I»AM. %, AMER. I FIRST-HAND GLIMPSES OF CUBA 4 4 T T PON landing - in Cuba—yes, before landing—one realizes that he is in a foreign country—foreign in its legacy J of language, religion, and ideals, or lack of ideals; a foreign language of great richness and sweetness, won¬ derful in its power of polite compliment, indirectness, and non¬ commitment, but pitifully poor in words adapted to spiritual wor¬ ship and plain truth-telling; a language which has dragged down holy names and things to the level of the common and dishon¬ orable.” In Santiago I saw a dirty, filthy, miserable little tobacco shop that had this sign, “The Peace of God,” and a whisky shop called “My Eden.” The beggar in the street is “Jesus,” the prisoner in the criminal’s cell is “Salvador,” the dirty r little town is “Christo” (Christ) or “Trinidad” (The Trinity), a street Jesus del Sol” (Jesus of the Sun), etc.. “All high things are degraded, all pure things are defiled. The terminology of the pure things of heaven is put upon the unclean things of earth. All moral ideas are confused, all moral values are debased, and all moral standards are overturned.” What has Cuba in her legacy of religion? Relying upon the ignorance of the people, Rome has refused them the Bible, and has left them in such ignorance as to guarantee her hold on the common people through their superstition. (The statistics of 1900 tell us that in the town and district of Guantanamo eighty- five per cent of the people could neither read nor write! My ( 3 ) 4 First-Hand Glimpses of Guba observation persuades me that this is a conservative estimate.) Now and then I am running upon people that do not know what I mean when I ask them if they have a Bible. They have never seen nor read it, nor even heard it read. When we put it in the hands of the people, it appeals to them. We tell them to read it and see for themselves what their Father wants them to be and do. They accept it, and it strikes home. Last summer Brother Llopis, a colporteur of the American Bible Society, was with me for a while, and in our house-to-house work quite often he read the seventh chapter of Matthew with the clause: “And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother’s eye, but consid- erest not the beam that is in thine own eye?” In one cigar fac- ory here, a small one, the owner said: “That’s just it; it looks as if you had come here to put a comment on the subject of our conversation.” Upon being assured that neither of us had ever seen him or heard of him before, he bought a Testament, saying 'as we left: “Please be kind enough to read this gospel all along this street.” They have little else to read as a whole, and they read the Bible when it falls into their hands. Another part of their legacy was the fact that their religion was Sabbathless. Instead of having a holy day of Sunday, it is a holiday—the gala day here. The social and political clubs make Sunday night their great reception and dance night. It is the time of the largest attendance upon the theaters. Every Sunday night the plazas or public parks are full of people, who come to listen to the municipal bands that play there every Sunday night from eight to ten. On the occasion of Santa Catalina’s day—she being the patron saint of this town—falling on Sunday, the largest of the social clubs of the town had a great ball in her honor on Saturday night, continuing until Sunday morning, and the Spanish club continued it on Sunday night. Last year the pub¬ lic elections for Senators and Congressmen from this province to First-Hand Glimpses of Cuba 5 the national Congress were held on Sunday, because Sunday afternoon is a holiday, and they expected a larger vote on that account! I have seen, running full blast all day Sunday, picture galleries, shooting galleries, tailor shops, women sewing in their homes, laundering, baseball, picnics, kirmesses, etc. I have seen the Americans at tennis, fishing, butterfly-hunting, riding, running railroad excursions, and providing for the Cubans baseball, races, etc. I have known of Americans running wheels of fortune, roulette, boxing matches, cards, etc., for the edification (?) of our American sailors. They further inherited in their religion image worship or, bet¬ ter said, idolatry. I have dropped in here at the church in Guantanamo, and in the public prayers I hear the name of the Virgin one hundred times to every one time that God’s name or Jesus’s is called. Nearly every woman has her patron saint, and has in her room an image of that saint, to which she prays and before which she burns candles. I spent the Christmas Eve night of 1903 at Santiago de Cuba. About midnight there was quite an amount of noise, which was found to come from a crowd of people who were following an image of Judas Iscariot which was being carried through the streets by a Romish priest, while the drunken and excited mob were yelling 'at it and hurling curses and imprecations at it, with a mixture of mud, stones, and sticks, all because the person represented by the image had betrayed their Lord, whom they were worshiping (?) by their midnight per¬ formance. That afternoon Brother Fletcher and I were walking near our mission house there, on our way home, when we were attracted by two nuns who were following a little wagon such as many American boys get from Santa Claus at Christmas time, in which was what at first I thought was a large doll. Being inter¬ ested, we drew nearer, and discovered that it was an image of the infant Jesus that was being carried to the cathedral for the 6 First-Hand Glimpses of Cuba morrow. Upon going there on the morrow we found this little image placed in front of the painting of Joseph, his father, and near it a box for offerings to the image. I saw many dollars go into it as I stood and watched. Brother Llopis, the colporteur referred to above, told me: “You will know a Roman Catholic Spaniard by his blaspheming the name of God, and at the same time you will see around his neck a scapulary of ‘El Carmen,’ joined to a medal blessed of the rosary.” And I have noted that t nearly every Cuban child wears around its neck a little medal with an enameled or engraved image of the Madonna. Lastly, they received with their religious legacy a corrupt priest¬ hood and religion. I walked into a house at Caimanera, a town on my work, a few days since, and was met at the door by the lady of the house in person, and upon seeing me she said: “No, you can’t come in; you are Protestant.” In reply I asked her if she had a Bible, and she didn't know what that was. I asked her if she had the New Testament, and she still didn’t under¬ stand me. I asked again: “What religious books have you?” She said: “I have a life of the Virgin and some lives of the saints.” She turned about and showed me the picture of the Madonna that she had, and the image of her saint, with the half-burned candles, etc. When I asked, “But don’t you want the life of Christ and the acts of his apostles?” she replied, “I don’t want anything you have; I don’t need your Bible.” And yet she is a terror in the community! “At Punta Alegre, Brother Torres, another Bible colporteur, sold a Bible to a man, and afterwards another to his sister, who, as they conversed, told Torres her troubles. She was trying to build a chapel for Roman Catholic worship; the cura had come and taken $150 in gold for baptisms. She asked him for a con¬ tribution for her chapel, and was promised two centenes ($10). He afterwards went card-playing, won more than $200, and went First-Hand Glimpses of Guba 7 away giving her nothing toward the building she was trying to erect. Then Torres spoke to her about the truth; and though she was taken aback at first to know that he was a Protestante, she became reconciled to it, and at last to the keeping and read¬ ing of a Protestant Bible.” Experiences in Jamaica. One day Brother Fletcher, of Santiago, was oyer to spend the day with me, and in the afternoon we went out to Jamaica. This is a town of some fifteen hundred people, situated in the Guan¬ tanamo Valley and surrounded by sugar estates. It was raining when we reached there, so we went up to the shell of the aban¬ doned Catholic church. Having a good tile roof, it leaked very little. .We found a Cuban family living in the vestry rooms; the seats had been removed some years before, though the high reading stand, or pulpit, reached by a winding staircase, still stood; the woodwork of the crucifix and other paraphernalia be¬ hind the altar were also standing. The Catholics having had no service there since some years before their last war, the natives have torn off and carried away almost all of one side of the building. The people living there now use the auditorium as a washhouse, with drying wires stretched across its open side. A coarse canvas hammock was swung from the pulpit post to one of the altar posts, and another between the altar posts them¬ selves. Seats being offered us, we sat down and had a talk with the family, Brother Fletcher reading a portion of the Scriptures and discussing it with them. While we talked, a hen and her chicks, busy seeking food, clucked and chattered at their work. A dog dozing upon the altar platform had his nap interrupted to run a hog out of the house. As Brother Fletcher and I talked of the desolation and de¬ struction wrought there by time and neglect—a house of wor- 8 First-Hand Glimpses of Cuba ship forsaken of God, well-nigh forsaken of man—we thought of the'curse of God upon shepherds who refuse to feed the flock, and the anathema of Paul upon those who preach “another gos¬ pel.” How we longed to call the people together and tell them of Jesus and his salvation ! As we started out for our train the mud and water made every¬ thing as slick as only Cuban mud can. We were reeling like drunken men in our effort to avoid a fall. Near the railroad sta¬ tion Brother Fletcher came near falling, and as I turned to look at him and laugh I made a misstep, and, in my effort to catch, went sprawling in the mud and water of the street. I was wet and muddy from hat to shoes. And such mud! The muddy water ran down my neck and up my sleeves! In this plight I had to ride home on the train. Although a family living near the depot there kindly gave me soap and water to wash the mud from my face and hands, as I walked through the streets of Guantana¬ mo on my way home from the train I looked more like a man fresh from a drunken spree than a Christian pastor about his work. On another trip out to Jamaica I took along some Bibles and Testaments, hoping to sell some, and thus put the Bibles in the homes. I went into some thirty homes, finding but one Bible and one Testament, and only eight of the thirty families had anybody in them who could read! Some of the adults had never seen a Bible, and many of the children did not know what I was talking about. What a privilege to put God’s Word where it has never been known! What a privilege to tell them of the un¬ searchable riches of Christ! And yet what a responsibility! A few weeks after this second visit, Dr. Carter, our superin¬ tendent, came over here to help me organize work in some of the neighboring towns, and among them Jamaica. I had previously secured the most suitable house available—a house seating about one hundred people. The morning of the day that we went First-Hand Glimpses of Guba 9 out to have our first service there, we went early, in order to thoroughly advertise the meeting. That night the people soon filled the seats and the standing room inside. They then stood around the doors and windows, and when Dr. Carter began to preach he had at least two hundred attentive hearers who were A GROUP OF CUBAN CHILDREN WHO NEED EDUCATION. having their first gospel sermon. I am now going there as one of my regular preaching places. At Jamaica I had perhaps the very best opening in all my work, unless I should put Guantanamo on the same basis. We sowed down the place with more than one hundred Testaments, besides some twenty-five hymn books, and the people were won 10 First-Hand Glimpses of Cuba over to giving me an attentive hearing. But suddenly the Roman % Catholics began to realize the situation. The archbishop of San¬ tiago sent a man over to begin work in Jamaica. He raised money enough to repair the old, abandoned church, and the fol¬ lowing Sunday he began operations. He had the school children to lead a grand procession, the boys bravely armed with wooden guns, the girls carrying arm¬ fuls of paper flowers, and after this advance guard came a small band from Guantanamo, followed by two young ladies carrying the two images of the Church—that of the Virgin, and one of San Antonio, the patron saint of the Church. Who but the new padre himself, arms locked with the wealthiest Spaniard of the town, walked next? and after them the whole populace of the town and neighborhood. Reaching the church with this elab¬ orate procession, they had a sort of dedicatory prayer, and then dispersed. In the afternoon they had a ball game, and at night and all the following day and night the usual “bade.” He made it impossible for me to use the clubhouse in Jamaica that I have been using for my meetings, so I went to a private house and there held my service. I arranged for another club¬ house, however, for my next service, and the work went on. How much a small chapel would be worth in the work! This priest who was sent out to Jamaica to interfere with what I was trying to do there is quite an intelligent man, but is almost always filthy because drunk. I saw him during Christmas week, at the close of a three days’ spree, after a night in the ditch, being led to his room by a friend. His tunic was cov¬ ered with mud and vomit, and he was a most repulsive sight. Last week a woman came to me and said: “What must I do? I went to have my baby baptized, and the padre was too drunk to do it, and told me to come back, but he is still drinking.” I need not dwell upon the sickening immorality among these First-Hand Glimpses of Cuba 11 priests; it is patent to every observer. What must be the effect of such things on the lives and thoughts of the people? Let me give in illustration an experience that Brother Llopis had among certain gallegoes (Spaniards from Galicia Province) who were working in the copper mine at El Cobre, in this province. Having previously obtained permission to talk with them and try to sell them Bibles, he went down one morning to the mines and, finding about fifty of them in one gang, com¬ menced to’read the Word of God. Says he: “They began to curse and blaspheme, cursing the curas. I told them that the evangelical propaganda had nothing to do with the Romish cler¬ gy ; but it was impossible to quiet those unfortunate, ignorant men possessed of the devil, for they threw with fierce anger against the rocks the bottles in which their coffee and milk had been brought, breaking nearly every one of them, which was not usual, but was done to ease their angry feelings. I went away from that place of darkness saddened at heart, and the mouth of the mine seemed to me the door of hell; and in seeing from afar those men going down, it had the effect upon me as if they were descending into hell, and I lifted my soul* in fervent prayer for them.” This was passing st,range, for a few months later the mines were flooded in our storms of last summer, and many of the miners were drowned. It looks as if a yearning Provi¬ dence had sent the messenger of peace to them. The more thoughtful of the men have drifted into materialism, agnosticism, and infidelity. It was Romanism of the type re¬ ferred to, or nothing. I can hardly blame them for refusing the former. This, then, is the general result: Indifferentism among certain classes, and minds made up that, for the sake of old ties and old times, they must remain Roman Catholics; opposition in other quarters, and out in the country and among the common people plenty of good will and open reception of the truth. Still “the common people hear him gladly.” i 12 First-Hand Glimpses of Cuba Truly Cuba’s heritage as to religion was “a religion without morals; a religion of pageant, ceremonial, and procession; of sensuous forms; of tinseled, tawdry images, lying wonders, and profane fables. She [Rome] sealed up the fountains of life and denied to the people the word of life, the Holy Book of God. She left a priesthood that arrogantly claimed an absolute monop¬ oly of the grace of God and to be sole agents of heaven to open the gates of salvation—a priesthood ignorant, arrogant, tyran¬ nical, that turned the sacraments into simony, marriage into con¬ cubinage, and gave to the poor a bone pit for a grave in a corner of the consecrated cemetery. What good fruit can grow on such a corrupt tree?” Into this condition of drifting opinions, superstitions, Roman idolatry, and sin we are putting the only solvent that has power to precipitate honesty, truth, and purity in national, family, and private life—the Word of God. But Rome is waking to this fact, and stirring herself. Where formerly we were ignored, now we are combated with her old cries. The priest at Jamaica tells the common people that I am a devil with horns! Again he tells them: “Yes, he is a Protestant—one who protests against God.” In other parts of this province Spanish friars are attributing to us motives of wanting to annex the island to the United States. They say different things in different places, fitting false rumors to places. Enough to show that they are making extraordinary efforts to retain their grasp on the people—a grasp that they recognize as slipping away from them. Cuba needs to learn that religion lies not in sacerdotalkm, nor salvation in the words or hand of a priest. The people are giving us a hearing, and more towns are beckoning to us for help than we can possibly reach. Bishop Candler, in a letter to the Chris¬ tian Advocate of February 2, 1905, says: “Brethren were sent without help who sorely need assistants. Their health is threat- First-Hand Glimpses of Guba 13 ened by overwork, and their success limited and hindered by lack of helpers. I was under the painful necessity of calling a halt when our recent victory required that I should have ordered a charge. I told the brethren to open no more new work until I could reenforce them.” Yet, in the face of the Roman awaken¬ ing, one man now could be of more value than several after a little more delay. Cuba needs a holy book, a holy day, a holy Church. We are showing this need, and the people are responding. The Bible Single-Handed. In the summer I had working with me a colporteur of the American Bible Society, a Spaniard and a Christian. We spent an entire month in Guantanamo and the outlying territory, going into each of the houses in this and the other towns in my district, having prayer in most, and reading at least a portion of the Scrip¬ tures in practically all. The immediate results were the putting of more than nine hundred Bibles and portions thereof into the hands of these people, and incidentally I made a memorandum of those whom I thought most inclined to Protestantism and real Christianity. I am now working that list of thirty families. Let me relate one among the various incidents of that work. Last year this same colporteur was here and went into the house of a French family. He was met at the door by the grown daughter of the home. Upon seeing who he was, she said: “You can’t come in here, and we don’t want any of your Protestant Bibles.” “I haven’t a Protestant or a Catholic Bible,” he replied. “I have the Word of God.” “Well, we don’t want to buy anything from a Protestant.” “I want, then, to make you a present of a Testament,” he an¬ swered; “and will you not bow your head with me while I ask God to bless his Word and this house?” 14 First-Hand Glimpses of Cuba She made no open refusal, but took the Bible and he went his way. Coming back into the home this year, he found that the young woman, her elder brother, and her old mother had each read that Testament thoroughly, and had forsaken Catholicism and sin and were reaching out after God. I have been around to their home many times since then, trying to guide them in their search, which I believe the young girl and her brother have suc¬ cessfully ended. This daughter of the house showed rrte finally a mantle that she had made for the Virgin of Charity, the wooden doll of El Cobre. It was beautifully and extravagantly made aft¬ er the luxurious style of Roman Catholicism and its image wor¬ ship, twenty yards of fine velvet having gone into its folds, and spangled all over it are stars of gold embroidery, laboriously worked by hand, and its fringe of glittering golden threads. It was valued—and no wonder—at more than three hundred dollars. “This,” she said to me as she brought it out, “can never be worn or used by any image now, for it belongs to Christ.” Three hundred dollars would have meant much in that house¬ hold. Who, then, can tell what will be the result of the more than nine hundred Bibles sowed down in this town with faith and prayers? Somehow, more and more I am believing in the power of the Bible itself. I had my first clear-cut conversion not long ago—that of a young Spaniard whom I am teaching English. It seemed gen¬ uine and came naturally, just like that of any young man at home, with a confession and a forsaking of sin and a consecration of self and all to God. He is fresh over from Spain, and was for seven years in a Roman Catholic monastery preparing to enter their priesthood. The thing was too rotten for him, and he fled. He knows Catholicism and its ways, and should be a power in dealing with it. Somehow, in spite of the constant shifting and changing among First-Hand Glimpses of Cuba 15 the Americans here, I have managed to collect on the average about forty dollars a month on rent and running expenses. Be¬ sides these current expenses, I have within the last quarter put in on a small scale a reading room for the Americans of the town and for the sailors that drop in. It is not having a great run, but is doing a little for that constituency. There was absolutely noth¬ ing here for them but the hotels, with their bars and billiards and gambling'. Some of the people sit out in front of the hotels night after night for hours talking and treating. It is from this that I am trying, in an indirect way, to win them back. While in Santiago some time since Brother Fletcher and I went out to San Juan Hill and to Morro Castle, near to which Hobson sank the Merrimac, and where the ships of Spain under Cervera went down under the cross fire from the American guns. We landed at the point where Hobson and his men did, and walked up the path where they were led as captives going to Morro Castle. As we walked, I meditated on the suffering and dying of the brave men at San Juan and the abandon and self-sacrifice to duty shown by Hobson and his men that Cuba and her people might have political freedom, and, weighing it, I said: “Yes, it is worth the price.” At once the thought flashed over my mind, “It will take the same abandon, the same suffering and dying' to buy her spiritual freedomand my soul answered, “It is worth the price.” When our country called for volunteers to gain political freedom for this island, how many said, “Here am I; send me!” There were great shouts as the men passed by in their uniforfns and with shining guns and equipment. Handkerchiefs fluttered in the breeze, army buttons and buckles were worn by our women, and enthusiasm ran high. Now God and the Church call for and need men and funds for pressing this war. Who will say, “Here am I; send me?” or who will say, “I can’t go, but I will have my representative on the firing line?” In front of Santiago, at 16 First-Hand Glimpses of Cuba San Juan Hill, men died to win a plague-cursed city and a coun¬ try in need of millions of dollars of aid. How many will give or come to win the victory in the redemption of a land that will be self-sustaining and thereby gain the consciousness of duty done? Are you doing your duty to Cuba? “The King’s business re¬ quires haste.” Statistics of Cuba Mission, 1905. Missionaries, n; wives of missionaries, 9; societies, 21; local preachers, 4; members, 1,472; total, 1,476. Additions by profession of faith, 472; additions by certificate and other¬ wise, 73; dismissed by certificate, death, etc., 69; adults baptized, 462; infants baptized, 169; candidates, 1,008. Church buildings, 13; value of church buildings, $40,300; parsonages, 4; value of parsonages, $3,310; value of other property, $2,393.50. Number of Epworth Leagues, 9; members, 416; amount collected by Leagues for all purposes, $156.39. Number of Sunday schools, 24; officers and teachers, 100; pupils ma¬ triculated, 1,310; amount collected for all purposes by the Sunday school, $327.10. - Finances. Pastor’s support, $195.98; missions, $515.65; Church extension, $189.54; American Bible Society, $50; incidental expenses, $1,928.88; special objects, $6955-89; grand total for all purposes, $5,308.53. General Board. Schools, 4; American missionaries and teachers, 9; native teachers, 9; total, 18. Pupils matriculated, 411; present attendance, 330; received from tuitions, $5,085.24; value of equipment, $2,838.54; value of real estate and buildings, $32,000. -- Note. —Where due credit has not been given in the body of the tract, the quotations are from the address of Dr. D. W. Carter at the New Or¬ leans Conference, or from the eighty-fourth annual report of the Amer¬ ican Bible Society.