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"We possess fuller accounts of the Dominicans, who are occupied in converting to Christianity the Alimis, Apayaos, Aripas, Buayas, Bumanguis, Bungians, Calauas, Calingas, Catalangans, Dadayags, Gaddans, Ibibalons, Ibilaos, and Ilongotes, Ipiutys, Isinays, Mayoyaos, Guiangans, and other Ifuagao races. In the missionary review, Correo Sino-Anamito, we find numerous descriptions of popular manners and customs. Some of these, particularly those written by Fathers Villaverde, Buenaventura, Campa, Malumbres, Ruis, and Ferrando, I have already in part made more generally known in these proceedings. The review also publishes occasional sketches, and especially such as throw light on the river-system of North Luzon, the valley of the Rio Grande de Cagayan. The results of their strictly missionary labors are very fruitful.

"But however successful the evangelical and scientific activity of the missionaries of the above Orders, they are far surpassed by what the Jesuits have done in the island of Mindanaoin, in half a generation, for the spread of Christianity and civilization, as well as for the geographical exploration of the second largest island of the Archipelago. When they arrived they found a Christian population only on the east and north coasts, and in a few isolated spots on the other coast regions, such as Zamboanga, Pollok, Cottabatto Davao, and Pundaguitan; and these were mostly Bisayos, with a few Bukidnons, Mandayas, Manabos, and Subanos. In the interior the Spanish Christian settlements along the Macajalas Bay reached only as far as the upper course of the Rio Tagoloan; on the Agusan, from the lake region at Linao to its mouth near Butuan, only two villages, Bunauan and Talacogon. All that was then known of the interior of Mindanao was the Lanao Lake, the lower course of the Pulangin or Rio Grande from its mouth to Lahabay, and the lake region belonging to the river of Ligauasan or Buluan. Of the tribes over and above the Bisayas and Moros , only the Mandayas, Manobos, Subanos, and Budkidnon were known by little more than name, but scarcely mentioned in contemporary literature. Of the rest, except the Tirurayes, scarce the name was known. Of the Atas, Tagabawas, Dulangans, Tagabelis, etc., even the names were unknown.

"How changed since then! The network of rivers in the great island is now very well known; whilst the legendary lake in the centre of the island, whence the Rio Grande was said to flow, and from which the whole island was supposed to derive its name, has now happily disappeared from our maps. In numerous sketches and maps the missionaries have recorded the results of their geographical explorations and discoveries. The manners and customs of the heathen tribes have been fully described by the Jesuits. It has, therefore, always been for me the greatest pleasure to communicate the results of the researches of these Philippine missionaries to wider scientific circles.

"The Jesuits can also point to very great results in their evangelical labors. Most of the heathen tribes are now entirely or in part converted to Christianity, or have at least settled round their missions. Even a tribe so obstinately refractory to civilization, owing to their unsettled and wandering life, as the Mamanuas can already point to Christian villages. But the greatest success of the Jesuits has been in bringing a considerable number of the Moros on the Gulf of Davao to embrace Christianity. When it is remembered how rare a thing it is to induce a Mohammedan to be baptized, it must be especially noted that here not a few isolated Moros living among Christians have abjured Islam, but that the Moros converted to Christianity are so numerous that, as they can no longer live among their former co-religionists, they have been allowed to build their separate villages in the region of the Rio Davao. In 1895 the status of the Jesuit missions was as follows: 213,065 souls, 17,608 baptisms of children of Christian parents, 2,973 marriages, 7,215 funerals, 8,238 baptisms of converted heathen.

"In the article 'Die Katholischen Missionen,' Oscar Hecht gives the number of Christians in the Philippines as 3,500,000. This is incorrect. The flocks of the different Orders were as follows:--

It is difficult to estimate the number of heathens and Mohammedans; they cannot be under 500,000, nor can they exceed a million."

Any account of the work of the Religious Orders in the islands would be certainly incomplete if particular mention of their efforts in behalf of education were omitted. These efforts were systematically carried out until interrupted by the recent rebellion. The briefest and most summary mention of what each of the Orders has done, however, is all that may be attempted within the necessary narrow limits of this volumes.

COURSE OF STUDIES.

The Faculty of Theology and Canon Law has the following courses of lectures:--

The eight lecturers in this faculty were Dominicans. There were thirty students.

FACULTY OF JURISPRUDENCE.

There were six Dominican and nine other professors teaching in this faculty. The students numbered 405.

FACULTY OF LAW.

In this faculty one Dominican and eleven other professors lectured. There were 60 students.

FACULTY OF MEDICINE.

Three Dominican and thirteen other professors lectured in this faculty. There were 277 students.

FACULTY OF PHARMACY.

There were 89 students. In the schools of practical pharmacy there were 216 students. Three Dominicans, who lectured on Chemistry, Zo?logy, Mineralogy, and Botany, and seven other professors taught in this faculty.

This is the higher education which has been given to the natives for more than two centuries. Is it not something to admire? Can England point back to anything equal to it in the history of her own colonies? Did England in the last century do anything for the material or spiritual advancement of the North American Indians? Did the United States do anything for them till within recent years? Both governments folded their arms while the Indians were being driven before the face of the white settlers; and during the two centuries that the policy of extinction was being carried out on the North American continent the Spanish missionaries were giving the natives of the Philippines all the benefits of higher education. The contrast is instructive, and places Spain on a far higher plane as a colonizer than her quondam rival.

Besides imparting higher education in the University, the Dominicans gave secondary education in two colleges in Manila, to some hundreds of scholars, one principally devoted to a classical education, and the other suited to those intending to engage in a mercantile career. Besides these they had colleges in the towns of Cebu, Jaro, Nueva, Caceres, Dagupan, and Vigan.

"The observatory comprises four departments,--the meteorological, seismological, magnetic, and astronomical. Each department has its special director, and a general director is at the head of the whole establishment. The meteorological section, provided with the very best instruments, is the most important of the four, on account of its practical usefulness to shipping interests. It is in regular communication with more than a hundred observatories in all parts of the world. Twice every day it receives by cable the meteorological observations made at the stations of Nagasaki, Tokio, Kabe , Shanghai, Amoy, Hong Kong , Haiphong , the Island of Formosa, and elsewhere along the coast. Hence the forecasting of typhoons and cyclones is greatly facilitated, and enjoys the confidence of all those that sail the Chinese seas. Many of the instruments used at the observatory are due to the inventive genius of Father Faura, who was also the first to announce typhoons with certainty, and to discover the laws which regulate their formation and path. He is the inventor of a peculiar kind of barometer, which enables any sailor, even if he knows nothing whatever about meteorology, to foresee the approach of storms, and to guard against them.

"Next in importance to the meteorological department is the seismological or earthquake section of the observatory, which is rendering great services to a region so much exposed to earthquakes as the Philippines are. This section is likewise equipped with a remarkably fine apparatus, many of the instruments having been built or improved by Father Faura. For many years Father Miguel Saderra Maso has been in charge of this section, which he has made famous by his learned work, "Seismology in the Philippines," published in 1895. Father Cirera's work, "Terrestrial Magnetism in the Philippines," is also well known in the learned world.

"The splendid achievements of the Manila observatory found their due meed of appreciation and praise in the congress of scientists at the World's Fair, where the institution was represented by Fathers Algerie and Faura, who came at that time to this country, and spent some months at Georgetown College.

"Father Faura died in January, 1897. His death was that of a martyr of charity. During his sickness, Ryzal , one of the insurgent leaders, had been captured, and condemned to be shot within twenty-four hours. The prisoner was placed in the Chapel of the Passion, and was offered the spiritual ministration of the Jesuit Fathers. But he peremptorily refused to see a priest on the plea that he was a Protestant. Several of the fathers had already been repelled, when Father Faura, who had formerly been Ryzal's professor at Manila, rising from his bed of sickness, made a last effort to convert the unfortunate man. Though at first repelled like the rest, he was at last admitted by Ryzal; and after arguing and pleading with him for a long time, he had the happiness of bringing him to repentance, and restoring him to the Catholic Church. The condemned man made a sincere confession, heard Mass, received Holy Communion, begged pardon for his errors, and exhorted others to renounce all connection with Freemasonry. His conversion was entire, and his death that of a fervent Christian. The effort to bring about this conversion, however, cost Father Faura his own life. Worn out and prostrated by the interview, he was led back to his bed to die. The conversion of his former pupil was the last apostolic act of Father Faura, and the crowning of a life of great usefulness in the service of religion and of science."

The sons of St. Ignatius also direct the Municipal Academy of which English correspondents have spoken in terms of high praise.

The Augustinians also conducted a splendid orphanage and industrial school at Tambohn, about a league from Manila. In this establishment 145 boys were taught the following trades : Compositors, 13; press-work, 12; bookbinders, 30; gilders, 3; candle-makers, 43; together with forty-four others too young to be trained.

Scattered through the various islands are the posts or residences, where the fathers of the various Orders devote themselves to the "nuevos Christianos," as they are called, or latter-day converts from Paganism. This zealous work of conversion has never ceased from the time of the conquest, and the Christian population has been steadily on the increase till our own times. The recent traveller, whom we quoted at the beginning, came in contact a good deal with the Dominicans during his stay in the Philippines, visiting several of their outlying stations, and receiving everywhere the greatest kindness and hospitality from them. He says: "Everywhere you enter the monastery as though it was your own, eat and drink unstintedly, and sleep, and depart with thanks and a cordial God-speed from the fathers, and naught to pay for the entertainment." Alas! the good fathers did not know the viper they were nursing. Pity they could not recognize in the smiling Englishman who so readily accepted their hospitality, and "paid naught for the entertainment," the man who would speak of them as dirty monks, who would consider it worthy of sneering record that they did not shave when on board ship, and who, though not able to discover any evil himself, would repeat gross calumnies about them, got from hearsay. What he saw with his own eyes belies his wicked innuendos. He says: "It was plain that they cared naught for the fretting of the world. In many a dismal place, even in the remotest spots, I found the clusters of monastic exiles perfectly happy--the outer world dead, or too far away--craving for no other fate. They are enchanted to welcome and give you of their best; will even, if struggling overland, lend a vehicle or a ridinghorse to convey you to the next convent on the way. Cheery, kindly, simple people, practical sermons on 'Content.' The monks of Ramblon, a dozen or so all told, were delighted to show us all that was to be seen. A homely little church was duly exhibited, built of a local wood, which cuts into planks of extreme width, adorned with a grain which is brought out with wax and oil. The columns were of solid ebony, the floor of four marbles, white, gray, black, and brown. All these were the products of this little island." A fair-minded man would have duly attributed their joy of mind and kindness to strangers to religious feeling,--to the love of God, for whose sake these Spanish missionaries had given up father and mother, friends and worldly prospects, to spend their lives, year in and year out, without hope of earthly reward, in these spots, dismal enough to the ordinary tourist, but to them bright and cheery, as they were the posts alloted to them by Divine Providence for the extension of the Kingdom of Jesus Christ.

"The provincial stations," he says in another place, "are in reality governed by the priests." How could it be otherwise? With a government notoriously weak and inefficient, with lay officials notoriously corrupt, unwilling to exile themselves in these parts remote from civilization, unwilling to condescend to learn the many various dialects in use in the Archipelago, no wonder that the missionary living in the midst of the people to whom he had devoted his life, and who looked up to him as a father, exercised a sort of parental authority over them. This was done both in the interest of the civil government and of the natives themselves. The governors utilized the authority of the missionaries as long as it suited their purpose; when, on the other hand, the missionaries had to oppose extortion and unjust treatment, the officials started the cry that the missionaries were ruling the Archipelago. About those gentlemen Thomas Comin wrote in 1810:

"In order to be a chief of a province in these islands no training, or knowledge, or special service is necessary. It is quite a common thing to see a barber, a Governor's lackey, a sailor, or a deserter suddenly transformed into an Alcalde, Administrator, and Captain of the Forces of a populous province, with no counsellor but his rude understanding, and no guide but his passions."

Here are some edifying facts concerning Spanish officials in the Philippines. In five years Governor-General Manuel de Arandia amassed a quarter of a million dollars; a successor of Arandia, within the last few years, is reported to have made 0,000 in a single year; while another is commonly said to have placed millions to his credit during a short term of office. Men talk openly in Manila of bribing judges to put cases off and off. Little wonder, then, that, with such a state of rottenness, bribery, and corruption obtaining, the missionaries on the remote stations have, in the interests of the people, looked after their worldly affairs.

The missionary zeal of the Jesuits carried them even to Mindanao, an island so inaccessible by reason of its mountains and volcanoes, its impenetrable jungle, its unnavigable rivers infested with alligators and pirates, its fierce and savage inhabitants always at war with one another, that the Spanish Government exercised only nominal sovereignty over it, and was not ever able even to get its interior surveyed. When the Jesuits came there some years ago they found a Christian population only on the east and north coasts, and in a few isolated spots of the other coast regions. Of the interior tribes many were known only by name. Owing to the zeal of these fathers, not only in missionary enterprise, but also in geographical and ethnographical exploration, the network of rivers in the great island is now very well known, the fathers having recorded the results of their explorations in numerous sketches and maps. They have also fully described the manners and customs of the heathen tribes. As an instance of the savagery of the Mindanayas, for the most part fanatical Moros or Mohammedans, it may be mentioned that head-hunting seemed till lately to be the great object of their existence. The man who had chopped off sixty heads was entitled to wear a scarlet turban for the rest of his mortal life, and scarlet turbans are still far from uncommon among them. As there was an inordinate desire among the doughty and dusky warriors to wear these turbans, it follows that the population was being gradually but surely thinned out. Yet even here, on the sea-coast of Mindanao, the Jesuits established their stations, living in the midst of their small flocks, with their lives in their hands, in close proximity to pirates, savage alligators, and still more savage scarlet turbans.

The correspondent of the Daily Telegraph blames the missionaries for not teaching the elements of the Christian doctrine in Spanish to the natives, contrary, as he says, to an express law, of which they have been continually reminded by the Governor.

The reason, to which he ascribes their conduct is, that they are afraid that if the people were able to read Spanish books and newspapers they might come to know too much. Any argument, however absurd it may be, is evidently good enough, in the eyes of these writers, for use against priests. They are well enough acquainted with the ways of the Spanish officialdom to know that that law is a piece of blatant stupidity, devised by Spanish officials too arrogant or lazy or indifferent to learn the native languages themselves. Picture to yourself, if you can, the missionaries scattered over that vast archipelago, among a people comprising several millions, and speaking thirty different languages and dialects, attempting to teach the catechism in Spanish to their flocks. The supposition becomes still more absurd when we reflect that the Spanish element in the colony does not exceed eight or nine thousand gathered in and about Manila and a few other large towns. The missionaries devote themselves so thoroughly to their flocks, and identify themselves so completely with them, that instead of being able to teach them Spanish they are in danger, in some instances, of forgetting it themselves. Wingfield came across a Dominican missionary who apologized for his bad Spanish, on the ground that having lived continuously for eighteen years with the natives, speaking Visaya the whole time, he had almost forgotten his own tongue. Our experience in Ireland, even at the present time, is that in Irish-speaking districts, those children who are taught their catechism in the native tongue, though they may know English, have a far firmer grasp of the Christian doctrine than those who have been taught it in English. This fact alone shows the patent absurdity of the law quoted with such assurance by the correspondent of the Daily Telegraph.

THE CHARGES MADE AGAINST THE RELIGIOUS ORDERS CONSIDERED.

In 1896 we heard of a rising in the remoter parts of the Philippines. It was represented by the Spanish authorities, who at the time controlled the news, as of no moment,--an insurrectionary movement that they could easily cope with. Yet it continued, and seemed to wax strong; and, from rumors which began to circulate about the murdering of monks and friars, we began to feel that the insurrection was of no ordinary or commonplace nature. It seemed to be directed against the Church, and to be animated by a deadly spirit of hostility to the representatives of Religion. It was, of course, impossible at the time to form an opinion as to the cause of the insurrection, from the isolated facts which were allowed to come under the notice of the public. Now, however, the mists have cleared away; and we hope to be able to prove in the course of this inquiry that the insurrection was a premeditated and deliberate attack made upon the Church by a native secret society which was affiliated to, and adopted the methods of, that type of Freemasonry which gave the Carbonari to Italy and the Jacobins to France; a type whose disastrous work has been so much in evidence in South and Central America. It has unfortunately been busily at work for the last thirty or forty years, indoctrinating the simple natives of the Philippines with the modern watchwords of "Liberty, Equality, Fraternity,"--liberty meaning in this case, license, anarchy, cruelty, bloodshed; equality, the confiscation of property; and fraternity, an impious combination against all opposed to their designs. And foremost amongst these were undoubtedly from the very first the friars, spiritual guides of nearly six millions of native Christians, who, in consequence of their opposition, drew upon themselves the bitter hatred of the members of the Craft. It thus happened that the friars found themselves denounced and vilified in Spanish newspapers, in circular letters issued at Madrid, in speeches at the lodges and clubs, and in the Cortes. The grossest calumnies the foulest lies, were industriously circulated, to lower their prestige, and bring about a downfall of that spiritual power they had justly acquired, and were exercising for the good of souls. Nothing was known of the struggle in these countries until the Spanish-American war brought the Philippines into prominence before the English-speaking world. Then the echoes of the struggle began to reach our ears. Unfortunately for the friars, the sympathies of the world were sought, and sought successfully, to be enlisted on the side of the secret societies, or insurgents, who in this instance were for the most part one and the same. The news sources were shrewdly manipulated by astute conspirators to foster their own purposes; on the Philippine question, world-wide circulation was given to false and calumnious reports and interviews with leaders of the insurrection, full of virulent ex parte statements, while no exposition of views has been sought for from any representative of the friars. As an instance of the unreliability of these interviews, circulated through such justly suspected channels, we give the following. The correspondent of the Daily Telegraph sent, a few months ago, through "Reuter's Special Service," an interview he had with Dr. Nozaleda, the Archbishop of Manila, who, by the way, is a Dominican. From this interview it would appear that the Archbishop is opposed to the friars. He is made to say: "The religious Orders must go. That is undeniable, because the whole people are determined on their abolition, and are now able to render their retention impossible."

His Grace is also made to blame the Orders for causing dissensions, and thus increasing the disfavor with which they are regarded. The correspondent adds that he heard privately from a native priest that the reason the Archbishop hopes for the expulsion of the religious Orders is that the friars have grown too strong for him, and that he expects by getting rid of them to increase his own authority. Now, apart from the fact that the Archbishop is a member of a religious Order himself, a fact worth a dozen arguments, we may dismiss the whole interview as unreliable, since very recently the Archbishop delivered himself, to a representative of the Chicago Record, of quite opposite sentiments.

Mr. Halstead made a special journey to Manila to study the situation. He was most favorably impressed by the Archbishop, whom he has undertaken to vindicate before the people of America. One paragraph from his interview with the Spanish prelate is of special interest at the present moment: "When asked what it was that caused the insurgents to be so ferocious against the priests, and resolved on their expulsion or destruction, he said the rebels were at once false, unjust, and ungrateful. They had been lifted from savagery by Catholic teachers, who had not only been educators in the schools but teachers in the fields. The Catholic orders that were singled out for special punishment had planted in the islands the very industries that were the sources of prosperity; and the leaders of the insurgents had been largely educated by the very men whom now they persecuted. Some of the persecutors had been in Europe, and became revolutionists in the sense of promoting disorder as anarchists. It was the antagonism of the Church to murderous anarchy that aroused the insurgents of the Philippines to become the deadly enemies of priests and religious orders. It was true that in Spain, as in the Philippines, the anarchists were particularly inflamed against the Church."

Prominence was given last year, in some of the English newspapers, to statements made by a certain Se?or S. C. Valdes, a Filipino, who managed to have an interview sent to the papers, through "Reuter's Special Foreign Agency," that unfortunately met with a degree of credence on the part of uninformed persons. It is instructive to analyze some of the statements of this gentleman, and compare them with statements made for a similar purpose by other correspondents.

Desiring to prove that the inhabitants of the Philippines are not naked savages, he says: "The inhabitants of the groups of Luzon, the Viscayas, and the coast of Mindanao are very advanced in their education. Seventy-five per cent of them can read and write. There are many native lawyers, doctors, chemists, members of the military and scientific corps, naval and land architects, merchants, naval officers, engineers, and also clever and competent secular priests." We believe Se?or Valdes. In spite of what he says a little further on about numbers of them going abroad for their education, we will refer our readers to the last chapter, in which we showed that it is owing to the friars, who have all the primary, secondary, and higher education in their hands, that the people are so advanced in education; and as regards the native lawyers and other professional men, we refer them to the official reports we have given of Manila University, with its two thousand students, carried on by the Dominicans. As to Mindanao, what the Jesuits have done there can also be referred to. Valdes speaks of "clever and competent secular priests," having no word of praise for the religious; and yet the higher education of the secular clergy is entirely in their hands.

After this eulogium of his own people by Se?or Valdes, is it not curious to find quite an opposite statement, made for party purposes, by the Manila correspondent of the Daily Telegraph? Wishing to show the incompetence of the friars, he says: "The education of the people is entirely in their hands; it is enough to say that practically it does not exist." And this of a country in which seventy-five per cent of the people, according to Se?or Valdes, can read and write, a percentage that would put more than one European country to the blush.

Se?or Valdes asserts that the friars exercise a tyrannical power in the islands. He says that they generally consider it an act of disrespect for the natives to visit them except with bare feet. It is curious that Wingfield in his travels never noticed this, and he had an eagle eye for such deficiencies. Valdes is not afraid to make the incredible statements that "the friars and the military said that before the reforms should be granted they would first drown the insurgents in their own blood," and that General Weyler, when he was captain of the islands, ordered the town of Calumba to be destroyed, and set fire to, simply to please the Dominicans, who were anxious to show their power and influence. Proofs, and strong ones, not mere assertions, are needed when religious men, voluntary exiles from country and friends for the sake of civilizing rude peoples and bringing them under the sweet yoke of Christ, are accused of atrocious cold-bloodedness--wantonly slaughtering innocent men, women, and children for the sake of satisfying a sense of vanity!

The truth of the matter is that the rebellion in the Philippines against Spanish rule was not the uprising of a whole people. Of what account, except for brute force, are some thousands of armed men out of a peaceful population of eight millions. The insurrectionary movement was planned, and directed almost exclusively, by the mestizos, or half-breeds,--the offspring of the union between native women and the Chinese, who form a large proportion of the town population, and do most of the retail trade. We must bear in mind that the leaders had at their command all the refractory elements of the native population,--the banditti, who always existed in large numbers, and were to be found in force not many miles from Manila, and the common criminals whom, at the first opportunity, they let loose from the jails to scour the country. Can we form a judgment of the sentiments of the Philippine people from the conduct of men who have treated their prisoners inhumanly, who have burned churches, looted schools and hospitals, treated ordinary ecclesiastical students with brutality, and subjected nuns in convents to shameful treatment? We have plenty of evidence that the natives on the whole are very much attached to the friars, whom they rescued, when they were able, from the hands of the rebels, and visited constantly while in captivity, doing their best to alleviate their sufferings. That they were peaceably disposed, and loyal to Spain even during the progress of the rebellion, we may assume from Blumentritt, who said, as late as 1897, when recounting his experiences as a scientific explorer in these islands, "There are not many colonies where less blood has been shed, and also not many where the conquered people have so little hatred of, or dislike to, their conquerors. Already so richly endowed with the climate and the beauty of their native land, as well as with the fertility of the soil, the natives of the Philippines are neither despised nor downtrodden by their rulers, whom they, in their turn, do not dislike. One must, therefore, reckon them among the happiest in the world." His words, of course, do not apply to the noisy demagogues, to the Freemasons, to the insurgents, at least to that part of them who have not been forced into revolt by threats and terrorism, but they describe the state of the millions as yet untouched by the rebellion. Se?or Valdes and other men of his stamp are fond of declaring the resolve of the inhabitants of the Philippines "to be free and civilized," and "not to be subjected to the domination of friars or monkish orders." They speak the sentiments of a small, but very active and noisy, portion of the population; the overwhelming majority are happy, peaceful, and contented.

We now come to the painful task of noticing some reckless charges made by Se?or Valdes against the honor of the missionaries, a painful, yet necessary task, as the accusations were laid before the public some months ago without comment or contradiction of any kind. Se?or Valdes may think he has scored a point in making such outrageous statements; but he falls into error if he imagines that what might be readily swallowed by those who hate religion in Spain and Portugal would be as readily accepted in England, Ireland, and America. Apostate priests and nuns, lecturing under the auspices of Mr. Kensit and the Protestant Alliance, have long since made England familiar with this gross kind of calumny, directed against our own priests and nuns, repeated, too, year after year, without proof or shadow of foundation, so recklessly and shamelessly, indeed, that the lecturers only excite the disgust of the sensible portion of the Protestant body. Se?or Valdes, with unscrupulous audacity, tries to beslime the character of some of the missionaries, by falsely laying to their charge the foulest and most unnatural crimes, which for decency's sake we refrain from detailing. According to this vile traducer the priests are devoid of all honor and all the moral virtues.

Now, if this were the first time that these atrocious charges were made, we might say with horror, "Can such things be?" but we learn from the memorial presented last April by the heads of the various religious orders in the Philippines to the Spanish government, that charges of a similar nature were constantly repeated in Spain during the previous eighteen months, both in public and in private; made the subject of speeches in clubs, published in anti-clerical newspapers--all part of the campaign against the friars, all done to lower their prestige in the eyes of the people, and to obtain their expulsion from the islands. If there were any truth in the charges, they would have been brought home to the friars long since; names, dates, and documentary proofs would have been given. A list of well-proven cases, say twenty or thirty, would have been made up, and submitted to the Government, to whom the Freemasons were clamoring for their expulsion. But, like the stuff the anti-clerical lectures nearer home are made of, the charges were always vague, general, and indefinite. The religious, like men of honor, took no notice of these calumnies for a long time, hoping that gradually the storm would blow over; but seeing that it increased day by day, and that they were being constantly insulted by petty government officials in the Philippines, they at last took notice of them, amongst other charges, in their memorial to the Government last April. They asked, as a matter of right and justice, that names and dates would be given, that documentary proofs would be produced. They affirmed that the charges were not made by those who had access to them, and saw them day by day; that their convents were open to inspection; that the lives of those living in the country parts were well known to their parishioners; that in those places they could not act in disguise, as their Spanish nationality made them conspicuous objects to all eyes. They asked, in case their innocence were doubted, that proper judicial proceedings would be instituted.

It has been reserved to an American general to put the last finishing touch to the lurid picture drawn of the lives of the friars in the Philippines, by giving wide circulation in the columns of the New York Herald to a calumny which simply outstrips the imagination. The general guards himself by professing to know nothing about the matter except from "common report," freely circulated in the Philippines. Now the general, as a man of honor, might well have allowed these reports to come in by one ear, and go out by the other; or even if he had kept his mind in suspense, as is evidently the case, he might have refrained in the meantime from publishing the "common report" to the world, knowing how prone human nature is to fasten on the bad, and to believe in evil report, though unproven. "Every student of Blackstone," says the general, "knows very well what was considered in the olden time to be the feudal right of the lord over the female vassal who married on his estate. It may be surprising to many to learn that the Filipinos allege vehemently that the monastic Orders claim and exact this feudal right on the marriage of the young Philippine girls." Common report then, according to the general, charges the friars with exacting and claiming a right opposed to the fundamental laws of Christian morality; a right which, if it ever existed in fact, is at any rate lost in the dim distance of time, and is utterly unknown to the world at the present day. It is a pity that the ordinary laws of evidence which are used in dealing with laymen are thrust aside when dealing with priests, and that fanaticism in the latter case is allowed full play for its imagination. Last April the heads of the religious Orders in the Philippines, in their memorial to the Spanish Government, which by being published both in Spanish and in French, and circulated widely, was intended as a challenge to the civilized world, demanded that all gross charges of a like nature should be investigated by legal means, and that evil-doers should be punished according to law, if they existed in fact. The challenge as yet remains unanswered; yet what would have been more easy to prove in the meantime than such an open and flagrant violation of justice and morality? If proofs could have been had they would have been gladly brought forward by the leaders of the rebels, who have been clamoring for the expulsion of the religious Orders for the last three or four years, and who are by no means simple and unsophisticated savages, but men educated enough to be able to conduct newspapers of their own.

With common sense for their guide, let Protestants reflect for a moment that the Philippines form an integral part of the Catholic Church, that the religious Orders that are governed by generals in Rome, that systematic visitations are made, and that the conduct of every individual is subjected to strict ecclesiastical scrutiny from time to time. Accordingly, unless they hold that the authorities in Rome are willing to allow an appalling evil of the kind to go on without protest, how can they believe that it exists at all?

"In any case, I can assert without a shadow of doubt," adds the general, "what the Herald's readers have been previously told by its correspondents--that the people are very bitter towards the monks." Whom does he mean by people? Had the general and the newspaper correspondents come in contact, during their brief stay in the Philippines, with the six millions of people till lately under the care of the religious Orders? It is true that those who have fomented the rebellion, and the thousands who have joined the insurgent ranks, are bitter towards the monks, or rather friars. But it is by this time a well-known fact that numbers have been drawn in through sheer terrorism, and that numbers of others have been tortured and killed owing to their refusal to join. Mr. Wilson's late experience on his sugar plantation bears ample witness to this. It is easy enough for a few thousand desperate and armed men to cow fifty times their number of peaceful and unarmed tillers of the soil. The millions, dumb so far, will be found, on closer investigation, to represent far different feelings towards the friars than the noisy rebels who, coming in contact with the American troops and correspondents, profess to represent the feelings of the great body of the nation.

In direct contradiction to the "common report," circulated by General Meritt, is a testimony to the virtue of the Spanish friars in the Philippines, published some years ago before the present troubles began, by the United States Government in a consular report. In this report Mr. Frank Karuth, F.R.G.S., who in his capacity as president of the Philippines' Mineral Syndicate had wide experience with the natives, and came into intimate relations with the friars in remote provincial stations, writes of the latter as follows: "In these communes or parishes the priest, especially if he be a Spaniard, as is generally the case, exercises supreme power. He is the father and counsellor of his people, and helps them not only with spiritual advice, but also furthers their material interests. The Spanish priests, friars of strict orders, come to the islands for aye and good, and with scarcely any exception do their duties faithfully and devotedly." Is not this testimony, given without any ulterior party motives, of more value than the evil reports poured into the ears of newspaper correspondents by the interested leaders of the Philippine rebels?

A few quotations from Protestant travellers who visited the Philippines before the insurrection had biassed men's minds, and distorted plain facts, will go a long way in the refutation of these flippantly uttered and unspeakably gross calumnies. "It is said," observes the wife of the American navigator, Captain Morrell, "that in Manila there are more convents than in any other city in the world of its size; and the general voice of natives and foreigners declares that they are under excellent regulations." And then she describes their inmates. "They all seemed full of occupation. There is no idleness in the convents, as is generally supposed;" and this her own account of the various works accomplished in them sufficiently proves. Moreover, "their devotions begin at the dawn of the day, and are often repeated during the whole of it, or until late in the evening, in some form or other. I was born a Protestant, and trust that I shall die a Protestant; but hereafter I shall have more charity for all who profess to love religion, whatever may be their creed." Sir John Bowring, in 1859, speaks of their influence, an influence generally acquired only by men of holy lives. He says: "They exercise an influence which would seem magical, were it not by their devotees deemed divine." Dr. Ball, an American Protestant traveller, speaks highly of the character of the Spanish friars in the Philippines. Of one whom he met at Manila, he says: "He has a fund of knowledge on almost every subject, speaks six or seven languages, and has declined an offer of the presidency of the seminary here, preferring to remain always in the capacity of missionary." Mr. MacMacking, another Protestant, who spent some years in the islands, says, in 1861: "Most of the priests I came in contact with appeared to be thoroughly convinced of, and faithful to, their religion in its purity."

After reading these testimonies, we may well open our eyes in astonishment and wonder at the audacity of those who disseminate these flagrant lies about a body of men distinguished by learning and holiness. And yet no one, however holy and devoted his life may be, is safe from the tongue of the calumniator. Robert Louis Stevenson had to take up his pen in defence of the heroic martyr of the leper, Father Damien, vilified by a Protestant minister. Father Damien lived for years in that place of horrors, Molokai, among the lepers, and died a martyr of charity; and, while no Protestant minister was to be found heroic enough to follow his example, one of them, housed in his comfortable bungalow, and jealous of his fame, made unfounded charges against him. So is it ever with the world. And above all, nothing need surprise us in the words and acts of the Philippine insurgents and their abettors. As an instance of their power of concocting a story to bring the friars into disrepute, we give the following account of an attempted poisoning of Aguinaldo by a Spanish prisoner and eleven Franciscans, taken from the Republica Filipina, one of their journals--telegraphed at great expense to Europe by "Reuter's Special," and inserted in English papers. The story goes to show that his steward saw a Spanish prisoner, who was allowed a certain amount of freedom, tampering with a bowl of soup intended for Aguinaldo. The steward tasted a spoonful of the soup, and fell dead on the spot. On learning of the affair, the populace attempted to lynch all the Spanish prisoners, amongst whom were forty Spanish priests, detained as hostages; but through Aguinaldo's intervention, they were protected from violence. The next day at the sitting of the new National Assembly, Aguinaldo's representative told the story of his narrow escape, and the members unanimously adopted the chairman's suggestion that they should go in a body to the president's house and express their sympathy and congratulations. To crown this farce, a special thanksgiving service was held in the church at Malolos that evening. The really silly part of the story is that eleven Franciscan priests, confined as prisoners, were alleged to have been involved in the conspiracy against Aguinaldo's life, and it was evidently on this supposition that all the priests were on the point of being massacred. A few days afterwards the story was contradicted. After all the fuss and all the expense of the telegrams, it turned out that the steward did not fall dead, and that no priests were concerned in the supposed plot. Still the lie did its work, both in the Philippines and nearer home; for many heard it, and read about it, who did not see the contradiction.

We are not at present in a position to follow Se?or Valdes in his statements regarding the dissensions between the native and European friars, the rigorous exactions and tithes, "the friars calling themselves owners of the land cultivated by the natives, claiming rents and tithes which the real owners refused to pay," but we believe them to be as baseless as his other accusations. Before he made them, the friars had already, in their memorial to the Spanish Government, taken notice of similar accusations, and asked for dates, names, and proofs. It is curious that no English travellers to these regions have taken notice of these supposed oppressions on the part of the friars. They are concocted with the design of expelling the friars from the islands, and confiscating their property, which they have lawfully acquired, and added to, by three centuries of industry. It is true they are rich in landed property, but their riches do not enable them to live individually in luxury. They are used by the Orders for the purposes of the Orders, in furthering education, maintaining hospitals, orphanages, and industrial schools, and in extending their missions not only in the Philippines, but also in China, Tonkin, Japan, and Formosa. Is it not better, in the interests of the people, that they should continue in their possessions than that they should be robbed of them, turned adrift, and their property divided among needy adventurers? It is a significant fact that one of the first acts of the National Assembly of the insurgents was to vote a pension of seventeen thousand dollars to Aguinaldo, enough to keep several religious communities in existence. These political heroes are anxious to enrich themselves at the expense of others, and to spend in luxury what has been gathered together through three centuries of frugal living.

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