We cannot too strongly emphasize the great interest that the change of government in the Philippines should have for the English-speaking Catholic public, seeing that a Catholic population, as large, if not larger, than the combined Catholic population of England, Ireland, Scotland, and Wales, is about to be brought under the influence of the English-speaking world, and in close touch with the Catholic Church in America, and, perhaps, later on, with ourselves. It is not more than a year ago that the Philippines were a terra incognita to us all, of which we knew the name, but hardly more. For the last ten months they have been brought under our notice almost daily by the newspapers, and monthly in the pages of the magazines. In the meantime their control has passed from Spain to America, and a conflict of opinion is going on in the States as to the desirability or otherwise of undertaking the responsibility of their future government. Under the old rÉgime, Church and State were united: a bearable condition when the State was professedly Catholic, but absolutely unbearable when antagonistic influences control the Government, hamper the Church in her freedom of action, and degrade her into servitude while professing to be her protector. In the new condition of things the Church will be placed in the same position as it holds in America, free to flourish or to die, depending entirely on its own resources, and neither helped nor persecuted by the State. Its ministers, though not enjoying any special privileges, will be protected in their persons and property in common with all other citizens. Its religious orders will receive the same recognition as secular corporations, and their corporate property will be respected. So far so good; for it was to be feared that the Spanish Government, who had been deterred only by political motives from suppressing the Orders, yielding at last to the pressure of the Freemasons, might have confiscated their property, and either secularized their members or expelled them from the islands. Still we cannot close our eyes to the fact that dangers from a different quarter loom up which it much behooves Catholics to carefully consider. There is a pressing necessity of being alive to those dangers, if worse evils than ever are not to befall that large Catholic population of the Far East.

As might be expected, the Protestant missionary bodies have inaugurated a movement for sending out missionaries of their own to the Archipelago. The Rev. John R. Hykes was directed last September by the American Bible Society to proceed from Shanghai to Manila, and investigate concerning the Philippines “as a field for Bible work.” He submitted his report in a very short time, having made up his mind on the religious needs of the people, the scandalous lives of the Friars, and the superstition of their benighted parishioners with incredible rapidity. His sensational report duly appeared in the American papers as the “Startling Revelations made by the Rev. John R. Hykes.” Sure of a sympathetic audience, he laid on the colors thickly. The report need not occupy much of our attention. Half of it is made up of ordinary information about the country that any one could get for himself out of a good encyclopÆdia, and the other half is a rehash and repetition of the charges already dealt with by us in previous chapters. One statement is, however, worth noticing, as it clearly indicates the hopelessness of getting fair and unbiassed treatment from the enemies of the Church. Mr. Hykes states that he was shocked by the stories of immorality brought against the Friars. And, to make an impression, he adds that the people who told him the stories said they were prepared to give names, dates, and places in confirmation of what they said. Now, as already noted, names, dates, and places were the very things asked for by the Friars in the Memorial to the Spanish Government, as far back as last April; but their enemies, finding those details beyond their power, have adopted the simpler process of repeating the calumnies to all who, like Mr. Hykes, give them a ready and sympathetic hearing. Mr. Hykes, who never went beyond Manila, presumes to judge, in a few days or weeks, of the spiritual condition of six millions of Christians, and more than a thousand priests, scattered over the whole Philippine Archipelago. (See Appendix VI.) We are afraid that too many of the type of Mr. Hykes will be found among the new missionaries of the Philippines, coming in crowds, with their wives and children, to spread, forsooth, the pure light of the Gospel, or rather to engage in the more congenial task of vilifying the Catholic Church.

In an American Protestant missionary review, there is an article on the Philippines, by a former agent of the British and Foreign Bible Society in that country. The article, needless to say, is full of gross misrepresentations. It puts down the Christian population as seven million Romanists; the writer denies the ordinary title of Christian to Catholics. This emissary of the Bible Society writes: “The question now asked on all sides is—Are the Philippines at last to be opened to missionary effort? Personally, I feel that a non-sectarian, but strictly evangelical, mission, aiming at the Christianization of the whole territory, is what would succeed best.” We may gather from the whole tone of this Protestant missionary review what a low type of Protestantism it represents, a type largely made up of self-presumption, ignorance, and fanaticism. Throughout the paper Catholics are not once designated Christian. It speaks of the nineteenth century being the first century of Christian missions, ignoring all the apostolic work of the Catholic Church. It says in another place that there were no Christian Chinese at the beginning of this century, ignoring the hundreds of thousands of Chinese who have known and loved Jesus Christ since the days of St. Francis Xavier, numbers of whom sealed their faith with their blood. It divides the population of the country into pagans, Romanists, and Christians—the latter, of course, being Protestants of one denomination or another. To such absurd lengths does religious rancor bring it, and all connected with it. Catholics give the title of Christian to all who are baptized and profess belief in the Divinity of Jesus Christ. They would not deny it even to the Rev. Mr. Hykes, bad as he is. But perhaps our new missionary friends may be similar to those of whom Marshall speaks in his “Christian Missions,” who went out to evangelize the South Sea Islands, and taught the people that baptism was merely a ceremony not at all essential to salvation, thus showing their want of belief in baptismal regeneration. At any rate, it will be news to the Filipinos to hear for the first time from these enlightened men that they are not Christians.

That these Bible scatterers can and will do harm there is no doubt. Already they have flooded Porto Rico with tracts and pamphlets, crammed with the usual vile charges against the Catholic Church and her ministers. But it is equally certain that they will never succeed in making the Philippines a Protestant country. It is a matter of notoriety that Protestant missions are not overwhelmingly successful in any part of the world, and that the funds are kept up in most instances by glowing and rosy-colored, if not altogether accurate, reports, sent by the missionaries to their supporters at home. The review which I have just quoted is forced to acknowledge that in Brazil, after thirty-five years’ work, there are only eight thousand Protestants out of a population of sixteen millions. No less than eight American Protestant Missionary Societies have been working there together, well supplied with funds, as is always the case; and yet this is the result. In fact, eight thousand may not be the result at all, for the missionaries have, very often, peculiar methods in the science of statistics. In Mexico, too, they have been at work for many years unmolested by the authorities, and yet they have but wretched results to show for themselves at the present day. They make no impression either on the rich or the very poor; any successes they have being amongst the impecunious middle classes, the children of whom they teach gratuitously in their schools, and feed and clothe, and who carry away with them from these schools, as the principal result of the religious training they receive, a bitter hatred of the Church in which they were born. Just as in Mexico, so the Protestant missionaries are sure to make proselytes among the same classes in the Philippines, from which classes we know that the promoters of the rebellion have been mainly recruited; but the better classes and also the poorer, whatever their shortcomings, have the old Faith and are intensely devoted to the Catholic Church. These are no more likely than the people of Mexico and Brazil to be led to accept the mutilated form of Christianity which will be presented to them by Mr. Hykes and his friends; unless, indeed, there is such a deplorable dearth of priests that they will be left without instruction and guidance.

There are grave problems ahead which will tax the wisdom of the American Congress far more than the military occupation of the country. John Foreman, who spent some years there, and claims to be a Catholic, advocates (National Review, September, 1898) the disendowment of the Church as a necessary financial measure which would bring a certain amount of relief to the colonial treasury. With the exception of £3,000 a year paid to the Archbishop of Manila, and £1,500 to each of the three other bishops, it is difficult to see how the endowment comes in except as a measure adopted by every civilized State in dealing with its uncivilized subject races; and unless the United States is prepared to abandon the rÔle of civilizer, she will be obliged to keep up the paltry endowment made in the past by Spain for that purpose. The Church in the Philippines is, on the whole, self-supporting. She is in the position that the Church in France, Spain, and Portugal was before the Revolution, which, when it appeared successively in each country was followed by a seizure of ecclesiastical property. The salaries paid to the clergy in those countries are given as a compensation for past robberies. The writer has been at pains to get at the truth in this matter and has put himself in communication with a Dominican Friar, who lived for twenty-seven years in the Philippines, and now holds the distinguished position of Rector of the Spanish-Dominican College, in Rome. From him the writer has received the following information regarding the landed estates of the Friars, and the salaries paid to them by the Spanish Government. As far as he knows all these estates were acquired by purchase, and were not given by the Government; they hold the title-deeds of them in their possession. He is not prepared to say whether on their first introduction to the country, three centuries ago, the Government made them grants of land; but we ourselves may infer from the early history of the Dominicans there, that whatever they got was from the early Spanish colonists and the converted natives as free gifts. He adds that in any case the introduction of agriculture is due to their exertions. The Friars who ministered to the spiritual wants of the people may be placed in three categories. There were, first of all, the ordinary parish priest, who lived among a settled Catholic population. He subsisted on his benefice, which is not Government property, and was endowed by no subsidy from the Government. Secondly, there was the missionary parish priest, who lived in a parish where the majority are Catholics, but which also contained a proportion of the heathen. He received some salary from the Government, but much less than that given to the missionaries pure and simple, who lived in the midst of an entirely heathen population. These latter, whose business it was to civilize as well as convert the people to Christianity, and to teach them agriculture and the mechanical arts, were paid according as the mission district was large or small. In the large districts they received £200 annually, and £50 a year was paid to the native priests who acted as their assistants and curates. In the smaller districts the sum allowed was £100. The Jesuits, too, on their return to the Philippines some forty years ago, whence they had been banished in the middle of the last century, got an annual subsidy as compensation for the lands they formerly possessed, which had been confiscated by the Spanish Government of the day. Something also was given towards the education of young Franciscan missionaries, and they were allowed their passage out from Spain. The figures we have quoted are modest enough, seen in the light of modern colonial salaries and expenditure. A continuance of the very moderate subsidies allowed to the missionary Friars by the Spanish Government would no more mean a union between Church and State than did the “contract” system which was sanctioned by Congress up to 1894, for dealing with the education of the North American Indians. According to this system, both Catholic and Protestant missionaries were paid by Government according to the number of pupils who attended their schools, and these schools, of course, were taught on strictly denominational lines. That system had most beneficial results as long as it lasted, and was acceptable to the Indians. Its abandonment in favor of the public-school system has resulted in the crying injustice of compelling Catholic Indian fathers and mothers to send their children to certain schools to which they have a conscientious objection.1

The school question is one of the gravest problems that the American Government will be called upon to face when her troops have effectively occupied the Philippines. One of the cries of the rebel leaders is for the secularization of the schools, and this cry, emanating from infidel and secret society sources, will assuredly be echoed by the Protestant ministers. It was these latter who, seeing their ministrations rejected by the Indians, raised the agitation against the “contract” system.

It is a shame and a wonder to find professed ministers of religion joining in a cry with the professed destroyers of religion. Secularization of education is always the first cry among those who oppose the Catholic religion. According to the showing of Dr. Parsons, it was attempted and sometimes successfully carried out in Colombia, Chili, and Ecuador, in which latter country the bishops were banished because they protested against it. Yet in spite of the anti-Christian spirit, exhibited in this and in many other ways, Dr. Parsons makes it clear that the masonic lodges in Peru actually receive aid out of the funds supplied to Christianize (according to sectarian ideas) the natives by the Protestant American public.

The notorious ex-Indian commissioner Morgan, now a Baptist prophet, has already sounded a characteristically aggressive note on this point, and is conjuring the Government to drive the Catholic religion out of all the schools in Cuba, a movement already accomplished in the eastern part of the island. Morgan says: “Here is a field opened for the missionary spirit, such as the young people of our country have never yet seen. To carry thither and plant the seeds of civilization, and to do this in the joyful confidence that all official assistance is assured to them, will doubtlessly fill with enthusiasm hundreds of ambitious young teachers.” We may wonder what Morgan means by “official assistance” given for the spreading of Protestantism among a Catholic people, when, according to theory, the American Constitution does not support one form of religion over another. But theory is one thing and practice is another; and though in theory Church and State are entirely separate, the theory has not, in the past, hindered the United States from giving substantial assistance to Protestantism. This is how the case stands for America. Rightly or wrongly she has taken over an enormous Catholic population in the East. If she is not able to make any concession on the score of religion, or to stretch a point to meet the wishes of the people and govern them according to their ideas, then it is only consonant with reason and justice that her Constitution, which never contemplated colonial empire, will have to be modified to meet the exigencies of a situation unimagined by its original founders and makers. But, in reality, is any modification of the Constitution necessary in order that religious instruction may take place in the schools of the Archipelago? In Ireland there is no State Church, and yet the National School System is so arranged that religious instruction can be given for half an hour every day of the week. The system is in theory undenominational, but in practice denominational.

An early solution of the difficulty might be some such procedure as the following. Let the parish priests be managers of the schools, and have a voice in the appointment of properly certified masters and mistresses, and let a fixed time be devoted to religious instruction every day. If the Protestants succeed in attracting converts, and are able to gather a sufficient number of children in any place to form a school, they can receive the same treatment as regards payment and control of religious instruction. Thus religious dissension would be reduced to the minimum. Secularization of education would tend to drive every form of religion out of the people, for Protestantism could not hope to make headway for a long time in the Philippines; as, to say the least, it would take some years for the ministers to get a sufficient knowledge of the various languages in use, and establish themselves in face of the opposition they are sure to meet with. It would also put all the Friars in opposition to the Government, while fair treatment would make them its best friends, and urge them to keep the people as loyal to the American Constitution as they kept them to the Spanish Crown for three centuries.

If, then, the Government, after due inquiry, find that the vast majority of the people do not join in the cry for secularization, but desire to have the Catholic religion taught in the schools which their children attend, it would be nothing short of religious persecution to introduce the public schools system of the States into the Philippines. It is ever to be borne in mind that the new American possession in the Far East is one in which the great bulk of the people are practical Catholics who attend to all their religious duties.

To counteract the baleful influence of the Protestant missionary and Bible societies, it will be necessary for the Catholic Church in America to be alive to the new and grave responsibilities thus thrown upon her by the hand of Providence, and to send out English-speaking priests at once to the Philippines, to make up for the great dearth of priests caused by the excesses of the rebels. Before the rebellion they numbered between one and two thousand, a small number in comparison with the Catholic population. Fifty have been killed outright; many others have died of the hardships undergone in captivity; while several hundreds have left the country, apparently with no intention of returning. Every year till last year, bands of enthusiastic young missionaries used to go out from the colleges in Spain to fill up the gaps in the ranks of the Friars, caused by sickness and death. That perennial source of life and strength can no longer be relied upon under the new conditions. The energies of the Spanish Friars will most likely be expended in Spain itself, where the lack of priests is still severely felt, and in developing their great and flourishing missions in China, Japan, Tonquin, and Formosa.

It is a matter of astonishment that the Church in the United States has up to the present no organization for supplying foreign mission. Perhaps the struggle to keep abreast in numbers with the growing Catholic population has absorbed all her energies. But now, for the first time in her history, she must cast her eyes beyond her boundaries, and send speedy help to the millions of children who have been given to her keeping, and whose voice may be heard from across the wide ocean, calling to her for spiritual help and ministration. Let her gaze steadily and thoughtfully on the vast harvest of souls given unto her. She shall reap where others have sown and planted. Let her gird herself to the work, and go forth and gather with joy the good wheat that others—the poor Spanish missionaries—have sown in tears and cultivated through much tribulation.

A fact of interest in connection with the aspect of our subject under consideration is the challenge sent to Archbishop Ireland by an American Presbyterian of authority in his sect. He tells the Archbishop in effect that if the Catholic Church in the United States will undertake the missionary equipment of the Philippines, his sect will gladly withdraw from the field, and devote their efforts to Africa instead. Without attaching any more importance to this declaration than it deserves, especially as it is founded on the false assumption that one Gospel is preached by Catholic priests in Washington and another in Manila, we may, nevertheless, infer from it that these men believe they would have a much easier task in dealing with the Spanish missionaries than with Catholic missionaries from the States. Without saying anything in disparagement of the learning of a body of men which has produced a Gonzalez, one of the greatest philosophers of the century, we believe that American priests, being more in touch with modern times and more open to modern ideas, could give them valuable lessons in the conflict between the Church and the world, as it is carried on in our own days. It is not by profound theological arguments that we can deal with men who can neither understand nor appreciate them. Priests are wanted for the Philippines who can make their voices heard beyond its boundaries; who can mould public opinion by means of the daily Press; who can keep in touch with the politics and legislation of the United States; and can bring public opinion there to bear on unjust and unfair treatment, if anything of the kind is attempted against the Catholics of that unfortunate Archipelago.