The Columbia herald. [volume] (Columbia, Tenn.) 18??-1935, 1899-01-27

ton Advocate.
In campany with DR.. w. r. Lam
buth, r. v. H. W. Baker, DR.. {. All
Fulwood and my wife, | recently
visited Cnba--the nearest, nHediesL, |
ripe st mission field of our Church.
When. on his great voyage to the
West, Cuba broke upon Columbus
he SAID: 1t Is the most beautiful
island that eyes ever beheld, full Of
excel ent ports and profound rivers"
Speaking of a lovely scene in one of
its palm groves, he declared: "One
could live there forever"
If conditions were as when the
great admiral first looked upon "the
pearl of the Antilles" his words
would still aIdently but not inaccu-
rately speak the truth. But con-
dtI, ms have changed since the
Spaniard came.
A too prolonged application of
Spanish flies has well-nigh drawn
all the vitality out of the island.
rhe soil and the climate remain, be-
cause they were beyond the reach
of the Spanish theft.
An Impoverished, diminished,
mixed population still remains, de-
spite pestience, starvation, war,
and Capt. Gen. Weyler. A visitor
to the island finds proof clear and
unmistakable that Weyler intended
to carry to a finish IA policy of eX-
termination During his admins
tration | read the newspaper reports
of his atrocities, and discounted
them much, doubling that such
enormities could be practiced in the
nineteenth century by the represe' =
tative of any civilized government.
I even doubted that our Government
was keeping well within its inter-
national rights by Intervention.
My visit to Havana convinced me
that the horrible picture was not
overdrawn and that Americans did
not interpose too soon. Weyler was
the Duke of Alva in the nineteenth
century, and even now when one
stands in the streets of Havana and
witnesses the squalor, the disease,
and even death itself 1--WE saw the
dying on the streets), he feels as ii
he had been transported into the
midst of medieval ignorance and
distress.
1t Is difficult TO say who has
robbed these people most, the Span
ish officials or the Romish prlests.
II il had not been the most fertile
land Imaginable, the enormous drain
upon its resources would have eX
hausted it long ago. Yet it has had
periods of comparative prosperity,
and | predict when stable govern
ment has been established and tho
exhausting corruptiona have been
lac its, HxYr w
prise the world. American engi
neers are now laying out camps for
our troops and devising plans of i'm
proved sewerage and sanitation.
American surgeons are with them,
daring the foulest and most pest
lad en- filth, to give healIhful con
ditlous to this unhappy people, who
look to the coming Ut their deliver
/ ers as the fever stricken towns OF
! Mississippi locke d for the plague
destroying frost. And the people
of Cuba are looking ato our country
for nobler things than sanitation
and political deliverance. they
J want our Protestant religion. The
: Pope not less than the Queen he
t gent has lost the "everfalthful
. isle" True, it is said the Spanish
! officials are making over to the
Romish Church valuable govern
mental property, that Romanism
may have all Opulent income when
it is no longer a beneficiary of the
State treasury; but this will not
avail to save it. 1t has lost the PEG.
pie. And no wonder the people
turn away from such Church
They renounce it not alone because
it is identified with Spanish SOW
ereignty, which they abhor, but be-
cause it has its own enormous crimes
to answer for.
It One woman told my wife that al
confession it was drawn out of hel
that she was an insurgent, and with
the discovery she was cast into
Moro Castle, where she languIsheC
for months, subjected to outrages
which in any other land would have
brought death to her tormentors
She cannot forget.
A photographer was cast into
MORO Castle for making pictures o.
the cathedrals and paintings TO
some American periodicals. H'
e told members of our party that som'
of the richest treasures of art are be
ing surreptitiously sent away tt
Spain. AS he told af his expert
ences in the Moro his language wa
bitter beyond measure. He will no
forget.
None of the people can forget, TO
they have resentments which every
= Joy and every sorrow of their live
will feed. Their marriages anC
their funerals alike arouse thei
No hostility to their Church-onc,
theirs, but now renOunced forever.
Reading one morning the "Diari'
80 de laMarina," one of the dali.
papers, | observed in one of tn
M municipal reports of births, deaths
~ marriages, etc., that the marriage
were few and the legitimate birth
No not many, while the figures TO
ilIegitin.a es were large. | asked al
10 intelligent Cuban gentleman 20 eX
plain these statistics to me. Hi
explanation was that legitimacy o.
nv illegitimacy turned on the presence
'. or ABSENCE os ROmish rites at tn
y marriage ceremony, and that tn
priesthood put these rites out q
reach of the poor by their fees. Ii
like manner the poor are denied