Peninsula enterprise. [volume] (Accomac, Va.) 1881-1965, 1899-06-09

fellows and Bryants, capable OF pdttlng
their hills and theirrivcrs and their land
scapes into POEMS and their Bancrofts
and Prescotts. to make their Histories;
md their Irvings, to write their Sketch
Books; and their Charles O'Conors
and Rufus Choates. to plead in their
courtrooms: and their Daniel Websters
and John J. Crittendens. to move their
senates.
The day cometh-hear it all ye who
have no hope for those islands of be-
dwarfed and diseased illiterates-the
day cometh when those regions will
have 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
are 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 e1-
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
omen for the enlargement of our ma
tional domain, we will decline the mig
sion which God in his providence has
assigned ue But surely no woe will
come upon us or upon them If we
Christanize 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 rs in this work of moral and
religious 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
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 irradiates the darkness OF the
mind and achieves the ransom of the
soul
One Platform For All.
But on this platform the so called ex-
pansionists and so called antie1pan-
sionists will yet stand side by side.
Though l am not prophet or the scn
CT prophet, within five years, if this
religio- educational work is properly at
tended to. there will be Cuban re-
public, Porto Rican republic and a
Philippine republic, none of them on o
large scale, but they will all have their
schools and printing presses and evan
gelical churches, their presidents, their
senates and house of representatives,
their mayors and their constabularies,
and as good order will be observed in
their cities az 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 OH
from continents, the interval lands
having been sunk by earthquakes, al
lowing the ocean TO take mastery over
them? Each mother continent has
around it whole family of little con-
tinents If the continents are being SO
rapidly evangelical, why not the IS
landsY If America. why not Cuba and
the Bahamas? If Asia, why not the
Philippines and the Moluccas2 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 hit
them into evangelization.
In the old book, which has become
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 IF 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 favcrites, 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 onlnipotently defended. They
NAV not be able to marshal large ar
mics or to send out natives to sweep
the sea, but, better than that they have
the cbariots of heaven on their side and
the drawn swords of the Almighty. !
nave as much faith in the salvation OF
the smallest island of the Falklands, OF
the Canaries, of the LadroDes, 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 a 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
immensely 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