Pioneering in Panama by B. E. Connerly

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D.C. · Jan 8, 1914

Pioneering in Panama

By B. E. Connerly

B. E. CONNERLY

The missionary in Panama early discovers peculiarities which distinguish this field from all others; but no country is more needy, or more ready to be worked, or more thrilling with interest for the gospel worker. Panama’s romantic past, its unique physical features, its social caste, discriminating economics, and low standard of morality, all combine to create conditions which the gospel alone can counteract.

While the Panamanos are, theoretically, Christian, in practice they come far short of exemplifying the true principles of Christianity. Though they boast of the fact that on the isthmus was erected the first church edifice of the Western Hemisphere, yet after four hundred years of untrammeled freedom in every phase of isthmian ethics, the progeny of that ecclesiastical order know practically nothing of the gospel, and it is only the faintest minority of this people who have ever read from God’s Holy Word.

A full century before the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock, Panama was organized into a Roman Catholic diocese by order of Pope Leo X. It is well known that the early Spanish bishops proscribed the Bible, and we testify that the element of time has made no change; the bishop of Panama and all his lieutenants still exercise all possible vigilance to prevent the entrance of the Word of God and of those who promulgate it.

In this report we speak only of our work among the native Panamanos in the interior provinces. While we have always enjoyed our work among the multitudes employed in the work of digging the great canal, our real Pauline experiences have been gained while working in the virgin districts remote from the Canal Zone.

We always have good experiences in our trips through the country. We carry Bibles, Testaments, Gospels, “Coming King,” “Steps to Christ,” “Christ Our Saviour,” hymn books, and tracts, all in Spanish. The country districts are too sparsely settled to work, so we travel from city to city on horseback or in ox-carts. The roads in the dry season are passable, but in the wet season they are beyond description.

Recent earthquakes on the isthmus have done more to open the way for the Bible and Bible workers than has our missionary strategy for half a score of years. The people are poor, illiterate, and superstitious, but they are ready to talk of the Bible and to purchase it and other religious books when opportunity affords.

SWATOW MISSION WORKERS
Elder W. F. Hills of the Swatow (China) Mission, an evangelist, and boys who are in training for ministerial work. — SWATOW MISSION WORKERS Elder W. F. Hills of the Swatow (China) Mission, an evangelist, and boys who are in training for ministerial work.

The priests oppose our work everywhere and spoil an otherwise ideal field for missionary work. They do all in their power to prevent the purchase of religious books, or if purchased, will cause the books to be burned, or to be returned with the request that the money be refunded. The presence of the Word of God among them sometimes excites their most intense anger and animates their worst passions. Their magistrates have lamented in our hearing the impotency of the laws, forced upon them by the North Americans, to deal with us as they think we deserve. One mayor regretted that their old-time laws were not now in force whereby Protestant books could be confiscated and publicly burned. He advised all who had purchased books to return them, and promised that if we did not at once return the money we should be imprisoned. In two different places the priests claimed as a base of their opposition to the Bible that it taught the seventh-day Sabbath, which the church had changed to Sunday, and that they did not want the people confused. Such opposition has most naturally brought us to the plainest teaching of the advent message and the Sabbath truth. Latin America must hear the truth, and the dawning of a better day for her peoples is at hand.