Akron daily Democrat. [volume] (Akron, Ohio) 1892-1902, 1899-06-09
senates.


dwarfed and diseased illiterates-the
day cometh when those regions will
have a Christian civilization equal to
that which this country now enjoys,
while hope by that time this country
will be as superior TO what it now is
as today Washington and New York
ale better than Manila and Santiago
Do you see by this process of gospelized
intelligence those archipelagoes will as
nation be protected from the two
woes prophesied in regard to this coun-
try-the one woe prophesied by the ex-
pansionists and the other woe proph-
esied by the antiexpansionists? 1t is
said by those who would have us take
all we can lay our hands on as nation
that, unless we enter the door now
open for the enlargement of our ma
tional domain, we will decline the mis-
sion which God in his providence has
assigned rs. But surely no woe will
come upon us or upon them if we
ChristianiZe them as we now have the
opportunity of doing. The political
technicalities are nothing as compared
with the importance of this movement.
| implore all political expansionists to
augment US in this work of moral and
religions expansion, for unless those
islands are moralized and elevated in
intelligence and habits we do not want
them, and their annexation would be
political damnation. On the other hand
| implore all antiexpansionists to take
a hand in the gospelization of Cuba,
Porto Rico and the Philippine Islands
The only way to prepare them to take
care of themselves is to give them the
| Ten Commandments that were pub
| lished on Mount Sinai and let them
hear the groan of sacrifice that was
breathed out on the heights of Golgotha.
What they most want is the gospel, the
pure gospel the omnipotent gospel, the
gospel that helps heal the wounds of the
body and iziates the darkness of the
mind and lives the ransom of the
soul
One Platform For All.
But on this platform the so called ex-
pansionists and SO called antiexpan-
sionists will yet stand side by side;
Though | am not prophet or the sen
cf prophet, within five years, if this
religio-e educational work is properly at
tended to, there will be Cuban re-
public, Porto Rican republic and
Philippine republic, none of them on
large scale, but they will all have their
schools and printing presses and evan
gelical churches, their presidents, their
&c 10
their mayors and their consta bularies,
and as good order will be observed in
their cities as now reigns on Pennsyl-
vania avenue, Washington, or Broad
way, New York
Christ has started for the conquest of
the nations, and nothing on earth or
in hell can stop it. The continents are
rapidly rolling into his dominion, and
why not these islands, which for the
most part are only fragments broken off
from continents, the interval lands
having been sunk by earthquakes, al
lowing the ocean to take mastery over
themi Each mother continent has
around it whole family of little con-
tinents. If the continents are being so
rapidly evangelical, why not the is
lands? If America, why not Cuba and
the Bahamas? If Asia, why not the
Philippines and the Moluccas? If Eu-
rope, why not the Azores and the Ork-
neys? If Africa, why not Madagascar
and st. Helena? The same power that
broke them off the mainland can lift
them into evangelization.
In the old book, which has become
a new book by reason of modern discov-
cries. especial attention is called to the
islands. Declare the Lords praise in
the islands, commands Isaiah. "Let
the multitudes of the islands be glad
thereof, - says the psalmist. "All the
islands of the heather shall worship
him, writes Zephaniah "He shall
turn his face to the islands, prophesies
Daniel 1.-The inhabitants of the isles
shall be astonished at thee " foretells |
Ezekiel ''Hear it and declare it to the
islands afar off, )" exclaims jeremiah.
You see from this the islands are not .
to be neglected. Perhaps they are the
Lords favorites, as in households, if .
there is any favoritism at all, it is for
the weakest The islands, too small to
take care of themselves, have the eter-
nal God to take care of them. Let ma
tions look out how they tread on the
islands, however small and weak, for
they are omnipotently defended. They
may not be able to marshal large ar
mics or to send out natives to sweep
the sea, but, better than that, they have
the chariots of heaven on their side and
the drawn swords of the Almighty. |
have as much faith in the salvation Of
the smallest island of the Falklands, of
the Canaries, of the Ladrones, of the
Carolines, of the Fijis, of the Barba-
does, of the Cape Verdes, of the Society
islands, as l have in the salvation of
America.
The continents themselves are only
larger islands, and the world in which
we live is only still larger island, and
the solar system is group of islands,
and the universe is an archipelago stud
ded with islands of worlds, surrounded
by the great ocean of infnitude and
immensity. So you see when God plan
ned the universe he diagrammed it into
islands, and he will look after the in
terest of each of those islands, however
small, and England and Holland and
France and Germany and America
must not treat the smallest and weak
est island that comes under their sway
any different from the way they treat
the strongest nation of all the earth.
God may chiefly deal with individuals
in the next world but he deals with