The Philippines 
 and India 
 
 
 Bishop 
 
 HENRY W. WARREN 
 
THE PHILIPPINES 
 AND INDIA 
 
 THE UNITED STATES AS A MISSIONARY 
 POWER IN THE FIRST, ENGLAND IN THE 
 SECOND, AND THE METHODIST EPISCOPAL 
 CHURCH AS A FORCE FOR GOOD IN BOTH 
 
 An address delivered 
 at the Annual Meeting, 
 General Missionary 
 Committee, Boston, 
 Mass., November, 1904 
 
 THE MISSIONARY SOCIETY OF THE 
 METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH 
 150 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK CITY 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 in 2017 with funding from 
 Columbia University Libraries 
 
 https://archive.org/details/philippinesindiaOOwarr 
 
USED to think that the British Parlia- 
 ment was the nerve center of the world. 
 I have heard their reports from “our 
 India possessions,” “our South African 
 possessions,” “our Hongkong posses- 
 sions,” and the islands of the sea. But a Methodist 
 Conference is far more a nerve center of this world, 
 and of the next. We deal with finer forces, higher 
 issues, and everlasting realities. The Prime Minister 
 is questioned concerning different parts of the em- 
 pire, and he sends an Under Secretary to pigeonhole 
 B or Z to get a report of some other under under 
 secretary. This is a government of the earth. But 
 the Ruler who has the Cross of universal empire laid 
 on his shoulder, sends his own representatives to 
 every part of the earth, and they bring reports from 
 every land. 
 
 “The winds that o’er my ocean run 
 Blow from all lands; beyond the sun, 
 
 From starry space, and coming time, 
 
 Great breaths of God they sweep sublime.” 
 
 I count it the privilege not merely of my lifetime, 
 hut of any life in the universe, to be appointed to 
 visit our far-spread fields. And having gone from 
 Patagonia on the south to the Arctic Circle on the 
 north, and the whole world round, in the interest 
 of this kingdom of Jesus Christ, I here make my 
 report of the last expedition. 
 
 3 
 
Westward to the Far East 
 We left San Francisco September 3, 1903, a year 
 ago, and more. In a few days we were at Hawaii, 
 the paradise of the Pacific; fourteen mission- 
 aries work yonder — Americans — in Japanese and 
 English. Some days after, Japan. I there joined 
 the Commission of fourteen churches devising a 
 common hymnal for that field, feeling that the 
 prayer of our Lord was being fulfilled, “that they all 
 may be one,” clear up to the limit of oneness be- 
 tween the Father and the Son — “even as we are one.” 
 There we have seven Districts in the Conference, 
 5,000 members, forty churches. And to give you an 
 example of the kind of people there: A case of 
 bubonic plague broke out in Yokohama, and cul- 
 minated, as they all do— 97 per cent — in the death 
 of the victim. Japan wanted to stamp out that 
 plague. You know rats leaving a house carry the 
 plague far and wide. So they made a corrugated 
 iron fence around the whole premises; standing 
 firmly in the ground, and then set out to fumigate 
 the place. In order to do it they set fire to the house, 
 and burned it level with the ground. I think they 
 did that job thoroughly. 
 
 We .sailed down through the summer sea of the 
 thousand islands, touched at Shanghai and Hong- 
 kong, and across the Chinese Sea to the Philippines. 
 
 America a World-Power and Missionary Force 
 The greatest missionary factor in this world is 
 not the Methodist Church, is not any church, is 
 not all the churches; it is America that is the 
 world-power and missionary force in this world; 
 and by that term “America” all the world knows 
 4 
 
I mean the “United States.” It is the great mis- 
 sionary power of the world. The signal-fires of 
 victory had not died out on our New England 
 hills when they burst out in France, in the greatest 
 event but ours of that century — the French Revo- 
 lution — the greatest event of Europe in that century. 
 The next century was only begun when we bearded 
 the Barbary pirates in their den, and said, what all 
 Europe had never been able to say: “Cease your 
 depredations on the world’s commerce.” We were 
 not fifteen years old before we had inaugurated a 
 new era of diplomacy. The old Machiavellian 
 theory, voiced by Richelieu, that “human language 
 was invented to conceal man’s thought,” was put 
 away forever; and clear, definite statements of what 
 we meant and could stand by, with no double mean- 
 ing, were introduced into the diplomacy of the world. 
 An illustration of it was when Lieutenant Ingraham, 
 in 1863, in the harbor of Smyrna found Martin 
 Koszta detained on board an Austrian ship-of-war, 
 who had simply declared his intention of becoming 
 an American citizen. Lieutenant Ingraham sent 
 word — after being denied possession of the man — 
 that, unless he was delivered up directly, he would 
 sink that craft to the bottom, and laid his ship along- 
 side to do it. That was diplomacy that could be 
 understood, and it was maintained from that day 
 until the great treaty of China, when United States 
 diplomacy saved the division of that great empire. 
 
 The United States and International Arbitration 
 It is a world-power in another matter. In these 
 early treaties we have incorporated the principle of 
 arbitration, and in one hundred cases of arbitration 
 lately, in the few years, fifty of them have been of 
 the United States interests, and fifty of all the re- 
 5 
 
mainder of the world. So that at length, when came 
 the time that we found ourselves in possession of the 
 Philippines, we were the missionary power of the 
 world. 
 
 I chanced to be in South America on my official 
 work in Montevideo when two telegrams arrived. 
 One, dated Manila, said: “The Yankee fleet entered 
 our harbor at daylight, and immediately engaged 
 our ships and forts, and in the course of an hour 
 and a half they withdrew, evidently much crippled, 
 seeking to hide themselves behind the merchant 
 ships on the other side of the bay.” We were de- 
 pressed a bit. But in the same paper was another 
 telegram later: “The Yankee fleet emerged after an 
 hour and a half and, before noon, had either burned 
 or sunk every ship of our squadron in Manila 
 harbor.” We walked out an inch and a half taller 
 than ever before! That was 6 ships against 17; 53 
 guns against 111; 1,000 killed and wounded on the 
 Spanish side, 8 slightly scratched on ours. 
 
 The United States and Cuba 
 
 This was the first instance in human history where 
 one nation interfered with another with regard to 
 its treatment of its colonies. In 1823 South America 
 was made republican by our declaration of the Mon- 
 roe doctrine, and we applied that doctrine for 
 liberty and the rights of men when the cries of 
 murdered Cuba went up into the ears of the Lord 
 God of Sabaoth. Was there any nation that could 
 interfere with European powers in regard to the 
 treatment of a dependent? Just one, and only one 
 in human history! And so we declared that the 
 hand of tyranny should be taken off, and we would 
 not ask Cuba as indemnity for our interference. 
 
 War was declared on the twenty-first of April. 
 
 6 
 
Ten days later, on the first of May, Dewey had 
 crossed the Chinese Sea from Hongkong, and entered 
 Manila harbor, with the result I have mentioned. 
 
 The United States and the Philippines 
 What could we do with over eight hundred or 
 twelve hundred islands, according to whether you 
 count habitable islands or mere bubbles of rock 
 from the depths of the sea? What to do — this was 
 a question which troubled the powers that be as 
 much as anything. Mr. McKinley has told some of 
 my colleagues that he knew not what to do; he could 
 not tell. <But let us be thankful that we have had 
 Presidents and rulers that could appeal 'to God for 
 knowledge in regard to difficult questions,/ 
 
 I remember distinctly in Philadelphia, how Presi- 
 dent Lincoln used to send for Bishop Simpson, and 
 say: “Tell me, what is the pulse of the people? 
 You feel it. You can tell me. None of my politicians 
 can. Tell me.” And then they prayed together. 
 They strengthened each other’s hands in God for 
 the great work before them. McKinley was another. 
 4nd Mr. Taft has lately affirmed the same thing. 
 
 ^What should we do? Sail away, and leave them in 
 the possession of Spain? Why leave them any more 
 than Cuba? /Spain for three centuries had burned 
 at the stake or imprisoned a thousand of its people 
 every year of those centuries. This marks the 
 cruelty of diabolism of the fierce nation that was 
 holding Cuba and holding the Philippines. What 
 to do? Send them back, and let all the concentrated 
 malignity fall on them? Give them over to them- 
 selves? Every kind of influence hostile to every 
 other kind! Seventy languages, or jargons called 
 languages! Give them up after six years of war 
 with Spain to free themselves from its yoke? Let 
 7 
 
them go to some other people, some other nation?^ 
 McKinley said it was borne in upon him that we 
 must keep them, and deal with them as a strong 
 nation ought to deal with the weak. We kept them. 
 What did we do? We found them full of antagon- 
 isms. The army after six years’ striving to free the 
 islands from Spain was divided into hostile little 
 bits of bands of robbers dwelling in the mountains, 
 descending on this valley to-day, and that the next; 
 and the United States lifted up its hand, and said: 
 “Peace! Be still! And there was a great calm.” 
 
 Magnificent Enteepeises 
 
 ' Then, what next? Ninety per cent of the working 
 animals of the islands died of the rinderpest — im- 
 possible to cultivate the fields — starvation in the near 
 future. Our government appropriated three millions 
 of dollars to replace the animals which had died, 
 and to bring in rice to prevent starvation./ It went 
 over to the mainland, took cattle by the thousands, 
 rendered immune by inoculation, brought them over 
 and sold them on favorable terms. Nothing but the 
 government could conduct such magnificent enter- 
 prises. It imported thousands of tons of rice and 
 seeds of all sorts. I have been in large rooms where 
 there were packed barrels and boxes of all sorts of 
 new seeds, wheat, and corn of every kind for the 
 health, or the development of the agriculture of the 
 people. 
 
 Justice and Instbuction 
 
 Gave them laws! I remember hearing Mr. Taft — 
 having invited in all that cared to know about the 
 laws — speak of the new penal code which ought to 
 be enacted for the government of the islands. The 
 old laws — seventy-five per cent of them — were in 
 favor of the church and its ecclesiastics. They 
 8 
 
needed to have a new set of laws. Naturally no man 
 should have by reason of his office any favor at court. 
 
 Then there were seventy different jargons called 
 languages. The United States simply said: “In 1907 
 only the ‘American’ language shall he recognized 
 officially in these islands.” And in order that that 
 might be possible, the transport Thomas landed one 
 day five hundred and forty-eight teachers, the choice 
 of our college graduates and our normal schools, and 
 a transport a few days later five hundred more. 
 These were scattered through the villages far and 
 wide to teach English. Fifty per cent of that number 
 two years before would have been murdered in less 
 than six months! All those people of seventy lan- 
 guages got the greatest gift, the English language, 
 rich in literature, with a scientific nomenclature, 
 with the knowledge of all the thoughts of the living 
 and the noble sentiments belonging to man, given as 
 a gift at once to eight or ten millions of people! 
 
 I emphasize the matter of schools. When the United 
 States began that system of education, there were 
 800 schools in all the islands — one for 10,000 people. 
 We immediately made 3,000 more, making a little 
 more than 4,000 schools. We developed 3,000 native 
 teachers in a short time, and more Filipino youths 
 have been taught in the six years since Dewey went 
 in there than all the youth that had been taught in 
 three or four hundred years under the Spanish flag. 
 
 Stamping Out Choleba and the Plague 
 
 Then, too, after the famine follows disease — 
 cholera, the bubonic plague — always after insuffi- 
 cient nutrition. Stamped it out! Just as we went 
 into Havana — found a pest-house and made it a health 
 resort — we established ourselves in Manila and other 
 places, doing the work of a missionary nation. Will 
 9 
 
you remember that the mission of the Lord Jesus 
 Christ was not simply that of soul-saving, but also 
 for body-saving, for making men strong and well; 
 sacrificing himself, showing his power over diseases 
 and devils. Then he brought the highest ideas that 
 ever dazzled our race. More dropped from his 
 lips in an hour than all the discoveries of men 
 in all centuries; great thoughts of God and the 
 brotherhood of man. So we gave! The government 
 communicated great ideas, putting in 1,048 teachers 
 in a week, to communicate these ideas; stamped out 
 cholera and bubonic plague, and so blessed the 
 people in great measure. 
 
 The Chubches Following the Flag 
 
 Of course, churches must follow! Alas, follow! 
 If ever I have been ashamed of my church as a 
 church of the living God, it has been when I have 
 seen how far it faltered along in the rear of the 
 glorious movement. We, with all these millions 
 waiting for us, are able in a few years to put in ten 
 missionaries; the government inaugurated a move- 
 ment, and brings in a regiment of the best it has! 
 We get ten missionaries! I had appointed one from 
 Saint Louis Conference, another a pastor in Denver, 
 from the Colorado Conference. I came there a little 
 later, and found them presiding elders over great 
 districts, with a thousand or two thousand members 
 apiece. Think of the sudden elevation of these men, 
 and the greatness of the work which they had to do! 
 
 A Joyous Welcome 
 
 We were received joyously, with “Amens” and 
 favor. Why? Because the innate sense of what 
 religion and disinterested virtue are had expelled 
 the friars by the thousand, because it could not be 
 10 
 
that such organizations represented religion. Of 
 course, they had this advantage — they were well 
 grounded in the one fundamental fact of the Chris- 
 tian religion, namely, the vicarious suffering of the 
 Son of God, paying a price so vast and high for 
 human redemption. The cross had signified that to 
 them; the figure of the bleeding victim had repre- 
 sented it to them; but they had been taught that all 
 the infinite purpose of that atonement had been 
 deposited with the church, and could be obtained by 
 the payment of money, and only thus could the favor 
 of God be obtained. Hence, when we came preaching 
 the doctrines of free grace and the infinite love of 
 God for the individual, telling any man that he may 
 enter into the blessed realm of the consciousness of 
 the favor of the infinite loving Father and dying 
 Christ, they leaped to receive such news, having been 
 grounded in the fundamental doctrines of the Chris- 
 tian faith. 
 
 Seventeen Hundred at a Class Meeting 
 I could give you many illustrations. One — I 
 
 preached one Sunday to an audience, when the pastor 
 gave notice that on the Tuesday evening following 
 there would be a general class and “testimony meet- 
 ing,” as he called it, in the Rizal Theater, near by, 
 admittance only by ticket, to be had gratis at our 
 seven Methodist churches in the city. I said : 
 “Rizal Theater! Why not here?” “It is not big 
 enough.” So I waited. Tuesday evening I stepped 
 on the stage and faced a vast audience of seventeen 
 hundred people. O, could you get such a general 
 class in Boston? Could you get such a general class 
 in New York or Philadelphia? And here, in the 
 very beginning of our preaching the gospel, people 
 admitted by ticket to a general class — seventeen hun- 
 ll 
 
dred! You know that in going into a new com- 
 munity we take on old methods; and admission by 
 ticket is one of the good ones. We value what we 
 have to take pains to get. 
 
 Four of us were given fifteen minutes apiece to 
 give our “testimony,” and it did seem to me that the 
 revelation of God to my soul for salvation and help 
 was never so sweet as when telling it to this people. 
 On one side of me stood a man translating my re- 
 marks into Spanish, and another translating the 
 same remarks into Tagalog. I had only one third 
 of the fifteen minutes, and it was all too short! 
 Then the testimony of Brother Zamora and the 
 others, making the four; and then the word was 
 given: “Rise, and when recognized speak.” 
 
 And now comes to my vision Father Taylor pre- 
 siding in this very city, and saying to one after a 
 happy expression, “That’s a good place to stop.” 
 They did not need that, because they had been ex- 
 horted, and they were obedient. The first man: “I 
 believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, because he has 
 saved me from my vices. Hallelujah!” Next: “I 
 sought peace everywhere, by pilgrimages and sac- 
 rifices and expiations of all kinds, by the order of 
 the church, and found no peace until I found it in 
 Jesus Christ, whose peace passeth all understanding.” 
 
 I asked, How can you teach this people so quickly 
 the knowledge and the speech of the kingdom? 
 “Don’t,” they said. The Holy Ghost teaches them — 
 that is it. “God hath made of one spirit — not blood — 
 all nations to dwell on the face of the earth;” and 
 being of the same material, acted upon by the same 
 agency, the Holy Ghost, they all break out in the 
 same sort of speech. So when we come where they 
 gather from every country and tribe and nation under 
 the whole heaven, they will join in the “new song” 
 12 
 
with perfect harmony and delightful appreciation 
 of its meaning. 
 
 Phenomenal Growth 
 
 We have now thirty churches there in the Philip- 
 pines. When I was there we had 6,820 members. 
 When the General Conference came we reported 8,004. 
 
 Is there anything to be done for this people? You 
 know that in all Catholic countries the church only 
 can solemnize matrimony. You know also that a 
 monopoly placed in individual hands is dangerous. 
 So place a monopoly of marrying people in the hands 
 of the church, and it is dangerous. For the Mexican, 
 the Filipino, the South American, the high charge 
 for marriage varies from ten dollars and up, and 
 in one case I know of, a thousand dollars! The re- 
 sult was that prices were prohibitory, especially 
 where men could earn but ten cents a day, and the 
 people would say: “We will live together faithfully, 
 and when we can afford it, we will get married.” 
 The result was that 80 per cent of the children were 
 born illegitimate, of parents compelled to live in un- 
 holy relations. I might tell you of the disabilities 
 of such people. Well, Mexico set an example of 
 abolishing that monopoly, and four hundred people 
 came forward in. one of the towns in Mexico to be 
 married by our people. Dr. Wood, of Lima, Peru, 
 went into the legislature to get the same Mexican 
 law passed. This law was retroactive, so that all 
 children acknowledged by the persons married should 
 be considered legitimate. It was passed, but Presi- 
 dent Pierola, in the interest of his church, vetoed the 
 bill. Then Dr. Wood got it passed over the veto. 
 So, immediately on our possession of the Philippines 
 the old law was abrogated and another passed, so 
 that anyone in charge of an accredited congregation 
 13 
 
or an alcalde of the village, might perform the mar- 
 riage ceremony. Result — I went into a pastor’s 
 study where seven hundred couples had coine for- 
 ward to be married. On one occasion twelve couples 
 were present at once. The pastor said: “You, Sar- 
 miento, take Theodosia, and you, Gonzales, take 
 Maria, to be your wedded wife,” and so on. “By 
 the authority of Almighty God and the state under 
 which we live, I pronounce that you are severally 
 husband and wife respectively.” 
 
 Family Readjustments 
 
 A man came into Brother Stuntz’s office to be mar- 
 ried, and brought his ten children with him — all the 
 way from twenty-one years old to comparatively a 
 state of infancy. And when he expressed his opinion 
 of a church that had kept him and his wife, whom 
 he loved and to whom he had been faithful all these 
 years, from being lawfully married, his language was 
 a little more rough than the minister could indulge 
 in. And I was reminded of the Quaker who came 
 into a station just in time to see the train disappear 
 at the other end of the depot. He was forbidden to 
 indulge in the kind of speech that welled up in him; 
 but another man was not, and he vented his opinions. 
 The Quaker turned to him, and said: “Thank thee; 
 that is just what I wanted to say.” I wanted to say 
 this same thing to this man. And when Brother 
 Stuntz asked him who should be the witness, he 
 said: “My son, Sarmiento.” Brother Stuntz partly 
 suppressed a smile and suggested “You better have 
 some of your neighbors.” The ten children’s names 
 were entered on the marriage certificate, and they 
 were thenceforth free from the disability the church 
 had put upon them. 
 
 Occasionally you find a man who feels that this 
 14 
 
great government — the richest on the face of the 
 earth — should refrain from exercising the beneficent 
 influences that the good God has showered upon it. 
 And occasionally you find a man who would contro- 
 vert the divine order that “where much is given” — 
 in this great country, O, so unutterably much, even 
 up to God’s great limits, “much has been given” — 
 “much shall be required.” 
 
 The Multitudes of India 
 What is India? A section of country as big as the 
 United States east of the Rocky Mountains. O you 
 men of Kansas and Ohio and Pennsylvania and New 
 York and the great region in which you dwell, and 
 where the flag makes glory over your head, think of 
 a section just as large, populated far more densely. 
 We with eighty-three millions everywhere — how 
 many east of the Rocky Mountains, I cannot tell; and 
 they, one sixth of the human race, about 300,000,000, 
 in that crowded area. 
 
 What is their condition? They belong to the same 
 blood that we do, the Aryan race. They flowed from 
 the back of the world south, while we flowed west, 
 as the “star of empire” goes. And so they are the 
 same integral race that we belong to; but under 
 different circumstances! All through the years their 
 rulers have simply plundered them; taxing them 
 until they could only live to pay more taxes. 
 
 Gobgeousness Depending on Extortion 
 I stood where that Peacock throne had been 
 erected; $1,200,000 put into one gorgeous throne, and 
 all the people who helped to make it hardly had a 
 stool, and everyone sat on the ground. I saw a 
 prayer rug eight feet by six worth $150,000, and the 
 15 
 
very people from whom it was extorted had scarcely 
 rags to make them decent, to say nothing of com- 
 fortable. I saw cannon made of solid silver; and 
 only in show times could the people ever see silver. 
 But the son, to surpass the king who made silver 
 cannon, cast his cannon of gold. O how I longed to 
 melt them up, and put on them the stamp of coin 
 and the English flag, and let them go out among the 
 people, doing good! 
 
 The English viceroy of India said: “Take nine 
 twentieths of all the people of India; divide all that 
 they possess — lands, houses, furniture, working ani- 
 mals, clothes, stocks of food, etc. — and there would 
 not be $25 apiece. Are they clothed? With a yard 
 and a half of cloth which never knew the touch of 
 scissors or needles. Are they hungry? Lean and 
 thin and short of stature, on the verge of starvation, 
 and sometimes beyond it. Are they trained? A 
 little. Three hundred years ago there was only one 
 in 300,000 of women who could read. In 1877 that 
 was reduced, and now of the women who can read 
 there is one in 2,300. Just one! 
 
 Famine Ten Times a Century 
 
 They are visited by famines about ten times in a 
 century; and sometimes one famine will sweep away 
 5,500,000 inhabitants. How can one with $25 be 
 prepared for three years’ famine? I went through 
 the country, and the starkest things I saw were dead 
 trees without a leaf. These trees were leafless, bark- 
 less, white, stark ghosts which had died in the long 
 years of famine. 
 
 But what state of mind? Superstitious beyond all 
 estimation. A man prepares for his journey most 
 carefully, makes provision for the long absence, 
 steals out while the morning star is in the sky lest 
 16 
 
something of ill omen shall meet his path; the cricket 
 cries on the left hand, and he goes back — the journey 
 must be abandoned. He sees the new moon over the 
 left shoulder — palsy hangs over him for all the rest 
 of that month. Superstitions are so many, so various, 
 touching all kinds of life, I cannot stop to refer to 
 them. Poor, superstitious, uneducated, visited by 
 famine, what shall we say? I have known men to 
 go there, and say: “No help! They are only crawl- 
 ing maggots in a decaying mass of civilization; let 
 them crawl on a little more until the putrefaction 
 is complete, and die!” No! Such men do err, not 
 knowing the Scriptures nor the power of God. He 
 is all-powerful. He has loved them to the uttermost 
 that he may redeem them. He would let a whole 
 people go .to Egypt for four hundred years in order 
 to bring out a nation allied to him. He would let 
 that nation go again to Babylon into slavery that 
 they might at length come forth and found a new 
 Jerusalem. He ministers by famines, by wars, by 
 all things, that he may bring forth his kingdom to 
 the eternal glory and joy of many. 
 
 Two Gbeat Cbises 
 
 What is the result? There have been two great 
 crises in the history of this nation’s life; two great 
 eras when the trump of God sounded for the Chris- 
 tianization of India, un two occasions in the past 
 God has provided for the salvation of India. The 
 Jews went from the glory and the power of Pente- 
 cost, and scattered themselves throughout that re- 
 gion. Between 180 and 190 A. D. the bishop of 
 Alexandria received a message from a large body 
 of Christians there asking for teachers. The Nes- 
 torians moved out through Persia into China, and 
 left that marvelous inscription there. They reached 
 17 
 
down into India. God’s time struck in the heavens 
 for the evangelization of that people. But the Nes- 
 torians turned aside to quibble about doctrine; to 
 deny the divinity of the Lord Jesus Christ, and thus 
 they took away the central power for that evangeli- 
 zation, and rendered the redemption of India 
 impossible. 
 
 Afterward, in 1542, Xavier, with enthusiasm, zeal, 
 and self-sacrificing devotion, came. The great Mogul 
 Akbar sent a messenger asking to be instructed in 
 the principles of Christianity. The whole people 
 waited, throbbing with earnest desire, such as the 
 Holy Ghost plants in the hearts of great peoples 
 asking to be taught in the things of God. I cannot 
 pursue the history; I cannot give you the reasons at 
 this time why these yearnings of the nation for the 
 Desire of the Nations were not satisfied. But they 
 were not. 
 
 The Time Set fob the Redemption of India 
 
 Now comes the third time; it is our day. It is the 
 time which God has set for the redemption of this 
 great people. Note how he follows the same methods 
 through the ages, because he takes the one best pos- 
 sible agency at first. So, when he would spread 
 Christianity, after the death of Christ, he put all the 
 accessible parts of three continents under one stand- 
 ard, the eagles of Rome. Paul could go anywhere 
 preaching the gospel. India is the same now as 
 Rome was then, under one flag which streams from 
 the Himalaya heights as a flagstaff clear down to 
 Cape Comorin in the south. And that flag means 
 protection to our missionaries, as Roman eagles 
 meant to Saint Paul. Christian women go in couples 
 far off in the mountains and on the plains, always 
 safe and always without fear, because that flag is 
 18 
 
over them. Then, it means 26,000 miles of railway from 
 one end of the country to the other; 30,000,000 acres 
 cultivated by irrigating canals; roads everywhere; 
 justice established; the rapacity of petty kings made 
 to cease, and all that Anglo-Saxon civilization means 
 given to this people. All our missionaries under the 
 dominancy of the English flag! 
 
 That you may know something of the power of men 
 inspired by this principle we are considering, go 
 and stand in the city of Delhi, a walled city, with 
 gates defending and moats surrounding it, and 
 40,000 mutineers therein drilled and trained and 
 armed by British officers. Three thousand British 
 soldiers, with 5,000 Sepoys, set themselves against 
 these 40,000 inside the fortification, and took the city. 
 Don’t you think that when such an achievement has 
 been made, the people will look up, and say in the 
 language of one of the early poets quoted by Saint 
 Paul, “Ye are gods”? 
 
 Two Nations with One Purpose 
 
 It was fitting that we Americans should be there 
 with the English people. The great crises of the 
 ages are upon us. The great unfoldings of the divine 
 plan are visible to eyes that see with spiritual vision. 
 With these two peoples united we lay aside the an- 
 tagonism of Revolutionary times, and of the War of 
 1812, and join as one for the achievement of this 
 great purpose, so necessary to the accomplishment of 
 God’s great plans. Therefore, when in 1861 the 
 combined forces of England and France attacked 
 China, while assaulting the Taku forts at the mouth 
 of the Hoangho, the boats taking the English troops 
 ashore got aground under the fire of the Chinese 
 forts, Commodore Tatnall, of the American navy, 
 saw it, and said: “Blood is thicker than water. Pipe 
 19 
 
away my steam yawl, and draw those boats oft the 
 mud bank.” So it is fitting that we should be there 
 in India joining hands with the great power which 
 rules over the islands of the sea, and we and they 
 should be linked together in holiest ties. 
 
 Feeble Forces for Great Tasks 
 
 What are we doing? We are doing — with the 
 feeblest forces that ever were set to do a great task — 
 marvelous things. I have quoted to you that in- 
 stance of Delhi — 3,000 soldiers against 40,000 muti- 
 neers inside. We are more than repeating that great 
 work. We are making it clear that the Scripture is 
 true: “One shall chase a thousand; and two shall 
 put ten thousand to flight.” 
 
 I have been in a district where we have 23,000 
 members and 600 class leaders, and only one for- 
 eign missionary for the whole district! Only one! 
 How they drill those native preachers, and how 
 they drill the native preachers’ wives! I was in a 
 place where the native preachers’ wives were being 
 taught to visit the zenanas, and they were instructed 
 to read and study that they might visit the homes 
 and show the women the way of life. I see before 
 me now one mother — holding her sucking child to 
 her breast, and two children playing about — study- 
 ing, copying, reading. And I said: “What can she 
 do?” And I asked for the result of her examinations. 
 She was to be a helper to her husband. The result 
 of her examinations was that she stood away toward 
 the head of the whole class. What a light flashed in 
 her face as the result was read. I thank God we are 
 raising up indigenous resources, missionary workers 
 in the field. 
 
 20 
 
Incredible Successes 
 
 We are succeeding in India incredibly. Let me 
 institute a single comparison, and in order that it 
 may not be odious I will refrain from mentioning 
 the name of the. other Mission. Compare them! 
 Work was begun in A in 1885; work in B in 1887. 
 We appropriate to A, with its 10,000,000 of people, 
 $23,000 a year. We appropriate to B, with its 
 
 10.200.000 people, $5,000. What is the result? In 
 one mission 160 baptisms in the year; in the other 
 
 2.000 baptisms, and 5,000 crowding forward to re- 
 ceive baptism and instruction. It brings before me 
 forcibly the figure of Bishop Foss, that “we are 
 standing in all India with our backs against the 
 door, with expectant people trying to burst into the 
 kingdom, and we not entering in ourselves, but hin- 
 dering those who are entering.” Not scattered nor 
 few are these blessed opportunities. 
 
 Let me say that we have a right-hand helper there 
 in the Woman’s Foreign Missionary Society. Some- 
 times in the foreign land, people all alone and dis- 
 tant, each one following the improvement of his own 
 work, get somewhat antagonistic. They keep alive 
 the love of God in their hearts, working together, but 
 they have their little antagonisms; they are nervous 
 inside. 
 
 Harmonious Agencies 
 
 In India all work harmoniously. What kind of 
 work do they do? They take the great lessons of 
 the ministry of Jesus Christ: 1. He came healing 
 the bodies of men. 2. He came giving ideas. So, 
 going to Muttra, I found a tall, stately, beautiful, 
 self-possessed woman, the daughter of the president 
 of a state college in Ohio, who was out there at 
 21 
 
Brindaban, where pilgrims go every year to dip in 
 water which has been thrown on some hideous idol. 
 She was there ministering blessings of health, at- 
 tending the sick, holding a dispensary, teaching the 
 people the doctrines of Christ while she healed their 
 bodies. Cholera broke out. What could she do? 
 Flee the city? She was there by the appointment of 
 Almighty God. She stayed, ministering to them here 
 and there and elsewhere, whether in houses or lying 
 on the dry grass. When utterly tired out she said: 
 “I must have a little sleep.” She crept into her room 
 and fell off into a sound sleep. Sick ones crawled 
 into her room and died on her floor, thinking to be 
 a little nearer the compassionate God she represented. 
 That is the kind of work. But I cannot speak at 
 length. The zenana work comes up before me — I 
 cannot represent it, but it is being done. 
 
 On the Tibetan Frontier 
 
 A mission in Tibet has been suggested for one 
 church. I do not advise it. But the Woman’s Foreign 
 Missionary Society has representatives who again 
 and again in the past summers have penetrated into 
 those forbidden lands, and have been ordered out. 
 The women would make a day’s journey over the 
 border, and send their horses and their servants 
 back. They would be ordered out by the officials. 
 They would say: “Wait until we get our animals 
 and our men.” And, meanwhile, they would change 
 to some other place, and there be ordered out again. 
 And after about six weeks, the authorities succeeded 
 in getting them out; but meanwhile they distributed 
 tracts, and had talked to scores of hungry people. 
 God will find individuals who have been trained for 
 the blessed kingdom. 
 
 We have heard pathetic utterances, pathetic 
 22 
 
indeed, of the devotion of men to the cause of our 
 blessed Master. I met a presiding elder, seventy-two 
 years old, somewhat feeble with age, whose wife 
 had come home to the United States seeking help, 
 hut died here, and was buried, and he never could 
 stand beside her bed nor visit her grave — in feeble- 
 ness, leaning against a tree, and weeping his heart 
 away, calling for some one to come and take his 
 place, and let his feet turn toward home again. 
 
 The Surpassing Need for Workers 
 
 I held the seven Conferences in conjunction with 
 the missionary bishops. Let me say to you that I 
 was obliged to leave seven churches without any 
 appointment whatever; churches which had been 
 created on the ground by native funds, some in the 
 mountains and some on the plains around beautiful 
 Agra — seven churches without any appointment; 
 desolation and desolation, because I had not the men. 
 Think of it! And sometimes it is queried: “Are we 
 not playing this India for more than it is worth; 
 for more than we are getting out of it in comparison 
 with other places?” I hold that we are bound to all 
 places, to preach the gospel everywhere, to every in- 
 dividual, by the divine commission and command. 
 But I hold that we have failed of our duty here. 
 Why? Because the church has not responded. I re- 
 member that in the time of our civil strife, whole 
 churches were decimated by men going into the 
 army. I remember a single individual in my church 
 who equipped a whole regiment, and sent them into 
 the field to the defense of the flag. When will come 
 the time when we will have a like interest for the 
 kingdom of God as for our country? Hasten, Lord, 
 the glorious time! 
 
 Sometimes I have queried, with emotion and tears, 
 23 
 
why we are not having the great success we are 
 working for, in this country. And I hear a far-off 
 echo. It takes form in a name forgotten in the far 
 past: “Curse ye Meroz; yea, curse her bitterly, be- 
 cause she came not to the help of the Lord, to the 
 help of the Lord against the mighty.” God grant 
 that this word may never be heard over the Methodist 
 Episcopal Church; but that we may grow as zealous 
 for the kingdom of God in all parts of the world as 
 ever man was zealous for the flag of his country. 
 
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