The semi-weekly messenger. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1897-1908, 1899-06-16
MORAL EXPANSION.
a DIR. TALMAGE ON OUR DUTY IN
THE PHILIPPINE

DIR, TALMAGE ON our DUTY IN
THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS.
Leaving Political Questions TO the
statesmen. He Gives HIS Views OF
what We Should DO For Their Re.
Hgfous Welfare.
In this discourse DR.. Talmage steers
clear of the political entanglements OF
our time and recommends that which
will meet the appoval of all who hope
for the perpetuity Of our republic and
the welfare Of other lands; text: Gen
esis xviii, IA, Thou shalt spread
abroad to the west and to the east"
Since the Americano-Hispanic war is
concluded and the United States en-
bassador is on the way to Madrid and
the Spanish ambassador is on the way
to Washington the people of our coun-
try are divided into expansionists and
anti-expansionists. From a different
standpoint than that usually taken I
discuss this all absorbing theme. I cave
the political aspect of this subject to
statesmen and warriors and pray AL
mighty God that they may be enabled
rightly to settle the question whether
the islands in controversy shall be final
ly annexed or held under prOtectorate
OF resigned to themselves, while l call
attention to the fact that a campaign
tot moral and religious expansion ought
to be Immediately opened on W1dest
and grandest scale.
At the close of this war God has put
into the hands of this country the key
, TO the worlds redemption. Heretof re
the religious movement in pagan lands
had to precede the educational. After
in China and India and the Islands of
the sea the missionaries ave labored
over 80 or IS years the printing press
and the secular school came in. Now to
betted advantage than ever before re-
IigiOus and secular enlightenment may
go side by side, and so the work be &C
complished in short time and more
thoroughly. Starting with the fact that
in Cuba and Porto Rico and the Philip
pine islands at least three-fourths of
the people can neither read nor write,
what an opportunity for school and
printing press! Within five years every
man in those islands may be taught to
read not only the Bible, but the Declar-
alton of Independence and the consti-
tuition of the United States and the
biography of George Washington and
of Abraham Lincoln.
1t seems to me that the government
VI III CIIltu oldleS OuSIl ny NOLc OL
congress afford common schools n
printing presses to those b~enighted
regions. Our national legislature by one
vote appropriated $50, 900, 900 to give
bread and medicine to Cuba. Why not
by a similar generosity give $50, 00O,-
900 for feeding and healing the minds
and souls of those ignorant and besot-
ted archipelagOes. In the name of God I
nominate a school for every neighbor-
hood of Cuba, Porto Rico and the Phil
ippines. AS soon as the gaVel falls at II
o'clock on next December 4 on the ia
BILE of the senate and house Of repre-
sentatives and the roll has been called
and the preliminaries observed, let
some emb of our national legisla-
ture, with mind and soul and voice
strong enough to be heard not only
through those halls, but through Chris
tendon, propose a measure for the men
tai and moral observation-disclosures of the
islands in controversy.
What has made American civIliZa-
!. tiUn the highest civilization the world
has ever seen? Next to the Bible and
the church, schools, common schools,
schools reaching from the Atlantic to
the Tactic and from British America
TO gulf of NJ Xico. Five years under
such educational advantage, and this
whole subject that keeps our public
nen agitated, some of them to frOLhing
at the mouth. will settle itself. Give
those islands readers, spoilers, arithme-
tics, histories. bl2 "rdS, map ;N0C-
rapkies, globes Let the state < Sisla-
III es attheir next meeti1 s, some cf
them assembling in early autumn, AXE
parts OF these islands under their IS.
p.cIal rdut@ti, raj patron. ge. Wa: Is
needed is state and national a'!1:. IN
this matter 70 SChCO,s
WORK OF THE PRINTING PRESS.
Then let the editorial associations Of
the United States, as many of such
organizations as there are states, re-
solve at the next convocation to es-
tablish in every region of those Islands
a printing press, to be supported by PEG
pie of this country until it can become
self supporting. Each of these state
editorial associations sending out to
those islands at least one editor and
two reporters and enough typeSetters,
down will go the ignorance and super
Stition of those islands as certainly as
the Spanish fleet under Cervera sank
under the pounding of our American
battleShipS, and into their every part
will go intelligence and love of free
institutions as certainly as into the
harbor OF Manila went Admiral Dewey
on that famous night when he was not
expected. Hoes printing press! Moth
ing can stand before its bombardment
Editors of American newspapers and
publishers OF American bookSi TAX the
ordination for such a magnificent ser
vice. EiOQueHCo ON yO1OeT Cdp1UOl
Hill cannot meet the exigency. Epi-
grams of political platforms or in state
n legislatures will not hasten the desired
contamination one week or one hur
or one mOmen
When Cubans and Porto Ricans and
Filipinos see the morning and evening
thrown into the doorways
and hawked along the streets of Ha-
vana and Santiago and Manila, those
who cannot read by the force of curl
osity will learn to read, so that they
may know what information is being
scattered, and that which may be mis-
sionary effort at the start and carried
on by Americans sent forth to do the
work will soon be done by educated
natives. Porto Rican 'editors. Porte
Rican reporters! Porto Rican type
settlers. Porto Rican publishers: L
was a great mercy to take these island
from under the heels of despotism, bu
it will be a mightier mercy to emancl'
pate them from ignorance and degra'