work in the Phil Cht than the Presbyterian. Eits actin it set an ex Paris. Rev. James B. Rodgers was and was enabled to enter upon his with the anish language at his command, and with a thiriwch far thanty with the difficulties and weaknesses of work in Cath le cuntries. He arrived in Manila, April 21, IN, with Mrs. Rodgers and their family. It is interesting tor to the coincidence of his arrival with the first anniversary of the declaration of war against Spain. While Bishop Thoburn, of the Methodist Episcopal Church, was the first regularly-authorized appointee of a Missionary Society to visit the Islands and open work, the unique honor of being the first regularly-appointed, permanent missionary belongs to Mr. Rodgers. Within one month these workers were joined by Rev. David S. Hibbard and wife. At the end of their first year they reported one Church organized, and services held semi-weekly in four places in Manila, with English-speaking services among soldiers and such. others as cared to attend. The Board had already decided that Iloilo would be one of the cities occupied, and Dumaguete, on the island of Negros, was chosen as another point in the southern islands during the summer of 1899. In December the Philippine Mission of the Presbyterian Church was formally constituted. In January, Dr. J. Andrew Hall arrived to take up medical and evangelistic work in Iloilo. Rev. Leonard P. Davidson came in February to give himself to evangelistic work. By the tentative allotment of "spheres of influence" to the several missions which was one part of the excellent work of the Evangelical Union, the Presbyterians were given a free hand with all other missions in Manila. and ali Southern Luzon, with the work in Negros and Panay divided between them and the Baptists, as those two missions might agree. This gave the Presbyterians a compact territory in Luzon with but two languages, and one of those-the Bicol-spoken by but a small fraction of the whole population in their Luzon field. It also gave them portions of the fertile islands of Negros and Panay, with centers at the two largest cities in each island. By later action Cebu was added, and work in the entire Visayan group was tentatively assigned to the Baptists and Presbyterians. This gave them a population in Cebu alone of six hundred and fifty thousand, all homogeneous people, speaking one dialect of Visayan, and in Leyte and Samar which they have occupied since, an added population of about two hundred and fifty thousand, whose dialect is sufficiently like that prevailing in Cebu to enable the workers from the former island to be fairly well understood from the first in the latter large islands. The fighting line of the Presbyterian Church is thus flung out over four hundred miles in length, and holds positions on eight islands. Its work is in three main languages, though the Visayan of Panay and Occidental Negros differs almost as sharply from the Visayan of Cebu and Leyte as Pampanga differs from Tagalog, or Italian differs from French. No one person did so much to bring about the organization of the Evangelical Union as Mr. Rodgers. He was ready to make any reasonable sacrifice of the interests of their mission in order to secure greater unity of action, and thus diminish the friction and overlapping which he had seen and regretted in his work in South America. He was ready to go so far as to unite with other Churches in some loose federation in which denominational names would drop out of sight, and what would amount to a new organization would be perfected. Many felt that missionaries on the field had no power to do this, if it were desirable. His efforts, with those of Mr. McLaughlin, of the Methodist Episcopal Church, bore fruit in the formation of the Union. The Presbyterian Church carries on evangelistic, medical, and educational work. In the nature of the case its chief energies are devoted to the evangelistic, as that is the chief opportunity confronting all the missions. In Manila several congregations have been gathered, and one fine church building has been erected. This is on an American model, and seats about seven hundred people. They have a membership of more than two hundred. A rented building in another part of the city is the center for more work of an evangelistic character. In Cavite, just across the bay from Manila, there is a strong Church, and beginnings have been made at other places in Cavite province and the province of Laguna de Bay. In Iloilo a good evangelistic beginning has been made, and such work being done as the force will permit. In Cebu much opposition has been met. It is a very bigoted island. Friar influence is stronger than in any other part of the Philippines. Mr. and Mrs. Jansen opened work there in 1892. They were able to make but slight headway for six months. Meetings were stoned. Converts were terrorized. Threats were freely made that the lives of the missionaries would be taken, and that of their converts. No hall could be rented. The missionary could scarcely find a house to live in. But finally the ice began to break up, and a freshet of blessing has followed. Converts are now coming into the Church in the city of Cebu almost every week, and calls for Protestant services reach the workers from interior cities and from those on the opposite coast. Cebu is the head of one of the Catholic sees, and the American bishop there will do all in his power to stem the tide of Protestant sympathy. In the latter part of 1903 work was opened in the island. of Leyte, and from the apparent ripeness of the field and the results already attained, there is reason to hope for a rapid spread of the work. This will also command the island of Samar, which lies across a narrow strait, and can be reached with the same Visayan dialect. The mission has inaugurated medical work at Iloilo. and Dumaguete. Dr. J. Andrew Hall finds much of his time occupied at the former place in ministering to the bodies of the hundreds who seek his aid. He finds the medical work leads to the evangelistic, even though Catholic opponents insist that he gives poisons for medicines, and one poor patient was stopped while carrying home medicine for a wife burning with malarial fever, and compelled to drink the entire prescription. His superstitious persecutors insisted that he was securing the medicine to poison the wells. Dr. Langheim, at Dumaguete, has done royal service as president of the Provincial Board of Health in staying the ravages of cholera and smallpox, and his work has challenged the attention and secured the friendship of all the influential Filipinos of Oriental Negros. People come miles to hear the gospel and receive treatment. Dr. Arthur J. Brown, in his recent book, "The New Era in the Philippines," says: "One of the most notable sights of the Philippines. is to be seen in Iloilo Saturday evenings. My room, on the second story of Dr. Hall's house, opened into a wide Spanish hall, with a broad flight of stairs to the story below. About five o'clock I was startled to find the hall, landing, and stairs packed with Filipinos, sitting quietly on the floor and steps. They had walked in, men, women, and children, from the outlying villages, some of them four hours' distant, in order to attend the Sunday service. So many regularly do this, coming Saturday and remaining till Monday, that the missionaries have been obliged to rent a large room in which the men can spend the nights, the women occupying the chapel. The people are quiet and well-behaved. They bring their own food, or buy it in Iloilo, and they contentedly sleep on the floor. "I wish that those critics who insist that the Filipinos are all Roman Catholics, and that they do not want Protestantism, but only relief from the friars, could look into that great room in Iloilo any Saturday night, and see that dense throng of people who have patiently trudged past stately Roman Catholic Churches to a plain chapel, where there are no altar lights, or gorgeous vestments, or fragrant incense, but only the preaching of the Gospel of Divine Love. When men and women would rather walk fifteen miles under a hot sun, and sleep two nights on a board floor to attend a Protestant service, than go to a pompous stone church in their own village, there is certainly something more than curiosity in their hearts." In Dumaguete the work is largely educational. Early in the history of the mission, Dr. Horace B. Silliman, of New York, gave $10,000 for the establishment of an insti |