chatter let me abbreviate by saying that we made Echague some two weeks after leaving Aparri having conducted services and become somewhat acquainted with garrison conditions at Tuguegarao, Cabagan Nuevo, Ilagan, Cauayin and other unpronounceable points, and seeing not a little of the country, its people and their life. Our outfit went no farther than Echague, but, bidding farewell to Dr. Knepper, the Lieutenant, the packers and the soldiers, I pressed on to Cordon, where the native band insisted upon honoring me with a serenade at five in the morning, and the entire population (say a hundred all told) lined up at my departure and humbly doffed their hats with a "Good-bye, Padre, come again soon!" the band, stimulated by a peso, playing me out of sight. From Cordon to Solano I enjoyed the companionship of eight soldiers, two carabaos 194 The Cross of Christ in Bolo-Land carrying the rations and several attendant Ilocanes. Soon after leaving the town the trail crossed high grassy ranges well watered by several excellent streams. The rise was steady for some twelve miles when we reached the top of the divide and looked down into the valley of the Magat in which Bagabag, our next halt, was supposed to lie. We plunged rapidly ahead and reached the Magat river at nightfall. The ferryman was not in sight, although we could just make out the outline of his craft on the other side of the racing current. So we stood in the rain and shouted, first singly, then by couples and squads, "Banquero! banquero-o- o - o!" But no response came from the shadows opposite, and being informed by the natives with us that the river was unfordable we camped in the drizzle and tried to make ourselves comfortable for the night on the hard stones of the bank. But after cooking and eating an "Eagan and Otis" supper we determined to make an attempt at least to ford, for good barracks were awaiting us at Bagabag. Three of the men accordingly stripped from head to foot and after scouting up and down the bank looking for a "riffle," struck timidly out directly opposite our camp-fire; and found to their disgust that the dangerous Magat was only knee deep. We at once went on our way, Northern Luzon I95 reaching Bagabag at 9: 30 and succeeding in making ourselves known to the sentry without getting shot for insurgents. Solano was reached the following day and in addition to the courtesies of the commanding officer, Captain Johnson, and the blessing of a service with the men of Co. "C," I enjoyed a visit to the Igorrote village which forms one section of the town. I found the inhabitants to differ materially from the Calinga and Tinguane Indians, being larger and lighter in color, with flattened lips and broad nose. They affected brass anklets, bracelets and ear-rings, wore their long hair down in their eyes, carried knives and spears about with them even in the peaceful streets of the village and wore little more than a "gee-string." Unlike our own Indians they were willing to work but preferred the hunt, and were, I was told, generally peaceful and quiet. Their homes differed but little from those of their Filipino neighbors. On the 7th of February I crossed the great Caraballa Sur Pass, after my hardest climb in the Islands, and dropped down out of the mist and rain on its summit into the warmth of the sunshine which flooded its western face. Resisting the almost tearful entreaties of a drunken detachment at the foot of the range to tarry with them for the night and favor them with a sermon (which they earnestly 196 The Cross of Christ in Bolo-Land assured me they stood in great need of!) I rode on into Carranglan, having made thirty-four miles since daybreak. From this point my way into Manila involved little hardship and after visiting the garrisons of the Twenty-fourth Regiment at San Jose and Humingin, reached the line of the Manila & Dagupan Railway at Bautista, and a few hours later steamed into the "Union Depot" at Tondo, reported my arrival to Hearne and went off for a shave with the satisfaction of knowing that I had made some nine hundred miles since last seeing Manila, two hundred and ninety of it by horse, forty by raft, fifty on foot, twenty-five by wagon, one hundred by rail and the rest by steamer, and was much the better able to appreciate the meaning of a map of Luzon. ;NaluIffl= H' S m.i. 4 V NV, xV O -V I x IDtfstonarr Conbittons of towbap t dE i ND now in candor let me say, as I begin the last chapter of this narrative, that if any have been so interested as to follow me thus (, MS t far, I shall use that interest as lan excuse for abruptly leaving jthem in the city of Manila. This for two reasons. The first is, 1 < ^ r that my homeward voyage was ^^^/ aquite unlike my outward journey, ~,, ffor I was inconsiderately rolled., wfv1 e I and pitched by an unkind sea all the way from Corregidor to Nagasaki and from Nagasaki to Puget Sound, and I naturally hesitate to ask the interested one to share my woeful journey. But there is a better reason. If what I may have chronicled in these pages has aroused an interest, however slender, in either the work for Christ among the troops or among the natives, I shall not risk destroying the main object of my labor by bringing the reader again to American soil. My earnest hope is that a certain share of his or her interest and prayer may never leave the archipelago until the words of Isaiah have their I97 198 The Cross of Christ in Bolo-Land fulfillment and the people of the isles of the sea unitedly praise the redeeming Christ. The work of the Army and Navy Association had steadily developed during my two months in the north of the island. Our headquarters were no longer in the rambling old Cuartel, but established in a much more suitable building on Calles Real and Legaspi within the Walled City. I was not only greeted by Hearne, Hunter and Webb, upon my return, but by two additional secretaries, recently arrived, and both men of experience in the Army work. Mr. Z. C. Collins had relinquished control of the Porto Rico Army Association in order to reinforce our more needy field, and Mr. M. G. Bailey had secured a wide and useful experience in the tent work at Tampa and Montauk Point in '98 and in the garrisons about New York City in '99 and 'oo. Gloeckner, who had been burying himself from sight in arduous field work in Cebu, Bohol and Samar for the past year, had also come up to confer with Hearne about his work for the coming months, and the presence of these men, constituting, with the exception of Phipps, our entire force, suggested the expediency of a Secretarial Conference. Accordingly the afternoons of the last week in February were largely occupied by discussion of methods, plans for the future of the work, and Missionary Conditions of To-day i99 prayer for the blessing and guidance of the Spirit of God. Immediately following this Conference I conducted my last evangelistic meetings in the Islands, partly at Camp Wallace, in Bailey's canvas Y. M C. A erected among the camping soldiers on the Luneta, and partly at the headquarters, where unusual blessing attended the crowded services. These evangelistic efforts were followed up by a popular Bible Institute for the troops, which resulted in the organization of a permanent class under the efficient leadership of Maj. E. W. Halford, a devoted friend and valued adviser of our work. Glo/eckner returned to the Visayas, but this time to reoccupy my old station at Iloilo; Bailey, as already hinted, opened up tent work with the men of the returning regiments, several of which were nearing the end of their service and were being concentrated in Manila in readiness for their transportation home; Collins was given the heavy burden of the city work at headquarters; Hunter was transferred from Cavite to the new naval station on Subig Bay, and Webb was assigned to the work among the Marines. Hearne was thus at last freed for his invaluable work of general supervision. I had found, upon my return to Manila from the Cagayan Valley, that a new political party 200 The Cross of Christ in Bolo-Land - -.: 1 I['[ \ - - ':: had sprung up among the natives, known as the "Partido Federal." This was a movement on the part of those most desirous of peace, and was the fruitage of a two-years' acquaintance with Americanism in and about the capital. Committees had been formed in the different quarters of the city, and rallies conducted. The most enthusiasm was evidenced in Tondo, the most distinctively'Tagalo quarter. The Federalists advocated the discontinuance of guerrilla warfare on the part of the insurgents, professed a desire to co-operate in every possible way with the American government in establishing good order and good government, and even went so far as to outline a constitution for the Islands to be administered under American control. The movement enlisted the sympathy of a large body of prominent Filipinos, and was of course favorably regarded by the military government. Tondo and other points in and around Manila held the initial strength of the movement, but the party has since been quite successfully organized not only in Luzon but the Visayas as well. The movement in the beginning was not entirely political. The Tondo Committee of the "Partido Federal" voted as a body to secede from the Roman Church. This action was taken without outside suggestion or pres Missionary Conditions of To-day 20T sure, and was due to the deep distrust felt by the more intelligent Filipinos of a system so full of extortion and fraud as the so-called Church had proven itself. The mass of the people had always cried out against the friars, but clung to the padres. This committee was more logical and laid the blame upon the system which tolerated and encouraged if it did not actually nourish the sins of the friars. Some of its members having heard outlines of Protestant faith occasionally from the lips of Rev. James B. Rodgers, suggested that he be called upon to address one of the mass-meetings then being held in the interest of the Federal Party, each Sunday, in the Tondo quarter. A delegation accordingly waited upon Mr. Rodgers, informed him of their withdrawal from the Roman Church, and preferred their request. He acceded to their proposal to speak at xo o'clock the following Sunday in the "Teatro Rizal," and preached at that time and place to several hundred natives, who listened intently to both his address and the political speeches which also had part on the program. It was not an ideal Protestant service, and the passing of beer around the audience during the sermon, as well as other secular matters, showed the necessity of ensuring a more distinctly religious tone. Accordingly 202 The Cross of Christ in Bolo-Land Sefior Buencamino, the head of the Federal party in Tondo, arose at the conclusion of the meeting to announce that on the following Sunday the gathering would be entirely in the hands of Pastor Rodgers, and would be nonpolitical. This announcement was carried out. The meeting was largely attended, and had been repeated each Sunday morning since. I attended at my earliest opportunity. After a two-mile walk across the hot city I halted before a large wooden wigwam with a corrugated iron roof, and lettered over the entrance, "Teatro Rizal." A swarm of Filipinos eddied through the opening in the high slat fence across its front, or gathered under a rude arch decorated with American flags, spanning the street in front of the building. Elbowing my way within, I found myself in a large audience room seated in the pit with rattan chairs, and along the sides with tiers of "circus benches,' while at the farther end a large stage, flanked by crude boxes and fitted with cheap scenery, stretched entirely across the building's width. The effect was bare and barn-like, and only of redeeming interest because the pit was already filled with whitecoated and straw-hatted men, and even the side benches were beginning to attract clambering people. Prominent Federalists and Protestant sym Missionary Conditions of To-day 203 pathizers were in seats of honor on the stage, and a little group of natives from Mr. Rodgers' mission were assembled about Mrs. Rodgers and her portable organ at one edge of the stage, to act as choir. Sefior Buencamino, portly and fatherly, occupied a position at the rear-center. The hall continued to fill, and the large building was two-thirds full when Buencamino arose and requested the people to "respect the presence of God" by throwing away their cigars and removing their hats-a suggestion promptly complied with. The man who distributed the song-sheets (our familiar hymns in Spanish) was fairly mobbed by eager people, and a native string-band in the orchestra seats struck up a lively prelude. Immediately at its finish Mr. Rodgers advanced to a table at the front of the stage upon which was lying the Word of God, and announced the first hymn. The little choir, reinforced by a large number of voices from the audience, carried it safely through. A native repeated the Lord's Prayer, phrase by phrase, in Spanish, and was echoed by the audience. Then came another hymn and a reading of the fourteenth chapter of Acts. Then Pastor Rodgers offered up a general petition, and after a third hymn preached a strong sermon from I Tim. 2: 5. This sermon was also in Spanish, and enlisted the close attention of the audience, 204 The Cross of Christ in Bolo-Land but for the benefit of many present whose knowledge of Spanish was limited, it was followed by an address in Tagalo by Seinor Zamora, a staunch adherent of the Presbyterian Mission. He spoke at some length, and by the effect upon his audience, which responded with approving words and occasional laughter, he must have reached them with his message. Another hymn followed, and after a short address from Buencamino counseling moderation and avoidance of all bitterness toward the Roman Church, the service was closed by Mr. Rodgers. Between five hundred and six hundred Filipinos heard the Gospel that day, many helped to sing it, and all seemed interested in it. The spirit of the meeting seemed excellent. I sailed from Manila for America on the 24th of March, but these meetings in the "Teatro Rizal" continued some weeks later, and with, in the end, no little spiritual blessing. The Federal Party soon saw that an alliance with Protestantism was impracticable, and interfered with the political ends they were striving to accomplish, but the judgment and tact of Mr. Rodgers and other Manila missionaries during the inception of the movement had caused it to contribute no little to the cause of evangelical missions. In addition to this new responsibility laid upon the Presbyterian Missionary Conditions of To-day 205 brethren, Mr. L. P. Davidson of the same Mission opened up a promising work at Hagonoy in Pampanga, where the entire population of the little town received him gladly, and with one accord attended his weekly services and welcomed him to their homes to discuss the Glad Tidings. Davidson has since died of appendicitis, the first American to offer up his life on Philippine soil for the sake of the Gospel. His death has taken from the field one of the sunniest and truest of God's noblemen. Even greater blessing seemed to attend the labors of Mr. McLaughlin and his associates in the Methodist Mission. As early as the fall of 1900, 3,000 natives attended weekly the fourteen services of this Mission. At Melibay, a pueblo some miles south of the Walled City, young Nicolas Zamora preached each Lord's Day to seven hundred Tagalo hearers and several small barrios near the city, in the first months of I90I, went bodily over to the new religion. The erection of two chapels soon followed. I had the privilege of attending the dedicatory exercises of what we nicknamed "St. Peter's" Methodist Church, a little bamboo structure on the outskirts of Tondo erected entirely by the poor fishermen of the quarter. It was not far from the immense mass of the Tondo Catholic Church, which, rising over it, dwarfed 206 The Cross of Christ in Bolo-Land 11. ' I:. I ' I it into insignificance. But we went away from the enthusiastic exercises thinking that a mustard seed was more promising than a monument As might be safely prophesied, these popular movements in favor of the Protestant proselyters were not unattended by persecutions of a petty sort, the bulk of which, of course, fell upon the native converts. It is interesting to read in the "Manila Times" of February 26, a side-light on the conditions then prevailing: "The aggressiveness and success of the Protestant faith among the Filipinos who were formerly Catholics are apparently everywhere stirring up counteraction on the part of the friars. It is only a short time since Nicolas Zamora, the native preacher, and two or three hundred Protestant natives we reimprisoned on false charges preferred by other natives who were instigated by the friars; Jose Salamanca, the native preacher of Cavite, is still in jail pending investigation of his charges; and now Bonifacio Varges, another convert and proselyte, has been arrested on the charge of being an insurrecto, and thrown into prison. "The story surrounding Varges is somewhat involved. For some time the Methodists have been quite active in the barrio of Gagalangin, Mzssionary Conditions of To-day 207 and Varges has been one of their ablest and most energetic helpers. No open opposition was entered upon by the friars until the last two or three days, when trouble arose over the question of ownership of the church, and the right of using it. For the past year four poor widows and their children have used the church as a dwelling, with the consent of the rest of the people, as they could not afford a house. No objection was ever offered until during the present month, when the native friar, Father Estefan, ordered the church closed and locked. As the people of the barrio themselves built the church with their own money, and the friar showed no interest in it beyond preaching whenever a hundred dollars was forthcoming, they felt they had a right to the building, and broke the lock, forcing an entrance. "Yesterday, the native police took a hand in the matter, throwing the people and their bedding out of the building, by orders of the native Lieutenant of the place. As he is a Catholic, it is fair to infer where he got his orders. "Despite their homeless condition, the ejected people and their friends kept in cheerful mood, and yesterday afternoon joined heartily in the Protestant service which had been the cause of their misfortunes. During 208 The Cross of Christ in Bolo-Land the service seventeen expressed a desire for baptism, and were accordingly baptized. "Towards the close of the service the denouement came, when Bonifacio Varges, the real leader among the native Protestants, was arrested by the native police as an insurrecto, and hurried off to jail, where, like Salamanca, he will probably have to undergo durance of several weeks until the authorities can get time to investigate his case. "The trumped-up nature of the charges against Varges is apparent from the fact that he was arrested only a month ago on a like presumption, and found guiltless, and also that of late he has always shown his sympathy for the American cause. He has been prominent in the Federal movement, and outspoken in his advocacy of the separation of Church and State. In the procession at the Luneta last Friday in honor of Washington, Varges and eighty of his companions marched with a big banner at their head, and joined in doing honor to America's first President. "Probably the immediate cause of Varges' arrest is a petition which he presented to President Taft last Saturday, in the name of the Protestant people of the barrio of Gagalangin. The petition stated that the church of the barrio had been paid for by the people themselves, and no priest or friar had a right to dis Missionary Conditions of To-day 209 pose as to how it should be used. Moreover, the Representante of the barrio had granted the widows the right to sleep in the church. "The inevitable deduction forced upon one by all these circumstances is that the friars are at their scheming and underhand work; in fact, those who have left the Catholic faith openly avow that they have been threatened with imprisonment by the friars, and as a consequence suffer from constant intimidation. "There are three other instances where such action has been taken. First appears that of Zamora, then Salamanca, and latterly a native Methodist in Sampaloc, who was baptized on Sunday and arrested on Monday. "Such arrests are likely to continue unless there be some means adopted by which an informer who maliciously causes another person to be imprisoned can be punished. As it now stands, any trumped-up insurrecto charge is sufficient to land a native in jail, and he has no means of redress, but has to await patiently till his trial comes up. Even then his liberty may be sworn away." Not only were the missionaries confronted with more open doors than they could enter but the two Bible Societies soon found themselves compelled to add to the number of their native colporteurs and avail themselves as well of the services of a number of discharged 210 The Cross of Christ in Bolo-Land Christian soldiers who elected to remain in the Islands and thus assist in extending the Gospel. Just before my leaving Manila I was informed by Mr. Goodrich of the American Bible Society that he found it impossible to supply the demands for Protestant literature, Tagalo Gospels, and Spanish Testaments and Bibles. Naturally the largeness of the opportunity prevented friction between the different organizations, and the good-fellowship existing between the entire corps of evangelical workers in and about the city eventually led to a most significant step-the formation of an Evangelical Union. To my mind this agreement and recommendation entered into by the representatives of all the evangelical societies in the Islands marks the highest attainment in the history of missionary comity. It would well be worth while to consecrate the last pages of this chapter to a careful treatment of its significance. But as the Union was effected some weeks after my departure from Manila, I have thought best to append an account of the formation of the Union, its constitution and plans from the pen of Mr. Rodgers. The article has already appeared in this country, but deserves a re-reading by the students and supporters of Christian missions.* *See Appendix B. Missionary Conditions of To-day 211 It is now some seven months since I bade farewell to Manila, and I am not able to record from personal observation the latest phases of the work either among the troops or the natives. By correspondence of a recent date, however, I am able to give a brief summary of missionary and Association conditions at the present time. As to the work among the troops I am in receipt of the last report of Mr. Glunz, who has returned once more to the Islands to relieve Mr. Hearne. His communication is dated at Manila, November I, I9OI, and says in part: "Our work at present is as follows: At Manila we have a two-story building well lighted by electricity. The lower portion is rented to the American Bible Society, we retaining but a store-room for our supplies. On the upper floor we have the office, secretary's room, correspondence room, game room, library, several rooms used for dormitories, bath room, etc. The office is well fitted out with desks, safe, typewriter, mimeograph and letter-press. The reading room is by far the best in the Islands, all current periodicals being on file. The library numbers 2,500 volumes. The auditorium seats I50 people. The dormitories will accommodate 32 men, although at times, by means of folding cots, we accommodate over 80. Mr. Fitch has charge of the 212 The Cross of Christ in Bolo-Land Manila building and work, and has Mr. Willard Lutz, formerly a sergeant in the Fortythird Infantry, as his assistant. We also employ a night man on duty from 9 p.m. to 12 m. It is estimated that during the last year we have held in deposit in our safe to accommodate the soldiers over $2,400,000 of their money, and with the loss of but $I6. A Spanish office-boy is also employed, and four Filipinos do the janitor work of the building. The following meetings are held: Sunday morning at 9 o'clock, morning prayers at the building, Sunday afternoon services are held at two military hospitals in the city. At 7: 30 Sunday evening, an evangelistic service is held at the building, the attendance crowding the hall. Tuesday evening a service is held at Pasay Cavalry Barracks, three miles south of the city, the usual attendance being from 125 to I50. On Wednesday evening a soldiers' prayer-meeting is held at the building. On Thursday evening a service is held at Santa Mesa Hospital, four miles east of the city. Friday evenings are occupied with lectures, socials and entertainments, and the hall is always crowded. The best men procurable are secured for these services. We have the missionaries, Bible society agents, chaplains, and strong men in the Army or Civil Service. Among our plans for the near future are edu Missionary Conditions of To-day 213 cational classes in Spanish, English, bookkeeping and mathematics. "There are 2,000 soldiers stationed in or near Manila, besides many transients, and about 5,ooo civilian young men, many in government employ, and the majority of them ex-soldiers. It is my candid opinion that, proportionate to the population of American young men, there are not as many saloons and places of illrepute in Manila as in our large cities at home. Yet there is a greater need for Association work, because practically all of the y)ung men here are absolutely without a home-life, and far from home ties. "Cavite, with its Navy Yard and its garrison of 500 marines, is an important point, and we have two buildings there. One just outside the Navy Yard is granted by the government, and is used as a reading room. The other building, somewhat farther away, is equipped with a restaurant and dormitory. It is our purpose to provide a helpful place for men on shore leave. Secretary J. C. Webb is in charge, and has E. W. White as his assistant. Three native boys are also employed. Secretary James Hunter at Olongapo, Subig Bay, has a building granted for the use of the Association by the Navy officials. He conducts religious services and educational classes for the men. Mr. Z. C. 2 4 The Cross of Christ in Bolo-Land,71 1 - -..... -- l Collins is in charge of the Association for the Department of the Visayas, which includes the islands of Panay, Negros, Cebu, Bohol, Leyte and Samar. He has Mr. J. G. Blazer as his assistant, who will remain in charge of the building at Iloilo, Mr. Collins expecting to travel most of the time. Mr. M. G. Bailey, traveling secretary, makes his headquarters at Manila, but is usually out on trips of from one to three weeks' duration. In this way many men are reached. "The distribution of reading matter, stationery, and games has been an important work. Above 3,000,000 pieces of stationery and 500,ooo magazines and papers have been distributed, the greater part to garrisons out of close touch with civilization, the Postoffice having granted free postage on all such supplies. Many letters are received telling of the helpfulness of these things, both from officers and men. It has been stated in a report of one of the medical authorities that half the sickness among the soldiers in the Philippines is a direct result of inactivity of mind, and certainly if we are helping men to overcome this we are doing a good work. The prospects are very bright. We ask for prayer that many may be won through the Association for our Master." Now, as to the even more important work Missionary Conditions of To-day 215 among the Filipinos, there are at present but four Protestant societies represented in the Islands. In addition to the Methodist, Presbyterian and Baptist Boards the United Brethren have been represented for the past six months by two or more representatives. Wisely deciding against work directly at Manila, this new mission opened up its activities at the important town of Vigan. From this point itinerant and colportage work is being carried on in the three coast provinces of Ilocos Norte, Ilocos Sur and Union. This field presents the advantage of but a single dialect, the Ilocano, and the towns in which the chief interest will naturally develop are easily accessible by sea. The United Brethren, when reinforced, will undoubtedly work up into the province of Abra. At the time of my visit to the Ilocano country I was much struck with the fact that the inhabitants seemed both more peaceable and industrious than the Tagalos. Their number is, according to Spanish estimates, some 400,000, although I should not place them above 300,000. The only portion of the New Testament available in the dialect at the time of my visit to them was the Gospel of Luke, printed by the British and Foreign Society. Many of them can understand Spanish, however. My latest word from the Presbyterian Mis 2I6 The Cross of Christ in Bolo-Land sion is contained in a letter dated the last day of September, I901, and written by Mr. Rodgers in response to certain questions forwarded him on the condition of the work under his supervision. He says: "I will endeavor to answer you, but guarantee that before this reaches you, and certainly before you can publish, the figures will be out of date. I have the honor of being the first of our Board to reach these Islands, arriving on the 2Ist of April, I899. Our first services were held in private houses, the initial one on the 6th of May, and the first converts were the Zamora family, whose father, Paulino, had been a Protestant for many years, and whose son, also a Christian previous to the American occupation, is at present the leading Filipino preacher of the Methodist Mission. The work has developed steadily, at times taking great bounds forward. The promise is great. We have not erected any chapels as yet, except at Iloilo, using for our purposes rented buildings. We have three centers, Manila, Iloilo on Panay, and Dumaguete on Negros. Our force consists at present of ten missionaries, that is, four ministers, two doctors, and four wives. We have about two hundred full members in the Filipino church, and a varying number in the American. As to native adherents, we have about four hundred, but it is impossible Missionary Conditions of To-day 217 to estimate correctly. We have ten or more towns outside of Manila and Iloilo where we conduct regular services. For fear that you have missed the account of the union between our missionaries here, I send you a copy of an article explanatory.* You have evidently not heard of dear Davidson's death in June last. He died very suddenly, and was mourned by all. His death has meant much to me. Two new men are expected soon. Miss White, who has rendered such valuable aid during the past ten months, was married this morning at our home. We hope that both she and her husband will take service with us." My latest information concerning the remarkable work of the Methodist Mission is contained in a letter from Mr. McLaughlin, dated in November, I9go. The following sentences I conceive to be of general interest: "Our first real work in these Islands began in the fall of '99, under the supervision of Mr. A. W. Prautch, and consisted of native services, at first but poorly attended but steadily growing in interest. Our first regular missionary, Rev. T. H. Martin, arrived in March of Igoo. I arrived in May, and was appointed in charge of the work. We now have five American missionaries here beside our Superintendent, Dr. H. C. Stuntz. These are stationed as follows: *See Appendix B. 2I8 The Cross of Christ in Bol-Land T. H. Martin, Camiling, Tarlac Province; W. G. Fritz, San Fernando, Pampanga Province; W. A. Goodell, Hagonoy, Bulacan Province; T. L. McLaughlin, Manila; Rev. F. A. McCarl, in Manila also, in charge of our Mission press. In addition to these men we now have four native workers on salary, and ten licensed exhorters. Three of our American missionaries are unmarried. We have as yet but a few full members. Only about one hundred, I think. We believe it best to keep them on probation as long as possible, or at least until they are well grounded. Of probationers, we have about 2,000. Our five new chapel buildings will accommodate an aggregate number of I,500. I have no means of knowing how many attend our services weekly. In my own there are about 12,000. I should loosely say that there must be at least 25,000 in all." It will be noticed by reference to the Appendix on the Evangelical Union, that the Methodists have taken as their field central Luzon from Manila on the south to Dagupan on the north, and stretching from sea to sea. The Presbyterians have accepted the southern half of Luzon, and in addition share with the Baptist Mission the islands of Panay and Negros. Concerning this last denomination my latest word is to the effect that in addition to the work at Jaro and the surrounding country on Missionary Conditions of To-day 219 _ _ I. I, I 1.. Panay a station has been opened and a chapel erected at Bacolod, the capital of Negros, in pursuance of the plan conceived by Mr. Lund at the time of our joint visit to that town. The occupation of Bacolod will lead, of course, to colportage and itinerant work among the towns on the northwest coast of Negros. My last communication from Mr. Lund showed him to have returned to Spain, critically ill. He in part says: "I have just reached Barcelona after a forty-three days' journey from Iloilo. My illness has so changed me that my friends at this port hardly recognized me. I have, however, commenced to move about, and am planning to print the Visayan Testament in this country. I ordered the paper for an edition of 3,000 copies and 6,000 Gospels last week. The Missionary Union is sending at least two new men to the Philippines, and judging from the contributions for that especial field, the interest among the American Baptist churches must be on the increase. When I left Jaro our work was developing nicely. Many of the people wept like children upon my leaving them. And so did I! They accompanied me to the steamer, bringing eggs with them, that I might not starve upon my journey! Forty were baptized in the Jaro River in June. A number have been baptized since: I left. There were many candidates 220 The Cross of Christ in Bolo-Land accepted. Let us pray God particularly for the new missionaries sent into that field." There are at present but three representatives of the Baptist Missionary Union, Messrs. Briggs, Findley, and Huse, administering the work upon Panay and Negros. They are reinforced, however, by Sefior Manikin and other native workers, and a mission press at Jaro is greatly increasing the efficiency of their labors. In concluding this summary of missionary activity in the archipelago, let me urge the speedy reinforcement of these four societies. The United Brethren have but two regular missionaries to meet the needs of 300,000 Ilocanes. The Presbyterian portion of Luzon contains a population (according to Mr. Rodgers) of 1,300,000 Tagalos and Vicols. The Methodist section of Luzon, including as it does the populous Rio Grande Valley, can hardly contain less than 800,000 Tagalos, Pampangans and Pangasinanes. The Visayans in the great central group of islands are estimated as high as 2,500,000, but even half that number would make the task of their evangelization out of the question by the handful of devoted men and women who are stationed among them. The regular missionaries in the entire archipelago, which certainly numbers its population between six and seven millions, do not at pres Missionary Conditions of To-day 221 ent exceed thirty, and this number includes, of course, missionaries' wives. For many reasons which must go even unstated here, the number of missionaries should be increased within the next twelve months to at least a hundred laborers. If excellently trained men and women cannot be obtained by the Board, poorly-equipped workers should be sent out. Unskilled labor must not be despised in harvest time, and grace has been known to cover many deficiencies. A word from the field will show the need of immediate action far more emphatically than any statistics or statements of mine. It came to me some weeks ago from the Island of Panay. "There is a great movement up in the interior at present. About 1o,oooVisayans have sent us in their full names (two long lists), expressing their desire to leave Rome and know of the Protestant religion. They are not, of course, regenerated, but are open to teaching, and some are even ready to build Protestant chapels in their barrios when we are able to go to them." The opening of this door found no missionary able to enter, and many similar petitions and invitations have been sadly refused by the overworked harvesters. In addition to the imperative need of largely reinforcing the existing missions a speedy evangelization of the Islands would seem to 222 The Cross of Christ in Bolo-Land suggest the advisability of at least two additional Boards taking up work. Undoubtedly the better plan would be to expand the work of the present denominational missions until they covered the entire archipelago, but even with the considerable reinforcement I have suggested as imperatively needed, they would still be utterly unable to properly cope with conditions in their present territory. Aparri would be an ideal mission center, from which the great Cagayan Valley could be evangelized. This country is not densely populated, but its many thousands will hardly be reached from either Vigan or Pampanga, and being less priest-ridden than the more thickly-populated lowlands of southern Luzon, should offer almost immediate encouragement to the missionary. A missionary society operating in the Cagayan Valley would be in an excellent position to establish a branch work among the neglected Igorotes in the mountains of northwestern Luzon. These aborigines cannot number in that section less than Ioo,ooo. They have not been Romanized to any extent, and their differing dialects and inaccessible country are difficulties of no mean order, but not, however, sufficiently formidable to daunt a true missionary of the Cross. Either Solano or Bontoc suggest themselves as suitable centers for such an effort. Missionary Conditions of To-day 223 The most arduous toil and delicate tact would be necessary in any attempt to missionize the Moros of Mindanao, Sulu, and southern Palawan. Mohammedan in faith, sensitive, warlike, intolerant and revengeful, the task of bringing them to Christ will be no child's play. The church of Christ should not shrink from the attempt, however, and some point on Mindanao should be occupied in the near future. The fact that even the persistent efforts of the Jesuit fathers could make no inroads upon the Moros would seem to prophesy immediate failure to any Protestant propaganda. The considerable success of the Dutch missionaries among the Mohammedan Malays of Java and Sumatra is enough of encouragement, however, for some earnest band to take this post of honor. The interior of Mindanao also offers some heroic pioneer an opportunity to bring the Gospel to its pagan tribes. In addition to these suggestions concerning the Moros, Cagayans and Igorotes, I feel like expressing my conviction that the work among the Visayans should be rapidly extended to the islands of Cebu, Bohol, Samar and Leyte. This can be done by largely augmenting the number of workers on Panay and Negros, thus enabling them to occupy the towns of Cebu, Tacloban, Tagbilaran and Katbalaran, the island capitals-a better plan, no doubt, than 224 The Cross of Christ in Bolo-Land the planting of another denominational work in the central group of islands. The fact that some of these islands are not entirely pacified should not prevent the sending of missionaries, for a score of new stations could be opened up in the Visayas with no great risk to the missionary, at least no greater than that incurred by the brethren already in the field, and by the hundreds of government schoolteachers now in the Islands. Every town of importance has an American garrison, and will have until the country is in good order, and even were it impossible to at once open up active work the newly arrived missionary would find the delay but an opportunity to learn or perfect his Spanish and begin upon the particular dialect of his chosen field. The excellent work now being carried on at Dumaguete by the Presbyterians was rendered possible by the generous gift of a single American. The ten thousand dollars which made the opening of the station with its service and Visayan Industrial School a possibility was certainly a well-placed investment if the practical benefits and spiritual blessing conferred upon the natives of southern Negros is considered a good return. It seems a sad pity, with the bulk of the islands untouched by the Gospel, and such a woeful lack of men at the stations already established, that more gifts of Missionary Conditions of To-day 225 a like nature are not forthcoming. Pray ye, therefore, brethren, that God may raise up generous souls to give and heroic souls to go, that the spiritual harvests in the islands across the sea may no longer ripen ungarnered. AND MAY THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH OF AMERICA BE ALIVE TO THIS PRESENT MOMENT OF SPECIAL RESPONSIBILITY! THE END. :~~ 35 H 40 t4:::0:::6:::t wo= In la P; 4 0 4 C4 0 V4 an an VTl 0 fa Mr-4 44 Mission Boards Sustaining Work in the Islands. - Baptist........ Methodist.... Presbyterian.. United Brethren.. }lpiscopalian*.., I 04 o ' gos 3 7 6 3...... 4 4 3..... 14 t O W- +j W- 0 0 V zxz mzcd~o 0 1 2 2 5 2 % - '-54) ~4zz III:., M(. a zoV 0 9 00 2 4 3...... pi 0 0 825 24.................. a 45) A 600 12000 400...... si 200 675 200 675............ o..... 15000.................. 0. VX 2 9 1 a U 1 1 1~~~........... I N *This denomination has not opened up native work as this volume goes to press, but v Bishop Brent is at present (Jan., 1902) in the U. S. securing a corps of assistants and funds for Bible Societies at work Superin- Assist- Native ins sold in 1 or Name an in the Islands. tendents. ants. Colporters. as given in last rep. Superi ame and address of Missionary laving oversight. Rev. C.W. Briggs, Iloilo, Panay,P.I. Dr. H. C. Stuntz, Manila, P. I. Rev. J. B. Rodgers, Manila, P. I. (?) Vigan, P. I. Bish'pC.H.Brent, g Manila, P.I. c, rill do so shortlythe Mission. i address of atendent. rich, Manila, P. I. er, Manila, P. I. ment; in Tagalo, luke (under way); pels and Acts; in American................ 1 3 British and Foreign...... 1 10,873t Rev. J. C. Goodi 28,000 lRev. H. F. Mille t1900-Report for 1901 not yet received at New York. The translations available for use in the islands are: In Spanish, both Bible and Testa Gospels and Acts; in Panay Visayan, the entire Testament; in Cebu Visayan, Matthew and I in 11ocano, Luke, Mark, and Matthew; in Pampangan, the Gospels; in Pangasinane, Gos Vicol, Iuke. l^ ^0' x^ ^^^ ^'as I.';. 0 11g'9'0i00f*,"' ' ^'777ii'77; ' n 0v ag _ I^ 4NQINONAO O WSULU J i The white represents the territory already occupied by the four missionary societies at present sustaining work in the islands under the general name of The Evangelical Church of the Philippines. According to the agreement of the Evangelical Union (see Appendix B) the Methodist Mission occupies Central Luzon from Manila to Dagupan, the Presbyterian Mission Southern Luzon, and the United Brethren the northwest coast of Luzon. The Presbyterians also work from Iloilo through Western Panay and from Dumaguete through Southern Negros, while the Baptists work from Bacolod through Northern Negros and from Jaro through Eastern Panay. In addition to these boards, a Protestant Episcopal Mission will soon be established with headquarters in Manila. But notice the great fields unoccupied. The population of the islands, according to the latest census (1901) is but little short of seven millions. Less than thirty missionaries (men and women) represent the Christian churches of America among this multitude. MAP SHOWING FIELDS OF MISSIONARY OPERATION. APPENDIX B COMITY IN PHILIPPINE MISSION WORK In recent correspondence with Rev. James B. Rodgers of Manila, I was forwarded a copy of the following article written by Mr. Rodgers himself and appearing in "The Evangelist" of June 20, I9OI. It is of the greatest interest to students and friends of missions, and I take the liberty of appending it in full. "Not a fortuitous but a providential concourse of missionary atoms brought into Manila at the same time the Missionary Bishop of the Methodist Church, the Rev. Frank W. Warne from Calcutta, and from the opposite direction the new Superintendent of the Methodist work here, Dr. H. C. Stuntz, and a younger missionary, Mr. Goodel. Two missionaries of the United Brethren Church had arrived only a week or two before and were studying the field. Our.own Dr. Rhea Ewing of Lahore also arrived to complete the balance, and give to our mission what in the eyes of the people was most proper, a real live bishop. For some time past, we veterans (?) had felt in our hearts that we must seize this opportunity for a definite understanding as to the methods of work, especially as to the division of the field, in such a way as to relieve one another 227 228 Appendix of the dread of intruding into one another's province. "A number of pleasant reunions of a social nature in a sense prepared the way for a more serious Conference on the whole question of mission relations and polity. The Conference was full and through the presence of the bishops from India more authoritative than an ordinary Conference would have been. At this Conference there were present Bishop Warne and four missionaries of the Methodist Church, Dr. Ewing and the three Manila missionaries of our church, two of the United Brethren Church, and one each of the Christian and Missionary Alliance, the two Bible Societies and Young Men's Christian Association. The Iloilo brethren had not been warned in time, so that the Baptist Missionary Union was not represented. The Baptist missionaries have since joined with the others and agreed to all that was done. "The writer of this article being called upon to state the question, repeated the letter sent to the different missions by the Presbyterian Mission at the beginning of the year. Four items were mentioned: First, division of the field; second, adoption of a common name; third, so shaping the growth of the churches as to bring about in the future practical unity, and fourth, conferences over general work, C - -Appenix 22 Appendix 229 such as printing, newspaper, schools and similar work, so as to avoid unnecessary duplication. "After careful and prayerful consideration, the following plans were outlined and agreed to: "Firstly, an Evangelical Union (or Federation) was formed which is to include in its membership all representatives of Evangelical organizations working in the Islands and such other Christians as may be elected, either lay or clerical. Naturally its constituency will include all the Evangelical Churches in the Islands. The Union is to be managed by an Executive Committee which is composed of two representatives of each organization in the Union, "To this committee are to be referred for counsel all questions that arise between the missions. It is to meet and persuade new missions to join the Union and assist them in choosing a field. It is to call and arrange for annual conventions of the Union, at which representatives from all the archipelago may be present. This we trust will not only bind the people together in one church, but will in some way take the place of the old-time fiestas and gatherings. "In the second place, a common name was adopted, and all churches will be called 230 Appendix Evangelical Churches with the name of the parent church in brackets, if need be, as for example: La Iglesia Evangelica de Iloilo (Mission Presbiteriana). This will do much toward minimizing the denominational differences and forming a bond of union between all the churches. "Thirdly, the field was divided into specific sections, compact both geographically and ethnically, and each mission made itself responsible for the evangelization of one or more sections. The plan may be revised after three years by the Evangelical Union. The idea of limiting any mission was lost sight of in the acceptance of a definite responsibility. "In Luzon the United Brethren are to take the northwest coast or the three Ilocano provinces. One language prevails there, and the towns are easily accessible by sea. The Methodist Church takes the responsibility of the central part of Luzon from Manila to Dagupan on the bay of Lugayen, and from sea to sea. We have accepted as our part Luzon from Manila south, and half of Panay and Negros, while the Baptists have the other half of Panay and Negros. If any society desires to strike out into the unoccupied fields it can do so after consultation with the Executive Committee. "Officers were elected to the Union. Presi Appendix 231 dent, Major E. W. Halford, U. S. A., of the Methodist Church; Vice-Presidents, the Rev. C. W. Briggs of the Baptist Mission, and the Rev. E. S. Eby of the United Brethren; Secretary, the Rev. L. P. Davidson of the Presbyterian Mission, and Treasurer, Mr. Z. C. Collins of the Young Men's Christian Association. Mr. Goodrich of the American Bible Society is Chairman of the Executive Committee, and Mr. Davidson Secretary. CONSTITUTION AND BY-LAWS OF THE EVANGELICAL UNION OF THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS (Adopted by the conference of missionaries in Manila, April 24-26, I9go.) "Art. I.-Name. The name of this Society shall be the 'Evangelical Union of the Philippine Islands.' "Art. 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. "Art. III.-Membership. All regular appointees of recognized Evangelical organizations working in the Philippine Islands may be members of the Union. Other Christians, lay or clerical, may be elected to membership by the Executive Committee. 232 Appendix " — -I..-. - II III1 -I - I I ii i i _ i _ ii "Art. IV.-Management. There shall be a central Executive Committee composed of two members from each recognized Evangelical organization represented in the Union, and working in the Philippine Islands. Each organization shall choose its representative in the committee. This committee shall consider and make recommendations upon all questions referred to them affecting missionary comity in the Philippine Islands. The Executive Committee shall elect its own officers. "Art. V.-General Officers. The general officers of the Union shall be a President, two Vice-Presidents, a Secretary and a Treasurer, to be elected at the annual meeting on nomination of the Executive Committee. "Art. VI.-Amendments. This Constitution may be amended upon recommendation of the Executive Committee at any annual meeting of the Union by a majority vote, due notice having been given of proposed amendment. BY-LAWS "1st. The Executive Committee shall meet once a year or at any time upon the call of the Secretary, for any special business to come before the committee. "2d. The Union shall have an annual Con Appendzx 233 vention, arrangements for which shall be in the hands of the Executive Committee. "3d. One of the duties of the Executive Committee 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. "4th. The name 'Iglesia Evangelica' shall be used for the Filipino churches which shall be raised up, and when necessary the denomination name shall be added in parentheses, e. g., 'Iglesia Evangelica de Malibay (Mission Methodista Ep.).' " 0 I I: A " *, f^';~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~: e8"~ 1 L I THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN GRADUATE LIBRARY DATE DUE I;,,.:, t I.- I-II I ~~I II r I I I I UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN 3 9015 I4763 1 39 DO NOT REMOVE