Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1901-08-22
IN RELIGIOUS WANT
The People of the Philippines Need
Missionaries.
DANGER OF RErROGRESSION
Withdrawal of State Support From
Church Opens the Way.
CATHOLIC OR PROTESTANT?
CATHOLIC OR PROTESTANT?

Philippines They will find plenty Of work
there all ready to their hands among the
nine millions Of natives who have now &C
copied American guidance, and they alone
win be able to watch and to understand
the religious movement which must by and
by commence in the islands. In the three
hundred years during which they MAIN
tanned in the islands an ascendancy, some
times Imperfect. sometimes most real, the
Spaniards contrived. partly by preaching,
partly by the use of influence as proprie-
tors Of the soil, and partly, We imagine. as
In South America, by direct compulsion, to
induce q majority Of the Inhabitants to
profess Christianity. What their original
creed was it is difficult to discover, but it
was apparently a worship of spirits, with
wide differences in every island, and. in
deed, In every division of the many tribes.
Whatever it was, it was given up, and
the people adopted rude form of Catholi-
cism. to which they stin ostensibly adhere.
At first, We fancy, the great orders to
whom the task of conversion was entrust-
ed, while they governed the people abso-
lutely, protected them as they did in Para
quay; but their agents gradually became
corrupt, sought only for gain, and were
so oppressive that all the leading inSur-
gents against Spanish rule came from their
estates. 1.-The friars'' were. in fact, so
hated that before the American invasion
ton: and, according to well-informed
correspondent Of the Times, one of Agui-
naldo's arguments to provoke the F1hpinos
to resist the Americans was that they
would be sure to restore the ascendancy of
the friars. This is better understood now;
the people are becoming aware that they
are free to believe as they please, and the
consequence Is that they are ceasing to
have any creed at all, or, to use the local
expression, are becoming sindifferents."
They do not openly throw off Catholicism.
they do not revert to ancient superstitionS,
which are probably not connected, as they
were In Mexico and Peru, with traditions
Of ancient freedom and prosperity. They
simply cease TO have any religion at all.
Remarkable Spectacle.
II this is correct, and 1t is asserted not
only by American observers, but by Span
ish Catholics as justification for the old
policy. we have the singular spectacle of
some millions Of Asiatics without donni-
nant faith, spectacle which Is not pre-
scented anywhere else In Asia, and which
it is difficult for those who know Asiatic
history to believe will endure for any time.
Asiatics. living always in presence of nat
ural forces almost too strong for them.
hab1tuated to expect cataclysmS, and al
ways apprehenslve Of the unknown, feel
more strongly than Europeans the necessity
OF protection by unseen protectors, Of a
system Of thought about the whence and
WHITTIER In short, Of faith; and this faith.
once formed is adopted by masses and be-
GENES dominant law. Now If the Philip
pine natives openly or secretly abandon
Catholicism. what faith will they adopt?
The pleasant answer would be, OF course,
that the American missionaries will con-
vert them, as they have in a way converted
the Hawaiians and some of the wilder
tribes of Burmah. They are very sincere.
they approach thu people very closely
learning their languages, for example. with
wonderful perseverance-and they are
sometimes more successful than British
missionaries. owing. We fancy, to greater
care In comprehending, and, so to speak,
meeting native ideaS. They may in half a
century or so succeed very greatly, and
make of the islanders Protestants Of a
kind, with a native passionate, and mode
Of life which will be at all events an imi-
tation Of the life accepted by Protestant
communities One dark race, the Abyssfn-
ian. 1t must not bs forgotten. Is Christian.
and though its Christianity Is of a low
type, has at intervals died for it in heaps.
That Is possible, and would be by far
the most hopeful, solution; but it Is not
certain one, and Is open to the objection
that amid such masses, and over so large
and disjointed an area, instruction must
be imperfect and that we might witness
the birth Of monstrous and evil heresies.
such as spring up in southern China-pro-
during. e. g., the Tapping movement
which might make the very name Of Chris
tianity suspected throughout the far east.
MahOmmedanfsm.
Another answer Is that the islanders
might adopt the Malay form of Mahomme-
danism - that is. a Mahommedanism In
which the tiercer side is always in the
front. Nobody who has studied the ques-
ton doubts the charm of that creed for all
Asiatics and negroes, It has armies of mis-
sionaries always at it's disposal and 1t is
already protested by a quarter Of mill
lion of Filipiaos. who call themselves
n OIL m Thnr
Is however, some check to Mahommedan.
ism in the islands The faith rather re-
cedes than advances, and though a Chris
tian village or two in South India has en-
braced Islam, a general movement from
one creed to the other Is improbable. 1t is
also conceivable that the Japanese, who
will WELD most influence in the islands
after the Americans, might introduce one
of their own creeds That however, Is I'M
likely, the Japanese being essentially secu-
larist. and the FiIininos of all descriptions
crossed with races In which there Is more
liability to dreamy superstftfons. The al
tentative is new creed, and should one
develop itself, It's genesis and progress will
be a matter Of extreme Intellectual inter-
est. We know much Of Asiatic creeds, but
scarcely anything of their origins. What
induced the people of India two thousand
years ago to believe that pedigree could
affect the relation of the soul to its Crea-
tor? Or what was the mental condition Of
the masses among whom the teaching of
Duddha or Of COnfuciuS must have spread
like wildfire, because it must have seemed
to them to satisfy some ideal? The birth
Of an absolutely new and effective faith
Is an occurrence which has not been WITT
messed for generations. but many of the
conditions which should precede one exist
In the Philippines. and II they yield fruit
the occurrence should not be neglected as
movements of the Asiatic mind usually
have been In Europe
No Parallel with America.
It may be said that the tanned" Indians
Of Spanish America have shown no palpa-
Bile disposition to relapse. though they are
free to do so, and are content to remain
ncminaIly Catholic; but that is only par
TALLY true. The few observers who have
ever broken through the wall OF retfcence
behind which the "Espaniolised' Indian
protects himself believe that he has a faith
alongside Of his thin Catholicism which he
sedulously concsals. and which still bears
some relation to his ancestral creed. An
American Indian, moreover, Is not an
Asiatic, with whom. as rule, his creed Is
matter OF life and death. which he will no
more conceal than &. Protestant cleric will
II will be years before anything definite
is known, and many readers of these words
viii suppose that we are merely dreaming;
but 1t is really possible that new Asiatic
faith may be self- developed In the Philip.
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