Your ShelfYour Projects

HENRY WILLIAMS

13%

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Mar 10, 1903

FromReview and Herald, Vol. 80, No. 10.

Read the full edition

HENRY WILLIAMS

By Henry Williams

Hayti

HENRY WILLIAMS

This country as a republic will reach a hundred years of independence in 1904; and with all these years of freedom, she is still an infant, in comparison to other nations. Since the abandoning of the presidential position by Gen. T. A. Sam in the month of May, the country has been passing through a terrible crisis—that of civil war, bloodshed now being the ruling spirit.
The rebel party is determined to put in a man as president whom they revere and hold up as a wonder for intelligence and rare principles of honesty. They believe that he is the only man capable of raising the country from the state of ruin into which it has fallen. If this belief is to be accepted as a fact, then it reflects very much upon the general advancement of this people during a century as a nation, showing educational poverty and a pitiable lack of honest characters. It has been brought to light from correspondences discovered, that the merchants are implicated in this revolution, more so than the foreign element, by loaning the revolutionists large sums of money at an exorbitant interest. But the saddest part of this wicked business is that members of the Protestant churches in this town are also among those aiding to bring about this unfortunate state of affairs. It is said that a Catholic priest with his gun was also among the rebels.
Protestantism is held in contempt. All Protestants are now abused, and a feeling of hatred is expressed against strangers, with threats to do harm. Strange, they do not make so much ado about the priests’ bad conduct. We enjoy quietness in town now, as the fighting is going on in the interior; but it is not safe to go out at night. A United States war-ship has been in the harbor for many days, watching the development of affairs.
As I am writing this report, my mind is drawn to these words of Elder L. D. Santee’s poem, “Call for Workers,” in the REVIEW of June 24: “Is there no meaning in the calls for help . . . yonder?” “Yonder” seems peculiarly applicable to this land, “where every prospect pleases, and only man is vile.”
Cape Haytien, Oct. 21, 1902.