THE Mission of America in the Philippine Islands strikingly unique in more than one particular, and from the standpoint of the Church as well as of the State. In either case, it is an attempt to win loyal acceptance of the principles of free, enlightened, and representative self-government, on the part of a Malayan race accustomed for more than three centuries to an imposed foreign rule—both political and religious. Just as Spain never conceived of the Philippine Islands other than as a dependent colony, so Rome had never in view an independent Filipino Church. Colony and Mission, both permanent—these two words express the policy of the Spanish regime.

The policy of America is the reverse of this. The American Government looks forward hopefully to a time, not far distant, when the Filipinos themselves will have so far progressed in the principles of self-government as to warrant the withdrawal of all foreign guardianship, and the recognition of the Philippine Islands as a free State. Similarly, the Church in America looks forward to the day when she, too, will have accomplished her object, because her Mission will have resulted in the establishment of a strong, free, and independent Filipino Church.

[4] It is evident, then, that the Philippine Islands form, as it were, a small experiment station in which certain ideals are being tested out by Church and State alike. That in this task, the American Government has far outstripped the American Church, is sufficiently obvious. To the former, the goal is in sight; to the latter, it is still far distant. But this very fact, however explained, should prove an incentive of the first magnitude. Especially strong should be its appeal to members of the Episcopal Church, not only by reason of the success which has already attended her Mission in the Philippine Islands, but because her heritage seems to fit her peculiarly to meet the religious needs of the Filipino people.

A second consideration worthy of note is connected with our freedom of action, politically and religiously, in making or marring the success of our venture. We are in the Philippines through force of circumstances; we have won the good-will of the people among whom we are working; they are co-operating loyally with us in bringing the experiment to a successful end. Moreover, we are unhampered by any outside interference with our experiment. The field is, for the present, ours. If we fail, we do so through our own fault exclusively. No one else will bear an iota of the blame.

Finally, the Mission to the Philippines derives importance from the geographical position of the Islands. A glance at the map of eastern Asia shows that they lie off the coast of southern China—a conspicuous position in the eyes of the Orient. And that Orient, with its eight hundred millions of people, is no longer asleep or unobservant of events occurring at its very doors. Time was, when happenings in the [4/5] Philippine Islands could pass unnoticed by the peoples of the adjacent continent. That day has gone forever. The Orient is aroused; its leaders are alert and wide-eyed; they are profoundly interested in what America represents. And when America, alone and unhampered, tries a crucial experiment under their very eyes, those eyes watch; and the keen minds behind the eyes, judge. Truly American ideals—political, commercial, social, religious—are today being subjected to an acid test in the Philippine Islands and before a critical audience of increasingly vast proportions. Failure spells disaster, not to the Filipinos only, but to American ideals in the face of the Orient.

These then, are some of the considerations which give to the Mission of the Episcopal Church in the Philippines a profound significance. This it is that renders imperative a thorough study of the Philippine Mission, on the part of Church people, in order that, knowing what has been done and realizing what yet remains to be done, they may confidently and actively face the vast issues inherent in the situation.

THE ARCHIPELAGO

The Philippine Islands occupy a position five-hundred miles off the southeast coast of China in more or less the latitude of the West Indies, and lie, therefore, wholly within the tropics. The total number of islands in the archipelago runs up into the thousands; but, of this large number, only eleven are of important size. Luzon, at the extreme north, and Mindanao at the extreme south, together make up about sixty-seven per cent of the total area of the group.

Mainly of volcanic origin, the Islands are mountainous, and present conditions of varied climate according [5/6] to the altitude. The low-lying coastal regions afford abundant opportunity for agriculture, and produce large crops of tobacco, hemp, rice, coconut and sugarcane. Back from the coast, and at intermediate altitudes, the mountains are covered with tropical forests composed of many valuable timber-trees. The higher altitudes, especially on the island of Luzon, are sparsely forested with pine, and afford a climate congenial to the growing of upland rice, in which occupation the natives have, from time immemorial, been adepts.

THE PEOPLE

The original inhabitants of the Islands appear to have been a semi-dwarf race of negroid type known today as Negritos; but, before the dawn of history, these primitive people were overwhelmed by successive immigrations of the brown race known to us as Malays, and were driven by them into the mountainous interior of the islands of Luzon, Panay, Negros, and Cebu, where they are still to be found in their original low stage of development.

The many tribes of invading Malays settled themselves throughout the coastal regions of the archipelago, and later showed themselves remarkably amenable to civilizing influences. Three of these tribes in particular—the Visayans of the central part of the archipelago, the Tagalogs of central Luzon, and the Ilocanos of western Luzon—had attained a considerable degree of civilization before the coming of the Spaniards in the early sixteenth century, and advanced rapidly under Spanish rule. They are counted as supreme among the seven so-called Christian tribes which [6/7] make up, today, approximately ninety per cent of the eleven million inhabitants of the Islands.

Just as the early Malay immigrants dispossessed the Negrito aborigines and drove them into the mountain fastnesses of the interior, so they in turn suffered at the hands of later Malayan comers of a more advanced civilization. This was the origin of the interesting tribes inhabiting the mountainous interior of Luzon and known, broadly, as Igorots. These are now supposed to number upward of 400,000 people, divided into tribal groups according to their location—Benguet, Bontoc, Ifugao, Kalinga, etc. Neither the semi-civilized Malays of the coast, nor the Spaniards when they came to occupy Luzon, troubled themselves much about these wild tribes of the interior, except defensively; and not until the American occupation, was any serious attempt made to reach them with civilizing aim.

The last of the Malay immigrants came under the influence of Arabian pioneers of Islam, and were swept into that faith. Warlike and predatory by nature, and stimulated by the precepts of their adopted religion, they seized upon the extreme southern islands of the archipelago, including the greater part of the island of Mindanao, and, under the name of Moros, attained an unenviable notoriety as Mohammedans of the most fanatical type, merciless toward Christians, amenable to no civilizing agency, and taking constant piratical toll of all commerce within the reach of their swift and mobile vessels. It is only since the American occupation that the Moros, now numbering some 435,000, have begun to realize that some concession to progress is their only hope for the future.

[8] Such, in brief, are the people who, in 1899, became the more or less patient wards of the United States after three and a half centuries of Spanish rule. That this rule helpfully paved the way for the successful work of our Government, there can be no doubt; and it is well for us to note just what the Spaniard accomplished in this his most distant and least remunerative of colonies.

THE SPANISH OCCUPATION

Although the actual discoverer of the Philippine Islands, in 1521, was that intrepid Portuguese navigator, Magellan, sailing tinder the Spanish flag, the credit of the colonial establishment urd2r Spain belongs to his successor Legaspi. With four ships and four hundred men, including five Augustinian friars, he founded, on the island of Cebu, the first permanent Spanish settlement in the Philippines. Seven years later he died, but not before he had pacified a large part of the territory, won the good-will of the natives, established trade, arrested the progress of Islam, and placed the colony on a practical and stable basis. The friars, re-enforced from time to time by newcomers, penetrated to remote villages, braved all hardships, taught the natives the forms of Christianity, introduced improvements in agriculture, and developed the native arts. Thus the new colony was the fruit of a missionary enterprise, differing from Spain's conquests in the western hemisphere in that the Islands offered no side issue or distracting lure of treasure trove. "As a result of their (the friars') labors, the Christian Filipinos stand unique as the only large mass of Asiatics converted to Christianity in modern times."

[9] Undoubtedly, the ideal of the Spanish Governors in the Philippines was to preserve and civilize the native population; but the colony was half the world away from the mother-country, members of the monastic orders were more eager for service in these distant islands than were civilians, and gradually, as the years passed, the civil functions of the government passed more and more into the hands of the friars. Their influence was still further increased by the acquisition of large grants of land, yielding a maximum of revenue from a minimum of labor.

The instruction given by the friars td their converts was largely technical, including weaving, embroidery, and such other of the practical sciences as were known at that time. Education proper was limited to simple books of devotions, and all that makes for intelligent citizenship—independent thinking, self-reliance, initiative—was strongly discouraged; while the friars themselves, too easily falling under the spell of their enervating surroundings, lost, in many cases, their moral stamina, and brought only shame and discredit upon the religion which they professed. Thus the people were left literate but uneducated, converted but not trained, ruled but not shepherded.

Toward the middle of the nineteenth century, came a change, and this peaceful backwater began to feel the swift currents of the western world. Spain lost her great colonies on the American continent, and many of her emigrants sought the distant colony with its attractive opportunity for lucrative employment, Foreign trade, hitherto reduced to a minimum, was stimulated; secular books were smuggled in; newspapers began to be published; banks were established; [9/10] the Jesuits, once debarred, were again allowed to return in order to promote higher education; and, finally, the opening of the Suez canal in 1869, tempted the bolder spirits among the Filipinos to travel and to see for themselves the sources of progress in Europe. The return of such awakened travelers became the signal for revolt against the now intolerable rule of the friars, accentuated as it was by the exercise of arbitrary power, on the part of the Governors-General, in deporting any one opposed to the established order.

An unsuccessful revolution in 1896 led to the death of the patriot Rizal, but his mantle fell upon the shoulders of an equally able leader, Aguinaldo., and the revolt continued.

Meantime Spain had more serious troubles on her hands nearer home. Cuba was in a desperate condition of revolt, and the outbreak of war with the United States, enabled Admiral Dewey, on May 1st, 1898, to slip across with his fleet from Hongkong and seize the harbor of Manila. With the signing, in Paris, of the treaty of peace between the United States and Spain on December 10th of the same year, the Philippine Islands passed forever from the hands of Spain.

The rest is a matter of common knowledge, but it is well to note the fact that among the outstanding features of the first decade of the American occupation were the purchase of the Philippine Islands from Spain for $20,000,000, including the vast areas of land held by the friars, and the introduction of a system of public education on a scale never before attempted in any colonizing enterprise, The disestablishment of [10/11] the Roman Catholic Church came about as a matter of course.

THE MISSION OF THE CHURCH

Hardly had the Treaty of Paris been ratified by the Senate of the United States, when the Brotherhood of St. Andrew, in April, 1899, sent out some of its members to co-operate with the army chaplains in religious and social work among the troops. An Anglo-American mission-chapel and a reading room were established in Manila as an auspicious beginning of a work which, as time passed, had to take into account an increasing number of American residents, and in connection with which the name of the late Chaplain C. C. Pierce should he especially remembered.

On Christmas Day, 1898, a special service was held in Manila for Filipinos; but except for this isolated instance, no definite attempt was made by the chaplains or the Brotherhood to extend the original scope of their work beyond the soldiers and the English-speaking civilians. Yet the whole field was one in which the American Government had accepted a very definite responsibility, and it was evident that the American Church had thereby been offered an opportunity of rapidly increasing urgency, not only toward the army of occupation and toward all Americans and English who had been, or might yet be, attracted to the Philippines by the demands of government or the lure of commerce, but farther afield as well.

Manila was a centre, but only a centre. From it, in every direction, there gradually opened to view innumerable opportunities. The Church was in the [11/12] midst of many millions of civilized Filipinos whose adherence to the Roman obedience had been strained well-nigh to the breaking point by rebellion against constituted authority, and by hatred of the friars. A large contingent, headed by an Ilocano, Gregorio Aglipay; had already revolted from the Roman obedience, and had set up an independent Filipino Church, intended to be on Catholic lines, and numbering, at one time, no less than 3,000,000 adherents. This was an opportunity not to be neglected by our Church, and though the movement ultimately failed in that it proved more political than religious, some of its fruits remained for our gathering.

To the north, among the mountain ranges presently to be made accessible, were the tribes of primitive Igorots. Far to the south, but also easily to be reached by sea, were the fanatical Moros, the only representatives of Islam under the American flag.

In Manila itself, a strangely mixed population was watching every turn of events. The Filipinos naturally formed the vast majority; but for centuries the Chinese had traded with the Islands, and a large colony of them had grown up in and about the city. European business firms had offices there, especially those engaged in Oriental trade; the official class was largely Spanish; and, with the coming of the Americans, still another predominating element was introduced. Then there were, as everywhere through the Orient, vast numbers of half-castes or mestizos, the product of intermixture between the Filipinos, on the one hand, and the Spanish, Chinese, Europeans, and Americans on the other. Truly a mission-field unsurpassed in its problems and its opportunities!

[13] Happily the Church at home proved in a measure awake to this opportunity, and, in 1899, the Presiding Bishop placed the episcopal oversight of the work in Manila in the hands of the Rt. Rev. F. R. Graves, Bishop of Shanghai. Obviously this could be nothing more than a temporary expedient; and, in the following year, the Bishop himself requested that he be relieved of this distant responsibility, and that a Bishop be elected to have exclusive jurisdiction in the Philippines.

This request was held over until the meeting of General Convention in 1901, when the Rev. Charles H. Brent was elected as Bishop of the newly formed Missionary District of the Philippine Islands.

During the interregnum, the Brotherhood of St. Andrew had withdrawn from the field, and the Board of Managers of the Domestic and Foreign Missionary Society, under which cumbersome title the Board of Missions was then known, appointed one of the Brotherhood workers, the Rev. J. L. Smiley, as its missionary in the field. Both he and his successor, Chaplain Pierce, were presently invalided home; but their places were taken by the Rev. W. C. Clapp and the Rev. J. A. Staunton, Jr., both names of greatest note in connection with the Mission.

In August, 1902, Bishop Brent arrived in Manila, and, with fresh funds and a number of priests, a doctor, nurses, and teachers, preparations were made to strengthen the work in Manila and to extend it to other parts of Luzon.

For nearly sixteen years, Bishop Brent served the Church in the Islands. For a few months in 1916-17 he served with the British army in France. Then he [13/14] returned to his distant field, only to be summoned again in October, 1917, to work with the Y. M. C. A. among the troops of the Allies. On the day of his sailing to obey this call, he received notification of his election as Bishop of Western New York, which election he accepted early in 1918, thus bringing to a final close his service in the Philippines. He was succeeded, in 1920, by the Rt. Rev. G. F. Mosher, D. D., who, for fourteen years prior to his elevation to the episcopate, had done a notable work in the Missionary District of Shanghai.

EARLY POLICIES

Before beginning the story of the work as it progressed during Bishop Brent's episcopate, a few words should be said regarding his policies as expressed at the outset.

The fact of the American occupation was the deciding element in Bishop Brent's acceptance of the call. There was a national note in it which appealed peculiarly to his supremely patriotic nature. Hence, his primary mission, as he saw it, was to the English-speaking people of Manila, including the army of occupation. As the passage of time brought wider opportunities, the Bishop accepted these eagerly so far as the facilities at his disposal permitted; but his main duty to the American and other white residents was never lost sight of, and explains the manner in which the work developed in Manila.

The second point to note is the Bishop's consistent attitude toward the Roman Church in the Islands. Even before the American occupation, the Presbyterian Church North had approached all of the Foreign [14/15] Mission Boards in the United States and Canada with the suggestion that work be begun in the Philippines. As a result, the Presbyterians established a Mission in the Islands early in 1899, and their example was soon followed by the Methodists, Baptists, and United Brethren. Once on the field, and desirous of forming a united Protestant organization, the representatives of these communions established an Evangelical Union to which a very great measure of freedom in dealing with local policies was entrusted by the respective official bodies in America. The animus of the Union was strongly Protestant, and, in its proposed policy, the delimitation of fields as between the co-operating Missions was a prominent feature.

The Episcopal Church Mission was naturally offered membership in the, Union, but Bishop Brent held to the opinion that he could not thus commit the Church, and therefore declined. He was also convinced that any endeavor to proselyte from other Christian bodies was no part of the Church's business, and his desire to avoid even the appearance of such action was a further reason for holding aloof from the Union. As to delimitation of fields, this worked itself out fairly well; for in due course the Protestant Missions, finding our Church more or less effectively planted among the Igorots in the north, the Moros in the south, and the Chinese colony in Manila, agreed to leave these spheres to our exclusive care, without, however, any agreement on Bishop Brent's part to regard such limitation as binding or permanent.

A third matter of policy to be noted is one of less importance. So far as concerned the Igorot tribes of northern Luzon, the Bishop came to the conclusion [15/16] that "a Mission of our Church in a Latin country like the Philippines, can best do its work among the natives by advanced ritual, . . . avoiding, as far as we conscientiously and legitimately can, any emphasis on the differences between ourselves and our Roman Catholic brethren, and laying stress on our points of contact; conforming, where we can, to the established traditions of the country." [The Spirit of Missions, Vol. 83, p. 179. 1918.] As time passed, this anticipation was amply justified by the results.

With these policies in view, then, we may proceed to follow the development of the Mission, beginning where the work began.

BEGINNINGS IN MANILA

The spectacular achievement of Admiral Dewey in Manila Bay, and the rapid course of events following it, had stirred the imagination of the American Church no less than that of the American nation; and when, to the call of adventure, was added the personality of a leader such as the newly elected Bishop, there was, as we have seen, no difficulty in securing volunteers for the Mission and funds to support it, at least in its initial undertakings. That the element of personality had a predominant part in these offerings is not to be wondered at. The interest of individuals was naturally focussed more upon a bold and eager character engaged in a stirring adventure, than upon a field requiring careful and gradual cultivation on the part of the whole Church as represented by the Board of Missions. The consequence was that large gifts were made to the Bishop personally to promote objects which had won the active interest of individuals in the [15/16] United States, but which, in some cases, identified the Philippine Mission too exclusively with the needs of an English-speaking community which might or might not increase in importance. If Church people at home had only realized the importance of the Mission, and the varied character of the field, they would have accepted it as a practically foreign mission, and have enabled the Bishop to grasp the opportunity.

The first objective was a strong religious and social centre in the American residential quarter of Manila. To this end, a gift of $100,000 was received from an anonymous donor for the erection of an imposing cathedral on a large piece of property acquired by the Bishop in 1903, in the residential quarter of the city. To this, was added the sum of $20,000 from Mr. and Mrs. George C. Thomas of Philadelphia for parish buildings. The "Cathedral Church of St. Mary and St. John," was begun in 1904 and completed in 1907, under the rectorship of the Rev. Murray Bartlett. Adjoining the cathedral, a commodious Bishop's residence was erected.

But the Bishop felt that, with the increasing influx to Manila of young American and English business men, something more should be made of the Church's strategic position in the city, than the development of the technically ecclesiastical side. In 1904, he founded the Columbia Club as a social centre for English-speaking men in Manila, and during the next ten years he was enabled to complete a well-appointed clubhouse adjoining the Bishop's house. Thus was fulfilled a well-developed plan for a religious and social centre, having in prospect a constantly incoming tide of American interests in Manila, and the maintenance [17/18] of our military and naval forces in the Islands for an indefinite period of years.

No one could have foreseen, however, the changes which a few years were to bring about. The pacification of the Islands soon resulted in the withdrawal of most of the troops; more and more the civil government was transferred from American to Filipino direction, and numbers of American officials and employés went home; and, finally, the American colony, so far from showing any rapid increase in size as time went on, either decreased or barely held its own. Nevertheless the generous donors who enabled Bishop Brent to carry out his original plans, might well rejoice if they could see all that the cathedral and the Columbia Club have meant to the whole foreign community in Manila. The cathedral congregation, though never large, slowly increased in numbers, and eventually became a self-supporting parish; while the Club served as a wholesome counterpoise to the deteriorating influence, upon young men, of life in an oriental city.

In 1917, the Bishop wrote, in summing up the sixteen years of his episcopate in the Philippines: "The whole perspective of the Church's work in the Islands has changed. Much of that which I held to be her foremost duty has disappeared altogether or become insignificant in bulk. A redefinition of policy and considerable readjustment of work becomes a necessity."

It is evident that the Bishop here had reference to the diminishing opportunity for work among the English-speaking residents of Manila; the urgent demands created through the opening up of the Igorot country to the north and of the Mohammedan islands to the [18/19] south; and the increasing call for work among the new generation of Filipino young men and women who, divorced from the faith of their fathers under the influence of fresh currents of thought and action, were either being swept into agnosticism, or were finding, in free-masonry, a fancied substitute for the Church. All of these opportunities, especially the last, were destined to assume an unforeseen degree of importance, and to present an appeal to which our Church, with her social instinct, her apostolic Faith, and her sacramental life, was peculiarly fitted to respond.

As dean and rector of the cathedral, the Rev. C. W. Clash succeeded Dean Bartlett in 1914, though not immediately; and, for three years, did good service in that position. Upon his retirement in 1917, the Rev. A. B. Parson was transferred from Zamboanga, and served as dean and rector until 1920, when he returned from the foreign field to become Assistant Foreign Secretary at the Church Missions House. A year later, the two offices were separated, the Bishop assuming the duties of dean, and the Rev. L. H. Tracy being called from Honolulu to become rector of the cathedral.

To complete the record of institutions in the Ermita section of Manila, mention should be made of a piece of property acquired by Bishop Brent at a little distance from the cathedral, upon which was erected a fine dormitory building intended primarily to be used as an hostel for students at the Government University and High School. Ultimately this venture so far failed of success that it was deemed best to suspend the work, and, for a period prior to 1921, the house [19/20] was rented out as a private school for girls. It was then taken back by the Church to serve as an office building for the Mission and as a residence for one of our missionaries with his family. The building was so admirably adapted for use either as a school or as an hostel for students, that, in 1921, Bishop Mosher was actively concerned with securing the means to build and equip a new office building, and thus to restore the existing building to the essential work for which it was originally intended.

THE MISSION TO THE FILIPINOS

It must not be supposed; from what has been said, that Bishop Brent's policy was altogether opposed to accepting opportunities for work among the Filipino population of Manila. On the contrary, no one was more alert to note, or more ready to act upon, the conditions which, even prior to his coming, were bringing to pass a permanent estrangement between the Roman Church and thousands of its former Filipino adherents. Therefore one of Bishop Brent's earliest projects was the purchase of a vacant lot in the Trozo quarter, one of the most crowded districts within the city limits of Manila, and the establishment there of a Mission to the Filipino population. A Settlement House was at once organized, with a dispensary and a kindergarten (the first in the Islands) as its principal features. Within a year, the work of the dispensary had grown to such proportions that plans for building a hospital were prepared, which plans were brought to fruition in 1907, in the "University Hospital," later re-named St. Luke's, of which Dr. N. M. Saleehy was the first physician in charge.

[21] In establishing this work, Bishop Brent was fortunate in securing the services of Miss Ellen T. Hicks who gave up an important post in a Pennsylvania hospital in order to go to the Philippines. To her constructive ability and unwearying determination was due much of the success of the enterprise.

The opening of the hospital was delayed many months because of the difficulty in getting nurses, either American or Filipino. The sources from which the former could be secured were either the Army or the civil service; and not only were persons thus employed under contract, but they could not be expected to accept lower salaries coupled with a longer term of service in the Mission. Confronted with this difficulty of getting sufficient and proper American nurses, Miss Hicks decided to organize a training school for native nurses in connection with the hospital. This proposal encountered many obstacles; but finally, through the co-operation of the Young Women's Dormitory of the Normal School, Manila, an initial class of three Filipino girls was started. The next year there were five, and, in 1922, the Training School for Nurses had forty-eight pupils, and was provided with an adequate dormitory. Among the graduates of that year was one Moro girl. It should also be noted that the endeavor was always made to have at least two Filipino internes on the hospital staff.

From the outset, the free dispensary was a feature of this work; and at the time of the opening of the hospital, in 1907, the dispensary was treating more than 8,000 patients annually and applying over 14,000 surgical dressings, all free of charge, though such patients as were able to pay something were given an [21/22] opportunity to do so through a contribution box provided for the purpose. When the hospital was enlarged, in 1910, this feature was retained, and, with the opening of the new additions, the hospital and the dispensary were merged under the name, St. Luke's Hospital and Free Dispensary. On September 1, 1911, Dr. N. M. Saleeby resigned as physician-in-charge of the hospital, and was succeeded a few weeks later by Dr. B. L. Burdette. Dr. Burdette was obliged, in 1915, to relinquish his work and to go home on account of illness. He was succeeded by Dr. J. F. Reed as physician-in-charge.

The year of Dr. Burdette's withdrawal also marked the enlargement of the hospital by the addition of a maternity wing and diet kitchen. These, and subsequent additions, brought the capacity of the hospital from its original thirty beds to nearly one hundred beds.

Dr. Burdette was not long absent from his post, and the year 1917 saw him again serving as resident-physician. He continued in this position until April, 1921, except for a short absence in 1918, when he served with the Red Cross in Siberia. His final resignation left the hospital without a mission doctor and with only two mission nurses to carry on the work of the institution, which, in 1920, reported having admitted 2,603 patients to the hospital and treated 6,184 cases in the dispensary. In this dilemma, Dr. Saleeby was asked to resume the charge which he had relinquished ten years before. This he consented to do.

This rapid sketch of the valuable medical mission to the Filipinos of Manila, has precluded any proper mention of the American women who, at various [22/23] times, served as nurses or as superintendents of the Training School. Among them were Miss Anne M. Ramsay, who served for five years and then resigned to enter Red Cross service in the World War; Miss Martha Hall; and Deaconess C. G. Massey, who, in 1921, was the Superintendent of the Training School.

Bishop Brent's sympathies had early been called out on behalf of the large numbers of so-called mestizo or half-caste children to be found, homeless and deserted, in the Islands; and, in 1909, he incorporated "The House of the Holy Child," destined to prove the moral and spiritual salvation of scores of orphaned or abandoned girls, Filipinos as well as mestizas. The share of white blood in these little waifs was contributed mostly by Spaniards, Americans, and English. The orphanage grew rapidly, and, in 1921, was giving Christian training, under Deaconess Peppers, to no less than sixty girls, chiefly of half-American parentage. A Settlement Exchange and Embroidery School provided a valuable source of training toward self-support, and also gave needed employment to many dependent Filipina women in the neighborhood. Eventually this phase of the work had to be given up owing to the keen and commercialized competition in the lace industry, and the rise in the price of the raw materials. There was also the very practical difficulty that, in order to fill the flood of orders, the children were obliged to neglect their studies. But it was felt, on all hands, that the opportunity for settlement work in this crowded section was so urgent, that it would have to be initiated again in some form, and to include men and boys as well as women and girls, in varied activities.

[24] In 1906, the three-fold character of the Church's Mission was fulfilled among the Filipinos of the Trozo district by the establishment of St. Luke's Church on a piece of purchased land adjacent to the hospital and the orphanage. The Rev. George C. Bartter was placed in charge, having learned the Tagalog dialect for the purpose, and here he and his wife have carried on an active work, the results of which cannot be measured.

THE MISSION TO THE CHINESE

The Binondo and Trozo quarters of Manila contain a large and influential colony of many thousands of Chinese chiefly from Fukien, one of the southern provinces of the mainland. They presented, at the outset, an attractive field for mission work, but there was no one in our Mission able to speak any of the southern Chinese dialects. Most fortunately, however, almost immediately upon Bishop Brent's first arrival, the difficulty was solved by the coming of the Rev. H. F. Studley from Amoy. Mr. Studley had gone to Amoy, in .1896, as a missionary of the Dutch Reformed Church; but after six years, and having become proficient in the language, he was attracted to our Church, was confirmed by Bishop Graves of Shanghai, and in due course ordained to the priesthood. Bishop Brent immediately secured his services for the Philippine Mission, and gave him and his wife responsibility for work among the Chinese, in which work they have remained from that time. The Bishop, in his first report, notes the arrival of Mr. Studley, and incidentally calls attention to the fact that Mr. Studley's future parish consisted of a Chinese population half as large as the total Chinese population of the United States.

[25] The work was started in 1902, as a mission of the cathedral, under the name St. Stephen's Mission, and in less than two years two classes of men were presented for confirmation, and a school for boys was organized. In 1907, the Methodist Mission decided to hand over its Chinese work to St. Stephen's, and their local preacher—a Chinese named Ben Ga Pay—became Mr. Studley's assistant in the school which was showing steady growth and winning the confidence and support of the Chinese community.

Besides this, a most successful night school for men and boys had been organized with results beyond all expectations. Plans were also on foot for a building to include a church, schdolrooms, and quarters for Mr. Pay, and to this project the Chinese themselves contributed generously, thus bringing the plans to fruition in the course of three years, at a cost of no less than $6800, of which sum only $500 was given other than locally. The contractor—a Chinese communicant—erected the building, but declined to figure on any profit to himself. With this spirit evident in the Mission, it is not surprising that in due course the congregation voluntarily relinquished their annual grant from the Board of Missions, and became a self-supporting parish with still larger plans in view. Meantime Mr. Pay, after a year spent in study at St. John's University, Shanghai, returned in 1916 to his work in Manila, there to be ordained to the diaconate.

The following year, a school for girls was added to the activities of St. Stephen's, in order to reach more effectively the women of the neighborhood. Social custom among the Chinese makes it impossible for a man to minister effectively to the women of a household. [25/26] Hence the whole burden of this important phase of the Mission had fallen upon Mrs. Studley. With the growing work, it now became a matter of absolute necessity to secure the services of another American woman. This need was met in 1919, when Miss G. M. Brown from the Diocese of Maine began her service in the school. Within two years, an enrollment of more than 150 girls testified to the admirable quality of the work. After some experiment on the basis, first, of no tuition fees, and then of a charge for tuition, the former was finally adopted, in 1914, as the more effective policy for the St. Stephen's schools.

By this time it was manifestly impossible for St. Stephen's parish to remain in the cramped quarters which it had nearly filled when it started as a small Mission. The Chinese themselves rose to the occasion. They at once raised nearly $25,000 as an endowment for the school, and $5,000 toward the erection of a new church. The plans called for an additional $25,000 endowment, and $45,000 more for land and a church building. For this, they appealed to the American Church, while continuing their efforts to secure funds locally.

Such was the situation when Bishop Mosher succeeded Bishop Brent. 'The following estimate which the latter made in 1917, is a noteworthy testimony to the stable and impressive character of this Mission to the Chinese.

"Of no section of our work can I speak with more complete satisfaction than our Chinese Mission, St. Stephen's, in Manila. It presents no anxieties, and moves forward with steady step. Thoroughness has characterized all that has been done under the Rev. [26/27] H. E. Studley. Catechumens come to baptism and confirmation well instructed. The reality of their moral purpose is best borne witness to by the fact that, of the two hundred candidates confirmed since the beginning of the Mission, only five have lapsed."

With such a record, it is not surprising to note that the only other non-Roman communion working among the Chinese in Manila was led to retire from that field and leave it exclusively to us.

When Bishop Mosher arrived as Bishop Brent's successor, one of his first requests to the Church was for two American priests and two American women to be located for a year in Amoy and Canton in order to learn the language; and then, after a visit to the stations in the Yangtze valley for a study of methods, to join the Mission in Manila, and thus make it possible to reach the many thousands of Chinese in the city and its environs. One would have supposed that so unique an opportunity would have been instantly seized by any number of qualified workers; but such was not the case, and the months and years passed with no response. Yet, Bishop Mosher, referring to the devotion of his Chinese Christians and their steady progress toward self-support, wrote of it as "one of the most remarkable things that I have known in the history of Christian missions."

So much then for our work in Manila.

THE MISSION IN THE SOUTH

Five hundred miles to the south of Luzon is the island of Mindanao, the second largest in the archipelago. At the tip of the peninsula on the western side of the island is its metropolis, Zamboanga, reputed to be the most attractive town in the Islands. The little [27/28] tropical parks, the streets lined with graceful palms reflected in the lotus-covered waters of a central canal, the ancient fort used as barracks, the cool sea-breeze which seems to blow continuously—all these make of the city a place of very great charm. As the capital of the province and a port of increasing activity, Zamboanga became the centre of the American administration of the southern islands and the site of an American army post. There was thus an increasing American population, both military and civil, and it was to them that our Church first ministered.

In September, 1903, Lt. Col. Edward Davis of the Artillery Corps, U. S. A., stationed at Zamboanga, realized that in the garrison and civilian community there were probably two hundred persons, mainly American and non-Roman, who were without a place of worship. Consequently, he announced that he would read the Office of Morning Prayer in his parlor every Sunday morning. This was begun on the Sixteenth Sunday after Trinity, (September 27, 1903), with a congregation of about 25 persons. This number was never materially increased, though not always the same people attended. Presently a number of the regular attendants at these informal services, expressed the desire for a church building, and, to further this project, land for a building was given by a Chinese Roman Catholic, Mr. Barrios, and by a Polish Lutheran, Mr. Korezki. There was some delay in beginning building because Col. Davis was determined to make a right start; but, early in 1904, articles of incorporation were signed, a vestry elected, a building committee appointed, and work on the Church—Holy Trinity—begun.

[29] Meanwhile another army officer had started a Sunday School which was attended by twelve children of varying ages, none of whom had been baptized.

The church, a low wooden structure surrounded by palms, filled a very definite place in the life of the community, though the work became increasingly difficult because of the fluctuating character of the American colony in Zamboanga. This made the congregation a rather uncertain quantity. During 1908-09, the Rev. M. B. Marshall was rector, and was succeeded, after a vacancy of about two years, by the Rev. R. T. McCutcheon who served as rector from 1912 to 1916 and again from 1919 to 1921. In 1921, the church was without a rector; and public prayers were read, a Bible class conducted, and the Sunday School maintained, by two devoted missionaries of the Board, Miss L. M. Owen and Miss F. E. Bartter.

Though the immediate and major responsibility of the Church in Zamboanga was the ministering to the American community, the presence of a large Mohammedan population in Zamboanga and the region round about, was a constant incentive to work among them.

Mohammedanism has ever presented a problem as baffling to governments as to Christianity. The very devotion of the Moslem in his adherence to a faith which makes no high demand upon the moral or spiritual faculties, and the principal aim of which is the defence and spread of Islam regardless of life itself, has in the main formed a bulwark against which the modem Christian Church has most conspicuously spent its efforts.

"In the Philippines there were moments when the Jesuits thought that the thin edge of the wedge had [29/30] gone home in Sulu, the Moslem centre of Malaysia. But it was only for a moment. The wedge was quickly spit from the crevice, and once more an unbroken surface presented itself to the disappointed religionists." [Bishop Brent, in The Spirit of Missions, Vol. 83, p. 183. 1918.]

If we could begin work here, it would be the second point at which the Episcopal Church was in contact with Islam—the other being, of course, Liberia.

With such facts in mind, Bishop Brent had always coveted for the Church the honor of instituting work among the Mohammedan Moros of the south. For this, Zamboanga presented the most favorable centre, since the Moros of that region had already come in touch with western civilization.

As elsewhere in the Orient, the physical needs of the people were not only most appealing, but also offered the most obvious line of approach; and in 1908 a committee was selected from the local community in Zamboanga to draw up plans for a small hospital on a tract of land adjacent to the city as well as to the beach-village of Kawa-Kawa. The leading spirit in this venture was the Rev. M. B. Marshall who, at that time, was giving most efficient service as rector of Holy Trinity Church. As planned, the hospital was to minister to the whole community and not to the Moro population alone. It is worthy of note that two members of the committee which furthered this work under Mr. Marshall were the most prominent Moro data or chief in the community, and the Chinese Christian mentioned above, Mr. Barrios. The requisite funds were subscribed in part locally and in part by personal friends of Bishop Brent in America.[30/31] In addition to the hospital, an unpretentious Settlement House was built on a near-by plot, with the view of attracting the Moro children of the neighborhood, and eventually the women, through instruction in lace making, weaving, and the elements of education. Later, a small printing office was added to the group of buildings; and here, with the assistance of a young Moro, Mr. McCutcheon printed and issued, in the Sulu dialect, portions of the Gospels and a small newspaper which was circulated throughout the southern islands. All of this work was undertaken by Bishop Brent on his personal responsibility, and was not an enterprise of the general Church, although several of those who shared in the work were missionaries provided by the Board. Apart from these, the Bishop had to depend on such paid assistance as he could find at hand, or on local volunteers.

So far as the Moros were concerned, something of the task which was thus undertaken among a people ignorant of hygiene and naturally suspicious and afraid of a hospital, may be seen in a statement of Dr. Charles H. Halliday who was head of the hospital in 1915:

"To one who has been among these people any length of time, the results of the mission in Zamboanga are little short of marvelous. I first came to the Moro country (in the United States Army) nearly eleven years ago.

"My first station was at Cudarangan. Going over the hospital, I came across a large box of medicines and dressings, carefully placed in a dark corner. Inquiring what these supplies were for, I was informed that they had been sent down for the indigent Moros; [31/32] but as none ever came around for treatment, the supplies had been placed where they would be out of the way.

"I well remember my first Moro patient. He was suffering from ulcers of both legs, extending to his knees. After spending a great deal of time over him, he departed in his vista. He was not two hundred yards from the hospital when I saw my well-applied dressings, removed and thrown in the river. A few others came for treatment, and I saw the same thing repeated in some cases. I believe that most of the medicine and dressings met the same fate.

"Two years ago I would not have believed the day would come so soon when a Moro would enter a hospital of his own free will and request an operation—and that, under ether. Still, that happened at the Zamboanga hospital during the past month. That a Moro woman would come into a hospital and remain over night, was a thing entirely out of the question. Still, this has taken place during the last six months."

That sheer ignorance was at the root of the Moro attitude toward the hospital, may he seen in yet another way. During the first month of its existence, the hospital was sought by only six Moro patients. A year and a half later, during a mild epidemic of "pink eye," they came willingly for treatment.

The Hospital continued under Dr. Halliday until 1918, when there followed a period of frequent changes, and times when the hospital was without any resident physician.

As has been indicated, this whole enterprise owed its initiative to a local committee, and was maintained by funds secured from interested individuals. For [32/33] about twelve years the work prospered fairly well under this policy, but in 1921 the committee found it increasingly difficult to secure the necessary funds and workers, and an agreement was reached whereby the Department of Missions took over the hospital and the settlement-house which thus became responsibilities of the general Church and an integral part of her Mission in the Philippine Islands, though the committee still maintained its existence and its active interest in the work.

A school for girls, established by Miss Bartter in connection with the settlement-house, was one of the results of the Mission. Though it is most unusual and contrary to long-established Moro custom to provide for, or even permit, the education of their girls, Miss Bartter succeeded in attracting a number of girls to the school. In 1922, it had nine in the dormitory, and about forty day pupils, not one of whom failed to show the influence of the school in developing character and habits of cleanliness and order.

Among the boys of Kawa-Kawa there had been organized a troop of Boy Scouts; but, due to the difficulties of securing a proper leader, it became necessary to abandon this work until such a time as a properly equipped layman could be secured. This opportunity for constructive work was still open in 1922.

Bishop Brent, in his final report as Missionary Bishop of the Philippine Islands, said: "None knows, except those of us on the spot, through what travail our little enterprises—hospital, settlement, press, and school—were born. In themselves, they are not commanding. By their influence, an indelible mark is being made on Moro life."

[34] Eighty miles southwest of Zamboanga and only about one hundred miles from the coast of Borneo, lies the island of Jolo or Sulu with its little capital of the same name, the smallest walled city in the world. We are accustomed to associate this island with the most daring exploits of the Malay pirates; and, later, with the most desperate fighting which took place in connection with the American subjugation of the Moros. Indeed, peace was dearly bought, and came only after the frank recognition on the part of the Moro that, of all the people whom he had fought, the American soldier alone had beaten him.

To an eager pioneer like Bishop Brent, the very neighborhood of these pacified Moros, sullen in defeat, fanatically hostile to Christianity, constituted a call to adventure. It was to be answered this time in the form, not of a hospital, but of an agricultural school; and it was to be associated in the minds of Church people with the name of Mrs. Lorillard Spencer of New York, who not only gave personal service on the field but also organized, in New York, "The National Committee for Uplifting the Moro 'Wards of the Nation," with the object of spreading information regarding the work and of raising funds for its support. Early in 1916, the committee opened the Moro Agricultural School at the constabulary station known as Camp Indanan, eight miles from the town of Jolo. A man of long experience in the islands, Mr. James R. Fugate, was placed in charge, and the school began its career most auspiciously with more than thirty Moro boys enrolled, and with an abundance of fertile land.

It is to the lasting credit of all concerned in this venture that the school had, from the outset, the approval [34/35] and goodwill of the leading natives of the island. This was no small achievement in view of the natural antipathy which had existed for generations between the Moros and their would-be rulers, and the bitter hostility with which a Mohammedan regards a Christian and all his works. The result was attained through the frank statement made by Bishop Brent to the Moros that, although it was the desire of the Bishop and of those whom he represented to give them a full knowledge of Christianity, no Christian teaching would be given to the pupils without the consent of the parents, and that the teachers would not attempt to make them Christians against their will. The Moros were assured that those in charge of the school would be fair and above-board in all their dealings, and there was thus secured a degree of confidence, never before given by the Moros to any white people.

The happy promise of this beginning was amply fulfilled as time passed, and though the Jolo school had no relation to the Board of Missions, it was the Bishop's hope and expectation that ultimately the Christian element might find a place in the school through the sanction of the parents themselves, and the school thus become a definitely evangelizing agent of the Church.

Besides its American and Moro appeal, the island of Jolo afforded another opportunity in the colony of Chinese settled along the water front of the capital; but it was not until Bishop Mosher's coming that regular work was begun among them, and even then only at intervals of a month or more, when Mr. McCutcheon could take time from his duties in distant Zamboanga. Isolated, without money, with only occasional instruction, the small company of believers [35/36] grew by the sheer grace of God. They united themselves together as St. Paul's Mission; hired a vacant loft as a place of worship; installed electric light; got books from Shanghai; gathered in an increasing number of catechumens; held their own services; and waited always for the time when the Church, realizing their existence, would provide them with a priest of their own race and adequate facilities. In 1922 they were still waiting.

It will be noted that most of this work in the southern islands was due to the personal initiative of Bishop Brent; it was supported chiefly by his personal friends. The Church at home showed, in general, a spirit of apathy and indifference hard to explain. The result was that, with the departure of Bishop Brent, the momentum of the various enterprises was seriously diminished, and it became Bishop Mosher's task to awaken general interest in the Mission to the Moros on the part of Church people in America.

THE MISSION IN THE NORTH

If the Moros of the South represent the latest and most fanatical of the Malayan invaders of the Philippine Islands, the Igorot tribes of the North are probably the descendents of the earliest. Indeed, so long had they occupied the isolated and almost inaccessible mountainous interior of northern Luzon, that long before the American occupation, they had reverted to a most primitive condition of life and religion. About the only advantage which they derived from the long period of Spanish occupation was the introduction of an improved variety of the camote, a potato-like tuber, which, with the ubiquitous rice, was their chief article of food.

[37] With the coming of the Americans, and the partial opening up of the Mountain Province, there was nothing to repel, and everything to attract, a policy of vigorous missionary enterprise toward these backward but hardy, vigorous, and teachable people. Headhunting, which had been their national pastime, was suppressed. Slowly the Government established local centres, introduced elementary schools, and gave employment to the natives in road building and work of a like nature. But already Bishop Brent had seen the opportunity, and taken it. At the close of his episcopate in the islands, he thus recalls his early response to the stimulus of the Igorot appeal.

"Seldom, I suppose, has a missionary undertaken to convert a pagan population with less conception of the prodigious difficulties of the task, or with a more meager equipment of practical knowledge wherewith to attack it. All I was able to see at the moment was a well-defined racial group who were in danger of being taught the evils of civilization with no knowledge of God in His supreme revelation of Himself, by means of which to repulse them. It might be—I think it probably so—that pagan superstitions are measurably adequate for the religious needs of tribes who are wholly excluded from outside contacts. But the moment a secluded people are introduced to the big world of men, it becomes the responsibility of the Christian Church to furnish them with the best it has in its gift. The American nation was responsible for dragging the Igorot into the market-place of the world. The American Church, I argued, ipso facto became responsible for giving them the equipment of manhood and womanhood. To me, the existence of such a [37/38] people in my jurisdiction was a call to their evangelization." [The Spirit of Missions, Vol. 83, p. 177. 1918.]

The difficulties were indeed prodigious, for the Igorots were in every respect difficult of access; they were divided into numbers of mutually warring tribes; each tribe had its own dialect; and in each equally were imbedded animistic superstitions and debasing customs which had back of them the force of immemorial sanction. The bare, steep mountains would do little more than produce the scant food supply which the natives planted and harvested at the cost of great toil. In order that a Christian Igorot society of any proportions might persist, there must be improvement in their environment, induced by outside pressure and consummated by themselves. The question, then, that was constantly before our Mission was the enlargement of agricultural facilities, the establishment of industries, and the development of possibilities which would enable the educated Igorot to live in self-respect in his own country.

The Igorot mission-station nearest to civilization, though not the first in point of time, was established in 1906 by the Rev. S. S. Drury at Baguio among the Benguet Igorots. At a later date this place was made the summer capital of the Government; the Governor's summer residence was built among the pines of this elevated mountain region; a large army post—Camp John Hay—was established; many residents of Manila came to Baguio to escape the summer heat; hotels were built; and the journey from Manila was made easy by the railway and by the construction of the famous motor road known as the Benguet Trail. But in [38/39] the early days there was only the native village or barrio, access to which entailed an arduous journey of two days or more from the coast.

Our first work at Baguio was educational, and supplementary to that already in progress at Bontoc and Sagada farther in the interior. Easter School at Baguio was designed to take Igorot boys who had shown marked promise, and give them a more complete training; but, as time passed, Igorot girls were also taken and given training in weaving and other crafts besides their regular education and religious instruction. Thus there grew up an important centre, but always lacking proper buildings and equipment. As late as 1922, the dormitories and work-rooms and teachers' houses were inadequate affairs; all of the water required for cooking and washing had to be brought from a neighboring spring in the ubiquitous Standard Oil cans; and the little wooden chapel bade fair at any time to fall on the heads of the children who thronged it. Yet the school, under a succession of most devoted leaders, flourished and extended its influence widely. Not the adults steeped in the traditions and superstitions of their fathers, with intellects frequently past redemption, but the children—these were our hope.

Not long since in one of our Igorot missions an old woman was urged to Baptism. She held aloof on the score that she was "too old to learn."

"But what will you say to Christ after death, when He asks you why you were not baptized"?

"I will say: 'Because I was too old—and He will understand.'"

[40] Easter School was fortunate in having a succession of noteworthy principals. Deaconess Anne Hargreaves, for over five years the missionary-in-charge, laid the best possible foundations upon which to build a successful school. In 1912, Dr. and Mrs. B. M. Platt took charge, and continued to build up the school in spite of handicaps created by the lack of facilities to meet the demands until, in 1921, the enrollment of the school reached the high-water mark of 80, and the school was about half self-supporting through the sale of articles made by the children. Mention should also be made of the work of Miss Frances Bartter, in 1915, and of Mrs. James W. Chambers, who, at great personal sacrifice, came from Manila, in 1921, to serve as matron of Easter School. At this time the Rev. C. R. Wagner was chaplain of the school chapel—St. James'—and his work included, besides, ministrations to the foreign colony, to the large number—upwards of one hundred—of our Igorot Church boys at the government Agricultural School at Trinidad, three miles distant, and to the Christian members of the Igorot scouts stationed at Camp John Hay. It may here be noted that all of our boys at Trinidad were products of our schools in the interior, and, encouraged by the director of the Agricultural School as well as by Mr. Wagner, were regular attendants at the Sunday services in St. James' Chapel, though this entailed a six-mile walk. It was evident that, sooner or later, a church would have to be provided for them at a point nearer Trinidad.

We can not leave Baguio without mention, at least, of two of Bishop Brent's ventures of faith which were made to meet a very definite need. The American [40/41] occupation had brought to the Philippines, not individuals only, but families; and unless the children of school age were to be sent home for their education, equally good facilities would have to be provided in some healthy location in the Islands. For many reasons, the public schools of Manila and elsewhere, were not suitable for these boys and girls, and the Bishop determined to take advantage of the bracing climate of Baguio, and to found there a boarding school for boys and another for girls, under Church auspices. In December, 1909, the Baguio School for Boys was opened, to be followed four years later by the Cathedral School for Girls. The latter, although of approved value during the five years of its existence, was obliged to close in 1918 from lack of financial support. The boys' school flourished under the headmastership of the Rev. R. B. Ogilby, until the withdrawal of both Bishop Brent and Mr. Ogilby to answer the call of the World War. The school was then closed, to be reopened in 1921 when Bishop Mosher secured Major F. W. Hackett as headmaster.

Several days' journey from Baguio, far up in the mountains; was a district centering in the barrio of Sagada where existed no civilization of any sort except that which our Mission brought. To this place went the Rev. John A. Staunton, Jr., in 1904. For some months, Fr. Staunton, as he is familiarly known by all, stayed with Senor Jaime Masferre, a coffee planter and retired Spanish army officer, and looked over the country. It was a widespread district of mountain and valley, pine-clad, with narrow trails winding over the hills and connecting the scattered Igorot barrios, in the neighborhood of which the skill of the natives [41/42] had converted the steep mountain slopes into those marvelous series of terraced rice-fields which form the characteristic feature of the Igorot country.

Fortunately, "Padre Juan," as Father Staunton came to be called, was a graduate in mining engineering of Columbia University, and he brought his expert knowledge to bear on this field where everything had to be built up from the beginning. There were no workers, no buildings, no money. When he was joined by his wife, they moved into their first home which was a small shed twelve feet square, formerly used as a goat shelter. There, for nearly a year, the Stauntons lived, taught school, conducted a dispensary, held services, and baptized more than one hundred converts.

At Sagada an effort was made to affect the whole neighborhood rather than to concentrate upon the few children who could be taken into the mission schools. The difficulties of such an undertaking can be well understood. In spite of these difficulties, however, three thousand persons were baptized in the course of eighteen years, and the influence of the "Mission of St. Mary the Virgin" at Sagada had extended to other villages in all directions. Slowly there was built up an industrial Mission unlike anything known elsewhere in the mission fields of our Church. Springs in the mountains were tapped and the water run into Sagada, so that as the mission buildings were erected, they were supplied with running water. The stone for the buildings was quarried from the mountain by Igorot and Ilocano workmen trained in the Mission. At Fidelisan, five miles distant, power from a stream was developed and utilized to run a sawmill, the machinery for which was shipped from the United States to [42/43] Manila, thence by steamer up the coast, and finally carried on men's shoulders a four-days' journey over the mountains. Timber was cut, and sawn by the natives trained by a faithful American foreman, Mr. J. J. Fox, and in time the produce of the mill found a ready sale at all points within reach of native porters or, lately, of bull-carts, traveling on the trails opened up by the Government. Limestone deposits were found, which proved a source of excellent hydraulic cement. Supplies of all sorts to meet the needs of both the missionaries and the natives were brought into Sagada by the bull carts on their return journey, and placed on sale in the store, thus both supplying a need and creating a demand.

One of the most remarkable successes in Sagada was the way in which local helpers were found to carry on the various enterprises. Fr. Staunton drew his fellow-workers from all sources and all quarters; his artisans were Americans, Spaniards, Japanese, Igorots, and others from the Islands.

Though progress, as might well be expected, was slow, each succeeding year showed some advance—"something accomplished, something done"—; and all the time the influence of the missionaries was manifesting itself, not only through teaching and the dispensary, but by the fact that the various industries of the Mission brought great numbers of the raw natives into constant touch with the missionary staff, especially with their own "Padre Juan." A camarin for storing lumber in Sagada was erected, and promptly turned into a boarding school for boys and girls; a wooden church became the centre of Christian devotion; beginnings were made on a site for a [43/44] hospital, as also for a great church which would not only hold the crowd of worshippers which overflowed the existing building, but would be safe in the midst of the worst typhoon. Such were the initial stages in a unique mission-station.

The year 1921 was noteworthy as marking the practical completion of the new church, and the beginning of services in it. Fr. Staunton, as architect, supervising engineer, designer and interior decorator, had produced a beautiful building, of really wonderful workmanship in wood and stone taken entirely from his own sawmill and quarry, and constructed entirely with the labor of his own people.

Mention, however inadequate, should be made of the school where Igorot children, under the direction of Miss Masse and Miss Clarkson, were guided along the road to good citizenship as well as true Christianity; of the dispensary which, under Mr. Howland, gave help to the sick; of the machine shop which was part of a high school project; of the gardens which raised the Mission's supply of vegetables and fruits; of the printing press which, under an Igorot foreman, turned out all the printing for the Station; and of the residences for the Mission-staff.

From this centre at Sagada radiated several outstations: St. James' Mission at Besao, with chapel and school, built in memory of the Rev. Walpole Warren; and clay schools at Bagnen and Tanulong. In 1922, the Mission was able to report a growing spirit of selfhelp manifest throughout a chain of villages, farther afield, where the people, visited once a month by a priest from Sagada, were building their own chapels and bringing many within the Church's influence.

[45] Among the most devoted of the mission-workers, besides those already noted, should be mentioned Deaconess Hargreaves, whose manifold abilities have made of Besao a centre of Christian activity; Mrs. J. L. Young, who, after years of invaluable service, died at her post in 1918; and the Rev. A. E. Frost, to whom is entrusted the greater part of the itinerant out-station work. Nor should one forget the invaluable assistance rendered at Sagada by the Sisters of St. Mary, a Mission supported by the Community of St. Mary, of Peekskill, New York, and not under the auspices of the general Church.

An industrial mission is an expensive thing; if it is carried on well it is still more expensive. An attempt to influence a whole region, is bound to be filled with disappointments if one examines it in detail, but has much to arouse enthusiasm if looked at over a period of time. Up to 1922, it is true that advanced industrial positions at Sagada were filled chiefly from outside. The Igorots had not yet, except in rare cases, reached the point where they could take the lead. If means could be found to establish the technical high school, for which a building and equipment were available, it was felt that the Mission would begin to get those material results which had been aimed at from the beginning. But the spiritual results are the best testimony to the value of such a Mission, carried on faithfully year after year, and always with too few workers and with inadequate funds. In 1921, Fr. Staunton reported, as the fruit of seventeen years of work, over 3,600 Baptisms, 1,680 Confirmations, and a permanent church building capable of holding a thousand worshippers.

[46] Two and a half hours, or six miles, by horseback over the mountain trails from Sagada, is Bontoc, the capital of the Mountain Province, and, from time immemorial, the centre of many important villages of the Bontoc Igorots. Work here was begun in 1903 by the Rev. Walter C. Clapp, who was early joined by Miss Edith B. Oakes and Deaconess Elwyn. Together they began All Saints' Mission, which, unlike the Mission at Sagada, was, from the outset, educational rather than industrial, and directed toward the Igorot children rather than the adults. To this end, Fr. Clapp and his capable helper, Miss Waterman, devoted themselves to mastering the language; and within two years, with the aid of two of their youthful converts, they compiled and printed a complete vocabulary of Bontoc Igorot, and translated into that tongue the Gospel according to St. Mark and the Order for Evening Prayer.

Work at Bontoc had these added difficulties to contend against, that the native superstitions were cruder and more deeply rooted than was the case in districts closer to civilization, the moral condition of the people was more degraded, and they themselves were antagonistic or apathetic toward Christianity. Moreover, there were perplexing problems connected with the land which we had purchased from the natives, but to which title was claimed by the Government, when, in 1909, it was decided to make Bontoc the capital of the Mountain Province.

It was thought at first that a dispensary might prove a useful point of contact with the natives, and such was the case until the establishment of the civil government brought with it a medical staff, which [46/47] rendered unnecessary the mission hospital which had been planned.

As the city grew, the Roman Church re-established its Mission at Bontoc, and was soon enabled to build a $15,000 church, making our efforts at church building appear rather paltry. Still, by 1911, we had been enabled to build, in stone, a usable portion of a church, together with a small residence and a frame mission-house as a home for the Igorot boys and girls, with accommodations for two teachers. At first, no attempt had been made to draw these children away from the neighboring barrios; but, as their numbers increased, it became evident that, if they were to be really trained in habits of decency, and given a chance to develop, they would have to be taken in as residents at the Mission. This led to the establishment of two schools, one for girls and one for boys, in buildings of frame construction, the best that could be afforded at the time. One of these was later swept away by a river flood during a typhoon. Here, under Miss Waterman and the Rev. F. A. Sibley, respectively, the children were taught, prepared for Baptism, and given training in weaving, printing, and other crafts. With the opening of public schools, from 1909 onwards, many of the native children were drawn into them; but the mission schools still served for primary instruction and as dormitories, and maintained their strong and helpful influence over the children nurtured there. Moreover, the inferior quality of the public schools in Bontoc, and the frequent changes in the personnel of the staff of teachers, gave to our schools an advantage which the children and their parents were quick to note. Thus our enrollment steadily increased. The [47/48] girls—some eighteen to twenty in number—lived with Miss Whitcombe in a small, one-storied house; the thirty boys, under Fr. Sibley, occupied the old Mission House, and, in both cases, they were given some manual and industrial training. Successful efforts, too, were made to introduce, among the neighboring villages, good farming implements in place of the primitive tools universally used.

The religious work among the natives, even in the case of the children in our schools, proved at first to be very slow in its progress, so far as results were concerned; but with All Saints' Chapel, as a centre, a deeper and more lasting impression began to be in evidence, and the children who were sent each year to Baguio for more advanced training, showed very plainly that the Christian teaching at Bontoc had been by no means fruitless. As time went on, greater and more rapid results came with it, until the fact was freely recognized by the authorities in Baguio that, among the many native children received in the higher schools, none showed evidences of a more thorough moral and religious training than did those from our schools at Bontoc. This is a most significant fact. The case of the boy Pit-a-Pit, baptized Hilary Clapp, was perhaps the most striking illustration. Born in a filthy Igorot village; brought in 1903, as a little savage clad only in a "G-string," to our Boys' School in Bontoc; sent thence for two years of schooling under Dr. Drury in Baguio; then to America for three years at Trinity College School in Ontario; returning to Manila to enter the University of the Philippines, and graduating with the M. D. degree, Hilary Clapp was preparing in 1922 to return to his own people to [48/49] minister to them as a Christian physician. The story stirs the blood.

In 1914, a dormitory for the girls was finally completed; but, even then, it was of merely frame construction, and though firmly anchored, liable to serious damage during the typhoon season.

Shortly before this time, Mr. Clapp and Miss Waterman had both retired from the Mission, and from then on, the work was continued by Fr. Sibley, ably seconded by Miss E. H. Whitcombe, Deaconess Margaret Routledge, Deaconess S. M. Peppers, and other devoted women who, despite loneliness and hardships, maintained increasingly successful work at the three outstations, Tukukan, Samoki, and Alab.

That the Church was not pushed farther afield, where the tribes of Ifugaos and Kalingas were ready with a welcome, and where the Belgian Roman Catholic Mission had already penetrated, was due to the apathy of the Church at home, which failed to see the unexampled opportunity awaiting all kinds of workers. It is true that the coming of the Rev. A. E. Frost, in 1916, led to the opening of two new stations, Guinaang and Mainit; but he was presently transferred to Sagada, and again Fr. Sibley remained the only priest in the region. Fortunately, all of the outstations had their small schools and chapels, and, by 1922, many of the Christian Igorots trained at Bontoc, Baguio, or Sagada, were at work in various capacities among their own people.

In 1921, the Bontoc staff was strengthened by the coming of Miss M. M. Kilburne. At this time the Bontoc Mission in the town itself consisted of a half-completed chapel seating about 100 persons; a boys' [49/50] school giving graded instruction up to the fourth year and serving as a hostel for older boys; a large school for girls, poorly housed as above mentioned; and a small clergy-house. The five out-stations have been mentioned—Holy Cross Mission at Tukukan, St. Barnabas' Mission at Alab, St. Paul's School at Samoki, and the beginnings of work at Guinaang and Mainit.

Bontoc and Sagada met their respective problems somewhat differently because the conditions were different. Both solved the problems with just such a measure of success as their means permitted, and both succeeded in opening to the Church a field of work in which she shares the opportunity with no Christian Mission except the Roman Catholic.

CONCLUSION

Such, then, in brief, were the activities of our Mission in the Philippine Islands up to the close of 1922.

Nine-tenths of the population of the Islands consisted of Christianized Filipinos, with whom we had at first, but slight religious contact except through St. Luke's, Manila.

But the dis-establishment of the Roman Catholic Church and the rapid spread of public education had served to alienate from all forms of religion large numbers of the rising generation of Filipinos; and it was increasingly evident that these new conditions presented, not only an opportunity, but an obligation which our Church was bound to assume in very generous measure. This, therefore, became one of Bishop Mosher's first cares.

Among the Chinese of the Islands, great progress had been made at Manila, where St. Stephen's was [50/51] noted, not only for its large measure of self-support, but for the spirit of active co-operation which it had developed on the part of the whole community, Catholic and Protestant alike. Elsewhere, similar progress was hampered only by lack of adequate facilities.

The problem of the Mohammedan Moros continued to be a most difficult one, to be solved only by great patience and by the gradual transfer of most of the work from its position as a separate enterprise to that of a general responsibility of the Church at large. The status of the Agricultural School at Camp Indanan was apparently settled as an independent enterprise of the Moro Committee in New York, quite apart from the Church; but Bishop Mosher saw other vistas of opportunity opening up, especially among the less fanatical tribes of Moros. Thus, on the island of Mindanao, the stage seemed fairly set, in the autumn of 1920, for the beginning of an industrial and agricultural Mission among the friendly, but desperately neglected, Tiruray tribe. Unfortunately, the Church at home failed to realize the appealing nature of the opportunity, and no workers or money were forthcoming. But the field remained an open one, ready for occupation.

In the great Mountain Province of Luzon, the southern border of the Igorot country was strongly held for the Church through the well-developed centres at Bontoc, Sagada, and Baguio; but the call was imperative for advance by means of a succession of well-equipped stations, extending throughout this great area consigned to our care by the joint action of all of the non-Roman Missions in the Islands. To this project, Bishop Mosher addressed himself with [51/52] characteristic zeal from the very beginning of his episcopate, utilizing his furlough in 1922 largely in efforts to enlist workers and to raise sufficient funds to extend the work farther afield.

As to the Mission as a whole, it would be difficult to discover elsewhere a more startling situation, when one realizes that the Philippine Islands represent a crucial test of the soundness of American ideals both in Church and State, performed in full view of an awakening Orient.

The long episcopate of Bishop Brent in the Islands, and the generous support which he received, served to lay foundations, and to justify the Mission of the American Church, established under the American flag in this far-distant field. To Bishop Mosher falls the no less important task of building, on those foundations, a structure worthy of the Church which he represents. The close of the second year of his episcopate gave every promise of success, if the Church at large could only realize the supreme importance of its task.

Photographs

Ruins of an old church, Manila

Paco Cemetery, Manila

Callers at the mission

A cargo-boat on Pasig River, Manila

Binondo Canal, Manila

A public carriage

A street market

Moving day in Manila

A native street, Tondo quarter

The Manila Observatory

A native house after a typhoon

The first Anglican church, Manila

The Cathedral Church of St. Mary and St. John, Manila

The Cathedral, Manila

The Rt. Rev. Gouverneur F. Mosher, D.D.
Bishop of the Philippine Islands

Bishop's House and Columbia Club, Manila

Cathedral dormitory, Manila

St Luke's Hospital, Manila

Entrance to the dispensary of St. Luke's Hospital, Manila

Dispensary, St. Luke's Hospital, Manila

Moro and Igorot nurses, St. Luke's Hospital, Manila

Men's ward, St. Luke's Hospital, Manila

Ready for church

St. Luke's Hospital, Manila

Chancel, St. Luke's Hospital, Manila

House of the Holy Child, Manila

Girls of the House of the Holy Child, Manila

St Stephen's Church for the Chinese, Manila

The Rev. Ben Ga Pay

Baptismal class with sponsors, St. Stephen's, Manila

Santa Maria Road, Zamboanga

Moro boat

Church of the Holy Trinity, Zamboanga

The Chancel

Moro houses, Kawa Kawa

Moro apple girls, Zamboanga

Staff of the Sulu Press, Zamboanga

Zamboanga Hospital

Clearing the fields, Jolo

Road builders, Jolo

Dormitory, Indanan Agricultural School

Boys of the Moro Agricultural School, Jolo

Sunday market, Baguio

Igorot porters on the trail

Easter school for Igorot children, Baguio

Boys' dormitory, Easter school, Baguio

Baguio school for boys

Service on the porch of Baguio School

Children, Easter school, Baguio

Igorot Constabulary and their families

Igorots on the trail

Mission of St. Mary the Virgin, Sagada

Water-jar vendors, Sagada

Thatch-carriers, Sagada

Igorot woman

Fidelisan Igorot

Church of St. Mary the Virgin, Sagada

The Chancel

Confirmation service, Sagada

Crowd outside the church, Sagada

Main building, high school, Sagada

Mission lumbermen, Sagada

Mission saw mill, Sagada

Fidelisan Falls, near Sagada

A model father

Bontoc headhunter

St. James' School, Besao

Cargo on trail—coast to mission

All Saints' Church, Bontoc

The Chancel

The Rev. Walter C. Clapp

Pit-a-Pit before

Pit-a-Pit after

Pit-a-Pit and his godfather

Project Canterbury