The work of Protestant missionaries in the Philippines is claiming much attention at the present time. These missionaries have found a ready response on the part of the people to whom they have begun to preach the message of salvation. The islands are really occupying an advantageous position for missionary work. They are within two days' sail of China. It takes but little more than half as long to sail from Manila to Yokohama as it does to sail from San Francisco to Honolulu. A three days' sail from Manila will land one among the cannibals of South Borneo. Thus with the Philippines as a center one is within easy access of 700,000,000 of the most needy peoples of the world—ripened fruits of the most ancient heathenism, still practically unreached by God's last message of mercy and warning. While the Filipinos are spoken of as a child race, yet there is excellent material there, and the work so far accomplished gives great promise of an abundant harvest among that people.
The Catholicism has done little for them, missionaries admit that some good has come to that people from the Spanish occupancy. A measure of civilization exists there which is not found among neighboring peoples. The flag of a European power and the professed representatives of Christ were known there two hundred years before Australia was opened to civilization, the results seen in the Philippines are far from what they should be to-day. There are still people in portions of the islands who are in as dark heathenism as in any part of the world. Yet among a great number polytheism and pantheism have been discarded for a belief in the one God and redemption through Jesus Christ.
Among this people the missionaries report a “marvelous eagerness to hear and a strange readiness to accept the Protestant message, the like of which has not been seen in any other Roman Catholic country.” In speaking of the reception by this people of the Gospel message, Rev. H. C. Stuntz says:—
I never saw such readiness to hear. I have gone into the provinces on the invitation of the people of the city and preached for two or three hours to as high as 2,000 and 2,500 people, who would come in the morning and stay until noon.
Another missionary was in one town sixty-one hours, and during that time organized a Methodist church with sixty members, bought a lot, and had half the money raised to build the church. Mr. Stuntz declares that what was done in that town could be done in a hundred other towns and cities in the islands. The friars are withdrawn from the rural districts, and it is doubtful if the people would permit them to return. Truly the door is opened for evangelical work in the islands. Will the church rise to the opportunity?
