The Manning times. [volume] (Manning, Clarendon County, S.C.) 1884-current, 1899-06-14
Dr.. Talmage Discusses an Ab-
sorbing Theme.
POINTS OUT THE WAY
For the American People to Per-
form Mighty Work. They
Hold the Key TO TIE
Worlds Reden1ption.
Worlds Redemption.

will meet the approval Of ali who hope
for the perpetoity Of our republic and
the welfare of other lands; text, Genesis
xviii, II, Thou shalt spread abroad to
the west and to the east.
Since the Americano-Hispanic war IS
concluded and the United States embas
sador is on the way to Madrid and the
Spanish ambassador is on the way to
Washington the people Of our country
are divided into expansionists and anti
expansionists. From different stand
point from that usually taken | discuss
this all absorbing theme. | leave the
political aspect of this subject to states
men and warriors and pray Almighty
God that they may Be enabled to right
ly settle the question whether the IS
lands in controversy shall be finally an
nexed, or held under protectorate. or
resigned to themselves, while call at.
tention to the fact that campaign OF
moral and religious expansion ought to
be Immediately opened on widest and
gcandest scale.
At the close of this war God has put
into the hands Of this country the key
to the world Is redemption. Heretofore
the religious movement in pagan lands
had to precede the educational. After
in China and India and the islands CT
the sea the missionaries have labored
over so or IS years the printing press
and the secular school came in. Now
to better advantage than ever before
religious and secular enlightenment
may go side by side, and so the work
be accomplished in short time and more
thoroughly. Starting with the fact
that in Cuba and Porto Rico and the
Philippine 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
taug BIT to read not only the Bible, but
the Declaration of Independence and
the constitution Of the United States
and the biography Of George Washing
ton and Of Abraham Lincoln.
It seems to me that the government
Of the United States ought by vote OF
congress afford common schools and
printing presses to those benighteo re-
gions. Our national legislature by one
vote appropriated $50: 900, 900 to give
bread and medicine to Cuba. Why not
by similar generosity give $50, 900, OOO
for feeding and healing the minds and
souls of those ignorant and besotted
a-chipelagoes. In the name of God, |
nominate school for every neighbor-
hood of Cuba, Porto Rico and the Phi
ippines. AS soon as the gavel falls at
y o'clock Of next Dec. on the table
Of senate and house Of representatives
and the roll has been called and the
preliminaries observed let some mem
ber Of our national legislature, with
mind and soul and voice strong enough
to be heard not only through those halls,
but through Christendom, propose a
measure for the mental and moral dis
enthrallment of the islands in contro;
Versy,
Whist has made American civilization
the highest civilization the world has
ever seen? Next to the Bible and the
church, schools, common schools,
schools reaching from the Atlantic to
Pacific, and from British America to
the gulf Of Mexico. Five years under
such educational advantages and the
whole subject that keeps our public
men agitated, some of them to frothing
at the mouth; will settle itself. Give
those islands readers, spoilers, arithme-
tics, histories, blackboards, maps,
biographies. globes. Let the state
legislatures at their next meeting, some
Of them assembling in early autumn,
take parts of those islands under their
especial educational patronage. What
is needed is state and national action
in this matter OF schools.
Then let the editorial associations Of
the United States, as many Of such or
ganizations as there are states, resolve
at the next convocatioD to establish in
every region Of those islands printing
press, to be supported by people OF this
country until it can become self sup
porting. Each Of these state editorial
associations sending out to those Islands
at least one editor and two reporters and
cough typesetters, down will go the ig-
norance and superstition Of those IS
lands as certainly as the Spanish feet
under Cervera sank under the pounding
of our American battleships, and into
their every port will go intelligence and
love of free institutions as certainly as
into the harbor Of Manila went Ad-
miral Dewey on that famous night when
he was not expected. Hoes printing
press! Nothing can stand before It's
bombardment. Editors Of American
newspapers and publishers Of Ameri-
can books! Take the ordination for
such a magnificent service. EloQuence
on yonder Capitol hill cannot meet the
exigency. Epigrams of political plat
forms or in state legislatures will not
hasten the desired consummatlon one
week or one hour or one moment:
When Cubans and Porto Ricans and
Filipinos see the morning and evening
newspapers thrown into the doorWays
and hawked along the streets of Havana
and Santiago and Manila, those who
cannot read by the force Of curiosity
will learn to read so that they may know
what information is being scattered,
and that which may be missionary CT
fort at the start and carried on by
Americans sent forth to do the work
will soon be done by educated natives.
Porto Rican editors! Porto Rican re-
porters! Porto Rican typesetters.
Porto Rican publishers! It was great
mercy to take those islands from under
the heels Of despotism, but it Will bea
mightier mercy to emancipate them
from ignorance and degradation. The
expansion Of the knowledge and intellec-
tual qualification Of all those islandy
.o-;o,e &c +ba Ioe;ra of oil intaliipent