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Show A NE"W STATE RELIGION. The most remarkable pronouncement of the past, week was by President Schurman of Cornell university, regarding re-garding the Philippines. What gives added interest to Mr. Schurman's dicta is the fact that he is also president of the commission sent to the Philippines by Mr. McKinley to compose and adjust ad-just affairs in that and adjacent islands. With one exception there is nothing noth-ing in Mr. Schurman's latest utterance which he has not published already. It ,i9 the exception which makes his interview inter-view notable. Realizing that the people in the Philippines are.Roman Catholics, with centuries of Roman Catholic tradition tra-dition behind them, Mr. Schurman see9 danger if a 'horde of American missionaries mission-aries were to swoop down on the people peo-ple in the Philippines, bringing to them contrary and contradictory doctrines, with the conaeauent diisttrust on the part of the natives of everything American. Amer-ican. Because of this Mr. Schurman proposes pro-poses a scheme which, in reality, is the making of a new state religion to serve to those people in the east. He would have the different sects get together and evolve a new system, of religion which could be taught by a single class' of nxesionartes, and obviate the natural distrust that would spring up from the teaching of a thousand and one isms. Of course this is all very nice, but Mr. Schurman understands but little of the spirit and gen'ius of Protestantism Protestant-ism if he presumes for an instant that from such a mass of contradictions a system of Protestant teaching can ever be evolved. It can only be done, as we say, by the establishment of a state religion, which would be taught to the natives by government officials. In case of failure to make the Filipino abandon aban-don the faith of his fathers and adopt the new state religion, for ecclesiastical officials might shoot the new faith into them, which is, in our opinion, the only way that Protestantism will ever make its 'impress on the Filipino character. charac-ter. The eects have only one common bond, and that is their hatred of Ca- tholieity. It will hardly' be contended that such a common faith would be acceptable ac-ceptable to the Filipinos. "The Independent realizes the folly of Mr. Schurman's suggestion at least the folly of any attempt to give it practical applications. It says: "We have no doubt that the chief denominations, de-nominations, and a score of small once, will all establish missions there. Most of them 'have their headquarters in Manila. Each eect, Presbyterian, Methodist, Meth-odist, Baptist, Episcopalian, Congregational, Congrega-tional, Disciples, Seventh Day Advent-ist, Advent-ist, will have its own organization. "Join us." "Join us," "We are the true Church," will be the cry. At present there is no chance for anything else. What more can we expect? Baptists and Episcopalians, Presbyterians and Methodists, cannot unite even in fed eration here in America. We fa51 even to see the scandal of the division; and the scandal is more offensive there." Yes, indeed, the scandal is more offensive of-fensive in Manila Aand Mr. Schurman's idea can never nave efficacy except through; a state religion, which, of course, is absurd. The Independent vainly hopes that, may be, by some sort of federation a workable- Protestant religion can be wrought out for use among the Filipinos. Fili-pinos. On this point it observes: What can be done to remove the scandal? scan-dal? Nothing, we fear, untii the denominations de-nominations here are federated. Why can it not be done? Shall the century-end century-end and nothing accompl'islhed ? In England Eng-land already there as federation of all the Free Churches, and the. conscience of our Churches ought to demand as much. Can we have a federation of our foreign for-eign missionary societies, such as may map out the field and secure some form of apparent unity, at least a mitigation Of OUr SChiSTnm.tw rw-nr11tiVn ? T Tc- dent Schurman's word3 be considered." After all, .what would such a federation federa-tion amount to? As we have pointed out, the essential basis of any nossible Protectant federation, must be of a nature na-ture insufferably offensive to the Catholics Cath-olics in the Philippine 5slands, and; con-aaquently, con-aaquently, full of dangers from many points oS view. . We are sure that all the sects are anxious to "map out the field" but the prospects are poor, indeed. The Roman Catholic Church alone ia capable of dealing with the Filipinos, and it will continue to civilize and Christianize them in the future as it has done in the past. f |