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Show Good Advice From a Presbyterian Minister. IN OUR last issue reference was made to Rev. Mr. Carlisle's address to his fellow ministers who sought for information regarding the Filipinos. The reverand gentleman is a Presbyterian Presby-terian minister, and was chaplain both in Cuba and the Philippines. He is animated an-imated by a Christian spirit, that is. charity in all he said. If the object of our overzealous missionaries is to save : souls, and prepare them for heaven, t ; why not devote their time and means J to home missionary work? Rev. Mr. ; Carlisle tells that "reliable statistics, not given to untruth, tell us that there are 53.000,000 people in this country with no church relations." Of these 53.000,000 who never enter a church It may be safely said that 99 per cent do not believe In the divinity of Christ which is the foundation of Christianity. Christian-ity. Whether classed as agnostics or Infidels, their creed certainly is Mam-: Mam-: . mon worshipers. At best, they are less ' Christian than the Filipino is at his worst. In warring against the religion of the latter arguments used .are not I honest. It is rimply an appeal to the t ; I daily lives of the friars, who. if they ! f violate the laws of the church are as responsible as would be an official or citizen of the United States should he ; j violate the laws of his country. What i i proves too much proves nothing. Rev. I i John Jones was guilty of cross immor- f 1 ality. Therefore the church represent- : ' J cd by Rev. John Jones stands con demned. Absurd conclusion, yet this is the conclusion of the propogandists ; in the Philippines, as shown in Rev. 1 Mr. Carlisle's address. He says: ; "One of the stock- arguments of the religionist is that the Catholic religion, as a religion, is responsible for the low standard of morals apd civilization in Cuba and the Philippines; that the Ignorance Ig-norance and illiteracy and Immorality ; of these natives are the natural fruits of Catholicism as a religion. A criticism criti-cism like that Is, is unworthy of any lvilized human being. I do not im- agine that one Filipino in a hundred i '. ' ' thousand ever thought of any connec- tlon between the despotism of the Spanish friar and the religion of the Catholic church, or Catholicism as a., religion. The clergy of the Catholic . church. whom I met, in the Philippines ' are educated and in every way-worthy ! men, and are no doubt doing all they can to uplift their people in the character char-acter of life they live in and out of the church." The natives of those Islands were no higher in the scale of civilization when Catholic missionaries went there than were our American Indians 300 years ago. A contrast between the results obtained will show that the influence of the Catholic church in those years has been productive of more good than that of Protestant missionaries among the Indians. Those, who survive, are still at. zero. Their primitive instincts are unchanged. They are held as wards beyond the confines of civilization, and if thty no longer go on the warpath ii is because they are too few in number, or are restrained by the law of fear. It is not so in the Philippines. We again quote from the address of Mr. Carlisle to his fellow ministers: "In any consideration of this question we must take into account the material on which the work of the Catholic church has been done. I have found a marked difference in the morals and character of the people of Manila and the people of Dagupan, 120 miles north of Manila. The Catholic church has been at work for two centuries or more in Manila, while its influence at the other point 13 of comparatively recent date. As an illustration of the ethnical material, take the Negrote (little negro), ne-gro), a semi-savage of North Luzon. I may have some conception of the probability prob-ability of the Negrote being wrought into a Catholic Christian and of the time and labor expended in doing it, or a Christian plus episcopacy. Perhaps, too, a Christian plus rivers of water. Mayhap a Christian plus a discipline. But even the possibility of working this nature. Into an accredited Presbyterian appals me. If, instead of the. friars and the class of ecclesiastics, the Cath-' Cath-' olic church had had in all these years such men as now constitute its army of churchmen in these Islands, the Filipinos Fil-ipinos would be noted for their Intelligence Intelli-gence and progressive spirit." This is a candid admission. It Is true, too. Mr. Carlisle brings in the "if" as a saving clause. The friars to whom the "if" is applied are free agents, and the Catholic church cannot control man's free will. That is a gift of the Almighty Al-mighty and cannot be controlled by the bayonet. Judas, when he betrayed his Master, was a free agent, and Jesus left him free. So were the friars whose faults are exaggerated. "The evil that men do lives after them, The good is oft interred with their bones." The Catholic, following his instinct and guided by the teaching of the church, would apply that convenient little word "if" differently from Rev. Mr. Carlisle. He would say, "if the friars," who made a vow of poverty, which meant selling all they had and giving it to the poor, "instead of accumulating accu-mulating property, followed the spirit of the law, remained poor in reality as well as in Tiamerthej' Filipinos would today love them." Their mistake was in laying "up treasures which sooner or later will be consumed by the moth, or taken by robbers." Wherein is the Catholic church responsible for this? Neither in her creed nor system of morals does she sanction greed or avarice. ava-rice. Why not stop it? Why did not Christ stop the avarice which forced Judas to betray' him? . Eut supposing the allegiance of the Filipinos is weakened for or drawn away from the Catholic church, what will be the result? re-sult? Regardlless of consequences that is the hope of some zealots who consider con-sider their mission fulfilled if they succeed suc-ceed not in making converts, but in unmaking un-making Catholics'. They are a disturbing disturb-ing element who consider themselves specially commissioned to reform the world, remodel society and set themselves them-selves up as the only true ideals to be followed. To attain their end they will not only exaggerate, but tell . falsehoods. false-hoods. A pious missionary from Utah once told in a public lecture in the east that he "went into the pulpit with the Bible in one hand and a pistol in the other to save his life." But Mr, Carlisle, who aims to be fair and would not, if posisble, add one discordant note to the efforts of the civil authorities to secure peace in the islands, says: "This thought of expediency impels me to say, and frankly and candidly, that in these present conditions, I am assured that any Protestant missison-ary missison-ary campaign, aggressive In its attitude, atti-tude, as it must be necessarily, to the prevailing religious status, will prove a very disturbing element at a critical moment in the settlement of difficult civil and governmental problems. "There is, as we know, a complicated state of things in these islands, and the adjustment of the questions involved, in-volved, inconsonance with our declarations declara-tions .as a people, is taxing the skill and tact and patience of the representatives represen-tatives of our civil and military authorities. au-thorities. It is certainly inexpedient, to say the least, to thrust into it the hindering, hin-dering, disturbing' elements attending a religious campaign. If it is anything, the Protestant church is a moderator of passions, and an arbiter of peace. As Christians here at home we have intense contempt for the Protestant who. In speech or act. reproaches the Catholic or his religion, and we utterly despise the religious kidnaper in the Protestant church; nor making, any great difference in the principle of stealing $10 or the theft of a proselyte. The very fact that, as Protestants, we have kept away from these islands until now. when our missionaries go there under protection of our guns, has given force to a widespread suspicion among all classes of religious conquest. You may say that the priests have used this religious conquest idea as a gilt-edged gilt-edged lie. 1 do not believe they have. The Filipinos believe that religious conquest con-quest is our object. Naturally the Filipinos believe that since everything points in that direction. direc-tion. Catholics in America, to a certain cer-tain extent, belive It. when they see schools placed under the direction of Protestant ministers. Some of these are so meddlesome and noisy that they could not for the life of them keep quiet and do their legitimate work. They seek notoriety and glory in disseminating dissemi-nating discord. In America, it is true, that the E3.000.000 who never enter a church, "have intense contempt for the. Protestant who, in speech or act, re-l preaches the Catholic or his religlou." The Catholic religion the world over is the same, and naturally Catholics j will resent any insult offered to it. Why , try and rob the natives of their faith? Will it make them better or more loyal ! citizens? No such claim is made. No ' religious interference was the first promise made by Admiral Dewey. Catholic Cath-olic dignitaries were perfectly satisfied , with the change of governments, provided pro-vided the faith of their Hock was not tampered with. To all of this Rev. Mr. j Carlisle ' testifies in his address. He sa'd: i "Catholic Christianity prevails in these islands. It has prevailed there always. It has, as I have said, grown j so deeply down into the hearts of these people as to defy extirpation at the i hands of anyone. - j "Catholicism has been wrought into I every fiber of the being of the natives, j Its existence there has become a po- litical and social necessity. And from my study I believe that this existence . is based on conditions negative of all : compromise. By the right of Its ! Christian homestead, its long self-sac- ! rificing service, the Catholic church and the Catholic constituency is naturally nat-urally zealous of any reiiglous encroachment. en-croachment. This encroachment cannot can-not be made without causing serious trouble. "Among the very first assurances Admiral Ad-miral Dewey gave the archbishop of Manila was that there was to. be no organized Interference in these religi- . I ous affairs. There is nothing promising or sig- j nificant to the Protestant cause, that i the high prelates of the Catholic church are in favor of the Unied States control. con-trol. In a pastoral letter which I read in Manila, the prelate said: 'We are convinced that the changs of sovereignty sover-eignty is for the good of the country, because it ivas done b the word and deed of God, who always ministers with those who love him. and we do not believe it necessary to say more to our Catholic people to secure their entire devotion and adherence to the church under the new conditions.' "These dignitaries are simply looking, as is their right, to the safety of their church interests. I have good reasons for saying that this part of the world is no place for men who, under the stimulus of religious religi-ous delirium or moral hysterics, go there with the avowed purpose of making mak-ing an aggressive fight against the prevailing pre-vailing religion. If such men possessed a decently working conscience it would question both right and motive." But they do not question. They claim the right to abuse, misrepresent and even tell falsehoods. That seems to be their only stock in trade. That it is done cannot be denied. Mr. Carlisle, speaking from personal experience, says: "While I was in Cuba a man of this class representing one of the "numerically "numeri-cally large denominations, came to Santiago, and his first pulpit effort was a bitter denunciation of the Catholic Cath-olic church and Catholic faith. General Lawton had to summarily squelch him in order to avoid serious trouble. In March. 1900. nrenchers rf this samp de nomination filled the columns of the Manila daily papers with articles bitterly bit-terly venomous and vituperative against the Catholics. Manila is no place for religious geniuses lacking sanctified common sense." The revilers see the moat in their brother's eye, but cannot see the camel in their own, or if they do, why are they silent? What Mr. Carlisle says of the conduct of our officers and soldiers in Manila proves that "what with the character and conduct of the average soldier of the regular arnry, the drunkenness drunk-enness that flows out of more than 300 American owned and operated saloons in Manila, as I counted them, the habitual hab-itual Sunday chicken fighting and horse racing by army officers, some of them on the staff of the commanding general; gen-eral; races publicly advertised in the Manila papers, the beastly and infamous in-famous manners of the soldiers in the presence of native females, old and young, a licentiousness that shames every sense of justice and honor; the villanies of the soldiers of Erasmus repeated re-peated and the disgusting profanity of both officers and men, we are not making mak-ing nn An vin lilo tmnrMcnTi rin fha tfnrl of the Filipino as -to the character of either cur moral or religious Americanism. American-ism. "Looking at all this, an intelligent native school teacher said to me, and with infinite contempt in his tone: "Is that the civilization you want to give? Is that a sample of your boasted American Amer-ican civilization? We had better keep what we now have.' " The chaplain felt like the man who was kicked by the mule done up. Facts were against him. and he might wrestle with the Lord in prayer all his life, and the only answer he could give in the end was vanquished. He admits this, hence his Round judgment gave this advice: "Personally, as a minister and a Christian, I would not vote a dollar or man or sympathy for any Protestant religious campaign in the Philippines. In saying this, I am not open to the charge of being an apologist for the Catholic church. ; Behind these statements state-ments lies the sense of Christian jus tice and the wish for the best good-willing good-willing towards these people. "There is Catholicity enough in me to say that I an willing to look beneath be-neath the differences which separate me from these other people, and to believe be-lieve that they may love truth and work righteousness acceptable to God; that the sweetest Christian character may be outside of my particular church. This is a live world, a growing, world. If things grow, some things must give way. We know In part; we prophecy in part. All our knowledge and teaching is mixed with ignorance and weakness. 'When that which Is perfect is come that which is in part shall be done away. That which is perfect per-fect is love.' " |