depend individual integrity and national honor. No reasonable Protestant would demand that all officials should attend any particular Church; but that those who are set in high places of power should acknowledge God, is not an unreasonable expectation. Unless they do so it will be in vain that they look for probity and trustworthiness in those who will follow their powerful example. CHAPTER XX. WHY IS PROTESTANTISM IN THE PHILIPPINES? WITHIN three months from that memorable Sunday in May, 1898, on which Commodore Dewey dashed the Spanish fleet in pieces "with a rod of iron," representatives of several missionary societies of the United States were consulting as to the wisest and most effective means of establishing Protestantism in the newly-opened Philippine Islands. They were seers in a literal sense. They saw the United States must take and carry the rôle of liberator and deliverer among the Filipino people whose sovereign power had passed into her hands, and laid their course accordingly. Pursuant to plans entered into at that conference, and those which have been framed later, Protestantism is in the Philippines. It is preaching, teaching, and building, with every indication of a purpose to remain and become a permanent factor in the future of the Filipino people. From many sources questions are asked as to why this has been done. It is to be expected that Rome is not pleased that it should be so. It is not wholly a surprise. that some irreligious people who, like Gallio, care for none of these things, should question the wisdom or the charity of such a course; but questions come from officials and from those whom one might have reason to regard as enlightened and earnest Christians, in some good degree abreast of the religious life and thought of the modern world. To all these it will be well to make a serious answer to the question which forms the caption. of this chapter-"Why is Protestantism in the Philippines?" Protestantism is not in the Philippines to avenge the wrongs wreaked upon those who espoused her principles before her advent. By statutes framed to accomplish that precise end, all teaching of Protestant doctrine was made a crime under the Spanish régime. Sections 219228 of the Codigo Penal, or Penal Code, enacted by Spain for the Archipelago, makes preaching, teaching, or propagating, in any public or private manner, of any doctrine other than that established by the State, a crime to be punished by heavy fines, or imprisonment at hard labor, or both. Under that law, with all the resources of the civil arm at their command, the ecclesiastical authorities made life a burden to all men who longed to know for themselves the truths of the Word of God, or to express in their own way their love and adoration to the Father of their spirits. Deportations, imprisonments, and martyrdom itself, was meted out with no sparing hand. But those dark chapters are written. They are history. None of our efforts can change a line or letter of the verdict passed upon them. Protestantism has no desire to usurp the throne of judgment, but leaves that to Him who will judge all men according to the deeds. done in the body, according to what they have done, whether they be good or evil. Protestantism is not in the Philippines to gloat over the faults which may be proven to have existed in the lives and methods of those who have been religious leaders of the Filipino people. Its leaders solemnly declare that such faults existed, and adduce proofs when partisans of the friars say that they had no sin. That must be done. The world has a right to know, and must know, what has been the record of these men who now claim that they are deeply wronged, and that they have been good under-shepherds of the flock of Christ. It must be made plain that this is not the case, but that “with force and cruelty they have ruled them." But this need not be done often, and need not and will not be a prominent part of the program of Protestantism in the Philippines. Such faults and sins as may be proved grieve us as fellow-men and fellow-workers for the moral and social well-being of our common humanity. Only so far as the interests of truthful history are concerned will Protestantism speak out on these matters. Such speaking is no part of her work as a whole. Nor are the leaders of Protestantism ignorant of the good that there is in Roman Catholic literature, hymnology, and doctrine and history. Together Catholic and Protestant sing the soaring hymns of religious praise and adoration written by Bernard of Cluny, and Faber, and Newman. In literature of the devotional life we would be poor indeed without à Kempis, and Rodriguez, and Fénelon. "Through the Dark Ages of semi-paganism in Europe the Roman Catholic Church, in spite of its awful corruption, kept alive the belief in God, in the Christian redemption, in the future life. Abominations have crept in, hideous superstitions have become part of its life, much important truth has become corrupted; but there is no body of Christians in the world that holds the great fundamental truths of Christianity regarding the Divine Personality, the Supreme Divinity of Christ, the operation of the Holy Spirit, and the supernatural life, more firmly that Roman Catholicism. Whatever there is of mystery, of height, and of inspiring power in the Protestant doctrine of the Incarnation or of the Trinity, is found in Romanism as well; whatever of solemn motive |