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Show Philippine Proselyting. I rpiIE question of prosleytising in the I Philippines has been discussed in many of our exchanges. . Without investigating, they take for granted all that bogus correspondents write. The Milwaukee Citizen is an honorable exception.. ex-ception.. Without condemning principals princi-pals of schools, their assistants or their methods., the editor writes to reliable sources regarding the creed of those who hold high positions in the Schools at Manilla and other parts ofthe islands. isl-ands. These holding such positions were daubed Revs, "by correspbndents who wrote- to Catholic papers on the question ques-tion of education. The answers received re-ceived show that only one had the prefix pre-fix "Rev." to his name, and that, furthermore, fur-thermore, none of those were known as religious zealots. Rev. Mr. Carlisle, a chaplain, both in Cuba and the Philippines, and a strong adherent of the Presbyterian church, addressing his fellow ministers recently recent-ly does not show any prejudice or wish to do an Injustice to the natives. His advice contains more truth than poetry. He tells of the exaggerated ideaB that exist in the minds of many, that Imagination worked up to its greatest height by falsehood and misrepresentation, mis-representation, can never judge aright, and to change the current of thought in such brains is like running up against "a mud bank of stubborn facts." In the lecture referred to, he says: "To be serious, it was this mud bank that I found there in the Philippines Nothing particularly soft about it. either. I found it in Cuba, where I served a year as a chaplain. I found it " "7 ,f 7 ; "I"! .1 ...; - - in Egypt. The missionaries, there pointed it out. f found it in. Ceylon, where there are five million people, and less than 16,000 Christians. "Perhaps there is quite' a mud bank here in our own land, since reliable statistics, not given to untruth, tell-us that there are 53,000,000 people in this country with no church relations. , "I have a penchant for getting at the ' core of things, and so with great interest inter-est and .care I studied the religious problem both in Cuba and the Philii pines. As a chaplain I enjoyed excep- , tional opportunities for doing it. "It has been stated that the best in- 1 tellect and the best conscience among these people show increasingly hostile to Roman Christianity. I made it a point of study. "I found the natives in Cuba, intelligent intelli-gent and ignorant, in rebellion not against the Catholic church or the Catholic faith, but against the Spanish priests, who, tinder Spanish rule, were , intolerant to a degree beyond the ap- j prehension of our people. The profligate profli-gate vices of these Spanish priests brought their authority into hatred and contempt, and in their dealings with the people they usurped all authority. Hence the churches were abandoned. When America came In as a factor. then bpanish priests quit the island ! with the Spanish army, the bond between be-tween the church and state was broken, the churches were supplied with Cuban or American priests, and the archbishop arch-bishop in a pastoral letter made it clear to the natives that thenceforth they would have the same religious status as the American members of ths Catholic church. With wnat result? There was at once a rehabilitation of the churches and th People; intelligent intelli-gent ' xnd Ignorant thronged these churches; that, too, with jvhat to me was a significant heartiness and enthusiasm. en-thusiasm. In Santiago and several other large towns and villages I found the better class as regular in church attendance as the commoner class. The intelligent minds had rebelled against the Spanish priests and the masses followed. fol-lowed. The intelligent returned and the masses followed." There is no rebellion against church doctrine. If the human side of the church has not been all it should be, and that reformation is needed, who I krows but in the designs of Providence Provi-dence the means now used are the best. In the old law when the Jews stepped aside from the observance of the law, God permitted their punishment punish-ment by His enemies. Both in Cuba and the Philippines the great majority of the people are Catholics Cath-olics and. will remain so to the end. This Rev. Mr. Carlisle tells. "Fully 9S per cent of all the people in Cuba are Roman Catholic, and it is my belief that they will remain Catholic Cath-olic to the end. Making an estimate, as I did, of the population of towns and of church attendance, and coming into personal contact with each class, as. I did, in the pursuance of my duties, du-ties, I am assured that fully 95 per cent of all these people are active communicants of the Catholic church. The passive Catholic holds to his faith. In the presence of the great churches in the Philippines, churches whose bells are scarcely ever silent; churches whose great doorsteps are worn . thin by the will nigh continuous pressure of the naked feet of devotees; churches in which there is always the voice of intoning and the pungent odor of burning burn-ing incense, you realize the mighty pedigree of this faith, but in the spectacle spec-tacle of the entire population, almost of towns and villages eagerly passing into these places of worship, twice of Sunday,, several times during week days, and on half a hundred feast or saint days in the year, you realize how deeply and firmly this faith and love of the Catholic church is mortised into the being of these Filipino's. They are Catholic to a man. It has been their faith always. . It is their religion today, to-day, and, as I believe, will be their religion in all the future. In, the Philippines Phil-ippines you see Catholicism at its highest high-est point of influence; the middle age idea of loyalty and enthusiasm." He does not regret this fact. He admits ad-mits that a people devoted to their faith should not be disturbed. If they are satisfied, and violate no law, what right have others to interfere with their sacred right? In the following story, related by Rev. Mr. Carlisle, all fair-minded fair-minded persons will find food for reflection: "But here I am tempted to repeat what an English-speaking Buddist churchman at Colombo, Ceylon, said to me in an interview. It may serve a purpose. He said: 'Why should our people of Ceylon desire what your missionaries mis-sionaries here call Christianity? They have a religion that is adapted to and meets their necessities and capabilities. It fits into their lives. They have never known any other religion. Have no wish in that direction. If our people will follow cut in daily life, and tens of thousands of them do, the teaching of our temples they will be good men and good women. These teachings will elevate ele-vate them to as high a moral plane as any people occupy. I think the percentage percent-age of our people who make an everyday every-day application of the teachings of our religion is fully as large as the percentage percent-age among your Christians. With them faith and practice ' are expressed together. to-gether. Our temples are open at all hours of the day and every day, and are thronged at each service. I see your Christian churches are closed except on Sunday. I think we are wiser than you in this our service is made very impressive im-pressive and beautiful on week clays as on Sunday. Your missionaries tell our people: that our religion Is not a sacred thing, but one of mere form and ceremony; cere-mony; that if our people will simply, observe these forms they can be as lax in morals as they care to be. This is not true. Again, it Is one religion, one custom, one faith. Among your people there are hundreds of systems of faith, many creeds and statements, which seem unexplainable even to wise men. Our people can never be made to understand un-derstand one God to love and worship. They realize the meaning of a clean, worthy life.' As the subject treated by the reverend rever-end gentleman covers a large field and embraces many practical points on the solution of the religious difficulties, we will return to it in our next issue. |