Note and Comment

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Washington, D. C. · Aug 17, 1905

MANILA dispatches dated August 10 tell of a banquet given to Secretary Taft, by the archbishop of Manila, on the secretary's arrival there, at which the archbishop made a speech, extending to Secretary Taft the welcome of the Catholic bishops and clergy, and said he felt that the visit would become significant. Other features of the occasion were a speech by Secretary Taft, in which he said that the government of the United States had come into closer relationship with the Catholic Church, and a speech by Bourke Cockran, paying “a glowing tribute to Catholicism.”

Thus the governmental affairs of the United States and the religion and work of Rome continue to be commingled, and the line of separation between them to be obscured. This began at the beginning of the American occupancy of the islands, and the straws show that the direction of the current has not changed.