3e 
 
 
 PROTESTANTISM 
 IN THE PHILIPPINES 
 
 BY 
 
 GEO. F. PENTECOST, D. D., LL.D. 
 
 Preached in Manila', P. I., Sunday Eveninr, December 21, 1902 
 
 '' Render therefore unto Ccesar the things which are Citsar's ; 
 and unto God the things that are God’s."— Matt. ocxi:2i. 
 
 THE BOARD OF FOREIGN MISSIONS 
 
 OF THE 
 
 PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH IN THE U. S. A. 
 
 156 Fifth Avenue, New York 
 
 igo3 
 

PROTESTANTISM 
 IN THE PHILIPPINES 
 
 BY 
 
 GEO. F. PENTECOST, D. D., LL.D. 
 
 Preached i.\ Manila, P. I., Sunday Evening, Dece.mber 21, 1902 
 
 ‘•Render therefore unto Ccesar the things which are Ccesar's ; 
 and unto God the things that are God’s.’’— Matt, xxi ; zr. 
 
 THE BOARD OF FOREIGN MISSIONS 
 
 OF THE 
 
 PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH IN THE U. S. A. 
 156 Fifth Avenue, New York 
 
 1903 
 
PRESS OF THE 
 
 Jersey City Printing Company 
 Jersey City, 1903 
 
PROTESTANTISM 
 IN THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS 
 
 BY 
 
 REV. GEO. F. PENTECOST, D.D. LL.D. 
 
 Preached in Manila, P. I., December 21, 1902 
 
 "■ Render there/ ore unto CcBsar the things which are Cessar's ; and to God 
 the things which are God’s.” — Matthew xxii., 21. 
 
 “ The founders of our Government were profoundly convinced that religion 
 must be upheld for the benefit of the State, and that it was the basis for the 
 morality of the citizen .” — Governor Taft’s Letter to the Pope. 
 
 The words I have chosen for my text to-night contain the fruitful germ 
 out of which has been developed every great and fundamental principle 
 upon which is founded the Constitution of the American Republic, and 
 especially those which concern the relation of the State to the Church ; in- 
 dividual religious liberty, the temporal and spiritual powers to each other ; 
 and the obligations of the individual to God in their religious life and to 
 constituted State authority in their political life. I have thought, therefore, 
 that it is a text not out of place in the use of such a theme as I have to-night 
 suggested for your consideration, viz : 
 
 “PROTESTANTISM IN THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS; ITS RE- 
 LATION TO THE STATE, TO THE ROMAN CATHOLIC 
 CHURCH, AND TO THE PEOPLE.” 
 
 I. PROTESTANTISM. 
 
 Protestantism is a term which stands for both protest and affirmation. 
 The general faith of Protestantism has expressed itself in a number of 
 great creeds, differing somewhat in statement of details, but all in sub- 
 stantial agreement with each other. It is not my purpose to review or 
 attempt to restate all these teachings or doctrines, but only to point out a 
 few of the leading tenets of Protestantism, among which are these : 
 
4 
 
 In Respect of the Bible and the Individual. 
 
 That the Bible is of Divine origin and authority. 
 
 In Respect of the Organization and Function of the Church. 
 
 The Church is composed of all believers without distinction. That 
 One is our Master, even Christ ; and that all believers are brethren. 
 
 Concerning Jesus Christ and His Sacrifice. 
 
 Protestants believe in the sole and only sacrifice of Christ and his 
 mediating priesthood, as the ground of human redemption, without the 
 intervention of any human priest or Church. That, as has already been 
 said. He is the only Mediator between God and man. 
 
 Concerning the Terms of Salvation. 
 
 Protestantism teaches that salvation is by faith alone in the Son of 
 God as the Saviour of sinners, on the warrant of the word of God alone, 
 without the aid or mediation of priests or ceremonials or the conditional 
 merits of our own good works. 
 
 In Relation to the Sins of Believers. 
 
 Protestant Christianity teaches that Jesus Christ, the crucified and 
 risen Saviour, is the only Confessor and absolving Priest of the believer : 
 “If we confess our sins He is faithful and just to forgive our sins and to 
 cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” “If any man sin we have an Advo- 
 cate with the Father, Jesus Christ the Righteous.” 
 
 II. THE RELATION OF PROTESTANTISM TO THE STATE. 
 
 In the discussion of this branch of our subject let it be borne in mind 
 that Protestants seek to regulate their relation to the State on the same 
 principle that governs them in determining any other doctrine ; namely, 
 by an appeal to the word of God. Our Lord has not left us without direc- 
 tion as to our relation to the temporal powers or the State. We are to 
 “Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s” just as truly and con- 
 scientiously as we are to render unto God the things which are God’s. 
 When the tax collector demanded tribute, of Him and His disciples. He 
 not only counselled the payment of taxes but wrought a miracle that they 
 might have the wherewithal to pay the tribute money. He would not even 
 
plead His poverty, lest that might be misinterpreted as a repudiation of the 
 rights and powers of the State. Nor is the relation of the Christian to the 
 State merely a passive one. The State is as much an ordinance and institu- 
 tion of God as is the Church. “Let every soul be subject to the higher 
 powers; for the powers that be are ordained of God. Whosoever 
 therefore resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of God : for the ruler 
 is the minister of God to thee for good. Wherefore ye must needs be sub- 
 ject, not only for wrath but for conscience sake. For this cause pay ye 
 tribute also ; for they are God’s ministers. Render therefore to all their 
 dues ; tribute to whom tribute is due ; fear to whom fear ; custom to whom 
 custom; honor to whom honor.” (See Rom. xiii.) And again the 
 Apostle says ; “Fear God ; honor the King.” I have quoted these sayings 
 of Christ and His Apostles because it is by their teachings that Protestants 
 are guided. 
 
 In connection with these Divine directions for our governance two 
 things are apparent : First. That there is no hint that the State has any 
 
 authority over the Church or the individual conscience, in matters spiritual 
 and religious, but only over Christians as they are citizens. Second. 
 There is no hint that the Church has any authority over the State ; but that 
 as individual Christians we may not repudiate citizenship nor the obliga- 
 tions that rest upon us as such. We must both for fear and conscience 
 sake, recognize and honor the constituted authorities as being appointed of 
 God for the protection and government of the common community. 
 
 The Mutual Relation of Church and State. 
 
 In a recent address delivered in this place on “The American in the 
 Philippines,” I endeavoured to point out these two fundamental principles 
 in the American Constitution. The absolute organic separation of Church 
 and State. In which, however, the State guarantees to every citizen the 
 right of private judgment in all religious matters and the perfect freedom 
 to worship God according to the dictates of his own conscience and under 
 his own chosen ecclesiastical vine and figtree, the State protecting him in 
 the exercise of this religious liberty. On the other hand the Church dis- 
 claims and is estopped from attempting to dictate or control the State in 
 the free exercise of its proper political functions. Acting on this great 
 Constitutional principle of total organic separation of Church from the 
 State, it is not implied that there is antagonism between Church and State. 
 On the contrary, the State recognizes religion as essential to its well-being 
 and as the only sure foundation of morality in her citizens. The Church 
 as a body and in the person of her individual members recognizes the obliga- 
 tions of loyalty to the State as being ordained of God. 
 
 In this connection I do not think it is a breach of confidence to quote 
 
6 
 
 a paragraph from the late official correspondence between Gov. Taft and 
 the Cardinal Secretary of the Pope of Rome, in reference to the retirement 
 of the Spanish friars from these Islands, not because they are Roman 
 Catholic priests, but because they have been the chief cause of the political 
 and social discontent of the people and their presence here is preventing 
 the pacification of the Islands. Gov. Taft says : 
 
 “I do not need to assure your Holiness that the attitude of the United 
 States and the Philippine Government is not one of unfriendliness to the 
 Roman Catholic Church. The policy of separating Church from State, as 
 required in the Constitution of the United States, does not indicate hostility 
 to religion or the maintenance of any Church. On the contrary, the 
 founders of our government were profoundly convinced that religion must 
 be upheld for the benefit of the State and that it was the basis for the 
 morality of the citizen; and in practice it will be found that, in the United 
 States the rights of all Churches both as to property, administration and 
 practice of religion, are preserved and protected even with more scrupulous 
 care than in some countries where Church and State are said to be united. 
 I venture to point to the prosperity of the Roman Catholic Church in 
 America as indicating that it has nothing to fear from the extension of the 
 same rule over the Philippine Islands. The Government of the United 
 States treats all Churches and creeds alike. It protects them all, but favors 
 no one against the other. It is not engaged in proselyting from one Church 
 or creed to another, and any officer using his office directly or indirectly for 
 such a purpose, ought to forfeit his office.” 
 
 This I call as good an exposition of the American doctrine of separa- 
 tion of Church and State, of Religious Liberty, and at the same time, the 
 m.utual and sympathetic relation of Church and State, as I have ever seen and 
 I venture to say that it is in every particular the Protestant doctrine on this 
 subject. At home, by bravely adhering to and insisting upon the enforce- 
 ment of this noble and Christian doctrine we have been saved from all un- 
 seemly controversies between the Government and the various religious 
 communities which live and flourish in our country ; and I may add from any 
 violent conflicts between contending religious sects ; for instance, as between 
 the Catholics and Orangemen in Ireland. Nor would it be possible in our 
 country to be torn and distracted as the people of England to-day are over 
 the Educational Bill, by which the Established Church, supported and pro- 
 tected by the State, is attempting to enforce sectarian education on the 
 Non-conformists, in opposition to their conscientious scruples. In this 
 unhappy controversy England is being awakened to the fact that she is not 
 truly a Protestant Nation. The task still remains for Protestant Chris- 
 tianity in that great country to divorce the English Episcopal and all other 
 forms of the Church from State control and patronage. Under our Con- 
 stitutional law we in America have settled the educational question without 
 
this unseemly strife between the State and the Churches and in a way agree- 
 able both to Protestants and Romanists. Under this beneficent Constitu- 
 tional Law the Roman Catholic and the Protestant Churches side by side 
 have grown and prospered, and I may say have increasingly learned to 
 respect each other and cultivate amicable relations on the basis of such 
 points of common Christian truth as we have found existing in common 
 between us, while exercising a tolerant charity toward each other on points 
 of disagreement. In America, I venture to say that Roman Catholic 
 Christianity is freer and more enlightened and patriotic than in any other 
 country’ in the world ; and that Protestant Christianity is filled with a 
 broader and more generous spirit than is found in any other of the so-called 
 Protestant nations. In other words under the Constitution and laws of 
 our country there is a larger measure of the true catholic spirit of Chris- 
 tianity and less bitterness of feeling among the various sects of Christianity 
 than can be found elsewhere in the whole world. I am sure that there is 
 no Protestant here or at home in the States who does not fully and heartily 
 wish and pray that the same state of things may prevail in these Islands. 
 
 Loyalty of Protestaxtism. 
 
 It is of the spirit of Protestantism to be loyal to the State under which 
 we live and are protected in the exercise of our religious liberty. Patriotic 
 loyalty is a cardinal tenet of American Protestantism. We love our 
 country and are loyal to our government as we love our God and are loyal 
 to the Kingdom of Heaven. And again, speaking for myself and my fellow 
 Protestants, both here and at home, we are in like manner loyal to the 
 Insular Government of these Islands, and in an especial manner to the honor- 
 able and honored Governor of these Islands who has made us glad with his 
 presence here to-night, whose aim in the discharge of his exalted duties is 
 as lofty as it is patriotic and whose administration is, we believe, as free 
 from sectarian bias as it is from mere personal and political selfishness and 
 official corruption. May God spare him long to fulfil the great task which' 
 has been by his country imposed upon him ; give him the spirit of wisdom 
 and a sound mind ; fill him with the spirit of righteousness and the fear of 
 God : and when he has finished his geat work here crown him with the 
 highest honors which his country can confer upon him. As Protestant 
 Christians here in these Islands both because we are few in number and 
 our relations to the government are most close and intimate, as well as 
 because Protestant Christianity is new to the people of the Islands, we 
 desire more particularly to emphasize and make real our loyalty, by extend- 
 ing the utmost of our moral support to the Civil Commission in their 
 endeavour to give the best possible government to this great Archipelago 
 with its six millions of people, so wonderfully cast upon our care 
 
The Genesis of American Constitution. 
 
 I do not think that we ought to pass over or forget that our American 
 Constitution and our form of Government is the direct outcome of Protest- 
 ant Christianity. It is a well-known fact that all forms of civilization are 
 determined by the prevailing type and form of the religion of the people. 
 Civilization never created a religion but religion is always the mother of 
 civilization. Now the American Constitution and its peculiar type of gov- 
 ernent and civilization is the direct outgrowth of Protestant Chritianity. 
 The war of the American Revolution was waged in defence of principles 
 generated by the Protestant conscience of the American Colonists. This 
 is neither the time nor place to at length discuss this point. I must at best 
 only allude to it and bid you remember it. At the time of the formation of 
 our Constitution the vast majority of the inhabitants of the American 
 Colonies were the sturdiest of Protestants, the most of whose fathers had 
 fled to our shores in search of religious rather than political liberty. There 
 were at that time but a handful of Roman Catholics in the country and they 
 were practically limited to one small section. And yet when the framers 
 of our Constitution made provisions for religious liberty it was for the 
 Roman Catholic as well as for the Protestant. Since the framing of that 
 Constitution and the formation of our Government we have welcomed 
 many millions of Roman Catholics to our shores and to our liberties 
 and so shall we ever continue to do. Can any one for a moment conceive 
 of such a Constitution being suggested and framed by a people brought up, 
 trained and educated in a country where the Roman Catholic religion was 
 dominant; whose central tenet is to deny the right of private judgment in 
 religious matters and the freedom of the individual to worship God accord- 
 ing to the dictates of his own conscience? For instance can you imagine 
 such a Constitution emanating from the Filipino people under the lead of 
 the Spanish friars? Can you imagine such a Constitution being born in 
 Spain with the approval and hearty support of the Roman Church? Has 
 the Pope of Rome with his college of Cardinals ever suggested to any 
 Catholic country the wisdom of so altering the Constitution of their country 
 as to guarantee absolute religious liberty to all people? Such a thought is 
 unthinkable. Rome has fought to the death in every country where she 
 has exercised sovereignty every movement in the direction of religious 
 liberty. In these Islands within less than a decade the noblest and greatest 
 citizen this people has ever produced was shot to death by the authority of 
 the Roman Church for daring to teach and plead for civil and religious 
 liberty for his country and countrymen. Protestantism not only pleads 
 for liberty of conscience in matters pertaining to the worship of God, but 
 for the civil and political liberty of all men. If the United States stands in 
 the forefront of the nations of the earth as the conservator of all the rights 
 
9 
 
 and liberties of men, civil and religious, it is because our government is the 
 offspring and fruit of the Protestant conscience. Let us not forget this nor 
 minimize its importance when dealing with the many and grave problems 
 that confront us in these Islands. 
 
 Protestantism and Free Speech and Criticism. 
 
 Protestantism has primarily to do with the individual and with the 
 individual’s relation to God ; but its message and mission does not end here. 
 It has also a responsibility and a message in respect of and to the social, 
 civil and political community in which it exists. It has not to do with 
 politics, but it has to do with all questions that enter into the well-being of 
 the community and the State. It assumes no authority over the State but 
 it reserves to itself the right to criticise from the point of view of morals 
 and righteousness the lives and policies of those who are set to govern the 
 people. Wickedness and unrighteousness in high places whether in the 
 individual ruler or in the policy of the government, when that policy affects 
 the rights of the citizen under the Constitution or invades the domain of 
 national righteousness or morality, calls for the declaration of the law of 
 God in criticism, in rebuke or in teaching. There is still a message from 
 God to the King, in the mouth of Protestantism. Time would fail me to 
 tell of the great moral, social, political, and national reforms effected by the 
 persistent voicing of the Protestant conscience of America. Fifty years 
 ago the preaching of what was then called “The Higher Law,” which was 
 in effect onlf: the public appeal from the technical law of the land to the 
 law of God, so aroused the conscience of the American people against the 
 institution of human slavery, that that institution, in spite of the fact that it 
 was entrenched behind the Constitution, custom, the social aristocracy of 
 the South and the vast wealth which it represented and the gigantic rebel- 
 lion organized in its defence, went down in a sea of blood such as the world 
 had never before seen. This campaign of the Protestant conscience of 
 America cost the nation a million human lives, untold treasure and five 
 years of internecine strife the contemplation of which did more than 
 “stagger humanity.” This same Protestant conscience voicing itself from 
 pulpit and platform and through the public press attacked and has finally 
 destroyed the other twin relique of barbarism — Polygamy. Only two 
 years ago when a Mormon representative from Utah formally and duly 
 elected presented himself in the halls of Congress to take his seat he was 
 challenged at the very doors ; not because there was any flaw in his creden- 
 tials, but because he came an avowed polygamist ; thus outraging in his 
 person and presence the sacred institution of family life. His expulsion 
 from Congress was not in obedience to technical law but the demands of 
 the Protestant conscience. Xot long ago one of the idols of the Senate who 
 
10 
 
 had held his seal continuously for many years and might have held it for 
 the rest of his life, in a speech in the Senate chamber gave utterance to 
 atheistical sentiments. When he next appeared before his constituents for 
 re-election he was instantly and almost unanimously “turned down.” The 
 American conscience presumes not to meddle with any man’s religious belief 
 or unbelief. Any man may be Christian, infidel or atheist and may publicly 
 avow that faith or unfaith on the platform or through the press ; but wnen 
 as a public man or high official of the United States and especially as a 
 representative of the people, he avows himself an atheist, the public con- 
 science of the State or Nation will have none of him. Col. Robert Inger- 
 sol, one of the most brilliant and eloquent of i\mericans once in a public 
 place loudly and defiantly challenged his auditors with this hypothetical 
 question : “What has Christianity ever done for me that I should be a 
 
 Christian ?” A quiet Christian lady when all the men were silent took her 
 courage in her hands and replied, “Col. Ingersol, if you will allow me I 
 will tell you what Christianity has done for you. It has prevented you from 
 becoming Governor of the great State of Illinois ; from being a Senator of 
 the United States or occupying any high representative office in the United 
 States which otherwise your brilliant talents would have secured to you.” 
 This brave answer of a Christian woman puts the whole matter in a nut- 
 shell. The Protestant conscience meddles not with anv man’s private 
 opinions nor interferes with his perfect liberty to express them, but it will 
 not tolerate in her officials in their official capacity the denial of the funda- 
 mental principles of religion. 
 
 To-day more than at any other time in the history of our country the 
 Protestant conscience is operative in the determining of all public questions 
 whether social or political. It was the Protestant conscience of the Nation 
 which, recently aroused against the greed and rapacity of the coal barons 
 and the arbitrary and tyrannical attitude of the Miners’ Union, enabled 
 our strenuous, brave and righteous President to step in and settle that 
 unholy strife. It was the moral rather than the commercial and political 
 questions involved in that conflict between capital and labor which brought 
 the conscience of the Nation to bear upon it and compelled a settlement 
 where the captains of finance and industry, the labor leaders and the politi- 
 cians failed. It was when the financial strife over our currency began to be 
 stated in the terms of conscience and was resolved into the prop)osition 
 whether or not the currency of the United States should or should not be 
 an “honest” currency that the “honest” dollar won the day. In the matter 
 of our dealings with Cuba and, I may add, with the Philippines, it will be 
 the American conscience or sense of righteousness and not the selfish inter- 
 ests of the beet sugar men on the one hand or the general trade interests of 
 the country on the other that will finally settle these questions. President 
 Roosevelt is making no mistake when he appeals to the Christian conscience 
 
of the country in support of his policy of righteousness, everywhere in his 
 public addresses practically declaring that it is “righteousness that exalteth 
 a nation” while “sin is a reproach to any people.” Alas ! that all our public 
 men do not recognize this great truth. But let me in the name of the 
 American people serve this notice upon all our public men whether at home 
 or in these Islands that the Protestant conscience is a factor in public life 
 that must be reckoned with, 
 
 American Irreligion in the Philippine Islands. 
 
 In a recent Thanksgiving sermon preached from this platform I ven- 
 tured to call attention to the regrettable fact that no American member of 
 the Civil Commission for the Government of these Islands participated in 
 the public worship of God on the Lord’s day, and that the Sanctuary of the 
 Lord’s day was habitually invaded and desecrated by the needless transac- 
 tion of public business ; and that this public and official example was being 
 followed by the more prominent Americans in Manila; and that it was the 
 common belief that there was some implicit policy on the part of the 
 Government to discourage the worship of God in Protestant Christian 
 Churches in this city and throughout these Islands. I am more than happy 
 to say that the Governor assures me that there is no such policy either 
 explicit or implicit on the part of the Insular Government, but only that 
 the unanimous non-Church-going habit of high government officials is a 
 pure coincidence arising from the fact that the American members of the 
 Commission are all non-Church-going men. We Protestants do not in any 
 sense assume to compel our public men to be Christians, but we do feel that 
 ii is within our province to criticise such a unanimous non-religious habit 
 on the part of officials. If this is their attitude toward religion and the 
 public recognition of God it is not a matter of wonder that almost the entire 
 American community in Manila follow their example and that, while we 
 find the public race courses and the fields of sport crowded, the Social Clubs 
 of the City in full blast, public business in full swing on the Sabbath day, 
 the houses of worship are practically empty and the worship of God under 
 whose blessing we have become so great a people almost totally abandoned. 
 Such habits especially in official circles are utterly inconsistent with the 
 declaration our our honored Governor quoted in another place ; namely, that 
 “the founders of our government were profoundly convinced that religion 
 must he upheld for the benefit of the State, and that it was the basis for the 
 morality of the citizen.” If this is a true statement of the “profound con- 
 viction of the founders of our government,” I hope I will not be deemed 
 imf>ertinent if I ask our present rulers if they are honestly seeking to give 
 this profound conviction forceful and objective expression? And I ven- 
 ture, in closing the discussion of this point, to say that the unanimous habit 
 
12 
 
 of ignoring the public worship of God on the part of our Civil Rulers and 
 high officials is not according to best American ideals; it is poor religion; it 
 is bad morality; and worse politics. Such an attitude toward religion in 
 our national home Government would not be condoned by the American 
 people during a second term ; and the time is not distant when it will not be 
 condoned here. Protestants do not ask either for Government patronage 
 or support, but they do demand in the name of religion that the best tradi- 
 tions of the country be not persistently violated by the highest officials of 
 the land. 
 
 III. PROTESTANTISM IN RELATION TO THE ROMAN 
 
 CATHOLIC CHURCH. 
 
 For three hundred years the Roman Catholic has wielded the spiritual 
 and temjxDral su\^ereignty of these Islands. In that time no expression of 
 Protestant faith or worship was allowed. The coming in of the American 
 sovereignty and government with the Constitutional guarantees of religious 
 liberty to all the people has changed that ancient state of things. Through 
 this open door of religious liberty guaranteed by the American Constitu- 
 tion, Protestants have entered these Islands and Protestant worship and 
 work has established itself here. 
 
 IV. PROTESTANTISM IN RELATION TO THE PEOPLE 
 
 OF THESE ISLANDS. 
 
 American Protestants are here not only to exercise their own religious 
 faith among and for themselves but also as missionary bodies to preach the 
 Gospel, as they understand it, and make disciples from among the people 
 native to the Islands. I have more than once been asked by Roman 
 Catholics and I am ashamed to say by American officials in tones of sneer- 
 ing contempt, by what right we Protestants presumed to come to this 
 Roman Catholic coimtry and engage in missionary operations. I have heard 
 the Protestant pastors and missionaries spoken of as “intruders” and “inter- 
 lopers;” as “busy bodies,” coming “to disturb the religious peace and quiet 
 of the Islands and to stir up unprofitable and harmful strife.” I have 
 been told that the people were content with their old faith and that it was 
 cruel to sow seeds of discontent among them. It is the old cry of the 
 Ephesians when the first Apostles invaded classic Pagan Greece : “These 
 
 that have turned the world upside down have come hither also.” I confess 
 that such questions asked by the adherents of the old Church who like not 
 to see their despotic ecclesiastical power passing away from them have in 
 no wise surprised me ; but that an American should ask such questions and 
 presume to pass such criticisms upon American Christians ; and especially 
 
13 
 
 lliat American officials should be among these unfriendly interlocutors is a 
 matter of no little amazement to me. Might we not in turn ask the Amer- 
 ican Government why she has entered these Islands ? Has not Spain pos- 
 sessed them for three hundred years and was she not content with her form 
 of government and type of civilization. What right and justification have 
 we Americans to be here at all. This is the question the American 
 “a(u)nties at home are all day long dinning into our ears. What right 
 have the Americans to rush in with their new schemes of trade? Were not 
 the Spanish and Filipino and Chino merchants here and in possession ? Is 
 it not wrong and impertinent for the Americans to come in and dispute 
 with them the monopoly of business and especially to disturb the old 
 “manana” methods of business? What right have we to propose and intro- 
 duce a new silver dollar with a fixed value and to turn out “neck and crop” 
 the old worthless Mexican peso ? To all this I hear the answers : “We 
 are here because ‘duty and destiny’ demanded it. We are here to deliver 
 these six millions of people from the curse and oppression of Medieval 
 government and confer upon them the blessings of American civilization. 
 We are here to introduce new and better and more enterprising methods of 
 business and to develop the vast undeveloped resources of this Archipelago. 
 In a ^Vord we are here because in the mysterious providence of God the 
 time had come for us to be here. And it may be added that we are here 
 to stay.” Such high and lofty political sentiments when uttered on the 
 platforms or in the halls of Congress are cheered to echo. Well, we 
 Protestant Christians are here because the door is set open before us. We 
 are here because our Master has bidden us to “Go into all the world and 
 preach the gospel to every creature and make disciples of all nations.” We 
 are here not to exploit the people but to do them good ; to give to them a 
 simpler, a better and more spiritual form of Christianity. In a word we 
 are here for reasons analogous with those that are actuating our country- 
 men who are seeking the political and commercial regeneration of these 
 Islands: and I trust with motives just as much higher as the cause of 
 religion and human salvation is higher than the cause of the best human 
 government and the greatest of commercial enterprises. To all critics of 
 this kind I would say, “O, thou blind physician, heal thyself.” And I think 
 I am not uncharitable in suggesting that it is hardly consistent for our 
 political and commercial critics to go about with huge beams protruding 
 from their eyes with which to discover and pick out imagined motes from 
 the eyes of the Protestant Christian missionaries who have been sent to 
 these Islands. In any case zve are here and here to stay. The United States 
 may some day retire from these Islands, though it is not likely to occur 
 in this or the next generation of time, but even so Protestant Christianity 
 will remain and continue to do the w’ork which under God we have set our 
 hands to do, whatever the future political destiny of the Islands may be. 
 
u 
 
 We are here because there are millions of non-Christian people in these 
 Islands which the Roman Catholics never even attempted to Christianize 
 and which remain yet to hear the gospel of the love of God. Gov. Kamp, 
 speaking to me of the Iggarotes said with some enthusiasm that they were 
 the finest people in Luzon and mainly, said he, “because they have never 
 been corrupted by Christianity.” I ventured to suggest an amendment to his 
 criticism by saying, “you mean by that they have never been oppressed and 
 debased by a corrupt Christianity.” “Well,” he said, “put it in your own 
 way.” To the non-Christian tribes we have a mission and when we bring 
 to them the gospel of love and liberty, of peace and good-will they will no 
 longer say that the white man’s religion only oppresses and makes men 
 worse. 
 
 The Religious Discontent of the People. 
 
 We have been told over and over again that by introducing Protestant 
 Christianity among the people we were disturbers of the religious peace of 
 the Islands. Nothing could be farther from the truth than this. First, we 
 are not disturbers of the religious peace of the people, but the bringers in 
 of peace; the peace of righteousness, purity and good-will. Second, the 
 people are not content with the religion of the old Church. As a matter of 
 fact every well-informed man knows that the recent insurrection against the 
 Spanish government, before we came to these Islands, was not so much 
 against the Government as it was against their ecclesiastical masters, the 
 Spanish friars. Was it not true that just so soon as Spain was powerless 
 to protect the friars they had to flee for their lives to Manila for protection 
 from the wrath of the people who had been crushed under their intolerable 
 oppressions ? Here are those friars in Manila to this day. Why do they 
 not return to their provincial parishes? Why ? Because they do not dare 
 face the hatred and fury of the people. Is it not true that so deeply seated 
 is this aversion of the people toward their old religious teachers and 
 ecclesiastical masters that in order to insure peace in the Islands the Govern- 
 ment is now negotiating with the Pope of Rome to voluntarily retire them ? 
 
 Entirely apart from the friar question there is now a movement in the 
 Church itself or at least among the people themselves looking to the 
 casting off the yoke of Rome and organizing a free Filipino Catholic 
 Church, proclaiming religious liberty and an open Bible among their 
 tenets. The Romanists may sneer and denounce the Aglipay movement 
 but all over these Islands there are countless thousands of people who are 
 welcomng him as a religious reformer who shall deliver them from oppres- 
 sions and superstitions of the old Church of Rome. 
 
 Beside this there are already thousands of native men and women who 
 have welcomed Protestant Christianity. In a score of centres in this city 
 
15 
 
 nightly may be heard the songs and prayers of native Protestants who are 
 joyfully worshipping God with a sense of spiritual, intellectual and bodily 
 freedom never before dreamed of by them. And from all over the Prov- 
 inces the cry from native Filipinos comes to us to send them religious 
 teachers and preachers. The native Filipino iProtestant Christians are 
 already numbered not by hundreds but by thousands and their number is 
 daily and hourly increasing. If the people are content with the old Church 
 why are they buying and paying for 5,000 copies of the Bible every month? 
 
 An American military officer of high rank, himself not a Christian, 
 told me the other day that the presence of a Protestant missionary in any 
 part of these Islands was worth more than a battalion of soldiers for all 
 purposes of pacification. 
 
 I have trespassed upon your patience but your manifest interest in the 
 discussion of this important subject has tempted me to discuss at greater 
 length, than my original purpose was, some of the matters before us. It is 
 my sincere desire, and I am sure it is of my Protestant confreres to live 
 peaceably with all men, as far as that may be possible, but in any case we 
 must be loyal to our Divine Master, “whose we are and whom we serve.” 
 And May God bless His own truth and prosper His own cause. 
 
i6 
 
 In connection with this series of meetings in the interests of our 
 religious work in the Philippines, and especially of a Church Edifice in 
 IManila for Americans, we make an appeal for aid. 
 
 We need to meet the opportunity that now beckons us in the Philip- 
 pines one hundred thousand dollars to be used in the construction of a 
 Church Edifice of commanding architecture, as expressing the faith and 
 purpose of Presbyterianism and to meet the expenses of this advance move- 
 ment and to provide for the enlargement of our entire religious work in the 
 Philippines. 
 
 Such a Church would be the inspirational center of our evangelistic 
 work in the Philippines and the parent of many other churches in various 
 cities in the Philippines. 
 
 Are there not fifty men in this Broad La?id who will give one 
 thousand dollars apiece for this work ? 
 
 Are there not numberless other people. Fathers and Alothers who have 
 sons or daughters in the Philippines who will gladly give smaller amounts ? 
 
 In regard to the condition in Manila, one word solves the difficulty : 
 viz. Immediately. With money in hand for this work as thus outlined : 
 
 Immediately we ought to sail. 
 
 Immediately we ought to purchase ground. 
 
 Immediately we ought to begin to build. 
 
 Immediately we ought to set in operation larger Gospel means and 
 methods of salvation. 
 
 Help to spell that word Immediately by an offering to this cause. 
 
 Do not retire for the night until you have made out your check. 
 
 Send it the first thing to-morrow morning to Mr. Charles W. Hand, 
 Treasurer of the Board of Foreign Missions, 156 Fifth Avenue, Xew 
 York City. 
 
 Designated Special Philippine Fund. 
 
 Rev. S. B. Rossiter, D.D. 
 
 Appointed Pastor of the First Presbyterian Church, 
 
 Manila, Philippine Islands.