with which to smite the friars, and to its easy program of religious reformation.

It is a Filipino movement. It throws off the yoke of the pope, and cuts all other ties of a foreign character. Its entire ministry, from the "Arzobispo" to the humblest padre, is Filipino. It is altogether of the soil, and therefore he who does not support it is not a good Filipino. He does not love his Fatherland unless he joins the Independent Filipino Catholic Church. This form of pressure is very effective. It brings thousands into the ranks of "Aglipayaños" who have precious little concern about merely religious matters. They habitually stand up for anything that exalts the Philippines, hence they put down their names and accept places on the committees which Aglipay leaves in charge of his interests in every place where a Church is established.

The success of Aglipay cuts the Catholic Church to the quick. Therefore friar haters welcome the movement. Any weapon that will give promise of humbling the haughty, tyrannical friar is welcomed and used most lustily. The same motive leads hundreds to welcome Protestantism, as they suppose that our first business is to fight Rome. When they find out the spiritual and moral demands which Protestantism makes, they flinch. It was not for this that they desired "a new religion." To a very great degree the immediate visible success of the movement is due to this cause.

Aglipay recommends the reading of the Bible by his priests and people. Over twenty-five thousand Scripture portions have been purchased outright by Aglipay leaders within the last six months, and sold to their people. All that is permanently good in the movement comes from this attitude toward the inspired Word.

Its easy program of religious reformations attracts thousands. It promises a better order of things, but makes no spiritual or moral demands. Priests may come into the movement, and keep their mistresses and continue their gambling. Aglipay himself has never been accused of immorality or gaming, but he sets up no standard of purity in his priesthood or among his people. The cockpit, games of cards and dice, the bino habit and all other national vices come into the new Church without direct rebuke. This, its real weakness, gives it apparent strength. Because of this it is enabled to count its members by the million within less than two years from its birth.

Indirectly the Aglipay movement is of great help to Protestantism. It breaks the solid front of Romish opposition. When we are told that the Catholics are against us we can ask, "Which Catholics?" It attracts the chief enmity of the hierarchy. Since this schism began Rome has shot fewer arrows toward our lines. Her fury against the assumptions of an ex-communicated member of her own body has burned day and night since October, 1902, and the Protestant has come off with but a few curses, and a tract or two. This will continue so long as the numerical strength of the Aglipay schism is being augmented.

The Aglipay movement helps us by detaching tens of thousands of members from a nominal connection with the Church of Rome, and leaving them without positive instruction in a more excellent way. Our preachers get a hearing with them, and hundreds of them accept the Word and are saved. These people would never have left the Roman Catholic Church to become Protestants, feeble as was the hold of the old Church upon them; but once out

side and hungry for spiritual food, they hear and are saved. Aglipay loosens this fruit from the tree, and we gather it. God is thus overruling the shortcomings of the leaders of this revolt against the Romish Church to the spiritual good of many souls.

I am not without hope that Aglipay will yet take more advanced spiritual and moral ground. His own personal belief is far from being in accord with some errors at which he feels it necessary to wink lest he lose his following. He hopes to be able to lead them to greener pastures later on.

The new American Catholic bishops have helped Aglipay by illegal attempts to seize the churches now held by the schismatics. Bishop Rooker had been less than a week in his diocese in Iloilo before he deliberately took possession of a former Romish Church, now for nearly a year "in the peaceable possession" of Aglipayaños, when he chanced to find it open and empty between services. He sent for the presidente, or mayor, and demanded the keys. The presidente properly disclaimed any authority in the case, and declined to act. Bishop Rooker then sent for locks, and locked all doors and carried off the keys. It was an open violation of the Taft proclamation, and he was called to account.

In Northern Luzon Bishop Dougherty tried the same high-handed methods, going to church after church, placing his hands upon the door-sill and saying in Latin, "In the name of the pope of Rome I take possession of this church." Several times he was assaulted by the custodians of the buildings, and was forced to travel under a heavy escort of constabulary on his return to his headquarters at Vigan. Governor Wright has not made public his orders in these cases yet, as they are of recent occur

CHAPTER XXX.

THE PHILIPPINES AND THE FAR EAST.

REDUCED to its lowest terms, the Eastern Question is the question whether or not Russia shall dominate Asia. Other elements enter the problem. Other Powers have interests, and Japan's very existence is at stake; but it is the iron determination of Russia to control all of Asia which makes the Eastern Question.

Russia wants the Far East for at least three reasons. She wants it because there she can get access to salt water. No nation can be truly great without open ports on the blue highway of the nations. History shows that every nation which has built up its commerce until that commerce furnished solid foundations upon which national life could be established has had sea-room. When the nations which have left the largest contributions to the laws and literatures and institutions of all after time were in the height of their power, it was to the Mediterranean that they were indebted for that power. It was the sea which carried their corn and their silks and their armies. Rome and Greece, Egypt and Phenicia were sea-powers. Their continental hinterland would have had little meaning, no matter how fertile, had it not been possible to send its products swiftly to markets where it could be bartered for other products for which the trade of the country called. When the maritime activities of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries had discovered another continent richer