St. Tammany farmer. [volume] (Covington, La.) 1874-current, 1899-07-08
FAVORS EXPANSION.
Dr.. Talmage Discusses an Absorb
ing Theme.
Points Out the Way for the Apaeri-
can People to Perform a Mighty
WOrk-A Splendid OPP
p0rtunIty.
Copyright, 1899. by Louis Klopsch.l

portunity.
copyright, 1899. by Louis Klopsch.l
Washington.
in this discourse DIR. Talmase steers
clear of the political entanglements of
our time and recommends that which
will meet the approval of all who hope
for the perpetuity of our republic and
the welfare of other lands; text, Gene
sis 2s:14: Thou shalt spread abroad
to the west and to the east"
Since the American-His war IL
concluded and the United States am
bassador is on the way to Madrid and
the Spanish ambassador 10 on the way
to Washington the people of our coun-
try are divided into expansionists and
anti-expansionists. From a different
standpoint from that usually taken
discuss this all-absorbing theme.
leave the political aspect of this subject
to statesmen and warriors and pray
Almighty God that they may be en-
abled to rightly settle the question
whether the islands in controversy shall
be finally annexed or held under pro-
tectorate, or resigned to themselves.
while l call attention to the fact that
a campaign of moral and religious ex-
pansion ought to be Immediately opened
on widest and grandest scale.
At the close of this war God has put
into the hands of this country the key
to the worlds redemption. Heretofore
the religious movement in pagan lands
had to precede the educational. After
in China and India and the islands of
the sea the missionaries have laborcd
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 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 Decla-
ration 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
Of the United States ought by vote of
congress afford common schools and
printing presses to those benighted
regions. Our national legislature by
one vote appropriated $50, COO, 900 to give
bread and medicine to Cuba. Why not
by similar generosity give $1,000, 900
for feeding and healing the minds and
souls of those ignorant and besotted
archipelagoes. In the name of God,
nominate a school for every neighbor-
hood of Cuba, Porto Rico and the Phil
ippines. AS soon as the gavel falls at
IL o'clock of next December 4 on the
table of senate and house of representa-
tives and the roll has been called and
the preliminaries observed let some
member of our national legislature,
with mind and soul and voice strong
enough to be heard not only through
those halls, but through Christendom.
proposeA measure for the mental and
moral disenthrallment of the islands
in controversy.
What has made American civiliza-
ton 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 Pacific, and from British America
to the gulf of Mexico. Five years un-
der such educational advantages and
the whole subject that keeps our public
men agitated, some of them to froth-
ing at the mouth, will settle itself. Give
those islands readers, spoilers, arith-
metics. histories, blackboards, maps,
biographies, globes. Let the state leg
islatures at their next meeting. some of
them assembling in early autumn, take
parts of those islands under their espe-
cial 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
carnations as there are states, resolve
at the next convocation to establish in
every region of those islands a 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 is
lands at least one editor and two report
ers and enough typesetters, down will
60 the ignorance and superstition of
those islands as certainly as the Span
ish feet under Crevera sank under the
pounding of our American battleships,
and into their every port will 60 intelli-
gence 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! Nothing can stand be-
fore its bombardment. Editors of
American newspapers and publishers
of American books! Take the ordina-
ton for such a magnificent service.
Eloquence on yonder Capitol hill can
not meet the exigency. Epigrams Of
political platforms or in state legisla-
lures will not hasten the desired con-
moment.
Still further. here is a wide open door
for Christianity. First of all, we have
the attention of those people. The
heather nations are for the most part
soporific. The American missionaries
heretofore had great difficulty in get
ting heathendom to listen. They ex-
cited some comment by their attire,
so different was the parting of the hair,
and the shape of the hat, and the cut
of the coat, and the formation of the
shoe of the evangelizers, but the ques-
tions constantly arose in regard to tho
missionary: "WhO is he?" "What is
be here for?" And then the interroga-
tor would relax into the previous stu
pid indifference. But that condition of
things has passed. The guns of our
American navy have awakened those
populations. They do not ask who we
are. They have found out. They are
now listening to what American eivili-