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Pal Tnree and Pine
Stories of the Philippine Islands
By
EDITH EBERLE


Powell & White
Cincinnati, 0.




Copyright 1927
POW,LL & WHITE
Cincinnati, Ohio
Printed in U. S. A.




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To three dear girls, my nieces,
MARIAN
PATTY
EDITH LENORE'








FOREWORD


I always said I would never write a book concerning my mission field until I had gone back for
my second term and thus clarified and verified my
impressions. But when it appeared that I could
not return I yielded to temptation (for I have always wanted to do it) and urging of friends, thinking that if I dealt with my own impressions as
merely impressions and not as established conditions, and my own and my friends' experiences I
could not go far astray. So many unfair conclusions
and erroneous impressions are given by those who
write with too little contact and too fleeting
glimpses. In these few sketches, given largely as I
have told them to groups of people, I have attempted nothing of the problems and program of our
mission group in the Philippines. I have not tried
to discuss mission policy. I have not wished to enter into disputed questions. But offering even these
simple sketches I feel I owe an apology to my missionary friends who have labored longer and more
worthily than I. To them perhaps should have
been given the privilege that has been mine.
I love the Filipino people and their island home.
I count my years of service there as richly privileged and blessed. It has been a real joy to share
with friends in the homeland something of those
days and service among a worthy nation.
In the preparation of these sketches I owe much
to my missionary friends whose experiences and
stories I have told, to friends who have encouraged




when I have hesitated. I owe most to my cherished
friend Lucy King DeMoss at whose suggestion the
work was begun, at whose insistence it has been
finished.
In the hope that you may learn to love the Filipino people as we missionaries love them, and that
you may be stirred to a more sympathetic understanding and appreciation of them and their aspirations I give you my little book.




CONTENTS
CHAPTER                            PAGE
FOREWORD..................... 5
I PALM TREE AND PINE............. 11
II FOUR HUNDRED YEARS............ 19
III THESE THREE-IGOROT, MORO,
CHRISTIAN LOWLANDER............ 29
IV  FACTS AND FACES............... 47
V  LOVE FOR THE BIBLE............. 73
VI ADAMSON HALL.................87
VII  JUST  GIRLS....................105
VIII HOLY DAYS AND HOLIDAYS........125
IX  DREADED DAYS..................143
X WHEN THE DEATH ANGEL COMES... 153
XI A MISSIONARY'S MEMORIES.......161
XII SOMEBODY NEEDS YOU............181




I




Palm Tree and Pine








I


PALM TREE AND PINE
HALF way round the world they lie- those tropical Philippine Islands, just off the coast of
Asia, between degrees four and twenty, north of the
Equator. In area they are comparable to the combined areas of Michigan and Wisconsin, the largest
island, Luzon, equal to the State of Ohio, the second largest, Mindanao, as large as Indiana. The
seasons divide themselves into rainy and dry, the
rainy season being in most places our United States
summer months, and the dry season the rest of the
year. Our homeland winter time is the coolest season of the islands, cool enough to need blankets at
night and a sweater in evening and early morning.
April and May are the hottest months of the year.
In the rainy season it can rain in downpours that
make our hardest American rains seem like quiet,
summer showers (though Florida rains do seem to
be truly tropical). Little streams or dry river beds
can within a few hours become raging torrents impassible for days. Everything gets wet and wetter
until one fears even one's spirits are dampened,
and begins to wonder if one's mind is as moldy as
the leather-bound books in the library. But the
dry season comes and when an ardent tropical sun
blazes all day long in a cloudless sky, and a strong
wind laden with dust tears along, one merely endures until night time brings refreshing coolness
and fits one for another day.




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PALM TREE AND PINE


Whatever the season, however, I'd like for you
to see the Philippines, some seven thousand islands
dropped into the sparkling blue waters of south
China seas, whose waves ever beat and spend themselves on the coral beaches in ceaseless motion and
thundering surf. Catch glimpses of those little inland seas, hemmed in by islands, many of which are
mere rocky promontories thrusting themselves from
the water. See the beautiful curving shore lines
whose gleaming white sands are intensified by the
blueness of the water and softened by the groves of
cocoanut palms which reach down to the water's
edge. See, too, the little protected coves and harbors dotted with fisherman's craft, villages tucked
along the shore peeping from their wealth of tropical verdure. Wander along those coral beaches
where great rocks like solid masonry thrust themselves into the sea, whose waves dash high against
them, tossing up rainbow-hued mist and foam. Deep
fissures and depressions in the coral, covered at high
tide, at low tide reveal brilliantly colored fish and
beauties of sea growth, anemonies, coral, dainty
irridescent fragile things.
Follow the highways and by-paths of the Philippines. Long winding roads gleam white under
the noonday radiance of a tropical sun; roads
fringed with tall, feathery, plumelike, gracefullybending bamboo; roads guarded by the tall,
straight-standing, sentinel-like palm trees; roads
bordered by brilliant tropical shrubbery, with alluring glimpses of the sea on one side, mountains
on the other. Here and there a group of nipa or
bamboo houses with thatched roofs are tucked into




PALM TREE AND PINE


I8


a hillside or nestled in a grove of banana trees. A
bird with gayest plumage tilts on a bamboo fence.
If it be your lucky day, a whole family of monkeys
may scold at you from a near-by thicket. Turn
into one of the many by-paths and follow its winding way, a mere shady lane or cart road crossing,
perhaps, a stream or two, until you come to the cluster of bamboo houses that is a sort of precinct of the
nearby village. If the season be right your breath
will catch-mine did-when you see your first fire
tree. Great trees they are, with mighty spreading
branches and long, dainty, fern-like leaves. And
in June they burst into an indescribable gorgeousness with clusters of large, glowing, velvety-red
flowers with yellow centers-like glorified, manytimes-magnified nasturtiums. Pause on the summit of that high hill which you have climbed by
means of a road twisting in hair-pin curves and
look down on a river winding across the fertile valley and slipping into the China Sea, which sweeps
in to meet valley, river and mountain. On the
bank of the river stands the little Protestant chapel
built by industrious farmers of the valley, "our
people" we call them and if they have heard that
we are coming today they will be waiting beside
their chapel to wave their welcome to us on our
ledge far above them. In the rainy season the
vivid, living greenness of things charms one and so
many shades of green, so alive, so marvelously
blended.
The rice paddy is always interesting but not exactly beautiful when, as a big muddy pool, it is being prepared for the plants which are transplanted




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PALM TREE AND PINE


stalk by stalk into the mud and water. Later its
greenness delights. See the sugar plantations, rubber trees, a coffee tree, a great variety of fruit trees
on one of which the fruit grows all around the
trunk, one overlapping the other. On another tree
one may find the fruit on trunk and roots. There
are picturesque ruins of great stone churches and
other old stone churches in splendid preservation
with saints in every niche; convents, bell towers,
beautiful white-porticoed government buildings
with overhanging balconies and open court yard in
the center; houses of masonry, houses of wood,
houses of bamboo or nipa with thatched roof. The
rich glory and prodigal profusion of colors of the
sun rising over our Eastern mountains, you will see,
and the calm quiet radiance of the sun dropping to
rest in the China Sea, beauty of afterglow, swift
falling darkness, and a swarm of birds around the
tower; the reverent hush of the moment when a
great moon rises behind a clump of bamboo and the
mystic charm and brightness of moonlight, or perhaps just friendly twinkling starlight.
And when you've seen enough of the lowlandsif ever that could be —you may leave the land of
the palm tree and journey to the land of the pine.
We'll go up to Baguio, where the pine trees grow
and the cool breezes blow. Baguio is reached by
two of the finest and most beautiful mountain
roads, real feats of engineers' skill. The Benguet
Trail is carved from the mountainside and built
over deep gulleys. It follows the deep rocky gorge
of a mountain river. Sheer rocky walls on one
side, appalling depths on the other, and over be



PALM TREE AND PINE


15


yond the gorge, gauzy, ribbon-like waterfalls. The
Naguilian Trail lacks the rugged beauty of the
Benguet but recompenses with greater sweeps and
distances. The Ocean lies far below, rivers meandering seaward and valleys and other mountain
ranges are ever beyond and higher. Each turn of
the trail brings a new vista of wonder. And either
trail charms one at sunset time with evening glow
in the sky, gold in the ocean far below, light on the
mountain tops, deepening mists in the valleys. A
chill in the breeze, a whiff of ozone-filled air, a fern
tree, a pine! The land of the palm is five thousand
feet below. The land of the pine is a different
world.
Baguio is a beautiful and health-restoring resort
for the white man in the tropics. And even Filipinos born to the equitorial regions find it very
good. Roads everywhere yield new beautiesbeauties of nature and beauties man-made, for ih
the early days of American occupation Baguio was
a half-year summer capital. Our early and honored Governor General Taft could not, with his
avoirdupois, endure twelve months of lowland heat.
So government buildings were erected, houses built,
gardens planted-Baguio grew into a place of rarest charm, not the least of which are strawberries
eight months of the year and all kinds of American
vegetables all the year. The colorful costumes and
picturesque customs of the mountain people add to
the pleasure. And then there are trails leading
higher where the rice grows in marvelously terraced steep slopes, where the mountains are more




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and more rugged, the views wilder and more sublime.
You may linger in the land of the pine or return
to the land of the palm with the heat rolling up in
waves to receive you as you descend the trail. There
are beauties in the Philippines. To travel is a joy.
But after all, the people claim our lasting interest.
There is the real lure! Beauties of nature and
beauties man-made cannot hold one for years from
homeland and kin, or take one eagerly back after
furlough days. The people do that! Living in
their island homes, meeting life's problems, responsibilities and joys are a people to love, a progressive, able people but still a needy people. Under palm tree and pine they wait-the real beauty,
the real charm of the islands.




II-Four Hundred Years








II


FOUR HUNDRED YEARS
ALL day long the lad of Genoa sat by the sea.
The townswomen said "lazy, good-for-nothing
fellow. Why don't they put him to work?" And
the men tapped their heads with significant nod and
implication. But he showed them how to make an
egg stand on end, and after awhile he showed them
how to find a new land. A new era was ushered
in with Columbus' dreaming and courage. It was
an age to quicken the pulse, captivate the imagination and lure the spirit. Men dared all! There
was discovery, conquest, exploration, adventure
and romance, new lands, vast oceans and mighty
rivers, strange civilizations and dusky savages, silk,
spices and cities of gold. No wonder men were
athirst for the new, the untried. The world was a
globe. And Magellan stepped on the scene as with
valiant dare-all he cried, "I'll sail round it." And
he did.
More than four hundred years ago this courageous sea captain stood upon the deck of a small
vessel. For days almost without number, it seemed
to his resentful and frightened crew, no land had
been sighted. Only the trackless wastes of the
mighty Pacific. And then a little island. More
islands. Smooth sandy shores. High rocky promontories.  Sparkling blue waters, soft, fragrant
breezes, palm trees. The lure of the tropics. Ma19




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PALM TREE AND PINE


gellan and his men landed. Friendly little brown
men timidly offered gifts. Fresh water, luscious
tropical fruit must have pleased the palate after
days of musty water and dry, salty food. Soft,
warm, sandy beaches must have felt good after
those hard rolling decks. Small wonder Magellan
and his men set up a wooden cross and kneeling
there in the sand said the first mass in those islands,
spoke for perhaps the first time the name of God in
the presence of the pagan listeners. And beside the
cross Magellan placed the flag of Spain as, with an
all inclusive gesture he took possession of these islands, greater far than he knew, (for Magellan saw
none of the larger islands) in the name of Felipe,
king of Spain. Hence their name, Islas Filipinas,
the Islands of Philip, the Philippine Islands. On
a tiny island, beneath a stately monument at the
end of a long avenue of palm trees, within sight
and sound of ocean wave, Magellan sleeps, having
given his life in combat for the friendly chief of
Cebu, who with his followers had accepted Magellan's Christ. A pitiful remnant of Magellan's gallant expedition returned to Spain and their stories
must have caused a nine days' court wonder and
been forgotten.
Meanwhile in the dimness of the four hundred
years ago, a Malay race of many tribes dwelt in
their island homes; living in little villages, each
small village a complete social unit unto itself and
its chieftain, such a closed corporation that if a curious visitor came from another village he left his
head behind in lieu of calling card. Their beginning shrouded in gloom, we only know that once up



FOUR HUNDRED YEARS


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on a time a dwarf people were the only inhabitants
(and of them a few remain today) until they were
crowded back by migrations of Malay tribes, pagans all until the last migration which had embraced
the Moslem faith before coming to these shores.
These islanders were without written language, except a few crude symbols, or recorded history, with
no rule but the patriarchal, with scarce a priesthood, temple, altar, ritual or Holy Book. Instead,
a few priests and here and there, a hag of a priestess, a few caves for incantations, a confused, illdefined belief in evil spirits which must somehow
he appeased. To such a people, fifty years after
Magellan claimed the islands came the Spaniard,
seeking wealth and power, his own and not another's good. For three and one-half centuries
Spain ruled, sometimes wisely and well, more often
cruelly and unjustly, exacting heavy taxes, making
unfair demands, for the king and his henchmen
must be enriched, his majesty's representatives
must live in luxury and ease.
Now the king of Spain was a transgressor in the
Philippine Islands, for, according to the Pope's
famous Line of Demarcation, these islands belonged to Portugal. So Philip, in order to appease
the Pope, displayed great zeal in evangelizing. The
times had seen, also, the organization of many religious orders, whose passionate fervor for keeping
the cross apace with the flag was well nigh fanatical.
To the Philippine Islands there came the friars in
robes black, white or russet brown, according to
their order. They went freely and friendlily among
the Filipinos, learning to speak their languages,




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PALM TREE AND PINE


loving them, teaching them, and finally drawing
them, sometimes compelling them, to the Christian
faith. Much good they did, but wrong came with
the right. Through enforced labor and heavy taxation they built the great stone churches, convents
and bell towers, and a people with no well defined
religion of their own were easily brought in. And
so for three and one-half centuries these people
sought a God whom they but little understood and a
Christ so enshrouded in gloom and superstition, so
difficult to approach, that they never thought of him
as a daily companion, a friend who might walk with
them on their "dusty way to Emmaus," but instead,
as one shut up in a great stone church to be importuned by kneeling for weary hours on hard stone
floors, telling their beads, burning their little homemade tapers, holding as sacred hideous images,
marching in well nigh endless processions, torturing themselves with cruel flagellations, paying large
sums of money for the required, though not
fathomed ordinances of the church-the old story
of a conquered people exploited by a wealthy
church. Fattened shepherds and hungry sheep.
But there were other priests who glorified their ministry and gave loving service, even life, for their
flocks.
Here and there all these years were Filipino
patriots and Spanish friars who led revolts and uprisings, quickly quelled, with leaders killed and
subdued followers dispersed. But every uprising,
every death, meant advance until finally came the
great revolt. For a short time with Spain a republic and a liberal governor-general in the Islands,




FOUR HUNDRED YEARS


23


the Filipinos dared air their grievances against the
friars. They spoke for the first time and waited in
sullen silence for fire out of heaven to strike them
dead. As boldness came with the speaking, so
grievances grew with the telling. There grew a
seething anger toward the friars, who gnashed their
teeth in impotent rage and waited until Spain again
became a monarchy and a new governor-general
would once more allow them to wield a strong hand
in governmental affairs. And in their own orgy of
hatred, with power to wreak vengeance on Filipino
subjects, the friars sealed their doom. There were
persecutions, cruelties, deaths, imprisonments until
filthy dungeons would hold no more, and then
wholesale exilings. Jose Rizal, the versatile, cultured and greatest Malay of all times (one of the
world's truly great) was unjustly sentenced to die.
And the Filipino Revolution already organized
through the Katipunan was launched. Stupendous
courage of a scant six million people attempting to
break chains three hundred and fifty years in the
forging.
We Americans, thirty years ago, knew little of the
Filipino people and their wrongs. But Cuba was
near home and we did know the conditions there.
And when we could no longer endure Spanish inhumanities and treacheries in Cuba, we declared
war. With our interest centered in the sunken
"Maine" we hardly knew about Admiral Dewey and
his Pacific Fleet in the Hongkong Harbor being
ordered to Manila. And I have no doubt when
the morning papers of May 1st, 1898, flashed with
the news "Admiral Dewey sinks Spanish Squadron


',




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PALM TREE AND PINE


in Manila Bay" many an American breakfast was
interrupted with a search for "The Atlas," or
"Mary-where-is-your-geography?" and many a cup
of coffee grew cold while the head of the house's
finger traced the shore line of Cuba in a vain effort to locate Manila Bay. And, so, knowing neither
inhabitants nor islands they, as President McKinley said "fell into our laps" and there was nothing
for us to do but "take the islands, educate the Filipinos and uplift, civilize and christianize them, and
by God's grace do the best we could for them." A
new day of opportunity had at last dawned for that
benighted people. Through almost thirty years reforms have been in progress-a modified penal
code, prison reforms with one of the finest penal
colonies in all the world, as well as Bilibid Prison
whose cleanliness, spirit and system made it a
"show place in Manila"; elective franchise, a splendid school system, closing of opium dens, checking
lotteries and gambling, six thousand miles of good
roads, concrete bridges, telephone, telegraph and
postal systems, civil liberty; but best of all religious liberty, the complete severing of church and
state, as Filipino leaders had declared must come,
before even the American flag was run up. American government representatives, American missionaries, and trained Filipinos are now working together for the uplift of a people who are giving in
large measure loyal support to the effort. A people
who have lived in so much poverty, toil and emptiness, who have known so few joys and comfortsbut such a splendid, courteous, captivating people
with great powers and possibilities for progress,




FOUR HUNDRED YEARS            25
with such a clear grasp of Christian principles and
so large a capacity for interpreting the Christ
through daily living. The next forty years may be
making brighter history than the last four hundred.




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III-These Three-Igorot, Moro,
Christian Lowlander




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III


THESE THREE-IGOROT, MORO,
CHRISTIAN LOWLANDER
FAR up in the hill country of the Philippine Islands in a narrow little valley hemmed in by
high rocky walls we chanced one day upon a quaint
and unusual dwelling. Scarce more than a tiny hut
or roof set upon the ground, the interesting thing
about it all was that it was entirely covered with the
flattened out tin cans in which the Standard Oil
Company of New York sends to the far away Orient
their products. In the doorway squatted the man
of the house, clad only in the bright-colored loin
cloth or G string of his tribe. To complete his costume he wore some tattooing, a basket of a hat almost lost in his tousled black locks, and earrings,
without which the man of the mountain really has
"nothing to wear" whether they be the established
style, or, as once I saw, a paper clip in one ear and
a safety pin in the other. Beautifully his muscles
played under his satiny brown skin as alert brown
eyes watched his unexpected and surprised-as-he
guests. In his hand he grasped the long spear, constant companion of his kind. I looked at him, I
looked at his house. Himself a product of the
wilds, his house of a far away western civilization.
Big business had penetrated far enough in the
Philippine Islands to bring this man material for
his house. But about the man I saw no evidence
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PALM TREE AND PINE


that we missionaries, representatives of the biggest
business of all, had yet found him.
He was once a hunter of heads, this man of the
mountains. With his cunningly shaped axe he used
to venture forth, returning after awhile with the
head of an enemy. Between the times he helped his
wife till the rice paddies, cleverly terraced up on
the steep mountainside, and raise the camotes or
sweet potatoes of which the entire family was so
fond. He guarded the purity of his daughter, and
maintained a rather high moral standard in all his
living and dealing. He taught his son to follow
game and hunt heads, for son must bring home a
head or two before he could hope to win his lady
love. On Sunday morning, or on Saturday night
so as to be early enough, the entire family went to
Baguio to the great market. And in Baguio on
Sunday morning the Dog Market is the center of
attraction. Some two hundred skinny, dejected
looking specimens of dogdom sit about and howl a
bit, kept at safe distance from their owners by
means of a length of bamboo between collar and
chain.  The bargaining goes on.  A dollar is
enough to pay! After awhile our satisfied customer
starts off over the hills leading his Sunday dinner.
His wife trots along behind and whether it be up
hill or down dale, she keeps up that same effortless
pace, no matter how heavy the burden which she
carries in a basket on her back, its weight suspended from her forehead by means of a band
around her head. She is modestly dressed in a
two-piece costume, a straight piece of cloth, knee
length for a skirt, and a queer little jacket, charm



IGOROT, MORO, CHRISTIAN LOWLANDER 31


ing, gay, all made of layers of cloth of many patterns and hues and all her own weaving, as is her
man's G string.
But the Dog Market is a thing of the past, by
edict of our Governor General, Leonard Wood.
And the practice of head hunting rests in departed
glory. Up in beautiful Baguio, five thousand feet
above sea level, we Americans, taking refuge for a
charmed month from the intense heat of the lowlands, delight in the colorful, picturesque life of
these people. We go anywhere among them with
no fear for our heads or our dogs. We haggle
with them, friendly fashion, for the little pipe or
knife they carry, exchange cheery greetings with
them as we pass on the trails, employ them to carry
our packs as we penetrate into the remoter mountains. A little tienda, or store where can be bought
a can of sardines or salmon; Singer sewing machines in queer little houses; government buildings
with the American flag waving over them; school
houses, missionary institutions; but over on yonder
steep hillside is the cave where the dead are buried
after the manner of their ancestors. Here a church,
there a hag of a priestess in the midst of heathen
rites.
Another old man of the mountains may be found
along any of the steep trails or in the closely clustered huts of a village. He also was a hunter of
heads, a mighty and valiant warrior. He also used
to venture forth and return after a while with the
head of an enemy. And, proud of his victory, he
wanted all to know of his success. So whenever he
cut off the head of an enemy he burned deep in his




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PALM TREE AND PINE


forehead a scar. The years passed by and the
head hunter was greatly feared. In his forehead
there had been burned seven scars. And then he
came in contact with a Christian missionary itinerating along one of his beautiful mountain trails.
He heard for the first time the story of the Christ,
was convinced, baptized, and wanted to serve his
new found Master.
"I no longer want to hunt heads," he said "but I
am going out to find hearts." He won after awhile
his first man for the Christ.
"I don't want to start marking my body" he
thought, touching with shame those seven scars on
his forehead. So deep in his right arm he burned
a scar. He won his second man and he burned the
scar in his left arm. He won his third soul and the
scar marked the right arm. His fourth it was the
left and the last we had heard of him, he had
burned deep into his right arm seven scars, into his
left six. That many souls he had won for his
Master.
Interesting folk, these mountain tribes! Too interesting perhaps, tempting many an American returning from those tropical Islands to give the impression that they are the typical Filipinos, forgetful, seemingly, of his cultured, refined, educated
friends of the lowlands who are more truly the typical Filipinos both as to numbers and customs. But
these mountain people, still needy, are there and of
a friendly, approachable nature. Their lowland
countrymen are helping them. Americans, too, are
serving among them in ways commercial, governmental, educational and missionary. Much has




IGOROT, MORO, CHRISTIAN LOWLANDER 33


been done. Much remains to be done. I have seen
many a mountaineer wriggle himself into his first
shirt. I have seen him similarly struggling as he
sends his children to the school, on to Manila and
even to "The States" for higher education. I have
seen him give up cherished, age-old habits and pagan practices for Christian ways and teachings. But
I want to see more of him led from the old into
the new.
Far down among the Southern Island we had
been traveling. Up at Lake Lanao, loveliest of the
lakes, two thousand feet above sea level, we were
visited by the Sultan or Datu of that district. All
dressed up in American clothes was he when he
came to call, white linen suit and shoes. With
much ceremony he invited the American visitors to
come to the Mosque next Friday for services. And
that was one invitation to church neglected by no
vacationing American.  Friday noon found us
in the Mohammedan Mosque, a lovely little building with its walls all carved and painted in Arabian
designs, and located at the water's edge. On the
floor, closely crowded together, sat the worshippers, the hands frequently uplifted in the attitude
of prayer only to fall again, empty, listless, it
seemed. On an upraised sled-like platform sat the
priests and all men who had made the long pilgrimage to Mecca. Two of them consented to entertain the visitors. And for this two fans must be
borrowed. Each held his fan in front of his mouth
and one of them let loose a most amazing sound
which he held, on the same key, a most distressing
length of time. When he weakened and was ready




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PALM TREE AND PINE


to catch his breath the other took up the refrain to
be held until he too must "come up for air." Number one immediately caught the melody and so back
and forth the duet struggled-a contest it seemed
to me in who-could-hold-his-breath-the-longest and
maintain the most unmelodious sound.
The services ended, our courteous Datu invited
us to his home. So we climbed the stairs of a large
house near by and were in the harem of a sultan.
Some of his wives we saw, to the favorite and most
recent recruit we were introduced. She smiled at
us, this buxom girl of eighteen or twenty, displaying her gleaming black teeth. White teeth are by
no means desired, so advertisers of the best grade of
beetel nut would claim interest with, "No. 1, for
teeth hard to blacken," etc. We Americans "did"
the house with true American tourist zeal. We
gloried in its Mohammedan type of furnishings,
beautiful wood carving, gorgeous hand-woven
spreads and blankets, gleaming brass. We delighted in its American acquisitions, a sideboard
in the sleeping room, several percolators and dishes
on it. We were interested and amused in his way
of combining his own furnishings and decorations
with the American possessions he so much admired.
The Datu was serving dinner to a mob of priests
and other guests. A regular retinue of servants
came and went with food on great brass trays which
were set on a standard on the floor, the style of tray
and standard reminding one of an old-fashioned
cake dish, but several times larger. The guest squatting beside the tray ate his meal of curry, rice and
other viands,




IGOROT, MORO, CHRISTIAN LOWLANDER 35


These Southern Island tribes of the Philippines
were the last great migration of Malays and before
going to the Islands they had come in contact with
Moslem missionaries and embraced the worship of
Allah. They were ever the enemies of Spain. Spanish friars made but slight inroads among them.
Year after year dreaded expeditions of pirate boats
invaded the waters north of them, attacking villages
along the shore, pillaging, burning, killing and
carrying into captivity. Along the shores of the
northern Islands today stand the vine-covered grand
old ruins of watch towers where in the long years
ago watchmen gave warning of the approach of
pirate fleets. In the same way that Spain had been
withstood these unconquered, dauntless people
made ready to resist the Stars and Stripes. Instead,
they must have been surprised to find themselves
not only conquered by, but staunch friends and
loyal supporters of the American through wise, fair,
kindly, though firm dealings. So when recently
our Datu friend heard that his old hero-friend,
Leonard Wood was coming back he went among his
followers telling them that they no longer need
send their children to the schools or obey the laws
as upheld by Filipino authority. "For," swaggered he, "The Americans are coming back." But
it was sedition and before he was through with it
the Datu, having taken refuge with some followers
in a remote mountain fortress, was dead.
The Moro drapes his bright colored sarong about
his shoulders and clutches it about his waist as he
walks down street. He wears trousers that are extremely close fitting-skin-tight is the only adjec



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PALM TREE AND PINE


tive that will adequately describe them. Or his
trousers might be very large and bell shaped at the
ankles. She wears 'em too. There are also several
styles of coats and blouses for both men and women,
so while styles may not change there is variety to
choose from. The hair of men and women is uncut
and worn in long braids frequently unkept and not
too recently plaited. Teeth have been blackened.
Buttons are favored every season. We saw one
man with American five dollar gold pieces used as
buttons on his coat. We rather admired the style!
The houses are well built and attractive with wood
carving in gables and borders just below the roof,
the designs stained with all the Arabian charm.
The favorite sport of the men seemed to be spinning
with amazing skill their beautifully made, highly
polished and decorated tops. Again five dollar
gold pieces served as decorations in the wood.
In school the Moro displays ability and a ready
mind. In trade he shows himself a shrewd bargainer.  In human relationships he will be a
dreaded enemy or a loyal friend. In religion he
manifests fanatical zeal. To die killing Christians
assures future bliss, so, the Mohammedan even
under the American flag, armed with the angry
looking knife, runs amuck and slashing, wounding,
slaying as he goes, pauses not till death lays him
low.
Another of these Mohammedan people may be
found in one of the beautiful sea port towns of the
southern islands. Matias Cuadra as a child was
taught the Koran at his mother's knee. Through
various experiences and changes in his life he came




IGOROT, MORO, CHRISTIAN LOWLANDER 37


in contact first with the Catholic Church and then
the Protestant. At first chosen for the Moro priesthood he found himself in training for the Catholic
priesthood and ultimately in Manila in the Union
Theological Seminary preparing for the Christian
ministry. Graduated, ordained, married to a beautiful Filipino Christian girl, Matias Cuadra began
to serve among his own people. From a Christian
home this converted Mohammedan and his wife are
reaching out to his people and bringing them to the
Christ.
Interesting folk, these Moro tribes! So again
there comes to the American the temptation to dwell
too long upon their customs more bizarre and foreign than those of the northern Christian tribes.
Their islands lying almost upon the equator are so
lavishly tropical in beauty. Never have I seen
ocean water so clear, sparkling and entrancingly
blue as the morning we tied up to the pier at Jolo,
where whitest of sands met the water's blue and
groves of cocoanut trees edged the dazzling sands.
Never has landing in any foreign port been more
exciting than among those strangely clad Moros who
crowded the dock. Memories jostle one another.
Rioting flowers, great lily pads, a drive among
acres of cocoanut trees with flashes of the sea, pineapples dripping juice, boys diving far down into
the incredibly clear water to bring up in the mouth
the coins tossed from ships' railings, sentries beside
fortress and walled city, a babble of color, confusion, customs and strange jargon. And the Mohammedans are still there, needy and difficult to approach. They admire and trust the American,




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PALM TREE AND PINE


they do not yield willingly to Filipino control.
Among them there seems to be peculiar opportunity for the American missionary. Little is being done, but where stations and workers have been
established, worthwhile results are being attained.
The great majority of Filipinos belong, however,
to the lowland tribes-the Christian tribes. Though
we are attracted by the more colorful costumes,
more unique customs of mountain tribes or Moros,
still we must describe the man of the Christian
tribes as the typical Filipino.
I remember one old woman who used to pass my
door. Such a pitifully stooped and wrinkled little
old lady she was, her clothing faded and patched,
but always clean and neat. Gnarled old hands
grasped the cane on which she leaned so heavily.
Bare brown feet lifted slowly in the dust. Thin,
scraggling grey hair was twisted in a tight little
knot at the back of her head and on her head, carried so straight for all her age, and trembling, was
a basket holding the meager supplies for the day, a
bit of fish or meat, an egg plant, bread, fruit perhaps, a few bananas, and sometimes o'er-topping
the basket a few sticks of wood with which she
would kindle a fire in the little earthenware stove
at home.   A long time it used to be before
she rounded the corner and hobbled out of sight
down the shady lane of a street. No more she
comes to pass the door, for she was of that rapidly
passing generation. But I shall never forget her.
Yearning memory still recalls the humble everydayness of her existence. On her face lines of
weariness, marks of toil, the cares and poverty of




IGOROT, MORO, CHRISTIAN LOWLANDER 39


living-no sign of hope, happiness or forward look
to better days to come. Another old woman I
saw asleep on the hard uneven bamboo slats of a
porch floor-sleeping through the midday tropical
heat, sleeping in the evening of life without the
comfort of softening pillow or uplifting hope.
But then there is Guillermo. He too is old,
wrinkled and stooped. He has not known an
abundance of life's goods, but what a radiant joy
and forward-looking hope beams in his honest old
face. Guillermo you see has found the Christ.
Many a time I've stayed in his humble home. Very
royally he receives his missionary guests as they
climb the bamboo ladder-like steps into his home.
With his own hands he serves them, giving of his
best. He is dressed in the usual garb of the everyday Filipino, light striped cotton trousers tied
around his waist, his other garment a combination
shirt and coat which hangs outside the trousers.
But to honor the house of God, Guillermo has other
clothes. A white linen suit cut American style, shoes
and socks too. These he lifts from one of the wooden chests around the wall and dresses for church,
donning these layers of misery on top of what he already wore. We ought to know, for Guillermo visits
with us as he makes his preparations for church in
the one large room of the house, his trembling old
hands fumbling with the white buttons as he fastens
them into his military style coat. Proudly then he
leads us down the dusty street to the little bamboo
chapel where Guillermo with princely dignity presides over the communion table.
And Tuburcio-I don't know his last name, but




40


PALM TREE AND PINE


1 do know that on monthly Conference day when
preachers, Bible women and other workers come
from all over the province for a day of fellowship
together, Tuburcio's big gourd hat is early tucked
into one corner of our proud front porch. Tuburcio
has walked for miles, a wearying difficult tramp
from the little mountain village where he ministers
to a small congregation. With what timidity he
shakes our hands, with what joy enters into the reports, business, lessons and fellowship of the day,
with what dignity reports the happenings of his little flock and finally at evening starts the homeward journey loaded with whatever Sunday School
papers and picture cards we were able to spare him.
Typical all these four of the older generations,
but yet not all the types. For there are also the
wealthy, the educated, the high official, the social
autocrat, the aristocrat-courtly, polished, delightful old people than whom you could wish none
finer.
Younger people too we might describe among
this larger group of Filipinos. The trained clever
lawyer, the school teacher, the college student or
university graduate, the high school girl or the one
in an office, the Red Cross nurse, the preacher with
his seminary training, the agricultural expert, the
new governor. All typical, all a part.
Costumes among the men and boys may be the
simple comfortable two piece arrangement and
barefeet or it may work through various metamorphoses until it becomes a full fledged American
production done in palm beach, khaki or white
linen. Women may wear the elaborate national


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IGOROT, MORO, CHRISTIAN LOWLANDER 41


costume, a skirt with a long train held in the hand
or wrapped round and pinned on the hip, a beautiful black net beaded overskirt, a low cut bodice
of thin transparent material, rounded neck, big outstanding bell-shaped sleeves and a folded piece of
the material about the shoulders. Or she may have
(and practically all students have) adopted the
American style which proves more convenient and
serviceable for the active modem woman. Small
children may wear "mighty nigh" nothing, or the
same style clothes as their parents, or they may be
as completely clothed and in the same style as any
American child of ours.
A meal may be eaten with the fingers, everybody
squatting on the floor and dipping in the jars in
which the food was cooked. Or it may be an
elaborately served and bountiful eight course feast.
The house may be a simple one-roomed affair of
bamboo with thatched roof, quaintly set up on
poles several feet from the ground and reached by
means of bamboo steps which are more like a ladder than steps. Or it may be a large house of
many big rooms, the lower walls of heavy masonry,
the upper of hardwood, galvanized iron roof,
floors of wide hardwood boards, beautifully stained
and polished, windows of sea shells set in small
squares of wood. Furnishings may be a row of
wooden chests around the walls, a small table,
straw mats for beds, or they may be great Spanish
chairs, beds all carved and canopied, tables with
fancy covers and ornaments, a piano, a harp, pictures, some images of saints. Traveling, one may
see pedestrians walking long miles, the women with




42


PALM TREE AND PINE


heavy loads on their heads and baby riding on the
hip, people riding the water buffalo, whole processions of ox carts with covered tops, the little twowheeled carts and carriages drawn by small horses,
bicycles, an occasional motorcycle, and automobiles of all makes and types. Sweeping statements
of custom this, or custom that, cannot truthfully be
made. The Philippines today are in a most interesting stage of transition. Standards of living are
being raised, ideals are being lifted, social customs
are being improved. Awakening, stirring, striving,
ultimate attainments are felt.
Interesting folk, these lowland tribes! So interesting it ought not be difficult to reveal them as the
majority people of the Islands. They early win
our interest, command our respect, demand our
best, hold our love. The contrast of old and new
is so vivid and startling. Noisy fish woman is
greeted by her college cousin. Old grandmother is
distressed over granddaughter's modern scientific
way of caring for her baby. Old law makers rub
elbows and match wits in the national legislature
with young men trained in the best of American
Universities. An old church procession halts beside
the modern Protestant chapel with Teacher Training classes. New efficient ways and thought struggle to overcome the old which, deeply rooted, strive
to retain their hold. A people newly awakened and
alive to every opportunity. There is no more arresting country today, no more appealing people
than the Christian tribes of the Philippines.
These three in the Islands today-pagan, Mohammedan and Christian. Pagan and Moham

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IGOROT, MORO, CHRISTIAN LOWLANDER 43


medan people-the non-Christian tribes-are comparatively few in number, slightly more than a million, but a real challenge, a worthy opportunity.
The remaining people, more than ten million are
mostly Catholic, at least nominally so, for to be
born in the Philippine Islands under the Spanish
regime was to be born in the Church, so closely
were church and state allied, so insistent the demands of the priests for the ordinances and so great
the power of those priests. The Aglipay or Independent Church numbers near a million followers
and the Protestant church after twenty-five years of
opportunity numbers two hundred thousand. And
as the old is being pushed aside in things of religion, there as much as elsewhere we need to be
ready to offer our living Christ. We must not fail
our friends in the Philippine Islands today; Pagan,
Mohammedan and Christian, all three, needy,
worthy, ready.




I




IV-Facts and Faces




II
r~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~




IV


FACTS AND FACES
ON a hot August day in 1901 while the city of
Manila was taking its noontime siesta the
Disciples of Christ entered the land in the persons
of Mr. and Mrs. W. H. Hanna. They were closely
followed by Mr. and Mrs. H. P. Williams and work
was begun in Manila which has always been recognized as Headquarters and common territory for
all Mission Boards operating in the Philippines.
Many missionaries of other faiths had preceded
them, but they found plenty of opportunities for
service and before long they baptized in the sparkling blue waters of Manila Bay their first converts,
among whom were some of our most influential
Christians today-Simon Rivera, faithful pastor at
San Pablo among the rich palm groves of Laguna
Province; Leon Bana, wide-awake, consecrated pastor of one of our Manila congregations and Emiliano Quijano, a cultured man of high position and
trust in the government, who, never forgetting the
things of the Kingdom generously gives his time
and influence to the church.
Now the Protestant Mission Boards had early
met in Manila and organized "The Evangelical
Union" and in order that the Filipino people might
hear the message as readily as possible and that
the work might be carried on with as little overlapping of effort as possible, they divided the terri47




48


PALM TREE AND PINE


tory among the different Protestant groups. It was
before our arrival, but these first missionaries of
ours fitted in. Feeling that the rich coastal plains of
Northern Luzon were being neglected, as the Boards
assigned there had not yet been able to enter that
field, they made their way northward "by land and
by sea" and opened work at Laoag, capital city of
Ilocos Norte, three hundred and fifty miles from
Manila. Another move opened work at Vigan, fiftyfive miles south of Laoag. Today we still name
these three places, Manila, Vigan, Laoag as our
Mission Stations. Aparri on the north coast, a seaport town at the mouth of the great Cagayan River,
was long counted as one of our stations. But it was
never possible to locate missionaries there and finally we not only gave up Aparri but all further
evangelistic effort and supervision of churches in
the entire Cagayan Valley. However, in giving up
certain work there we assumed responsibility for
other territory which because of its location we
could more adequately care for.
New missionaries came to help share the enlarging work which these of pioneer spirit were beginning. And missionaries have come and gone. Fifty
have served on the field. One has died in service.
Ten for one reason or another served but a short
time. Others remained for one full term (five
years) but were unable to return. Ill health is the
most common reason for keeping missionaries at
home. The tropics are not always kind to us. The
longest terms of service belong to the Hannas and
Picketts. Mr. and Mrs. Hanna gave four full terms,
twenty years of energetic, efficient service and are


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FACTS AND FACES


49


now at home because of the educational needs of
their family. Dr. and Mrs. C. L. Pickett (Mrs.
Pickett is Dr. Leta) are now in their fourth term
of service in Laoag, steadily working not only in
their own department of the Mission for the physical well being of the people and training of nurses,
but also working for the healing of the soul and
training of the mind. Wherever there is work to do
they are found. How well I recall a certain evangelistic trip that three of us newer missionaries
made with Mr. Hanna just before the Hanna's return to the States. In one little remote village no
word had been sent of our coming, so we tramped
the hot dusty streets, Mr. Hanna calling out to the
people as we passed their homes that he would
meet them  in the chapel soon.  And eagerly
they came. I shall never forget their eager joy as
they greeted him, listened to his fatherly message,
and crowded round him sorrowing because he was
leaving them. I have always been able to get a more
vivid picture of Paul in his missionary journeys
since that day. We drove miles, held several services and late in the day while we were waiting for
a time in a strange home, Mr. Hanna, still untired,
talked to the host of his soul needs.
I remember the return of the Picketts from
a furlough. The officials of the town and province
went to the little seaport town to meet them and escort them with all honor and ceremony, to Laoag.
Then they co-operated with the missionaries in extending a royal reception in thePresendencia or
"Town Hall," and within a day or two patients were
coming from distant places. They had heard the




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PALM TREE AND PINE


Doctor had returned. One old lady came to ask for
medicine-"like you gave me twelve years ago."
Of course the Doctor would remember!
Other missionaries now in the Islands are in their
first and second terms of service. I should like to
share with you something of my own happy association and fellowship with many of them and
something of my thoughts of the others through seeing the work they are doing. But after all there
isn't a missionary of us who wouldn't far rather
have you know of the general service of the Disciples of Christ in the Islands. Each missionary has
helped to build, has put the stamp of his personality on the work. Of the work as unified effort
and accomplishment I want to tell you.
Perhaps you are interested in figures and institutions, the number of Christians, names and value
of our institutions. But I am not especially concerned about telling you the number of Christians,
unless I can make faces live behind the figures.
Neither do I care so much about describing buildings, unless I can make you see the busy stream of
Filipino life constantly coming in contact with these
institutions.
First of all there is the Evangelistic Department.
All missionary work is evangelistic but certain missionaries in each station are assigned specific evangelistic responsibility in oversight of churches,
preachers, Bible women and evangelistic campaigns
in the outlying territory contiguous to the station.
There are ten thousand worshipping in the eightythree organized congregations. You will like to
visit one of our churches on Sunday morning.




FACTS AND FACES


We will go out to Piddig, some miles from
Laoag. The drive follows a beautiful winding road
with two river crossings on bamboo rafts, or by
fording, if the river is low. Finally we drive into
the Public Square. On one side of this park-like
plaza stands a ponderous stone church. But don't
be too pleased with yourself, for that is the Catholic church! Facing the Plaza on another side is a
humble little building, and over its door a sign,
"Iglesia ni Cristo," Church of Christ. Its walls are
of bamboo, its roof dry thatched grass, its floor only
hard packed mother earth and its platform a layer
or two more of the same material. The pulpit and
communion table are the rudest sort, the pews
narrow high benches, uncomfortable, perilous perches. We do have a few really worthy buildings,
representing something of the beauty and idealism
of our faith, but they are all too few. But you will
forget the humble surroundings as you join with
friendly, devout Filipino Christians in the service.
Church is announced for eight o'clock and by nine
enough people have gathered for the service to get
under way, to continue till hot tropical noontide has
come.
Being an honored visitor someone is sure to bring
you a chair saying, "I am ashamed to have you sit
on these benches" so you will rest comfortably and
rejoice in the heart-warming greeting and fellowship with these Christians who are so happy in worship and who seem to have so much capacity for religion. They sing in a dialect our Christian hymns,
choosing most often those of wailing note and minor
key, singing slowly and with feeling. The prayers




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PALM TREE AND PINE


are long, the reverence and devotion marked. Prayer is such a natural, spontaneous talking to a near
Father. They expect and are not surprised to receive direct answer to their prayers. The sermon
is lengthy but listened to attentively though confusion and interruptions which would shock or
amuse an American audience are by no means lacking. A woman chewing beetel nut may go to the
window to expectorate, some one may hunt a marauding flee (but that is forgivable where the flea is
so much "abroad in the land"), or an elder, as once
I saw, may compel a whole seatful of people to
move because the bench is weak.
The Communion Table is spread. Clean white
cloths are used, decorated with some coarse machine-made embroidery-and this in a land where
the women make the most exquisite needle work —
which probably reaches only across the front and a
bit around the corners. It is expensive and they
had so little to spend. You are supposed to sit near
the center and then you can't see the lack of decoration all the way round. The deacons may be barefooted old men dressed in the two-piece outfit of the
every-day man, but always clean and neat, their
faces shining with an inner radiance. Or the deacons may be youthful students, High School teachers, or government officials, but one feels no incongruity in the modern attire of these as compared
with the older men. The elder on one side of the
table may be the Governor of the Province and on
the other a humble farmer who has worked all week
in his rice paddies. Deacons and elders, whatever
the difference in their station in life, education or




FACTS AND FACES


53


costume, care for the service with quiet reverence
and dignity.
When the meeting is over there is handshaking
and friendly greetings as the people freely mingle
and start away in groups, young men seeking the
companionship of young women along the dusty
homeward street.
There are Sunday Schools too, most of them with
classes well organized according to ages but rarely
with departmental exercises because of lack of
room. Large classes of young people want English
instruction and even junior boys and girls ask for
it. The lessons you will notice are a year behind
time. The quarterlies, papers and cards are the
gifts of Sunday Schools in the homeland who send
us their surplus supplies and used quarterlies. A
birthday box, missionary and temperance talks,
Bible drills, Rally Day, Contest, Cradle Roll, Home
Departments, Teacher Training Classes, Easter,
Children's Day and Christmas programs are regular features of the Sunday Schools. And on Sunday afternoons young people go out in small groups
and conduct meetings everywhere in the outlying
districts. The Sunday afternoon attendance in one
large town often numbers two thousand. All over
the Islands, wherever Christian workers are foind,
these afternoon Sunday Schools are being held.
There is evident enthusiasm, and what good mav
be accomplished through the regular Bible teaching in the homes, on street corners, anywhere,
and how much added joy is given when the teachers
can distribute papers or cards at the close. There
is such eagerness to receive that sometimes papers




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PALM TREE AND PINE


are torn in two that there may be sufficient to go
around.
The Church has its Every Member Canvass, its
Conventions, Conferences, Board Meetings, Daily
Vacation Bible Schools, Christian Endeavor Societies, Missionary organizations, Annual Meetings,
Evangelistic services - rather a busy, modern
church in spite of its tropical setting. Perhaps the
outstanding characteristic of the church is its spirit
of evangelism. The Filipino preacher is probably
at his best in evangelistic appeal. Impassioned oratory is natural to him, he is capable of high emotion
and the enthusiasm of revival carries him on in
exalted mood. Evangelistic meetings are times of
high resolve and consecrations on the part of Christians, as well as soul winning. Baptismal services
at the close of a series of meetings are largely attended and often beautifully effective, in the river
on the edge of town.
Last year we reported nine hundred and sixteen
baptisms but I should like to share with you the service as well as the number. Moonlight nights are
frequently chosen when a mystical beauty clothes
the ordinance, the soft, clear, mellow moonlight
giving sufficient light to easily follow the words of
the' song. On dark nights an old-fashioned lantern
or two furnish the only light and people cluster
about the lantern that they may use their song books.
One scarce can see, and hears only the soft splash of
the water. Sometimes later afternoon is chosen
when sunset glories light the sky and are reflected
in the quiet waters, the beautiful afterglow casting
a rosy radiance over all.




FACTS AND FACES


55


But the baptismal service I like best to remember
was held in the early morning before the missionaries must hasten on to other waiting churches. We
had gone out to the little town of Banna, encircled
with hills and held an evening service in a tiny
chapel fitted up in the lower part of the home of
one of the members and lighted dimly by one or
two smoky little oil lamps. At the close of the
service the Judge or Justice of the Peace, a man of
importance in the town, came up the narrow aisle
to make confession. If we had not been impressed
with his seriousness we would surely have laughed
at his funny appearance. Such a queer, grotesque
figure of a man with such ill fitting clothes, but
very, very earnest. Next morning before the sun
was too hot we went down to the river. On
the steep bank on one side gathered the Christians, tier on tier of them. Down in the river below
was the busy Filipino life. Several girls were exchanging the village gossip as they filled their water
jars at holes dug in the sand. A group of women
were squatting in the water doing the week's washing, swishing the clothes about in the water, pounding them on flat rocks with wooden paddles and
spreading them on the sandy bank to dry, fastening
them with little pebbles. On down the stream
small boys and girls were shouting with glee as they
swam and splashed, their bare brown bodies gleaming in the sunlight. No clothes? Didn't I tell you
mother was doing the week's washing. A man was
bathing his horse-"The Filipino horse," says our
clever missionary, "is only a vest pocket edition of
a real horse"-and some carabaos were wallowing




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PALM TREE AND PINE


nearby, only horns and noses visible above the
water. Out into all this busy confusion waded our
evangelist and the Judge who wanted to be baptized. Even the children were quiet when the
preacher spoke to them in his clear ringing voice.
The Christians on the bank sang "Oh Happy Day,"
singing it there, "Naragsac nga aldao." And the
Judge was baptized. Only a short time later he
gave up his position. It was one of political appointment and much coveted. From that day to
this he has lived in private life. No public office
of his seeking is ever open to him. Just that he
gave up that he might obey his Christ.
Soon after the service at Banna I saw my second
baptism.  A young man, a senior in the High
School, the first of his family to come to Christ,
though later others also were won and the Christ is
a very real presence in that home. Our way was
lighted by a flickering lantern carried by the pastor.
While we were singing at the water's edge a big
truck crossed the bridge above us bringing into
town a crowd of athletes who would contest that
week in a big track meet in the town. And our
young man is running well his race. He was soon
president of our Christian Endeavor Society, then
superintendent of the Sunday School. He graduated from High School the valedictorian of his
class. He came to the States and the University of
Illinois gave him his college training, the church at
Champaign nourished his splendid Christian living.
The last night of a big Student Conference in
Laoag we went down to the river, our entire eightyfive registered delegates and missionary faculty.




FACTS AND FACES


57


Almost half our students had made confession during the Conference days. It was a dark night, the
water an inky, oily black reflected by our few lanterns, candles and flash lights. Two missionaries
and one Filipino preacher stood in the water receiving and baptizing candidates. How well we
remember! Three young people being led out,
three uplifted hands and in succession "In the name
of the Father" and soon three happy students coming ashore as three more were led out. Several
of these students came from Pasuquin where neither
missionary, Filipino preacher or lay member had
ever been able to start a church. Pasuquin's reputation was not good. "Can any good thing come
out of Pasuquin?" we used to wonder. But these
new youthful Christians asked for songs, and Sunday School material. "We are going to start a
church in our town," they said. And they did.
Not long ago I read that Mr. Kennedy, now
evangelistic missionary in the Laoag field had gone
to the hills with some of his boys, scouting for wood
to build a meeting house in Pasuquin. A group of
newly baptized students had built the church.
One beautiful late afternoon while sunset's glory
touched sky and water, a hundred were baptized
while five hundred above sang Christian songs and
lingered in the fast descending darkness.
Some of these baptisms come from the pagan
tribes in the mountains east of us. Out of the old
life of heathen rites and superstitions they come
into life indeed.
Mary Chiles Hospital in Manila, the Frank Dunn
Memorial Hospital in Vigan and the Sallie Long




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Read Memorial Hospital in Laoag strive to carry
on the work of Christ in the Medical Department.
Dr. and Mrs. Pickett are the only missionary doctors on the field at the present time. They serve
the Laoag Hospital. The other two hospitals have
each a missionary trained nurse and the staff of doctors made up of Filipino physicians. The buildings
are attractive and efficient looking, large and airy,
ready to carry on the gospel of healing in a land
where there are so many diseases and so much superstition to hinder proper care and treatment You
will want to see one of our hospitals.
In the early morning at the door of the Clinic
stand the crowds waiting for treatment, stooped old
men, wrinkled old women, mothers with undernourished babies on their hips, people marked with
loathsome diseases, crippled-they wait.  After
awhile the doors are thrown open and they file in
and join the entire hospital staff, servants, nurses,
medical assistants in a half-hour chapel service led
by the missionary doctor. Then the clinic. Patiently
they sit and wait their turn to tell the doctor their
tale of woe and go away after awhile with a little
packet of medicine tightly grasped in the handhow they do love to have some pills to take-but
better still with some word that is for the healing
of the soul. Now it is a young mother with her first
baby ailing because she has given it an ear of corn
to nibble or some green fruit or has fed it a grownup's meal of rice and pork. The next patient waits
to have his wounds dressed. He got the worst of it
in a difference of opinion the other day and the result is an ugly, jagged knife wound in his side.




FACTS AND FACES


59


Then there are several people who have come from
a distant town. All of them are marked with tropical yaws, that repulsive looking disease. They have
heard of the Doctor's success in curing it and they
have come. So an injection of neosalvarsan into
the veins of the arm is given each of them and they
spend the day in a hospital room, commonly called
the "Bubas Room" and before they leave some effect of the medicine is noted. Within three days the
ugly sores are turning black and withering. Within
three months the skin is fresh and clean. The cure
seems miraculous.
But the hospital has more than the clinic. There
are the wards, the private rooms, all the usual hospital activity and paraphernalia. In one room lies
the wife of a high government official and in a small
bed nearby her small adorable brown baby. A
fever patient in the next room, in another an American ill with dysentery or some other disease that
attacks the white man in the tropics.
I was called to the hospital in the dewy freshness
of the very early morning. The father of one of
my Dormitory girls lay dead. He was a man of
prominent family and position in his home town.
His children were receiving the best the school
could offer. An enlightened family you would have
said. He had been suffering from rheumatism and
in order to let out the evil spirits imprisoned in his
body and causing his sickness, he had bored deep
in either arm a hole. He grew worse and was
brought to the hospital. Tetanus set in and he was
dead simply because superstition still holds sway.
A small baby died because his mother refused to




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nurse him. It was not the custom of her tribe to do
that. So the hospital staff combat superstition, evil
customs and age-old habits.
Then there is the Nurses Training School, a very
vital part of our medical work.  Each hospital
serves as a unit of the school and the number of
nurses in training ranges from sixty-five to seventyfive. It is a joy to see, a privilege to know these
young women. They are a pleasing picture, these
brown skinned girls, as they go about their work,
busy in clinic, ward or private room. They wear
crisp white uniforms and white caps perched on
top their beautifully abundant black hair. They
seem so radiant somehow, so eager to serve, and
just as eagerly they sit in the class room for an
hour of instruction. Their course includes regular
Bible subjects as well as their nurses' curriculum.
The same happy spirit of service marks their work
outside the institution. They are called on to teach
Sunday School classes, or to give health talks at
Mothers' Clubs, to sing special music at a meeting
or to act as reception committee at some big social
affair. They are Christian girls. Rarely does a
girl graduate from the course without having made
her decision for Christ sometime during the training, if she had not done so before entering.
One hundred and fifty have been graduated and
gone out to serve. They hold responsible positions
in hospitals( two of our head nurses are graduates
of our own institution), they serve as government
health nurses, school nurses, in puericulture work,
in the leper colony, in far away needy and sometimes dangerous posts as Red Cross nurses. Some




FACTS AND FACES


61


of them as wives and mothers are teaching whole
communities what a home should be. Theirs are
model homes, clean, sanitary, happy, Christian.
Too much praise cannot be given this trained, efficient group of consecrated Christian nurses and
those who have had the responsibility of their
training.
The Educational Department of the Mission
strives also to bring the gospel story to the people
of the Philippines. It has not been necessary for
our missionaries to establish day schools as in many
mission lands. The American government has
given the Islands such a splendid system of public
schools. So Mission Schools can look especially
to the training of young people for definite Christian service.  In Manila we are affiliated with
union schools-High School, College and Theological Seminary. Mrs. Higdon of our Mission
group was for a time Principal of the Union High
School and did much in bringing the school under
full government requirements. Mr. Higdon is now
Acting President of the Union Seminary. Thus
we furnish not only faculty members but heads of
the union work. The High School requires in addition to the regular course of any High School one
Bible subject each year, and thus the school brings
many students to definite decisions for Christian
service. Recently the Seminary moved into a handsome new building located just a few doors from
our Albert Allen Dormitory. Young men from our
churches who are preparing for the ministry must
have completed certain preliminary courses and
knowledge of the history of the Disciples of Christ.




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The Girls' Bible Training School in Laoag prepares young women for service as Bible Women.
A three year course is offered and gives careful
Bible study as well as courses in Sunday School
work, story telling and dramatization, play-ground
activities, music, homiletics and kindergarten
work. We strive to so prepare the girls that they
can serve not only as workers among the women
and children but as pastors where needed. Arrangements are made whereby the students may
pursue their High School course in conjunction
with their Training School work. An average of
twenty a year seems to cover the attendance record
of the school.  The largest class graduated has
been eleven, the total number of graduates is upwards of thirty. They are making a very definite
contribution to the church as they serve often times
in lonely stations, and everywhere their services are
wanted and appreciated. They are eager to return
to the School for special institutes and seasons of
instruction. They are happy in their chosen work.
Another phase of the Educational Work is the
Student Dormitories which are opened in educational centers as boarding houses for government
school students. It is a type of missionary service
peculiar to the Philippines and one of the most
worth-while social service activities, as well as a
vital factor in evangelization. We have three. In
Manila, Albert Allen Dormitory is located in one
of the finest sections of the city and in the very
midst of the student life. It cares for one hundred
young men, some of them our own Seminary boys,
the others University men. The building will hold.




FACTS AND FACES


63


with close crowding, one hundred, but I remember
so well hearing the missionary in charge one year
say he had accepted one hundred applicants and
then turned away three hundred more who might
have lived in that Christian home if there had been
room enough. In Vigan our dormitory cares for
the student nurses of the hospital and gives the
remaining space to High School girls making application. In Laoag, Adamson Hall houses High
School girls as well as our own Training School
girls. The building accommodates eighty girls.
The Vigan Dormitory cares for thirty-five.
Mingle with the residents of any dormitory and
catch the happy wholesome Christian atmosphere
that prevails. Good times in the social hall, fun
in the dining room, quiet chats in the rooms, busy
hours in the study hall, inspirational meetings in
the Chapel —these dormitories are building Christian character and bringing definite decisions for
Christ.
But we need more such institutions. In Manila
we ought to have a home for girls. From Laoag
and Vigan our Christian girls go to Manila to continue their education and since we have no student
home for them they must seek quarters elsewhere.
Protestant dormitories are crowded, so our girls
sometimes settle in a Catholic dormitory and then
are lost to our work. Often it is not merely that
they do not attend our services but lose all interest
in the work. One of our most faithful Laoag girls
would not be persuaded to have any part in our
work after a year in such a dormitory. When we
opened our dormitory for girls in Laoag mothers




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and fathers came to see the quarters provided. Being pleased they were wont to inquire, "Don't you
love our sons as well as our daughters? Why don't
you give them a dormitory too?" And the young
men came with the same question. It was not easy
back in 1918 to answer the question. It has never
been easy, though frequent repetition ought to have
taught us how to explain why we do not enter all
open doors of opportunity and answer all needs.
Then there is the "Bible Chair" work. The students in the public schools are receiving no Bible
training. The lack of it is felt. The need was
recognized some years ago when the Y. M. C. A.
sponsored special Bible Study campaigns. Hundreds of students would be enrolled for these short
courses in educational centers all over the Island,
wherever there were missionaries to conduct the
work. About the same time a young High School
student who was also preaching regularly for one
of our churches came to me asking if I would teach
a group of High School students a certain course
which was being offered in our Girl's School. I
replied that I would gladly do so if a convenient
time could be arranged and enough students enrolled.
"How many must I bring?" he quizzed.
"0, Silvestre," I said, "if you bring a half dozen
I'll be glad to give time to the class."
The time was determined-two afternoons a
week when High School classes would be over. Silvestre came, bringing not the six I had suggested
thinking that would be as many as he could persuade to settle to an entire year's work, but thirty




FACTS AND FACES


65


fine wide-awake students. Through the whole school
year, two afternoons a week we used to work till
dark stopped us, and sometimes an extra evening
and Saturday morning for good measure. It was
one of the happiest and most interesting classes I
have ever taught. Next year through Mr. Stipp's
planning four of us taught classes enrolling two
hundred. Classes were arranged for free periods in
the High School day and held in Mission homes
and institutions most convenient to the school building furnishing the group. Three different buildings
accommodated classes to the number of nine or
ten, each class meeting twice weekly. Year after
year these classes have gone on. The present
"Bible Chair" is a well organized system offering
a choice of courses and enrolling many students.
Several thousand students have within the last ten
years received instruction in these week day Bible
classes. Many baptisms come from those who
made their first contact with the Mission through
such a class.
Student Conference work is a part of the educational program and is being a very effective agency
in bringing young people to Christ and training
them for Christian service. Our missionaries take
very active part in the Annual Student Conference,
held at Christmas holiday time and participated in
by all Christian agencies. Twice we have furnished
the dean of the Women's Conference, Mrs. Stipp
one year, Mrs. Higdon, another. Other lady missionaries serve regularly on the Faculty as do the
men in the Young Men's Conference. We send or
take large delegations of students. We have also




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conducted our own Student Conference on the same
plans as the Young Peoples' Conferences of the
homeland.
The Press is a busy, business-like place and is the
fourth department of our Mission organization. It
is located in one end of the Albert Allen Dormitory
on one of the most attractive and modern streets of
Manila. The Press puts out a volume of printed
matter, one English paper, two weekly dialect papers, hymn books, Sunday School helps, pamphlets
and tracts. It serves not only our Mission and
other Mission Boards but also does considerable
commercial business. The printed page is a vital
factor in evangelization and the work of the Press
cannot be overlooked in any summary of our accomplishments. It is interesting to visit the print
shop.  The translator, a consecrated Christian
youth, is busy putting English articles into dialect
or dialect material into English. Most of the men
at the presses and busy about the place are Christians and personally concerned with the success of
the establishment. Follow the printed page as it
leaves the printing room. The weekly paper "The
Way of Peace" is eagerly read in two dialects, and
is the only paper in many a home. The religious
pamphlets and tracts distributed at services, in the
Market Place or thrown to people one meets as the
Mission Ford drives along are received with delight. I have seen many a person chase a pamphlet on "Baptism" or "The Evils of Alcohol" down
the road as the wind carried it along just out of
reach. Once I said I would never be a tract-distrib



FACTS AND FACES


67


uting-missionary but it took just one cross country
trip to convert me.
In the pioneer days of Protestant work no great
stress was laid on giving because the insistence of
fees in the Catholic church had been such a burdensome thing. Giving among the Christians there has
always been. But within recent years emphasis
has been placed on regular giving. The Stewardship of Money has been taught until many of our
Christians have become tithers. Our churches have
their budgets and their Every Member Canvass for
which careful preparation is made. A few churches
have become self supporting. In the Laoag church
several missionaries made pledges but when getting
ready for their canvass the second year the Official
Board suggested that the missionaries give their
pledges to weaker churches in the province, that the
Laoag church might be self supporting without any
missionary giving. At the Annual Convention of
the churches of each province where we have work
missionary offerings are raised. Through the executive committee of the churches of each province
these funds are distributed. Support is given to
weak churches-State Missions we call it in the
homeland. Foreign Missions have a place too. The
Filipino Christians are helping evangelize their
pagan brethren and are remembering the needs of
other lands as well.
In the Medical work fees are collected, the
charge, as seems to be medical custom everywhere,




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commensurate with the patient's ability to pay.
Charity is given only where necessary. Sometimes
the account stands on the books a long, long while,
but one is amazed at those who come to pay. Not
always in money do they bring the fee, for their is
very little money in circulation in most parts of the
Islands. Sometimes the fee is paid in bananas,
eggs or rice. Someone comes with a big fat hen or
a hen that never got fat though she has been a long
time trying. But they are making their returns for
services received and are thus helping carry on the
work.
I wish you could see them coming to pay the fees
required in our schools and dormitories. Our Girl's
Bible Training School announced in its first circular that the fee would be a half cavan (nearly a
bushel) of rice a month, or the equivalent value in
money. We have found it a good custom. Often
rice can be brought so much more conveniently
than money so our students come "bag, baggage
and rice." Some bring their entire year's supply at
one time. Others explain that they could not bring
it all now but, "father will come the fifteenth of
next month." And sure as can be, the cart is at the
door on that date. The School is not self-supporting but maintains a worthy percentage of its expenses. The dormitories must be self-supporting.
No funds from the homeland are used for this work
after building and initial equipment are supplied.
So a fee must be asked which will cover expenses
and in order to make this fee as low as possible
careful watching and economy in expenditures are
necessary. So well I remember worn, trembling old




FACTS AND FACES


69


hands counting out in silver or well used bills the
six or seven dollars that would give daughter opportunities and comforts the old mother never even
dreamed of. And how often knowing the real labor
and self denial that has made possible the sum
turned over to me, I've wanted to say, "Here take it
back and go buy yourself some luxury you've long
wanted." But I didn't say it. It isn't the way we
carry on missionary work. So from the various
fields through the giving in churches, the fees in
hospitals, schools and dormitories, the returns from
the Press, come funds to more than meet the overhead expense of our homeland end of the work.
Just a glimpse you have had into the work of the
Disciples of Christ in the Philippine Islands, on the
Island of Luzon. Chapels, hospitals, dormitories,
mission homes with their tropical style of architecture and surroundings would claim your attention,
were you sight-seeing there. But your most lasting
impressions and your greatest delight would be in
the fellowship with whole-hearted Christians in
those churches, your glimpse of suffering being alleviated and the healing of bodies and soul in the
hospitals, the consecrated eager students in training
for Christian service, the modern wide-awake students in the dormitories and the cultured, friendly,
warm-hearted missionary folks in their homes. Always the people make the most definite appeal.
The Philippine Islands are a small field, perhaps
not more than one little rice paddy in all the vast
fields of a waiting world. But in the land today are
more people than we are able to reach. A worthy
challenge. A satisfying service.








V-Love For the Bible


N1
fic








V


LOVE FOR THE BIBLE
A KNOCK at the front door and I am interrupted
in my writing by a handsome lad all dressed up
in American style clothes, his suit the whitest of
linen, his shirt the gayest of silk. He wants to buy
a Bible, says he never owned one and would like to
study for "I have observed that it is a very good
Book." He could not buy it today because he did
not have the money but looked at them with great
eagerness and will no doubt be back. I gave him
paper-backed copies of John and Acts and he
seemed pleased. We always keep a supply of
Bibles on hand for sale, and sell them too. No
Mission home or Institution would be complete
without its shelf of Bibles. And no missionary,
Filipino preacher or Bible Woman ever starts out
on an evangelistic trip without a supply of Bibles
and hymn books for sale. We usually take some
medicines for sale too. Dr. Pickett loads us up
with some of the common remedies and never fails
to include a few jars of sulphur ointment, relief for
the itch which spreads and endures so amazingly,
and while he deals out the medicines the good doctor regales us with many a tale. We may not sell
all the salve, he says, for the mothers will say "Yes,
it's true our children have the itch, but we had the
itch when we were young and our parents had it
before us. Moreover if you cure them of this dis73




74


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ease a worse one may befall them." But we sell
our Bibles. They seem so eager for the Book.
Not so long ago we had a convention in Vigan.
Vigan is that interesting and historic old Spanish
town and Catholic stronghold of Northern Luzon.
Conventions are no unusual thing. Our people
thrive on them, but this one was a union affair, the
first of its kind, Methodists, United Brethren and
Disciples of Christ, the three Protestant groups in
our part of the Islands. It was such a happy, helpful time. We missionaries sponsored this one but
our Filipino brethren are carrying on and plan to
have one every two years. They have already had
their second and it proved more successful than the
first. Well, the Bishop of the Methodist Church
spoke at one session on-"The Bible the Greatest
Book in All the World." He had to speak through
an interpreter (or "interrupter" as someone more
correctly called them), but his message seemingly
lost none of its effectiveness, judging from its influence upon a certain poor, uneducated and devout
woman in his audience. She listened and was so
impressed that she said, "If that is the greatest
Book in all the world I want one," though she could
read never a word. So fumbling old fingers untied
the tight little knot in the corner of her black apronlike overskirt-all hail to the ability of the Filipino woman; no knot of her tying or twisting ever
comes loose, not even her abundant black hair
securely twisted on the nape of her neck, and any
part of her clothing is absolutely safe if twisted by
her deft fingers-and brought out money enough to
buy a Bible.




LOVE FOR THE BIBLE


75


That night the convention ended. I must tell you
about the closing session. The audience stood to
sing together, "Blest Be the Tie That Binds." On
the platform stood three Filipino preachers, Methodist, United Brethren and Disciples of Christ,
splendid consecrated men, who in the uplift of the
moment threw their arms around each other's
shoulders. The audience, catching the spirit of
that larger union of all-believers joined hands and
I wish you could have heard them sing in a fellowship "like that above."
But our old woman with her Book started home
next day riding on one of the big trucks that do passenger service in the Islands. She touched the
sleeve of the man beside her and said, "Here I have
the greatest book in all the world," and the good
Bishop would have been pleased if he could have
heard how largely she quoted from his message,
"but I can't read, please read for me." Now in the
Philippine Islands you don't adopt the icy glare of
cool aloofness with strangers.  You just aren't
strange! So he read to her as their truck followed
the winding, dusty road, past sparkling ocean, rice
paddies, banana trees, small children, dogs and
pigs. (Somehow as I remember her and her reader
I seem to see Philip as he ran beside a chariot in
another tropic land). She reached her humble little village and climbed the ladder-like steps into her
bamboo hut. House keeping isn't such a complicated thing in her country so she didn't need to
open, dust and air her house. She didn't need to
hurry to the kitchen and bake pie and cake and her
flat little earthenware stove wouldn't bake if her




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family had cared for pie-pie is so American, you
know. She could tuck her book under her arm and
hurry down her bamboo stairs (though how anyone
could hurry up or down them has always been a
marvel to me. I waver, wobble and climb them
rather than walk) over to her neighbor's house with,
"Here I have the greatest Book in all the world and
won't you read it to me?" And neighbor read and
was interested. Up and down the grass-grown streets
of her little village she went armed with the same
Book, the same request. And everybody read.
There is plenty of time. Time is "what you have
nothing else but." Mahana is the most used word in
the Filipino languages. Tomorrow was simply
made to put things off into! After awhile a Filipino preacher came to town and before he had
scarce reached the outskirts of the village he had
sold his entire stock of Bibles. Back to the Mission
Station he came for more and made several trips
back before he had satisfied the demand for Bibles
in that one village. A revival followed. Many
were won to Christ, all because one devout old
woman not being able to read was not ashamed to
ask others to read for her.
It's queer, isn't it, how unappreciative we are of
the things we have, if no difficulty is connected with
the having? Our richest blessings are often common places to us because we've always had them.
But we appreciate the things for which we labor and
suffer. Now the Filipinos were denied the Bible
for so long a time. Do you suppose that is why
they love it so? Or is it because they are naturally
religious, "have a genius for religion" as one mis



LOVE FOR THE BIBLE


77


sionary said? Anyway, through the almost four
hundred years that Spain held sway the Bible was
kept from the people. Scant teachings from the
Book that the friars chose to give they received. But
the Book was denied. And for the Book itself, "to
have and to hold" there developed a great hunger
and longing. To own a copy men dared greatly.
Now and then copies were smuggled in, but until
the American flag was run up no Customs Official
ever o. k.'d a case of Bibles. A few Bibles were
in circulation. One man kept his buried in a field
and used to go dig it up whenever he wanted to read
a chapter. I suspect folks at home might forget
where it was buried before they were ready for the
next chapter. Another kept his hidden under a
bridge. Lots of men have served prison sentences
because they refused to give up their book when
black-robed friars demanded it of them. I've been
thrilled with the stories our older missionaries tell
of their earlier experiences in getting the Bible into
the dialects and into the hands of the people.
Three of the missionaries went to the Market
Place of a large town with their supply of Bibles
and as fast as they could hand out books and make
change they sold portions of the scriptures or entire
Bibles. Market Day came but once a week and
four successive market days found them busy selling Bibles before they had satisfied the first demand. One day after the rush of selling was over
they drew aside and began singing Christian hymns
in the dialect and to preach. Even today when we
missionaries are no longer a novelty we still attract
attention when we sing and preach in the dialect.




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So the Filipinos left their bargaining and haggling
over dried fish, egg plant or bright colored cloth
and drew near to hear. Each missionary preached
a sermon of considerable length and between the
messages they sang. So you can know time passed!
Filipinos like long programs and we missionaries
seem to qualify. I prepared a Christmas program
not long ago and presented it to a preacher for his
approval. He looked at it and shook his head
doubtfully. I had thought it rather good. He
looked not at the quality but at the quantity. "It
isn't long enough, senorita," he politely objected.
I added a half dozen more numbers. "Very good,
senorita," he smiled. Twenty-four numbers assured
him we wouldn't go home until very near morning.
But to my story. When the missionaries began
singing and the crowd closed round them one man
who had been an interested spectator but had not
purchased a book asked a friend to borrow his
copy. He squatted in the dirty street under the
burning sun and began to read. He read on and on
while the singing and preaching continued, while
people came and went, commented and haggled
over prices in the Market Place. Never once did
he lift his eyes from the book as he turned page after page. Utterly oblivious to all else he read until the service was ended and his friend touched him
on the shoulder, asking for his Book. I've often
wondered-the missionaries say they never knewwhat part of the Word had so fascinated the man.
In a remote town of the Cagayan Valley, Luis
Gorospe got a New Testament. As he read he said,
"Wife, this teaching isn't like what we get from the




LOVE FOR THE BIBLE 


79


Church and the padre." Later as he read on in
Acts, "Wife, if this teaching is right we are wrong."
"Wife," later still, "I'm going to the preacher at
Aparri and find out what this means." That same
night he started and all night he drove his ox cart
through the mellow moonlight. Next morning
when our preacher in Aparri moved the steps of his
house against the threshold, thus indicating that his
house was opened for the day, he saw Luis squatting
in his clean-swept door yard. All day long the
preacher taught him and other days until Luis was
satisfied, bought some Bibles, returned to his own
town, taught, converted, organized a church which
through the years has been a staunch New Testament church.
This love of the Filipino people for the Bible has
very deeply impressed me and stories along that
line have especially captured my fancy. The best
one I know comes from a United Brethren missionary who has been long in service there. Arcadio de
la Cruz was a humble, every day Filipino who lived
in a little village on the bank of a river. Arcadio
owned a Bible and daily read from it and rejoiced
in his privilege. Then one day a black-robed
friar climbed the bamboo steps into his little house
and demanded the book. Arcadio courageously
refused. When the priest had gone, Arcadio took
his Bible and slipped down to the river seeking a
hiding place. He did not intend to trust so precious
a treasure in the house. Bibles had disappeared,
well he knew. His wife, more fearful of the
power of the priest than he, might give it up.
There on the bank of the stream was a great rock




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and feeling around it Arcadio found a crevice just
large enough to hold and hide his book. Day after
day faithful Arcadio used to rise early in the morning, before his family was awake, or busy Filipino
life was stirring at the river's edge, slip down to
the river, find his Bible, read a chapter or two and
hide it away for another day. And then one night
there came, as frequently will come in the tropics, a
torrential downpour of rain. The river rose rapidly, and Arcadio hearing the beat of rain upon his
thatched roof wondered. In the dim light of early
morning he hurried down to the water's edge. As
he had feared, the rock in which his Bible was hidden was completely covered and when the waters
receded the crevice was empty. His Bible was gone.
Farther down stream where the river emptied
into the ocean was a happy-go-lucky fishing village
where lived a story teller. Wonderful stories he
used to tell and great was his popularity among the
children and grown folk too. He always had a
crowd round him. No matter whether his stories
were true or not.  The morning after the big
rain the story teller was poling his little bamboo
raft across the swollen waters of the river. He spied
a black object. Quickly and deftly he swung his
narrow raft about and fished it in. A book! Always a treasured thing both then and now. He
dried its pages and began to read and then to tell
the stories.  Marvelous stories.  Greater and
greater grew his fame as he delved deeper and
deeper into the book. Of course no one thought
about the truth of the stories. No one really expected the story teller to tell true stories, you know.




LOVE FOR THE BIBLE


81


Times changed. A new flag flung itself against
the tropical sky. New liberties were granted. And
to the fishing village came a Filipino preacher who
began to tell the people stories. As they listened
they interrupted, "Why, the story teller has been
telling us these same stories. Do you mean to tell
us they are true?" So the preacher inquired for
the story teller and how he convinced him of the
truth of his stories and sent him out to tell them
with new meaning and effectiveness would be another story of itself. But what of Arcadio de la
Cruz longing for his book! Well, the preacher came
to his village after while and need I tell you old
Arcadio sat in his audience and heard the story of
the story teller and his book found on the waters.
His face all alight Arcadio cried, "0, I wonder if
that wasn't my book?"
"We'll go down and see," said the obliging
preacher. Into the ox cart they climbed and along
narrow, winding by-paths they found their way to
the story teller's door and Arcadio's Bible.
The representative of the American Bible Society is a delightful fellow. He loves the work. He
is so eager to get the Bible into the hands of the
people. He is practical and every-day in his work
and ideas and yet with vision and idealism to lift
the work to worthy levels. He is friendly with all.
He takes his work seriously and yet a lively sense
of humor saves the day. He is in fact a combination of qualities that make a good missionary. And
by various ingenious devices he used to make his
way where no other had been able to go, and prepare the way for the message. He came to Vigan,




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that staunch Catholic center. He rigged up his picture outfit, furnishing necessary power with the motor of his car. Night after night the people came
in crowds to see the pictures and to listen to the
messages which followed and to buy portions of the
scriptures. And then behind high walls the priests
bestirred themselves, announced a counter attraction in the Convent Gardens, the price of admission
to be "one Protestant book." The people came.
Can you blame them if in a far away place where
things so rarely happened they paid the admission
fee? Next morning in the convent gardens there
was a bon-fire. The Protestant books were being
burned. And yet they love their Bibles so! More
recently still down in Dumaguete where the Presbyterians have such a splendid school many people
were persuaded to bring their Bibles and other
Christian books and burn them.
I've wondered, is it the love for the Book that
makes our Filipino Christians so strong and true?
Did I ever tell you about Eustaquio? He is just a
slender student lad of one of our towns. He began
attending our Protestant services, grew more and
more interested and wanted to follow his Christ.
His father noticed his zeal and forbade the boy
coming to church. So for some weeks he stayed
home torn between loyalty to his parents and love
for his new found Christ. After awhile there was
trouble in the home and one of the missionaries
called to see what she could do. The father said,
"If this boy goes to follow you he is no longer my
son."




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83


"Eustaquio, what do you think about it?" asked
the missionary turning to him.
And he, that youthful student lad made brave
answer, "But, ma'am, I have just been thinking that
the Master said 'He that loveth father or mother
more than me is not worthy of me' and I will go
with you. But, father, if I go now with the missionary, can't I come back home once a week for a
visit?"
"No, if you go now you are no longer my son."
And Eustaquio pulled his cap over his eyes and
went out alone into the dark night. No goodbyes
were spoken because, you see, Eustaquio was no
longer the son of that house.
From a Congregational missionary I learned the
story of Balbino Lasado, whom we call "The martyr of Santandar." The persecutions of the Protestants in that part of the Islands have always been
severe and when Balbino wanted to come to Christ
his life was threatened.
"Aren't you afraid?" someone asked him.
"Yes," said honest Balbino "I am afraid but I
must do what God wants."
So he was baptized. As the years passed the
Christians in Santandar were able to build a chapel.
They asked for police protection on dedication day,
but it was denied. The service was over and they
were having their noon day meal of rice and roast
pig when a cry "Kill the Christians" was heard and
into the house rushed men armed with wicked looking knives and led by a priest. The Christians, I
mean the Protestant Christians, made good their
escape, all but one. In the dusty street below the




T84        PALM TREE AND PINE
house Balbino lay dead. When the missionary arrived to do what he could he found the little wife,
a baby in her arms leaning over the dead body of
her husband, protecting it from a pig that was
nosing about. Over and over she was murmuring, "We must love, we must love even our
enemies." What do you make of Christian grace
like that? Isn't it close following that Book they
so treasure?




VI-Adamson Hall








VI


ADAMSON HALL
IN January, back in 1918, the Laoag missionaries
were house hunting with feverish impatience to
find just what was needed. For it wasn't an ordinary house they wanted but an institution. It must
accommodate a School, both class rooms and living
rooms for the students, a Dormitory home for High
School girls, assembly room for church services,
reception and living rooms and quarters for two
American girls. Something of a house was needed
and houses of that nature had not been built on
every corner of Laoag's streets. The houses we
looked at! Native houses of bamboo with bamboo
slats for floors-they just wouldn't do; big old
Spanish houses ancient as the hills with rooms and
rooms, some of them dark and dungeon-like, and
great balconies-we fairly lost each other in looking at the oldest and biggest of these; houses that
were too far from the High School; and the only
house that would do, that we really wanted, we
couldn't have. Months before it had been promised
and the promise withdrawn, compromises were suggested, rent was haggled over, but it was not until
March and we were well-nigh frantic that the good
lawyer owner came to terms, mostly his terms, for
he reserved some of the rooms for his own use and
he set the price for rent, but we had the house we
needed and late in May, Miss Adamson and I
moved in and surveyed our realm.
87




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The lower part of the house was made of bricks,
the upper story of wood, a big rambling house. One
entered a wide, cool looking hall with cemented
floor and walls painted white. At the farther end
of the hall a wide, commodious flight of steps, of a
dark highly-polished wood led to the upper floor.
At the head of the stairs one entered a long room
which served as reception and living room for missionaries and Filipino girls living there. Then a
large room that would accommodate fifteen girls,
two rooms that could be the personal domain of the
missionaries in charge and a balcony that we called
our own, another big room that served as dining
room for missionaries and study hall for girls, an
attractive little porch that transformed itself into a
delightful private dining room when the weather
was right, a kitchen, a private room for a High
School teacher and several porches. And in the
downstairs, reached by that aristocratic flight of
steps in the front, by a flight of stone steps in the
rear designed for a maximum of discomfort I always felt sure, and bv still another way, a regular
bamboo ladder arrangement, called by courtesy
"steps," were the dining rooms and kitchen for the
girls, sleeping quarters for our school girls and the
assembly rooms which were also class rooms. Repairs must be made, equipment assembled, house
rules and courses of study arranged, servants hired
-those were busy days. Furniture had been ordered months before and was in process of being
made at various furniture makers' shops, and then
the hurried placing of it upon its last-minute delivery to us. Trips to the Chinese stores resulted in




ADAMSON HALL


89


needed dishes and a variety of things. And finally
with many things lacking, but with sufficient supplies to really get along we were ready to receive
the girls who were coming.
Early in June our girls began to arrive-work
for girls had at last been opened in Laoag! For
such a long time the need had been felt for just such
an institution and now we were starting. It is a
privilege to be a pioneer in any field. It is a joy and
blessing to start a new piece of missionary work,
to receive the first students in a school. The first
girl arrived two days before we had announced the
opening, but then she had come from her rather
remote home a year before and had been waiting, so
naturally she was anxious to get located.
Girls were arriving as the last pieces of furniture
were being placed, or the last coat of varnish applied to some table. Some came "by walking" as
they say, carrying loads of things on their heads.
Others came in the native ox carts, and still others,
more modern-minded and financially able, in automobiles-either the big trucks that do passenger
service or in private cars. And with every girl
came a host of relatives to see the place and to help
get her settled in the new life. And there was much
ceremony to properly receive and dismiss these
guests. One simply must not seem hurried or lacking in any small courtesy, so no matter how long
they stayed or how many others were waiting one
must be smiling, unhurried with all. So many
questions must be answered and repeated assurance
given of this or that. More came than had made
application and there was readjustment, effort to




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find room for more or striving to find excuse without giving offense. And then as parents and relatives left there was always the parting injunction,
"She will be your daughter now," and other ceremonies of departure. So ended the first three busiest days of opening. Such confusion, such oddly
assorted lots of baggage, such different kinds of
girls, such trifling things to be considered as well
as matters of real importance.
Nightfall, all relatives gone home, brought new
responsibilities. Girls choosing their beds and getting their own straw mats, pillows and blankets
spread out, their big wooden chests which served as
trunks located and then their lonesomeness and
strangeness to be dissipated. Many of them that
first night and other nights lifted up their voices and
wept and would not be comforted. That first year
we had fifteen High School girls for the dormitory
and fourteen girls for our own "Christian Training
School," just twenty-nine girls in the building with
us. Scared little rabbit girls they were, never had
been around "Americans" very much, and a Dormitory was such a new and strange experience. They
sat around and looked at one another. We had to
lead them to meals, put the food on their plates,
urge them to eat and then slip away so they would
do so. We taught them games and played with
them, we talked with them and gradually they unbent and became real girls and began entering into
the new life. High School classes were open and
the girls came and went to classes there. Our own
school opened. On schedule time, when there was
such confusion that it seemed impossible to get




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going, Miss Adamson rang the bell and our girls
came together for their first assembly. In that one
respect at least, starting on schedule and in the
midst of impossible confusion and unfinished things
about the building, we resembled the historic openings of Mount Holyoke. And I have thought sometimes that Vera Adamson's spirit that morning and
other days was comparable to that of the founder of
the famous Massachusetts school.  The servants
were getting adjusted to the order of things and the
old man who cooked the girls' meals was gradually
getting the idea that we were attempting to live according to schedule and that we meant to have
meals served on time. Things began taking on
some semblance of order. The girls were learning
to enjoy the life. The days were happy.
For four years we opened each June at the same
old stand. Girls came and went. The second year
the number of High School girls more than doubled
and we rented a house across the street to care for
all. The second year there were more students in
our school too. Instead of one year's course of
study we now had to arrange our program and
schedule to include both a first and second year
class. It was a busy place. Chapel service daily,
in the morning a dialect service for our own school
and in the evening English for the High School
group. There was a religious service and social
hour for students every Friday evening. The assembly room was always crowded as Mrs. Stipp led
a song service, Mr. Stipp taught a lesson, and all of
us joined in the social feature. There were the student services on Sunday. Hours of study, hours of




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fun, new decisions for Christian living among the
girls, better girls, happier girls, closer contact all
the while with the student life of the big High
School, the girls of the school busy in classes or in
duties about the building, and going out to conduct
services in the town or near by villages-the work
was growing in the channels we wanted it to follow.
The Christian Dormitory and Training School were
making for themselves a place in the town and
province.
Disappointments and sorrows there were of
course.  Girls failed us and dragged down the
Dormitory's ideals. Girls left us for one reason or
another, chiefly because the Dormitory was too far
from the High School. Girls did not like our
school because it required some manual labor. But
it takes all kinds of girls to make an Institution.
And there are so many happy memories of those
first years. Memories of girls who came to us as
High School freshmen and after four years with us
were graduated and went on. Memories of girls
who came to learn how to become Bible Women and
after three years in our halls and class rooms went
out as graduates of our school to serve as successful
Bible Women. Memories of girls who have been
an honor and joy to us. Memories of quiet talks
and confidential hours, of fun, parties, innocent
pranks. Memories of friends who came to see us
there.
And the building itself. Friendly old place it
was though inconvenient as could be in many respects. The roof leaked in so many places that on
rainy days there were scarce kettles and pans




ADAMSON HALL


93


enough to use in cooking. Every one sat round the
floor catching the deluge of water that came
through, and the closed up house was dark, gloomy
and drippy. There were days so wet that it was
necessary to put on rain coat and rubbers before
going down stairs. On days like that one huddled
furniture into dry spots and scooped out water as
best as one could. But it was a happy place. I'd
like to pat its good sheltering walls. That old
Dormitory has many a happy memory of work begun and success fully carried on, of times gay and
serious, frivolous and studious, calm and temptestous.
In August, 1920, ground was broken for a new
building in a better location. In September work
was begun. How eagerly we watched it grow. In
December, 1921, we moved in. Moving days had
their own experiences. It is no simple task to move
three American girls. Dale Ellis had joined us a
year earlier and had made that last year in the old
building easier and happier, with all the accumulated possessions, and a large group of school girls
withall their paraphernalia, at the same time keeping meals served and enough things in one place to
make living possible. But at last we were all
moved in and on the evening of December twelfth
life in the new dormitory had really begun and
life in the old one was done. As I went down the
steps of the old building for the last time, it was
empty, so far as our living and working there was
concerned and the landlord was already moving in.
I went away a quieted, subdued soul. Dear old
place where our work was begun, and our first girls




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had come, our first classes taught, our first problems and difficulties met, our first mistakes made
and our first lessons learned, our first joys and
thrills of the work felt. But we were "off with the
old" and a few minutes walk brought me into the
busy process of settling "into the new." There
was a song of thanksgiving in our hearts. Four
years we had been looking forward to the day when
our dreams would be realized and we would be established in an adequate building, ready for a
larger service.
It is such a splendid place, this Adamson Hall,
the generous gift of Mr. and Mrs. Alexander Adamson, of Akron, Ohio. A large building of re-enforced concrete, it towers above all surroundings
and from its third story gabled windows affords a
wonderful view of the town and mountains in the
distance. It occupies a strategic location near the
main building of the High School and the fine new
Normal School, as well as a large Intermediate
School. The building is designed to accommodate
eighty girls. The first floor has a central reception
room, dining rooms, kitchen, supply and bath
room, office, reading room and class rooms which
can be thrown into one large assembly room for
services, programs or social affairs. On the eastern side are apartments for the missionary girls in
charge. The verandas are spacious and inviting.
Great arches and columns add to the beauty of the
building. An attractive open stairway leads from
the reception room on the first floor to the social
hall on the second. This social hall, two large verandas, bath, and eleven sleeping rooms, designed




ADAMSON HALL.


95


to accommodate ten, six, four, or two girls make
the upstairs. The third floor is a trunk room, drying room for wet weather days and a general convenience place as well as retreat with a view over
mountains beyond that rests the soul. It is a lovely
place. Once I saw it through the eyes of two old
men who came slipping up on our porch. Dale
Ellis and I were in one of our rooms and did not
go out to greet them as we would have only embarrassed them. So they removed their big hats,
made of half a gourd and painted gorgeous colors,
entered and walked all through the building upstairs and down, and after awhile we saw them
leave. Their faces were alight with joy and surprise. I suppose they had never seen a finer place,
and I think I went out to appreciate more the mission institution of which I was a part. As the years
have passed, trees, plants, shrubbery and vines have
added to the beauty of the place. And when two
flags, American and Filipino, wave from their flagstaffs over the arches of the front porch, when student youth of the town come and go, "Adamson
Hall" is as fine a mission work as could be desired.
That is the building, but that isn't really Adamson Hall. To see and know the life of the place it
will be necessary to live a day or two with that
household of girls. At five-thirty in the morning
the Chinese gong clangs the rising time, beds creak,
sleepy girls roll out. A new day has begun. They
are busy in preparation for the day. The girls of
the School have duties about the building to care
for, sweeping, dusting, table setting. The breakfast bell rings and they are coming down the broad




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stairs, standing in their places at the tables while
the morning grace is said or sung. Hot rice, eggs
and bananas make a customary morning menu.
Then let us follow the girls of the school through a
typical day. At seven-thirty the class room bell
rings and with armsful of books they assemble for
the morning chapel service. Sometimes it is led
by a missionary, again by one of the students. It is
a service enjoyed and entered into heartily by all.
No need for "compulsory chapel" with that group.
Then come classes through the entire forenoon. A
glimpse into one of the class rooms will reveal an
interested group of girls intent on their lesson in
"Life of Christ" or "Sunday School Methods." As
alert faces watch the instructor, bare brown toes
are curled round the chair's framework while native slippers stand in rows on the floor. As a girl
is called on to recite she unwraps her toes from
the chair rounds, slips them into the chinalees and
stands to tell what she knows about Abraham or
the proper way to conduct a Mother's Meeting. One
hour a class is busy with a music lesson, the next
they are preaching sermons of their own preparation, while another hour may find them deep in the
study of kindergarten methods. Noontide brings
dinner and a siesta hour which is used in resting,
studying or perhaps crocheting, at least a quiet hour
in the building. Then more classes and perhaps
some setting-up exercises or group games that they
are learning both for their own amusement and for
use in their play ground work. Then they may go
out in groups to conduct meetings for mothers and
children, to sing at a funeral or to conduct special




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97


services in some home. Calls, trips to the Market
or Chinese stores also are part of the late afternoon program. Evening brings study hour and at
ten o'clock a bed time gong. One would think they
were tired enough to welcome the summons but
there come requests for "overtime," meaning privilege to have lights after the "lights out" warning
has sounded.
The other group of girls in the building are the
High School girls. When breakfast is over they
are off to their classes in the High School. They
come and go throughout the day as their schedules
require. After school a variety of interests take
them here and there or keep them in reception
room or class rooms entertaining friends. Evening finds them all home again and after the evening meal a summoning gong brings them together
in the assembly room for evening chapel service.
This service is held in English so they sing the
same songs a similar group of American girls might
choose.  Then the study hour with the other
group of girls. So while there are two institutions
in one, two distinct groups of girls in the building,
yet their life is similar and they are living under
the same general house rules.
So Adamson Hall serves the young womanhood
of the province, a busy place all day long with its
active girl life. Night time brings quiet, but Adamson Hall is still serving. Sleeping within its sheltering walls are girls, protected, cared for,
guarded, taught right ideals and higher principles of living; girls who are living well regulated,
orderly lives, who perhaps are for the first time




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going to bed and arising at regular hours, having
meals at schedule time; girls who are learning how
to live together, learning the give-and-take of group
life, learning to curb the angry word and to think
of others as well as self. If Adamson Hall did only
that for these girls-it would be splendidly serving. But that is not all of its service.
Located near the High School buildings, our
dormitory is naturally a student center. Students
come to use the reading room, to borrow books, to
ask help in looking up references, or for suggestions
for. debate or essay. At examination time there are
crowds about the building, tucked into quiet nooks
on porches or settled in class rooms deep in reviewing subjects in preparation for final examinations.
Our assembly rooms have been turned over to the
High School for several days at a time when they
are used for these final examinations. And thus,
since regular school work brings them, many students make their first contacts with the institution.
Rarely regular High School classes have been conducted in the building. Literary Societies, Class
meetings and a variety of School activities find
their way to the hospitable dormitory. In the late
afternoon after classes are done there are always
groups of students about and the building rings
with their merriment. The porches and class rooms
as well as the reception room reveal groups of
socially inclined young people. Some have come
for serious purpose wanting to have some difficulty
solved, to share some real problem or to ask about
their soul needs. There may be Bible classes of
High School students meeting at this late after



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noon hour just as they have met at other hours of
the day. Finally the gong sounds, all visitors
know what that means, meal time for the institution, so they say goodnight, loath to go. And I do
not wonder that it is so. There are so few places
where young people can come together in wholesome pleasant surroundings for good times like
these. So many of them as they leave find their
way to humble bamboo houses, poorly lighted and
meagerly furnished.  Instead of well set tables
with clean white cloths such as they have seen in the
dormitory dining rooms they sit on the kitchen
floor in the house where they board and eat the
evening meal hurriedly, without the gaiety of that
other group. Young men have strolled home from
school with the girls of the dormitory, carrying their
books, they have stayed awhile for a pleasant chat
with some congenial group and then they have gone
on to less inviting quarters. If only there might be
just such a Christian home open to them!
Friday night brings a party of some sort or another. Perhaps it is a general invitation extended
to all who care to come. Again it may be the Senior class or some other group from the High
School, the Christian Endeavors from the church,
the nurses from the hospital, or an invited affair of
chosen friends. But whatever the group there is
sure to be fun and whole hearted entering into the
games. Refreshments are served at ten or soon after and another party is over when lingering guests
have finally said their "good nights." For several
years Friday night was time for a well attended
religious service, followed by the social hour, Sat



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urday afternoon and evening are also given over
frequently to some social function for the young
people.
I think I have mentioned the week day Bible
classes that are conducted for the High School students. Twice a week they come at their regular
hours and enter heartily and enthusiastically into
the Bible instruction and discussion. Sunday morning brings the student services conducted in English
as all student affairs. They use only English in the
public schools, so naturally all affairs touching
student life are English. There is a preaching service and communion with some of the Christian
boys serving as deacons. Sunday School follows
and is a time of interesting class periods. The superintendent of the Sunday School and other officers are students. When the morning services are
over there is the same lingering in happy fellowship as characterizes all week-day visiting. Sunday afternoon brings together groups and in the
evening there are services again. The Sunday
morning attendance ranges from seventy-five to
two hundred.
So all week long the crowds come and go. I
wish you might see for even one day the stream of
students, splendid young people who came for this
or that and linger awhile. There are eager wideawake discussions in Bible classes, good times, real
fun, fellowship and understanding friendship between students and missionaries, companionship
between girl residents and missionaries, free mingling of missionaries in any group about the building or grounds. Some come for serious counsel,




ADAMSON HALL               101
others on pleasure bent. But they come. There
are daily opportunities to touch young lives. Adamson Hall has a rich field of privilege and responsibility with all this golden opportunity. As the
years pass, there ought to go forth an ever widening circle of good. Our hearts are grateful to those
who gave the building, our prayers are that those
who at any time carry responsibility may be equal
to the sacred trust of caring for the girls who find a
home there and in helping all who come in contact
with the life there. Long live "Adamson Hall."








VI-~Just Girls








VII


JUST GIRLS
A WHOLE houseful of them-happy, cheery, funloving, healthy girls, living in Adamson Hall!
Up in the early morning, getting ready for a busy
day, going through the hours of study, play, and
house duties, laughing and chatting over their experiences and scolding over some fancied wrongjust girls! All week the dormitory echoes their
voices.
Friday afternoon brings the stir of going home
for vacation. Carts arrive at the door and automobiles also. Parents or other relatives come to
take the girl. A group of students call to ask if
some one is ready to go or a friend comes to ask if
she may take some girl out to spend the week end
in her home. Some girl rushes in all excitement.
Her mother has come or some unexpected opportunity to get home has presented itself. Perhaps
several students have decided to walk to their home
town and there is considerable confusion as they
get on their way. But finally all have gone who expect to go for that week end except some disappointed girl who tearfully explains that "her ride
didn't come." Count is taken of those remaining
so that tables may be prepared for the evening meal.
Sunday afternoon brings the same excitement of return. Someone brings us a whole bunch of bananas, another has brought a certain native kind of
105




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candy. There is variety aplenty in the baggage
brought back and generosity in the gifts made to
the missionaries.
On Sunday morning some go early to the Catholic or Independent church for Mass, starting out
with prayer book and rosary, their heads covered
with black lace veils which lend such charm to the
face of the Oriental maiden. Other girls are preparing to attend the Protestant services either in our
town church or in the Assembly Rooms of the dormitory where English services for students are held.
Later all gather in the dormitory chapel for the big
English Sunday School presided over by one of the
students, though for several years one of the teachers who lived with us served as superintendent.
After the Sunday School, boys linger to visit with
the girls until the dinner bell calls them away.
"East is East" but young people are very much
alike the world over and the Filipino girl has more
liberty than any other Oriental maiden. She is
more like the American whose style of dress, customs and language she is adopting. If a new social
custom is introduced, no matter how revolutionary,
it passes muster it it has American approval.
Perhaps they are invited to a party, and these
dormitory girls are a popular lot. So they primp
and powder, curl and fuss, and the result is eminently satisfying and pleasing to the eye.  For
school they usually wear the American dress, it is
so much more convenient and economical, but for
parties and any dress affairs they array themselves
in the national costume. There is a long skirt with
a train which is either draped artistically and pin



IUST GIRLS


107


ned on the hip or is carried on the arm. Over the
skirt is worn a black beaded net or lace overskirt.
The blouse or camisa is of thin transparent material
with low cut round neck and big bell-shaped sleeves
stiffly starched and standing out from the arm. A
folded piece of the material called panuelo
around the neck and shoulders makes a pleasing
finish. The skirt and blouse are rarely of the same
material, though usually of the same color. Designs in the material of the skirt may be worked out
in embroidered patterns on edge of sleeves and
panrielo. Or these designs may be cut out of the
cloth pasted on the camisa. The costume is often made of very soft, rich, materials, or of coarser
cloth woven from some native-grown plant. And for
the completed costume necklaces, rings, ear rings,
fancy pins, bracelets, fancy fans, large brillant
combs are added. The generous bit of lace which
shows below the ingenious drape of the skirt, the
bright, daring colors of the costumes and the variety
of colors once the group is assembled make a very
picturesque attire as well as a colorful picture.
Oh, the time it takes this bunch of girls to dress!
If many of them are going to an important function, for instance the inaugural ball of the new governor of the province, they suggest that the evening
meal be served earlier than usual and after that
every one falls to work in real earnest. Panuelos
must be folded and laid on beds ready to be placed
around lovely, brown shoulders, after all other
preparations are made. They plan, arrange and rearrange, help one another and offer suggestions,
and after a couple of hours they are ready, a charm



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ing attractive, gracious array of young womanhood.
Their abundant black hair has been curled and arranged in the latest coiffure. No bobbing of those
long tresses. Big, brown eyes sparkle. Faces and
shoulders are the loveliest golden brown, skin soft
and velvety. The shoulders are almost bare but the
thin drape of the garment lends somehow a softening effect. The Filipino woman carries her head
so beautifully. Her shoulders are so well molded.
Perhaps the practice of carrying water jars on
the head and walking long miles has given her
that easy grace of carriage. And once arrived at
the party these girls of our dormitory are much
sought after. It is a satisfying, pleased feeling that
comes to the person chaperoning so winsome a lot.
As they live together in their dormitory home,
they have their disagreements and misunderstandings, their little fusses and weeps, their fun and
frolic, their jokes and pranks, their crushes and
falling outs-just girls, you see. But with it all,
there is a strong sense of loyalty to the institution.
There has grown up a real feeling of pride in their
dormitory, a desire to uphold certain definite dormitory ideals and to maintain certain regular customs. They are learning many new things; their
lives are broader, better, more wholesome; they are
making worthy decisions and trying to live up to
them; they are forming the ideals and learning the
things which will uplift, purify and complete the
lives of these Island peoples.
I love to think of those girls I lived and worked
with during the years I was a part of that institution. I like to think of them in groups and of their




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living together in the dormitory both in that first
building where we started and for four years contiued the work. The very inconvenience of the
building made for closer contacts and intimate relationships. Confidences were easily given and it
was the natural procedure for the girls to turn readily for help to those who were living in such close
contact with them. And then the new building,
larger, finer, more convenient with the adjustment
to different conditions. The years brought their
own rewards in happy friendships, an opportunity
to be of service to a constantly increasing group.
I'd like to share them all with you. Plump, studious Encarnacion. Magdalena who came as a
timid little freshman and under our very eyes
grew into a beautiful young lady of poise and
graciousness. Marie, who played her harp for us.
Genoveva and Angela, sisters from an educated
refined family. Impetuous Gregoria who when we
doubted if we could find room for her, settled the
matter by bringing her belongings with her when
she came to hear our final decision. Sweet, confiding Manuela or spiritual Salvacion. Youngest of
all Tereza. The Japanese girl who struggled with
both English and dialect and tried so hard with
both. The beautiful Esperanza whose American
father brought her to me with the request that I
"learn her manners." Madonna-like Antonina and
Clotilde, the preacher's daughter. Remedios, Juana,
Paz, Concepcion-that whole, interesting, lovable
lot of girls, but each with her own weakness, need,
charm and appeal. I loved them all. So would
you.




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Lourdes was one of the first girls who came. I
remember so well seeing her come in the wide
front hall and up the stairs where I met her. I
was at once impressed with her evident dignity,
good breeding and taste in dress. Lourdes had
such beautiful clothes. She came, I soon learned,
from one of the wealthiest and most aristocratic
homes in a nearby town. Her father had been
shot by American soldiers as he carried water to
their camp. Loudres was an only daughter and
spoiled by the entire family and most especially by
the proud, old, grandmother who lived in a great
house and entertained in such lavish manner. She
was a proud, wilful, selfish girl, difficult to deal
with, a trouble maker among the girls. So, frequently disturbances and quarrels could be traced
to her and after such outbursts, some friend would
counsel, "Why don't you send her away? She only
causes you trouble and you will never do anything
with her anyway." But I couldn't let her go.
Lourdes had won my heart and I knew she needed
me, needed just what our institution had to offer to
girls like her. So Lourdes stayed. She began attending our Sunday services and Bible classes and
to manifest considerable interest. After awhile she
wanted to come to Christ and be baptized. She came
to me and we talked it over. Knowing the attitude of
parents and grandmother and a host of relatives and
friends, how angry they would be and how difficult
they would make it for her to live a Christian life, I
counseled waiting awhile. Perhaps in the waiting
we could win them over and thus make new friends
for the work as well as life easier for Lourdes.




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Again and again she came to me and always thinking it was wise I suggested that she wait. Finally
there came a Sunday afternoon before the closing
of a week's evangelistic effort at night. Many students had come to Christ. Lourdes did so want to
come. And so, feeling that I could no longer advise
against it, I said, "Lourdes, do what you think
best." Messages had come from her town that very
afternoon, warning her against the step and reminding her of parental disapproval. When they had
placed her in the dormitory it had been with the
definite understanding that she was not to "follow
the Protestants." That night in the chapel when the
last invitation had been given and the last song was
being sung and some of my dormitory girls had already come forward, Lourdes sitting in the second
seat from the front suddenly came with the impetuous rush of those who come because they can
wait no longer.
We went down to the river that same hour of the
night, and eight of the girls were baptized. With
rejoicing and yet with subdued feeling we returned
to our dormitory home. We all sat round and
talked it over while the girls dried their hair. And
next morning very early (I do not know who carried
the news so quickly) the proud, old grandmother
was in town to find out what it was all about. She
would not come to the dormitory but established
herself in one of the aristocratic homes of the town
and like royalty ordered her grand-daughter to
come to her. Lourdes went fearfully and yet so
brave and determined in her decision. The whole
town was stirred and from fifty miles away we




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heard reports of her coming and comments on it
all. Well, she met all the persecutions and difficulties she had anticipated, and more. And though
years have passed and Lourdes is now a college
graduate she still meets persecutions. Obstacles are
laid in her pathway. Temptations to lure her
away from her faith and church are placed in alluring fashion before her. She has always been
popular and suitors have never been lacking. But
she turns from them. Their faith is not the same as
hers. Callers in her home, invitations to take her
elsewhere at time for services in the church are
usual, but she shows the same determination and
zeal of the earlier years. Lourdes remains faithful and true though I marvel whence comes the
strength of her. How had she learned to rely so
much on her Christ that she has been so victoriously
carried through? Not so long ago in one of the
treasured letters which come from her, Lourdes was
recounting something of her difficulties and she
closed with the naive statement, "But you will be
glad to know that your Lourdes is a good girl."
And somehow I know she is.
Jesusa came to live in the dormitory. (Jesusa is
the feminine name for Jesus). She too came from
an aristocratic home and her family held high
positions in their town. Jesusa was a treasured,
carefully guarded daughter. Her parents and her
beautiful older sister, all handsomely dressed, came
to bring her to the dormitory. There was more
ceremony than usual as they inquired about rules,
conditions and made request to come and take her
home each Friday evening for the week end. As




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they left with the repeated injunction, "She will be
your daughter now," I felt that a real charge had
been delivered. Jesusa was a friendly, unassuming girl, younger and more child-like than most of
the girls of the dormitory. Each Friday afternoon
her courtly father would come for her and I always felt like a day out of the court life of Louis
XIII, as he bowed himself in and out again, asking
in soft musical Spanish, if there was anything he
could do for me and could he "borrow his
daughter" for the week end. Every Sunday afternoon the mother, richly dressed, would bring her
back, accompanied by the handsome daughter, and
possibly a small brother and sister or two. They
all loved Jesusa so and there was always rivalry
among the children as to which might accompany
her back to the dormitory, driving in the family
carriage.
After awhile Jesusa was interested in the Christ
life, as she heard the teaching and lived in the
warm-hearted Christian atmosphere. She wanted
to give herself to Him and was baptized one evening. That Friday afternoon no one came for her,
and Jesusa went home accompanied by some hometown friends. When she reached the great house
that was home, she rushed in the entrance door and
shouted her "Apo, Apo," all eager to dash up the
steps and tell the good news of her decision. But in
that home the news was not good and had already
preceded her. So from above she heard from her
mother the cold response, "You needn't come upstairs, Jesusa." And so, though she begged and
pleaded, Jesusa, the cherished daughter of that




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proud, aristocratic home slept all night alone in
the downstairs of the house. The downstairs of the
house in the Philippine Islands, you must know, is
a fit place only for your pigs and chickens and
things like that to live in. No self respecting Filipino family sleeps in the downstairs of their house.
She came back to the dormitory a subdued little
maiden-but a Christian soul none the less. Jesusa
was reinstated in the family circle and affections.
Her mother relented to the extent of insisting that
the Bible girl whom we sent to hold services in the
town stay in her home, and sometimes requested
that the services be conducted in her own living
room. But after that year Jesusa never came to live
in the dormitory again.
Pastora was another of my girls. Such a gracious, winsome girl, so very popular and yet so unaffected and unconscious of her charm. She was
beautiful with that strange, alluring, brooding type
of beauty sometimes found in the face of Oriental
maidens. When first I saw her at some High School
function I inquired her name. She attracted me at
once and somehow I wanted her in my dormitory.
So I was glad one day when I was told that Pastora's father was awaiting me in the reception
room. He wanted me to take her and especially
asked certain restrictions be made regarding her
social activities. Pastora was too popular. She
stayed. She seemed happy in the dormitory life
and satisfied with her social life, even though parties were not nearly so numerous as they had been.
There were frequent requests in the reception room,
from well-dressed, dapper young men who wished




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to call on Pastora. Often it was necessary for me to
tell her of some flattering invitation which I must
refuse for her. Yet she never minded and fitted so
easily in the girl life of the building and all the
dormitory affairs. As time passed she showed interest in the services we were holding, took active
part in our student Sunday School and gave every
evidence of being ready to accept her Christ. But
when approached she was always reticent, made an
excuse and seemed to draw away. When I returned
to the homeland for furlough Pastora was still unwon. Then came a letter from a missionary friend,
"You will be happy to know that your Pastora was
baptized last week. It seems to be such a genuine
conversion, more like the old-fashioned religion
than we usually see nowadays." But all too soon
there came another letter one paragraph of which
burned itself into my very being and intensified my
longing to return. Pastora had lost interest, there
had been real trouble in the dormitory and Pastora
was gone. The temptations of life and the lure of
social popularity had drawn her away. Pastora too
beautiful, too popular, was lost to us, lost to the life
she had so recenty embraced with such marked
enthusiasm.
Angela was an adorable child when she came
with her sister Genoveva to live in the Dormitory.
Socially she was popular and enjoyed the parties
as much as the more frivilous minded. At her books
she worked with enthusiasm. Busy one week practicing an oration, the next she was haranguing the
walls of the building with her debating speech.
She was a leader in the class room always and her




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very love for her books made her a joy. The same
whole-souled enthusiasm marked her decision for
the Christ. Her radiant spiritual face uplifted to
mine in the chapel hour was always an inspiration.
She came from a refined, educated family. Her parents were among the few older people who learned
to speak English after the Americans came. One
sister was the most highly educated woman of the
province and carried more degrees than I ever
"dreamed of in my philosophy." She was Dean
of Women in the University of the Philippines. Another sister was pursuing special training in
Northwestern University, Chicago, having completed her college course in Manila. The sister in
the dormitory was leading her classes in many
ways. The mother died. I shall never forget Angela's agonizing sorrow.
The day she received her High School diploma,
she with Lourdes and Encarnacion, who also graduated that day, after three and four years in the
dormitory, came to my room. Her grief at leaving
was intense. They all wept at going, but so did I.
Whatever Angela did she did with that same intensity. She is living in the dormitory again after
several years away in the University, and now as a
college graduate, she is one of the most popular
members of the High School Faculty. And when
they were looking for some one to head the recently
organized Youth Movement who but my Angela
was chosen?
Class Day exercises on a December evening in
1920. An outdoor platform had been erected and
tastefully decorated in the class colors and motto,




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"Not to be ministered unto but to minister." They
are dramatizing the story of Ruth. Salud with her
quiet dignity and motherly face made a perfect
Naomi. Josefa was fine as Orpah and there never
could have been a more beautiful Ruth than Fulgencia. Paz, larger than the other girls of the class
and with a natural hauteur of manner made a splendid Boaz. The costuming was easy and effective.
Every girl seemed to fit so naturally into her part.
Who were these girls? The first students and the
first graduating class of the Christian Training
School in Laoag. Eleven of them, trained, ready,
eager to go forth and serve.
Marie came from a comfortable genteel home
in Laoag and went home for week ends and some
in-between visits. She was popular, a leader in the
social set of the town. We often wondered how
she had decided to give up her assured place in society and come to our school. We were repeatedly
amazed at her calm refusal to serve on reception
committees of brilliant balls and her disregard of
invitations from first citizens. Governor, Mayor, or
whoever he was, only came again and again to request and be refused. Such was Marie's position.
But her school and church came first.
Salud had come from her distant home a full
year before the school opened. She had heard of
the plans, she had long wanted to prepare herself
for Christian service and wanted to be sure to be on
hand to enroll as a student. She mothered the girls
and proved peace-maker and advisor to all. Her
service as a Bible Woman after graduation was
efficient and effective.




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Marie Miguel was already serving as a successful, popular Bible Woman before the school was
opened but she was anxious to enroll and be a
graduate worker. So as Bible woman for the Laoag
church she also came to school and as student and
teacher her grace and charm were added to the
group. Marie served so well and after awhile
married a worthy Christian gentleman. It has
been some years since Marie, a young mother, died.
Josefa was a delight, a clean, healthy, fresh,
wholesome looking girl, attractive, quiet and clever.
In her senior year she was helpful as an instructor
of lower classes and gave conscientuous service.
Josefa now presides over a home of her own. Like
the nurses our Bible girls make their homes a constant object lesson and model for the community.
Juana was studious and unassuming. Paz could
work or shirk with equal vim but we rather enjoyed
her moods. She was such a real girl! I visited the
home of Mercedes one day. A cart road led from
the main highway, winding round a hillside
and following a dancing little river. Finally the
cart road was merely a narrow foot path and ended
in a shady nook on the hillside where stood the
bamboo house whence Mercedes came. From its
windows one could look out over the China Sea and
glimpse the big ships steaming by.
Fulgencia was a beautiful girl. Slender, fragile
looking with deep sparkling brown eyes and a smile
that lighted her face and yours with its radiance.
The most attractive thing about her was that wonderful smile. Self-effacing, humble with a dignity
and grace all her own and entirely unconscious of




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her charm was Fulgencia. She came from Ladangit. No road leads to Ladangit. Across the rice
paddies one must walk, following the wet, slippery,
narrow ridges when the rice is growing or across the
dry, rough, stubble stepping up and over these many
dividing ridges after the rice is harvested. Then
up and over the mountain-side to a cluster of small
houses on a wooded slope, beside a ravine and a
spring. A wild, beautiful, sylvan spot, where monkeys can sometimes be heard, chattering in the
trees. That is Ladangit and Fulgencia's home. She
wanted to come to school and prepare herself to
serve the Christ she loved. Carrying the big, heavy
wooden chest, which served as a trunk and held her
wardrobe, on her head, balancing it securely there
Fulgencia walked over the hillside trail and across
the rice fields to the highway where it was easier
going, the remaining miles into Laoag and the
school. It took all my energy going to Ladangit
with the mere walking and attempting to stay on the
uneven precarious ridges and not fall into the water
and growing rice below. How Fulgencia managed
herself and that big box has always been a marvel
to me. So Fulgencia came to school all eager for
the experience and training. Perhaps a large part
of her charm lay in her joy and her ready response.
Laurina rushed into the building one day after
school was begun. Her sparkling brown eyes
danced with her eagerness to be there and begin,
as she amazed us with, "I didn't have money
enough to pay my share of the expenses and my
family is not interested."-That didn't surprise
us, it was too pitifully often the story but Laurina




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continued, "But I sold my rings and will you please
take that money and let me stay?" Laurina stayed
of course, proving a responsive student and an unusually able Bible worker and helper about the
building.
Mercedes (another Mercedes) has been serving
as a Bible woman some years but was so anxious
for training that adjustment of work was made so
she could go out part time and also study. She was
a devoted, consecrated soul and an untiring worker.
It was her greatest joy to lay a flat little bundle of
clothes on her head on Saturday afternoon and
with one or two companions walk to some seaside
village or elsewhere and bring strength and joy to
the Christians there through her week-end service
among them. And wherever Mercedes was stationed as Bible woman or pastor there was sure to
come soon a call for a preacher or missionary to
come and baptize her converts. Mercedes got results. She was so happy and interested in her work
that I suppose she has never stopped to think how
successful she has been.
Nicolasa, valedictorian of her class, is the last of
that eleven. She was not a prepossessing girl we
thought as she presented herself to us a few days
after the school first opened, but her story captivated us. A graduate of the Intermediate School
and therefore at that time eligible to teach, her
father had tried to force her to accept a position in
the parochial school of her town. But she refused,
and further angered him by her acceptance of the
Protestant faith. And now she wanted to enter that
school for girls just opened in Laoag and prepare




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herself for Christian service. So she ran away from
home, hid for several days in the home of relatives
in a little fishing village and then came on to us.
She was almost penniless, scant help could be expected from a married sister, none from her father
though after a year or so he relented to the extent
of having her home for vacation and even visiting
the school at Commencement time. Through the
three years she stayed, pursuing every course of
study with enthusiasm and desire, making the highest grades, carrying off easily every honor. In order to help her meet the part of her expenses required of each student we put her to work. Nicolasa
was a splendid teacher. We gave her classes in
English, Arithmetic, History, Geography and after
awhile, as her own course neared completion, we
added Bible subjects to her schedule. Her knowledge of English was unusually good so she was
helpful to the missionaries in charge of the institution as teacher, translator or interpreter. "Ask
Nicolasa" became the natural thing to say and by
the time she was graduated from the school with
highest honors, of course, she had become so indespensible to us that we were loath to let her go.
And Nicolasa wanted to stay four years more and
go to High School. She served as an instructor in
our school and helped pay her way. Today Nicolasa serves her Christ in a little village in the foothills among a tribe of people pagan and only partially civilized. Her education would give her a
place in higher circles and a more lucrative position. But Nicolasa prefers to stay on among the
people who need her. Nicolasa says, "The people




122        PALM TREE AND PINE
here are so anxious to hear the gospel. They are
really very good and I like to stay among them. I
am getting practically nothing for they could hardly
pay me the four pesos (two dollars) monthly, but I
feel remunerated by their attitude toward the gospel and also their appreciation of the service I am
giving them. They are using me at every moment
they have time to hear about the gospel. It is a
real joy to be a leader among people who appreciate your efforts. I feel like staying here long."
Would you not like to see our educated Nicolasa
sitting with those pagan people around their fire in
the open air, the women busy with their spinning,
all listening to her stories from the Bible?
Just girls, such a splendid lot of them, a constantly increasing number as the years come and go.




VIII-Holy Days and Holidays








VIII


HOLY DAYS AND HOLIDAYS
THERE are so many of them one can scarce keep
count, these Holy Days in the Roman church,
commemorating saints and events of which most of
us have never heard. And the people themselves
who keep the days often do not know for whom or
why they go to Mass and have a holiday, for Holy
Days are usually holidays. But not all holidays
are Holy Days.
The great patriotic day among the Filipino people is Rizal Day, commemorating the day Rizal
was put to death because of the hatred and jealousy
of Spanish friars and because of his recognition of
the cruelties of the Spanish regime. Jose Rizal is
the great patriot and hero of the Philippine Islands.
There are parades with decorated floats, bands and
marching organizations. There are programs with
eulogies and national appeals. There are balls with
queens chosen in popularity contests and coronated
with brilliant ceremony. There are athletic contests and games. There are cockpits too with
gambling and drinking. Rizal Day is a gala day.
The Filipino people keep in similar style, though
with less pomp and enthusiasm, our Fourth of July.
The public schools parade, the High School cadets
have military reviews and the United States is remembered from many a flag-draped balcony and
platform. One year the invitations and programs
125




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announcing the day's activities proclaimed the day
of the "independence of North America." Occupation Day, or the day the American government
took over the Islands, is remembered. And our
American Thanksgiving Day is also kept though not
as Americans keep it, lacking our traditions and
sentiment. This time is used for interschool athletics and festivities. Religious services are held in
Protestant churches. But Americans in the Islands
try to keep the day according to American custom.
Turkey we can have and pumpkin pie made from
squash or canned pumpkin ordered from Manila.
Cranberries are lacking unless you live in or near
Manila and can order from the supply brought over
for that day. But where I lived the red flowers
from a certain shrub made a very creditable substitute. In most places where there are several Americans the custom is to get together for a community
dinner. The conversation is likely to run along
the general line of "other Thanksgivings and where
I spent them."
Christmas is a happy festival and around that
season the Filipinos have built their own customs.
They have known the Christ four hundred years, so
of course they have had Christmas. Christmas Eve
on the streets of any town is a festival-lookina time.
The streets are crowded with people dressed in their
special day best. Children go from door to door
and make frequent stops at the missionary's door.
In the doorway they sing and dance and make effort
to entertain. Then they shout, "Merry Christmas,"
or "Naimbag a Pascua" (the Jlocano Merry Christmas). They await your return greeting and con



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127


tinue to wait, hoping you will bring a bright colored card, a Sunday School paper, a bit of candy or
some other gift. If you answer their greeting you
are expected to appear with some gift. If you make
no reply you are not really expected to come out.
After you have remembered them they go happily
on their way, but judging from the number that
stop at one's door on Christmas Eve, all day Christmas Day, on through the holidays and especially
again on Three Kings Day one feels sure many of
them must have come several times. Young people
and older come, too, to extend their greeting and to
leave Christmas cards. Some groups have rigged
up stage properties and carrying their scenery with
them they go about in costume and give little plays.
They too call their greeting and expect their gift.
Bands serenade and small groups are out on serenading trips and all expect some returns. The
streets are made bright with paper lanterns. These
have been made in the homes and are of fantastic
shapes and bright colorings. Circles, squares, cylinders, triangles, stars, fish, aeroplanes all light the
way carried by groups of merry makers or hanging
in windows and doorways. People call gaily to
one another as they pass on the streets or to those
in the houses their, "Naimbag a Pascua" greetings,
Beggars are on the streets adding their whining
requests to the general din.
Midnight finds the Catholic and Independent
Churches crowded for the Mass. I went one year
to the Midnight Mass in the Catholic Church in
Laoag. We found the church packed with worshippers and onlookers. Because we were Ameri



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cans, way was made for us to reach the front of the
building to a place near the altar. Women and
children and a few men knelt on the floor, burning
their candles and counting their beads. The majority of the crowd stood and looked on. Hundreds of
lighted candles made the church bright and the air
was heavy with the scent of burning tapers and the
mass of humanity packed in. At twelve o'clock or
as near the time as one expects anything to happen
in the tropics, the bells rang louder than before,
though they had been ringing at intervals all evening, the music increased in volume, noise-making
devices were employed and in the midst of all this
din and confusion, with several priests and helpers
doing things at altars and before images, a picture
of the Holy Family which had been hanging veiled
high above the altar descended slowly and jerkily
until it rested unveiled just over the altar. More
clanging bells, holy water, prayers and chanting,
and the crowds dispersed, though bands played all
night long on the streets.
Christmas Day finds the beggars very busy. They
come in groups and wait patiently until a gift is
forthcoming. This is dropped in the sack each one
carries and they plod on. The children, too, come
all day long with their greetings, though the strolling players wait for nightfall. Filipinos call on
their friends and leave bright colored embossed
cards or send servants to leave cards at your door.
The missionaries receive many callers during the
day.
Christmas is kept in the Protestant Chapels with
programs, trees, gifts and white Christmas observ



HOLY DAYS AND HOLIDAYS


129


ances. Our Laoag Chapel was decorated year after year by the gifted pastor. Spreading palm
branches were thrust into the woven reeds that made
the walls. Banana trees were placed on either side
the platform with the cluster of green fruit hanging
over the platform steps. Feathery bamboo was
everywhere. Potted plants and flowers made the
church a bower of beauty. Gay paper lanterns all
over the building and lighting the entrance from
street to door added to the festive appearance. And
a Christmas tree of course. Other years as the
White Christmas idea grew he used festoons of
white paper chains, draped native-grown tree cotton on bamboo branches and placed a white cross
in the midst of the green on the platform. The
program consists of songs, recitations, exercises,
drills by the children, special music and plays by
the young people. Both English and dialect are
used. The White Christmas giving has been very
generous among a people who have so little to give
and most of whom are receiving nothing in the way
of gifts. The children and most of the young people are dressed in white as they come bearing their
white wrapped gifts. There are tropical fruits and
vegetables, eggs and rice. The young women often
bring gifts of clothing. The student nurses frequently bring small white baby dresses and thus
with the gift demonstrate what is proper for baby
to wear. There are gifts of money too. Gifts of
service are sometimes called for and are collected
by small white-clad children carrying white baskets.
The invitation is given and some come forward
with the gift of self. The gifts of substance piled




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about the cross are next day distributed to needy
families about town.
At the close of the program gifts are usually distributed, gifts that have been sent by friends in the
homeland. Dolls, balls, toys of all sorts. Simple
little gifts delight. Picture cards are eagerly received. Friends have sent post cards with paper
pasted over the addressed side, or Christmas greeting cards similarly treated. It has been my joy to
put her first dolly into eager brown arms uplifted
to receive. And in the dim rear of the building
where crowds stand closely packed in, hands and
hands are extended and pleading voices say, "Me
next," "Please give me one," fearful that the supply will be exhausted before their turn has come.
Scrap books made and sent by American children
are often separated into several parts that all children may have something. The program ended,
the last card given away, the people separate and
go their several ways through the moonlight night.
Parting "Naimbag a Pascuas" are heard mingled
with the noise and music of the merry-makers on
the streets. And a religious procession or two may
pass along the way with candles, fancy lanterns and
a favorite image.
Then there is Christmas Day for the missionaries.
The Filipinos have little festivity or gift giving. The
Chinese shops are sure to display Christmas toys.
One year an enterprising Filipino merchant advertised, "Be patriotic. Patronize your own countryman. I have gone to Manila to lay in a supply of
Christmas toys and will return to Laoag on December twenty-eighth." But the missionaries strive




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to keep Christmas as a home day, the Mission group
replacing the faraway family. Weeks before home
packages have been mailed. But on Christmas
morning there is sure to be the last minute rush of
wrapping packages for the family tree. There is
a tree and dinner in one of the mission homes, an
evergreen tree may have been found, poinsettias
grow in the dooryard. Nuts and candy have come
from the homeland and possibly a sprig of mistletoe, apples and oranges have been ordered from
Manila, a turkey from the native market. The day
may end with a moonlight picnic and dip in the
ocean, for Christmas is hot. To one new in the
tropics it seems impossible to keep Christmas in the
midst of heat, green trees, flowers and mosquitos.
But one learns after awhile that it can be Christmas
anywhere, though one always longs for gay shop
windows, snow, ice, fire places and home. Late
on Christmas the missionary, alone, looks over
homeland gifts and greetings, writes home letters
or makes hurried preparation to leave next day for
a Student Conference or a Missionary Convention.
Cool night breezes, soft night noises, beauty of
night-time sky, fragrance of night-blooming shrub
and in a nearby home a religious chant ends Christmas for the missionary.
Every town has its Patron Saint and its town
Fiesta or festival in honor of his saint. Fiesta
time is holidaytime for all and lasts several days.
In the "Plaza" or Public Square an open-air theater is erected and there hour after hour programs
are rendered. There may be school programs
and oratorical contests, plays put on by private




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groups or organizations, patriotic speeches and
always the "Moro-Moro." These Moro-Moro plays
center about the general theme of Moro pirates
from the southern islands attacking Christian villages and the resulting captivity of some beautiful
maiden. They are tedious and long drawn out.
Frequently the actors do not know their lines but
repeat as the prompter tells them, sentence by sentence. There is very little action but the interest of
the people seems unfailing. A Moro-Moro play
may run for a couple of hours, then give away to
some other program only to later continue its performance. So at various times through the two or
three-day festival the Moro-Moro occupies the
stage. There are booths for exhibits both from the
town celebrating and other towns. The schools
show their workmanship, garden stuff, baskets,
laces, embroideries, woven materials. Every one
wears his best clothes and lingers about the Plaza,
greeting his friends. There is entertaining in the
homes, feasts, teas, receptions and balls. In the
church the Patron Saint is remembered as well as
in some evening processions.
The greatest time of all the year in the Philippines is the Lenten Season. The greatest time of
Lent is Holy Week which reaches its climax on
Good Friday. The Catholic Church of the Philippines today is the medieval church of Spain. Processions, images, superstitions, all are there. Three
hundred years and more ago from out thousands of
bamboo huts, people came forth to march in the
Lenten processions. And still today they come!
The first Sunday in Lent is time for a great pro



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133


cession. When the sun is low in the sky and the
severe heat of the day is lessened the people begin
to gather in the great church yard surrounded by
its massive stone walls. Later when the sun is setting and the evening glow is in the sky the priest
comes forth especially garbed for the occasion and
preceded by several boys bearing emblems. Various images are wheeled out on rickety unpainted
carts drawn by men. The Christ, the Virgin Mary in
pale blue robes, Joseph, Saint Veronica, Mary
Magdalene, Peter, John, San Roque, guardian of
good health, and sometimes the Patron Saint of the
town. The images are hideous and far from artistic, their heads jiggle as they are hauled along and
as Easter draws nearer the number of the images
in the procession increases. The people fall in behind the priest, the images are scattered along in
the crowd. The old women wear long black enveloping capes with hoods drawn close over their
faces. The girls wear black lace veils. Wee boys
and girls, babies carried on hips, old men and
women plodding wearily along, the young women
grouped about the Virgin, chanting as they march
and young men strolling along because attractive
young women are there. All carry lighted candles.
Many people place candles in their windows as the
procession passes. At certain places the procession
pauses and kneels for prayers. Regularly the priest
used to stop for special chant on a corner with our
Mission Hospital on one side and a missionary
home on another. The strange glow which sometimes fills the air at sunset time lights the procession with a weird radiance. They march on and




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on, the sound of marching feet mingled with the
chanting, the air heavy with dust and the smell of
burning candles. Then they are lost from sight in
the fast falling darkness, only the twinkling candles outline the long procession of people as they
return to the great church yard.
Every Sunday afternoon during Lent the procession forms and marches. And then comes Palm
Sunday. Very early, long before it is day, we hear
the people passing on their way to church. And on
into the late forenoon they go carrying palm branches cut into fantastic shapes and decorated with
paper flowers. The priest will bless the branch
and then, hung above doorway or window, it will
frighten away evil spirits and protect the home
from disease. The procession on this afternoon is
much greater than any preceding. It seems as
though every one is marching. More images are
brought out.
Holy Week is the greatest religious week. There
are processions on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. Holy Thursday and Good Friday and Saturday following are legal holidays in the land.
Schools, offices, stores are closed. All work and
business ceases. People come from everywhere,
even the most remote villages to have part in the
religious observances. The images are more numerous than ever. On the little cart beside the image of Peter has been placed a big rooster that may
crow lustily at the crowds. Saint Veronica carries
the handkerchief with which she wiped the Master's
face and the imprint of his features shows on the
cloth. There are many images of the Christ; Christ




HOLY DAYS AND HOLIDAYS


135


carrying a great black wooden cross and bending
under the load of it; Christ on the cross; Christ in
a big glass coffin. I have stood on a stone culvert
and watched the people pass. So many people and
such strange assortments of dress. Small children,
mere babies, plod patiently, holding tight to the
mother's hand, not knowing what it is all about and
their feet so unaccustomed to the heavy shoes they
wear. Babies riding on mothers' hips cry from
weariness and hunger. Old men and women look
ready to drop but push determinedly along. They
are so sure this is right. They have been taught no
other way to find Him.
The Friday procession seems endless, the people
crowded close together. Every one wears black.
Even the Virgin Mary and other images are draped
in mourning. A ghastly image of Christ in a glass
case with blood running down his side seems the
favored image on that day. In the churches the
crucifixion has been enacted. An image of Christ
hangs on a cross before the altar from nine in the
morning till late afternoon, when it is taken down
in readiness for the procession. Twelve men chosen
to represent the apostles have met with the priest
for the washing of feet and they wear special distinguishing garments in the procession.
On Saturday all is quiet. The streets are deserted. The people still wear black. Easter morning early they come together in the church yard
where a scaffolding has been erected. A basket is
lowered from the highest part of the scaffold, in it
a small girl to represent the angel come to bring the
resurrection message. The Virgin Mary throws off




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her black garment and stands revealed in her usual
blue. The people rejoice. In some places an image of Judas is hanged on a tree and burned. As
the burning image falls to the ground the people
shout in fiendish glee. Easter is over and for many
the year's religious observances are at an end. The
processions in Manila are beautiful, the images
artistic and the lighting effects lovely. But throughout the Islands there are these crude images and
well-nigh pagan practices.
In the Protestant Churches on Good Friday afternoon there are held "seven word" services. Many
of our Protestants wear black, it has been so long
the custom of the land. And on Easter morning
are Sunrise Prayer services.
At Eastertime, in a few places in the Islands
flagellations are carried on. Certain men have
taken vows to remember Christ's suffering and
death by torturing the body and thus lay up merit
for themselves in Heaven. Thursday or Friday are
the chosen times. I saw them one year in the dry
rice fields back of a church near Manila. The
man about to go through the ordeal wraps rope or
chains about his legs. On his head he places a
crown of thorns and covers his face with a handkerchief. His back is bare and he lies prone on the
ground while a man in charge cuts his back in
criss-cross designs with pieces of sharp glass-embedded in wood. Then he starts off across the
rough stubble in the burning sun, following supposedly the way of the cross. And as he walks
slowly along he constantly beats himself on the
back with a cat o' nine tails which he swings from




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137


side to side. He kneels with outstretched arms
thus making the shadow of the cross on the ground.
Someone pushes him and he falls heavily on his
face where he lies for a time while some one whispers to him. Again he throws himself on the ground
and is beaten with a leather strap. The blood flows
from his lacerated back but he goes on until he
comes to a little chapel where friends go inside and
say prayers for him. Meanwhile he runs about,
throws himself to the ground, rolls around in the
dust or lies quietly face downward in the hot sun.
The prayers finished he arises and goes to a nearby
spring where he bathes his bloody back and spreads
over the wounded flesh the leaves of a tree. These
he has chewed into a pulp and believes them to have
medicinal value. They seem to be at least antiseptic. The priest will tell you that the church does
not encourage or sanction the flagellations. But
at least the church has not sufficiently put its stamp
of disapproval upon the barbarous custom to stop
it.
Easter in my homeland. Blading grass, blooming flowers, leafing tree, warm sunshine, soft south
winds,-beauty, stirring of new life, promise of
spring, gladness, resurrection. Easter in the Philippine Islands comes in the dryest, deadest, hottest
time in all the year. After months of no rain the
grass is dead, the dust lies thick on drooping bamboo, trees and shrubs look wilted and lifeless, the
hot sun blazes all day long from a cloudless sky. In
my homeland on Easter morning are soft, subdued
lights in beautiful churches, tall lilies and fragrant
hyacinths, vested choirs, pealing organs, swelling




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anthems rising in earth's grandest most triumphant
music. Over there even as I have told you the people dressed in black, the Christ in a tomb, a dead
Christ, a marching, seeking people. Someone asks
why we go to the Islands as missionaries when it is
already a Christian land. But once you have seen
those wearisome processions and crude images, the
lack of joy upon faces you will not doubt the need
of the "He is risen" message.
The superstitions of the church bring other
special days. May is the month of the Virgin. In
Antipolo, a little town near Manila stands a large
church in which is kept a sacred image of Mary,
the Virgin of Antipolo. She was washed up on a
shore by ocean waves long ago and is the special
guardian of sailors on the deep. In a high niche
above the altar she is kept. On an expensive
metal base she stands. Her garments are heavy
white satin embroidered in thread of gold. Real
hair falls to her feet and she wears many diamonds
of great value. All year long she is securely
locked in her retreat, shown by the priest in charge
to visitors who come. We climbed the winding
stairs and saw her one day. But in Maytime twice
daily she appears to the people. And the people
come. From all over the Islands they make their
pilgrimage to worship this sacred image. They
enter the door and on bended knee traverse the
length of the church to the altar where they await
her appearance and the Mass. Candles are burning everywhere. Tall, beautiful decorated candles
and small homemade tapers. In the churchyard
a thriving business in candles is being carried on.




HOLY DAYS AND HOLIDAYS         139
Candles are offered in various styles. If you are
crippled or sick burn a candle image of the afflicted part, an arm, eyes, whatever you need most.
Women wanting babies burn candle babies before
the image. The beggars are also in the churchyard, finding it a profitable season. On the streets
of the town stands and booths have been erected
until the town takes on a carnival appearance and
spirit. Very recently, because the interest in the
Virgin seemed to be abating, she was brought to
Manila, and with disgusting display and paganlike ceremonies crowned with a diamond crown.
Other towns in many and lesser ways keep the
Virgin month, young women especially leading in
the observances.
Of holidays and holy days in the Philippines
there seem to be no end.




I/




TX-Dreaded Days




I




IX


DREADED DAYS
I HAD quaked over Poe's "Mask of the Red
Death," felt the hopeless horror of DeFoe's
"Journal of the Plague Year," and had cause to
remember both when in 1918 the Spanish Influenza in its round-the-world trip stopped off at
Laoag in the Philippines.
The epidemic began among the newly recruited
National Guard boys who were waiting to be transferred to Training Camp near Manila in preparation for participation in the World War. Two
hundred of them were sick and from them
the disease quickly spread. It first laid hold of
people on a Saturday. That Sunday not knowing
of the strange disease we wondered why services
were so poorly attended. Following that there were
no services for several Sundays. Within our dormitory we began school that Monday with all girls
present, by noon four were in bed, by Friday all
but four were ill and classes had been closed for
several days. The well girls, teachers and missionaries had turned cooks, nurses or whatever was
most needed. Two girls might insist that they were
well enough to go to Market, come home and go
straight to bed. Some girls would be diligently
serving others but within an hour could be found
rolled in her blanket, a towel tied around her head.
143




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PALM TREE AND PINE


In our household of fifty all but two had their turn
at the "flu."
In the hospital, conditions were crowded, and
rushed. Beds and floor occupied with patients,
only two nurses able to be on duty, neither cook nor
house-boy to help. People coming in crowds for
help, medicines and other supplies were running
low, insufficient help to wrap medicines, make bandages or care for the needs of the people. Our
Dr. Pickett, spared from the disease when so needed, rushed from early till late looking after not
only those who came to the hospital but calling
where most needed about town. And two new missionary babies and their mothers to be cared for
and protected from the sickness that was a plague.
Everywhere the condition was serious. In a
household of sixteen people everyone was sick and
no help could be secured. This condition was duplicated in unnumbered homes. Peoples suffered
from lack of food and water, and no one could be
found to bring it to them. Or even with food in
the home no one was able to prepare it. It was
difficult to buy necessities in the market, for those
who were accustomed to sell were too ill to be
there. The Filipino home does not keep supplies
of food but depends on daily trips to market. So
when one cannot buy what is needed, when one's
drinking water is supplied by girls bearing jars on
their heads and they are sick; when one's fuel is
brought by women carrying great bundles on their
heads-and they, sick, then one is anxious for
the morrow. But one buys or borrows a jar of
water from a neighbor, splits up a box for fuel,




DREADED DAYS


145


buys some meat and vegetables from passing market women. And tomorrow perhaps is a more fortunate day. Meanwhile from the homeland comes
disturbing news of the same troubles.
It was estimated that ninety-five per cent of the
people of Laog were sick. The death rate ran high,
as many as forty-five dying in one day. The American Superintendent of Schools was among the victims, the Governor of the Province another, one of
our own school girls whose body we prepared for
burial ourselves. And so it went. The funerals
kept passing from morning till night and a few
hurried by in the moonlight. Some were buried
without coffins, some left hours in the cemetery
awaiting burial. It was difficult to find anyone to
make coffins, dig graves or carry the dead. And
through it all the smallpox was spreading while
health authorities were unable to be on duty.
So smallpox took its toll from the town and
country. Through the work of Americans and
trained, enlightened Filipinos, smallpox epidemics
had become almost a thing of the past. Somehow
the watchfulness had abated, vaccination had been
neglected, and while the influenza was occupying
the central attention the smallpox crept in. Good
vaccine could not always be obtained in sufficient
quantity, people could not all be vaccinated in a
short time, quarantine was ineffectual. A booth
would be erected opposite a house where there was
a case, a constabulary guard would be stationed
but seemed not to prevent the passing in and out
of the house of friends, neighbors and children.
Sometimes the guard himself entered the house and


t




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engaged in friendly conversation with patient and
callers. But the uneducated mind thinks it foolish
to deal in vaccination, quarantine and ordinary
precautions when Fate holds sway. It is "dagsen
gasut," hard luck, to be sick, to die. It is "caasi
ni Apo Dios," mercy of God, to be spared. An
evening candle-lighted procession when the image
of San Roque, Patron Saint of Good Health, is
carried about the streets amidst the chanting of the
people, may bring good luck as well as stir up more
dust to carry more germs! Pieces of water jars
painted white and stuck on fence or door post help
frighten away disease. So also there is power in
painted skull and cross bones, in charms hung
'round the neck, and in paper or rag dolls dangling
in the windows.
It happened in this wise. Once upon a time in
the midst of an epidemic a certain house was
spared. And it chanced that the windows of that
house were adorned with dolls. Neighbors wondered if the dolls might have power to frighten
away disease. "No harm in trying it." So from
that day to this at time of any epidemic, hundreds
of dolls hang in the windows of bamboo houses.
Faithful watchmen of health guarded the entrance
of villages and threw buckets of antiseptic solution
over the wheels of entering automobiles and carts.
If the front wheels of your car were missed a sufficiently liberal amount applied to the rear might
do the work as well. We entered a territory, striving to keep itself free from a certain disease, and
while the car wheels were being cleansed we were
asked to immerse the soles of our shoes in the an



DREADED DAYS


147


tiseptic. But neither painted jars, processions,
paper dolls, nor cleansing of automobile wheels
stopped the ravages of smallpox. So there was
many a scarred face and many a death before the
epidemic was choked.
And then came cholera. Perhaps no deeper apprehension or fear grips one in the tropics than the
rumor of cholera. It strikes so unerringly, it
attacks so many, it kills so quickly. One lives in
constant dread at time of an epidemic of the unknown, powerful, unseen enemy. One knows not
at what moment one may be stricken. No matter
how great the precaution no one feels secure. My
neighbor had gone to market to buy the day's
necessities, some rice, fish, egg plant and bananas
perhaps, ate some uncooked food-she never came
home. The boy was not in the kitchen one morning
making fire with his usual clatter but later a messenger came to say, "His wife is dead, he cannot
come to work today." That evening after the funeral he returns.
"But Marchianio," we sympathize, "we did not
know your wife was ill. When did she take sick?"
"Last night when it rained the cholera attacked
her."
We recall that it had rained a short time before
midnight.
"She died at daybreak," Marchianio volunteers.
The terrors of the night time in dimly lighted
bamboo houses, the heavy rain on the thatched
roof, the losing fight against that dread enemy.
She was such a beautiful Christian soul, so loyal
to the church and its services, a student in the High




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school. She had gone home for the noonday meal,
rested awhile, picked up her books and started back
to school but turned and climbed the stairs, spread
her straw mat on the floor, too sick all at once to do
more. Before sunset she was dead, in a few hours
more buried. But several days had passed before
we heard of faithful Liberata's death.
Awakened in the night time by weeping or the
sound of saw and hammer, sleepily we murmur.
"Someone has died, a coffin is being made across
the street." Next morning we are told of the death
of an old grandmother with whom we had exchanged greetings yesterday as she sat at her
clumsy old loom weaving the cloth we wanted. Yes,
she was all right yesterday. Today she is gone to
the cemetery. They must hurry, others in the
home are very ill. We miss the little girl who used
to delight us with her cheery smile. At church we
inquire for some friend, "Why didn't you know, he
died last week." Slowly we learn of the missing,
realize how great our personal loss, how much
greater the loss among the Filipinos themselves.
And what of the Institution of which I was a
part in a time like that? A great building that
housed fifty or sixty girls would be a responsibility! Coming in from school they were required
to wash their hands and wipe their shoes with an
antiseptic. Going into the dining room for a meal
the hands must be cleansed in the saving solution.
All drinking water must be boiled. All food
thoroughly cooked. Even bananas must be dipped
in boiling water before they are safe. All dishes
and utensils used in serving or eating must be




DREADED DAYS


149


cleansed before the dishes are used, and the hands
that lift the dishes must be cleansed before the
dishes are touched. And to be sure all this is done
the American must be constantly on guard. You
can't rely on cook or houseboy to boil that water.
You use the word for "bubbling" or "cook" rather
than "boil" in giving directions about the water,
but you aren't sure it bubbled sufficiently unless
you stayed by and watched. You can be sure
about the bananas, for if they were properly treated
the skins turn black. But even after the water is
properly boiled you can't be sure your girls will
not drink unboiled river water in the house of a
friend. And even when every precaution is taken,
danger and fear lurk everywhere. You go to bed
at night with a bottle of cholera remedy within
easy reach, so if any summons comes in the night
you can hurry to the bedside and possibly thwart
the disease by early treatment. And your missionary doctor will send a nurse or medical assistant
at any moment, for a treatment has been found
which if administered early enough may cure. Or
the good doctor has promised to take any girl to the
hospital since your dormitory is not provided with
isolation rooms. And remembering this promise
there was a frantic dash at the midnight hour to
the doctor's home where Dr. and Mrs. Pickett from
their bedroom window issued quieting instructions
and soon a sick girl was being carried on her bed
to the hospital. Next day she was back at her
books, either a midnight scare or a light attack.
After weeks of surveillance and dread but few
scattering cases were reported and finally none.




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Cholera was gone but not before taking terrible
toll in life. Reports of death, funerals passing
the door so frequently, no coffins for the dead, no
band and so small a procession. They were almost
monotonously frequent. Sympathetic interest became almost apathetic. Again we were free from
plague or epidemic but with discouraging regularity certain diseases return; others with tenacious
persistency remain. Dark days, strenuous days,
trying days, days that tax strength and courage
pass. Houses are opened, streets are thronged,
town and countryside return to former activity and
life. The constantly increasing army of educated
youth will rout old customs and observe necessary
precautions. Patient teaching will gradually do
away with superstition, neglect and blind reliance
upon saints.  Isolation, inoculation, vaccination,
surgery and the saving grace of boiled water will
come into their own!




X —When the Death Angel Comes




I




x


WHEN THE DEATH ANGEL COMES
ARLY or late they pass by —these processions
for the dead on their way to the cemetery.
A band is heard. One hurries to the window, for
mostly one doesn't outgrow the childish "follow
the band" instinct. One is rewarded by seeing
either a wedding or a funeral-the quality of the
music had not revealed which it would be. But
usually a funeral procession is sauntering along.
These Oriental funerals, how fraught with interest and sadness they are!
To one used to the beautiful, impressive, solemn
service of the western world it is hard to become
reconciled to the utter lack of these things in the
East and in their place a matter of fact, get-it-outof-the-way attitude. But death is such a common
thing in a tropical land, so many diseases which
attack and kill so quickly. One day during a
forty-minute class period two coffins were carried
by my classroom door, and both were pitifully
small. So many babies die, unable to survive the
many diseases and lack of proper nourishment and
care. One day in the midst of an epidemic I
counted five processions in one hour, and ours was
not the only street that led to the cemetery.
The body is usually buried a few hours after
death, either on the same day or the morning after.


153




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PALM TREE AND PINE


The law requires it and wisely, for the weather is
hot and embalming is very unusual. So there is
always confusion and hurry in the house of death.
There is no undertaker to call in, so the family and
friends prepare the body for burial. Neither are
there undertaking rooms where a coffin can be selected, so someone must be set to work at once
making the slender, shallow box, not rectangular
but narrower at the foot than the head, the top
fitted on and nailed in place at time of burial. I
know of one instance where the coffin for a sick
woman was made and kept at the foot of the stairs
months before she died. In fact it was made before she was brought to our hospital for treatment
and greeted her return, still sick but alive. A
young man, a teacher in the public schools, being
ill with tuberculosis made his own coffin which he
kept under his bed. I asked his sister who was
living in my dormitory if it was not disturbing to
have the coffin there. "Oh, no," she said, "he is a
Christian and very strong." The coffin for an
older person is usually varnished or covered with
black and white figured, or plain black calico. It
may have some brass ornaments or painted skull
and cross bones. A child's coffin is more often
covered with bright colored paper and decorated
much as childish fancy would adorn a May Basket
or Valentine. Perhaps there is no coffin, the body
wrapped in a home-woven bed spread or reed mat.
Four or six men carry the coffin to the cemetery,
swinging it low from the ground by means of strips
of cloth passed underneath. Or it may be fastened
to bamboo poles which rest on the shoulders of the




WHEN THE DEATH ANGEL COMES  155


carriers. Sometimes a wagon is used as a hearse
with men to draw it. The husband of the dead
woman, or the small children of the deceased
sometimes ride on the wagon with the body. Again
a canopied Spanish bed is used, carried high on
the shoulders. Its elaborately carved wooden canopy has coarse lace curtain draperies. The tiniest coffin I ever saw was carried on the shoulder
of a man, another rested in the curve of a man's
arm.
If it be a Protestant funeral the services are
held at the house. The body of the dead is placed
on a bed (borrowed for the occasion if the family
doesn't own one) in the center of the room. Several Filipino preachers or laymen, and Bible
women, perhaps a missionary or two participate in
the service which takes on more of an evangelistic
note and exhortation to the living than memory of
the dead. All present join in the singing. After
the service the body is put in the narrow coffin.
The shoes are removed from the feet but left in
the coffin beside the body. The spirit will need
them, but it is not customary to bury with the shoes
on the feet, for if you do you will hear the spirit
walking about, for walk the spirit will in his old
haunts. A man's hat is placed in the coffin beside
him too.
If it be a Catholic or Independent funeral (the
Independent or Aglipay Church is a split from
the Catholic Church) the people go to the church,
where for a fee the priest pronounces the simple
service and gives permission to bury. For a larger
fee the priest accompanies the procession and a




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very costly funeral may have elaborate services
and several priests in the procession. I have seen
groups of poor people squatting on the church
floor, the coffin on the floor beside them, as they
patiently awaited the priest's appearance. And in
times past the dead have waited while poor relatives begged the required sum of money for the fee.
And then the walk to the cemetery. The procession is rather straggling. The band has been
called together earlier by the leader, beating out
his summons in a sort of tom-tom on the drum.
The carriers of the body lead the procession. Then
comes the band playing music gay or solemn,
"Over There," "Tipperary," "Hot Time in the Old
town tonight," or some new popular States song.
Then the family and friends, most everyone dressed
in black, the women with long black capes which
enshroud the body and hide the face. Someone
carries the rude unpainted cross with name and
date in uneven printing. Very poor people have
no band, the few people hurrying by on their sad
mission. Only the procession that lacks a band
ever hurries. Once when the coffin was very small
two men, probably the father and a neighbor, carried the box, a small boy with the cross followed,
and still farther behind lagged a small girl. I
doubt not but at home lay a mother too ill to go
along. Oftentimes there seems to be little grief,
the attention of the followers caught by this or that,
the watching American at the window, the music
of the band, friendly conversation.
I had long wanted to follow a procession and
get inside that high-walled Catholic cemetery


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WHEN THE DEATH ANGEL COMES


157


with a chapel at the farther end, queer old monuments near by and the niches for the dead in the
walls.
Passing by this cemetery one late afternoon the
gate was open, a funeral group was inside, so we
entered and drew near. The father of the dead
child, his body bared to the waist was digging
the grave. Nearby the mother had removed the
lid from the coffin and was seated beside it gazing
on the face of her little one. A little girl sobbed
aloud, other people wandered about, some sat on
the grass talking and laughing, some were indulging in a native drink which was being freely passed
around, the man in the grave stopping frequently
to refresh himself. Later the father, having finished his digging, drew near, he and the mother
lighted their big cigars bending over the rude box
to share the light. They fitted the lid in place,
found a stone and nailed it fast. The grave was
ready, having been measured so they were sure it
was the law-required depth, the father and a helper
lowered the coffin into the shallow grave and began
throwing in the dirt, hurrying to finish the task.
Everyone else turned away and left the cemetery.
Even the mother squatting near the grave as the
coffin was being lowered turned her attention to
the Americans, watching them with blood-shot eyes
as they stood by pitying, sympathetic, wondering.
Not a flower, song or prayer. Laughter of those
already leaving. Lighted candles on the graves of
relatives or friends near by. But these would soon
flicker out. The gloom of a fast descending night
was closing in as we turned and followed the light



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hearted crowd through the great gates, away from
the sunken, closely-crowded graves, children on the
one hand, grown people on the other, all to be
plowed up, I am told, after some years and the
same plots re-used as a burying ground.
The ninth day after the funeral is the time for
a great feast and merry making. A large crowd
is invited for the noonday feast and afternoon refreshments. Likewise one year after the death
there is a feast, a dance, too, in the evening. The
scale of entertaining depends upon the wealth and
social standing of the family, but even the poor
entertain so lavishly that we wonder, as course after
course of meats of all kinds grace the feast. Years
pass but still the dead are remembered in the
annual feast.
How these processions which pass so frequently
appeal to one, stir the sympathies and arouse
the impulse to help, to put beauty into them and
to add to them the transformation which a resurrected Christ can give, a Christ who touches the
bier at the city's gate, a Christ of understanding
love and sympathy, not one all enshrouded in
gloom and superstition and ignorance. No one
watching as the funeral goes by can doubt the need
of carrying the "good news" to the "uttermost
parts."


ii
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XI-A Missionary's Memories




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XI


A MISSIONARY'S MEMORIES
IEMOIRS are fashionable again. Everyone writes
them of this or that, no matter how recent or
long past. No longer need one be old in order to be
reminiscent. They have told me I must not go
back at least for a time. The tropical climate was
not kind to me so medical science discourages and
a kindly Board decrees that I stay home, an exile in
my own land, not loving home the less, perhaps loving it more having been for a time away, but feeling
the irresistable call of that land afar. So naturally
having loved the work and the people and having
counted it a rare privilege to have lived and worked
five years in the Philippine Islands I turn sometimes to my memories. And since I have so greatly
appreciated the opportunity that was mine I have
felt that I would like to share some of those
thoughts with you, so I shall dig deep down
into the rich store house of my memories and share
a few of its treasures with you, they are such living,
stirring things.
I like to think of the roads of the Philippine Islands. Going out to Bacarra the road climbs a
steep hill with severe rocky walls on either side.
Suddenly the top of the hill is reached and a beautiful view is revealed, the rocks forming a rugged
frame. Below, the winding river meanders seaward and beyond, the moss covered walls of the
161




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Roman Church and its sturdy bell tower are outlined against the blue, blue sky. Out from Sarrat
the road twists and winds its way up a hill, each
new turn revealing new interest. At one turn is a
comfortable rambling Filipino house with trees all
around. At the next sharp turn an old stone ruin all
ivy grown and decayed, while at the curve on beyond the river appears and a spreading valley below. Along the road to Vigan stands the picturesque ruins of a church, some distance from the
highway. A massive pile of stone in the midst of a
stretch of pasture land, its very aloneness appeals.
There is a road that follows high bluffs along the
ocean, then darts between great rocks which tower
above, creeps to the very water's edge and then
twists back into the hills with backward glimpse of
piles of rocks standing like sentinels in the water.
Another road winds its shiny way among acres and
acres of cocoanut groves planted in symmetrical
rows and each new bend gives alluring view of
sparkling blue ocean. A mountain trail leads upwards, severe and steep, twisting, winding, merely
a ledge with perpendicular walls on one side,
deep gulleys and valleys below. Begonias, Jack-inthe-pulpit, other flowers, vines, trees and finally at
the mountain's summit, eight thousand feet above
sea level, a mountain lodge, a roaring wood fire in
a great fire place, hot, delicious food, a night's sleep
and then, the glory of sunrise above the clouds.
Highways, lanes, trails, all have their lure but their
real interest lies more in the treasure at trail's end.
The more clinging memories are of people and
places found at the end of the road.




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163


We went one evening, a group of us, for a picnic
supper and a swim in the ocean. The rain began
to fall, a strong wind to blow and the night was dismal and chilly as tropic nights will sometimes be.
The ocean was wild, the waves dashed high and
rolled far ashore. The clouds parted and a full
moon rose majestically. We watched her mount
high and higher over the lone palm which waved its
fronds in the air and sail alone in the cloud heaped
sky. And all at once as we sat around our beach fire
preferring its warmth to the ocean's wave, we saw
over the sea a mystic arch of moonbeams. At first
the pale gleam was moonlight only and then all at
once it brightened into rainbow hues gloriously revealed and soon faded into a weird moonbow and
then disappeared as the clouds thickened and the
rain fell.
The roar of the breakers on the shore of the
China Sea as I have stood in my window in the
quiet nightime and listened, the fragrance of night
blooming shrub and the moon rising in awesome
grandeur over our own clump of bamboo, the great
sand dunes along the water looming white and
mysterious in the moonlight, the monotonous plaintive chanting of the Passion during Lent and the
friendly call of the big lizard that lived in a tree
across the way. These are among my memories.
Down on the bridge which spans our Laoag River
we stood one evening admiring the sheen of the
moonlight on the quiet water and the beauty of the
afterglow which still lingered in the sky over the
sand hills down where the silvery river slipped in
to the sea. And suddenly out into the path of sil



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very moonlight shot a canoe and a man standing in
the bow with his guiding oar. A moment's silhouette and it was lost in the shadows at the water's
edge.
I sat one evening on the shore of the China Sea
alone. Darkness was falling, the ocean waves
rolled in and broke at my feet, the wet sands
stretched far. One star twinkled in the sky, one
bird circled overhead but was soon gone. I sat there
alone in the fast gathering darkness for awhile,
before I joined my missionary friends. We had
made the trip north, two cars of us to Bangui where
we were waiting the return of Mr. Stipp and Mr.
Adamson-the Adamsons were visiting us from the
homeland. They had been hiking for days in a
long, hard itinerating trip in a province across
the mountains and this last day had been a long
stretch so they were late in coming. But finally
they appeared out of the darkness and we started
home. On the winding trial which leads over a
mountain, the second car bumped into a carabao.
He was not hurt but our lights were out of commission so we sat there in the darkness scarce daring to attempt the sharp curves of the road. And
then far above us at the mountain's summit came
the cheery halloo of Dr. Pickett. The first car
missing ours had turned back to investigate. So
we followed closely the other car until the road was
easier. At a wayside house we stopped and bought
candles and then when we came to the river which
must be crossed on a raft, Mr. Adamson carrying a
small candle, guided our way to the waiting raft.




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165


That was one candle light procession that I felt
was really worth while.
After the long hot dry season I remember with
what joy we welcome the first rain that heralds the
approach of the rainy season. The loud patter of
raindrops on the galvanized iron roof, the cooling
breeze, the fresh smell of the rain, the stir of dust
and the clean washed look of trees and plants.
Along a narrow little road we traveled in a
springless two-wheeled cart drawn by a cow. We
passed the old Catholic cemetery with its high stone
walls, tle Aglipay Church cemetery and the municipal burying ground where we remembered the
grave of a wee missionary baby, on past an old
stone building, long years ago the retreat of Spanish Friars, and then through rice fields, across a
stream or two, through the back waters of an ocean
tide and arrived at a seaside village, merely a cluster of houses of fisher folk. We left our cart and
driver and just on the other side the village we began climbing a sandy knoll. At first it was matted
with undergrowth, trailing vines and shrubs but as
the sand grew deeper these gave way to barrenness.
A short distance beyond we were in the midst of
desolation.  Valleys and mountains of whitest
sands, beautifully rounded and softly curved, windblown in delicate designs and ridges. The dunes behind shut off all sight of the town, and as far as eye
could see was only this bleak waste, desolate, powerful, fearsome, but full of strange brooding beauty.
We might have been in the midst of a mighty desert
and then as we plowed our way higher still, suddenly the sparkling blue ocean stretched before us,




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a small fishing shack and fishermen's boats on the
beach.
The rich, tropical beauty of land, sea and sky;
the colors, customs and costumes; the sights, sounds
and smells; the spirit of warmth, ease and repose all
are remembered with delight but after all it is the
memory of people that counts. These are the long,
long memories.
I like to think of my missionary friends, the
fun we have had together, the sorrows we have
shared, the way we have worked together, the
missionary children and all they have meant to me.
But if I began there would be no end to these
memories. The Annual Convention of Missionaries
is always a family reunion, a house party and a
picnic as well as a strenuous convention. At Convention sessions there are reports made and commented on, new programs and policies outlined and
discussed, business transacted, inspirational messages given. There is spiritual uplift in this happy
fellowship together. Porch dinners, served cafeteria style at evening time, bring every one together
in times of relaxation and fun. Late night visiting and breakfast table lingering is enjoyed in the
homes crowded to capacity with guests from the
other stations. From the Annual Convention missionaries return to their stations and responsibilities
with renewal zeal for the task and deeper appreciation and love for fellow workers.
I remember a sob in the night-time and I found
my way among the closely crowded cots to Angela's
bed. Angela, weeping for the mother who lay so
ill in a hospital far away. And I remember the




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167


smell of the burning candles we carried in that
long procession to the cemetery some days later.
And when Remedios' mother died. In the house
there was confusion, drinking, smoking, loud coarse
talking. On a bed in the center of the room lay the
body. The women seemed to be taking turns at
weeping. One would sit at the head of the bed,
draw her black cape over her face or throw a black
scarf over her head and start weeping, loud, shrill,
moaning noises, and continue until her strength was
exhausted. Then she would withdraw and another
take her place. I sat beside the bed with Remedios,
who no longer looked like my school girl friend but
with hair combed straight back and twisted in a
tight knot and dressed in the garments of an old
woman, she looked a part with her mother's friends
who were doing proper mourning. After a long
time there was added confusion and louder wailing as the body was placed in the narrow coffin and
the procession led by a band went to the Aglipay
Church where the services were similar to those conducted in Catholic churches. And then the long,
long walk to the Batac cemetery. I had been there
often as many of my girls came from Batac and I
had gone with them to bury loved ones. The narrow road, fenced and shaded with bamboo, led up
over a hillside and there a circle of hills and the
valley within made a beautifully quiet burying
ground. It was marvelously green and fresh even
in hot weather. We skirted the hillside, went across
the valley and on the far side paused where a grave
was being dug. It was a cool, restful retreat after
the house, the church and the hot walk. The coffin




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was deposited on the ground while the grave was
being finished. People engaged in conversation and
frankly enjoyed themselves, almost one could say,
"a good time was had by all."  It was a lighthearted crowd that returned to the town. Even
Remedios, walking along with me and the girls
whom I had taken with me seemed her usual self.
I remember so well the day, the aching of my head,
and the greater ache of my heart.
Gregoria was my lighthearted, impulsive girl. I
went to her father's funeral one late afternoon.
She had left the Dormitory only a few hours earlier
summoned by a note which only suggested bad
news. Gregoria came hurrying out of the little
house where there was the hurry of preparation for
burial and her greeting words were, "See, I am
wearing my black already." She had been gone
little more than a half day, her father had been
dead but a few hours more but somehow she had
made a black dress.
I remember so well my first journey north to
Laoag. I had recently arrived in Manila, spent a
few days with the missionaries there and then one
morning Mr. Wolfe and Dr. Lemmon took me to the
train and started me on my way alone. I carried a
letter which Mr. Hanna had written-how else
would I ever remember the names of the places I
was going-so that letter was guarded with exceeding care all day long as my train took its leisurely
way northward. Stops were frequent and almost
as long as the travel between. I had a compartment
all to myself as not many people were traveling that
day. An American Army officer and his wife oc



A MISSIONARY'S MEMORIES


169


cupied another compartment. How I wished they
would speak to me! A conductor came frequently
to touch his cap, smile and punch my ticket which
I must keep till the end of the trip and give up as I
left the train. The beauty along the way! There
is a mountain which lifts itself from the flat surrounding country and stands alone. A cloud had
come down to rest on its summit. The railroad often followed near the ocean and I never wearied
watching the waves roll in. Houses in the midst of
groves of banana or cocoanut trees delighted me.
People were at work in the fields, I remember one
man who wore bright red knee-length trousers and
a gay shirt. And the dust! Even though I closed the
shutters and door and thus shut out the views I
wanted, the dust came in great greywhite clouds. I
ate my lunch that day "encompassed" by a cloud
of dust. But next day still journeying north by automobile, I had my "cloud of witnesses," small
brown children who crowded round to watch me.
The end of the railroad was reached at last in the
late afternoon and a small boy chosen from the mob
who shouted at my compartment window, came in
for my baggage which he deposited with me in
a little two-wheeled cart. I rested on a precarious
perch, a narrow board across the sides of the cart
and we jolted down the town street and forded the
river. I longed for someone I knew to see and enjoy my mode of travel. Several automobiles were
waiting by the river's bank. In the dry season they
wait at the depot but the river was too high for them
to ford it. I succeeded in bargaining with one
chauffeur who would take me on the San Fernando




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where my letter of direction said I would spend the
night with United Brethren missionaries. I paid
him I learned afterwards, three times the usual fare
and though all the drivers had insisted that San
Fernando was really much out of their way every
one of them came on later to the same place. A
case of getting all possible out of one who was so
evidently new! I spent the night with missionaries
there in a lovely mission station in a delightful old
town along the ocean. Out in the harbor lay an
American Army Transport. It had arrived unannounced that morning and received a load of Germans being deported. Those were early war days.
It was not lighted when darkness came and only
dimly could we trace its outline. Next morning it
was gone. And that was as near as ever I came to
the World War.
The following day from San Fernando, north I
traveled, enjoying the varied scenery, the old
churches, the piles of ruins, the way we crossed
rivers on bamboo rafts and the questions and comments of the chauffer of the car. In every town we
stopped a crowd of children would miraculously appear to point at, and gaze on, the new
"Americana." Circus elephant never received more
attention than I that day. I remember the crowded
passenger trucks and smaller cars which we passed
going north and south, the people in ox carts or
walking, others resting by the roadside. At evening-time we reached Vigan and I remember my first
glimpse of Vera Adamson coming out of her home
and hurrying down the path to greet me. The Higdons were there too, recently arrived from the




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171


States, and full of enthusiasm and joy in the new
experience. After two delightful days with them
the three went with me to Laoag, where we were
welcomed by the Stipps, at that time the only missionaries in Laoag. The Picketts were home on furlough. At the entrance to their home I met Adriano
Guerrero, pastor of our Laoag church. I shall
never forget his hearty courteous greeting and welcome. His handshake alone made me feel happy
and glad to be there. That evening there was a
great crowd in the chapel for a special program
and to see and welcome the new missionaries (the
Higdons and myself). Next day the Vigan missionaries left and as we saw them off and turned to
go up the steps into the Stipps' attractive home I
remember how Mrs. Stipp took my hand and said
in her understanding heart-warming way, "You are
home now, Edith." And through the years it was
always home with the Stipps.
How the girls of the Dormitory used to sing!
Marie played her harp, and the girls would sit
about, sometimes on the moonlighted balcony,
sometimes in their cozy social hall or piled on the
beds in one of the rooms. My last morning in the
dormitory they sang. I was wakened before it
was yet day and listened. And what do you think
they sang on that last morning of mine? "God
Will Take Care of You," "God Be With You Till
We Meet Again." After breakfast they sat around
and waited. It was Saturday so all were in the
building and none went home for vacation that
week end, as I was leaving. Later when the last of
my packing was finished they asked for a service




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so we went to the chapel for a last' sing, talk and
prayer. And they had waiting as a last surprise
an enlarged picture of the lot of them. Then some
one came to announce, "Your ride has come." Then
I remember those clustered-around-me girls. Affectionate, lovable girls.
We went to visit an old man who was very ill. I
never knew who he was or where it was we went. I
was very new and strange and just went along. A
road led out from Laoag, and after awhile we left
the car by the roadside and walked across the pasture land, circled the base of a gently sloping hill,
an upward path and then a small house set in the
midst of trees. He lay on a straw mat on the floor,
so frail, so old, so ill. I have often wondered who
he was but strangely I never asked. So there remains that wondering memory.
We had gone out on an evangelistic trip of several days and were returning to Laoag late Sunday
afternoon, eager to be at home again. Along a
lonely road, a forest on one side, the ocean on the
other, we were delayed with tire trouble so it was
dark when we reached the Bacarra River which
would be crossed on a bamboo raft. But the river
was a torrent though the rainy season was over
and we had anticipated no trouble. Just a half
hour before we arrived, they told us, the flood of
waters had swept down from the mountains, a
cloud burst at the river's source. (And that was the
half hour we repaired the tire). The men who
cared for the raft refused to take us over. Pleadings, threats, offers of bribes were all of no avail.
The current was swift, the ocean near. Home was




A MISSIONARY'S MEMORIES


173


less than five miles away but we had come to a
river "we couldn't get across." There was nothing
to do but return to the nearby village and seek
quarters for the night. We had but few Christians
in Bacarra but we called our greeting at the house
of one of them, a teacher in the public schools.
The house was dark, all were in bed but hospitable
voices answered our "Apo" and soon we were inside. Straw mats on which the family had been
sleeping were hastily rolled out of the way. Some
one hurried to the kitchen and kindled a fire in the
flat earthenware stove. I followed to superintend the
preparation of food for it was "cholera time" and
every possible precaution must be taken. We boiled
water and scalded the dishes we would use and
boiled more water to drink. We still had with us
some canned goods which we had carried along to
help provide our meals in places where food was
scarce. A can of Campbell's soup, another of
Heinz Pork and Beans were soon heated and in
the dimly lighted room we ate our meal. Meanwhile our host had gone out to call in the church
people. It was late, the night was dark, rainy and
chill. But soon a dozen were in the house. They
wouldn't miss an opportunity for a service when
missionaries had come. So there were songs, prayers and an encouraging message from Mr. Stipp.
Next morning the river was still high and automobiles, carts, people afoot and on horseback were
waiting their turn to be ferried across. We sent a
message to the other missionaries telling them that
we would be away one day more, and went to a
secluded village where the evangelistic missionary




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had promised to come for a special meeting. I was
always grateful that the river had held us back
else I never would have made this trip. We left
the car beside the highway and walked along a
narrow, tree-lined lane. The flooding river had
found an outlet this way so we removed our footwear and waded through to the waiting Christian
friends. A service and then a community dinner
of rice, chicken, fish, bananas and candies was
spread on straw mats on the floor, pieces of banana
leaves served as plates and we sat on the floor and
ate. Our host and his wife sent their daughter to
our school for a time and then called her home to
marry a man of their choosing.
I had been in the Islands but two weeks. We
started out one morning, the Stipps and I for the
Annual Convention of the churches of the province.
A stop in one town was to see how the preacher's
family was faring, another at the coral beech where
we walked out to the sea over a wide stretch of coral.
There we gazed down into deep, narrow fissures
in the rocks and saw the sea water rise and fall,
watched beautifully colored little fishes dart about,
saw sprays of living coral and looked back at the
great caves which ocean waves had hollowed out
and trees which stood far above, their roots exposed in the caves. After another hour of interesting travel we arrived in the convention town. It
was rather cold, a strong wind was blowing from
the ocean. The preacher came hurrying out to meet
us. He wore the customary everyday man's attire;
thin garments and bare feet, but to protect himself
from the cold, a pair of ear tabs. We had only




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175


lightweight summer clothing, and evenings we used
to wear Turkish towels around our shoulders for
warmth.  Everybody among the Filipinos uses
heavy towels like that for scarves, capes and head
wrappings on cool evenings. We stayed in the
home of the town treasurer, a small bamboo house.
Big canopied beds with rattan bottoms were provied for us in a screened-off corner of the room.
Straw mats, lightweight, starched coverings and
hard pillows completed the beds' furnishings. The
two beds had been placed end to end and a mosquito net provided all the privacy we had. But we
stayed plenty of other places where we could have
longed for this arrangement, places where we slept
on the floor with the family and most of the Christians came to the house to stay until the missionaries had retired. No use trying to outsit them,
they had to come to stay until we were safe on our
mats on the floor. Then and then only would they
say, "good night" and retire. We were tempted to
say "good night" sometimes with other and more
modern inflection and meaning! I piled my clothes
on the foot of the bed and one night kicked them all
off. They fell through a hole in the floor to the
ground below. Remembering sundry animals and
fowls that lived beneath the house I arose and
threaded my way among the sleeping people on
the floor. Most of the convention was sleeping
there, and I only hoped I would not be challenged.
I reached the doorway safely only to find that the
bamboo ladder that functioned as steps had been
removed from the threshold. Later I heard the
patter of rain on the thatched roof. At daybreak




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I arose to find my rescued garments on a chair beside the screen. No questions were asked or explanations offered. The convention sessions began
at eight in the morning and continued till noon,
home for lunch and a little rest and back to the
chapel to sit till dark when we would go home for
another meal to return immediately to the church
for an evening session which lasted till eleven. They
fed us thrice daily on boiled rice and greasy pork.
They had killed a pig in honor of our coming and
evidently it was a "fatted one." And it lasted like
the famous "cruse!" But I remember the happy
fellowship and good times of that group of Filipino Christians who had gathered, and their generous giving to support weaker churches in their
province. The chapel was a new one, dedicated the
first evening of the convention. It was not larger
than a usual living room. The walls were made of
bamboo tied together. The roof was thatched grass,
the windows plaited reeds. There was no floor and
the seats were narrow  benches.  Chairs were
brought in for the missionaries, without which I am
thinking my missionary experience would have
come to an early close! Returning from the convention we visited a tall lighthouse on a mountain
rising almost out of the sea. From the lighthouse
top we were given a majestic view of mountains and
sparkling ocean.  Waves dashed against rocky
coasts and threw high their rainbow spray.
Nicerata, my teacher and friend, and I stood on
a narrow Spanish balcony and talked together. I
shall never forget the beautiful, understanding
words of comfort she spoke when my soul was cast




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177


down. I am sure I received more from my Christian friends of the Philippines than I was ever able
to give.
One Easter morning before sunrise, a group of
the Laoag Christians met on a hill in the eastern
part of town for a prayer service. It was a rugged
hill with rounded top but severely steep sides
dropped from its table-like summit. There was
the ruin of an old chapel where once Friars had
gone for worship. The river flowed at the hill's
base and the China Sea could be seen beyond
the heaped up sand dunes at the river's mouth.
There was such quiet joy and reverence in the
group. And I remember how eager faces, several
of them old women's wrinkled faces, were uplifted
to mine as I talked of the early Easter visit of other
women to the tomb. And as I talked a warm rosy
glow brightened in the sky, grew deep and fiery
and soon a great sun lifted itself over our range
of mountains to the East. I remember not only that
sunrise glory but the greater glory and radiance in
the faces of the listening people.
I was returning to Laoag after some months absence and anxious to be there I attempted night
travel from the railroad's end to Vigan. I bargained for the front seat of a five-passenger Dodge
with the understanding that the second chauffeur
might sit there too. In the back seat by placing a
board across from door to door eight people were
crowded. The rainy season had begun and travel
was difficult, the roads muddy, rivers high and
streams of water covered the way. Progress was
slow and almost dangerous so I felt relieved as




178


PALM TREE AND PINE


darkness deepened to have the chauffeur suggest
that we stop all night. But my heart sank when I
saw the little wayside inn where he drew up. Several cars full of people had already stopped and
there promised to be a gay night. I declined supper both because it didn't look interesting and because I wanted to get away from that jesting crowd.
One big room with straw mats on the floor was the
hotel's sleeping quarters, but a bed in the corner
with a screen around it could be given the "Sefiorita." And it had a protecting mosquito net too, so I
hastily retired while supper was still in progress.
I was awakened in the night time by someone
fumbling at my net, the landlord bringing a lighted
lantern which he left beside my bed muttering
something about trouble as he went away. I was
uneasy and worried then and thought I wouldn't
sleep much but only daylight awakened me and the
noise of departing cars with their loads of passengers. Without my knowing when, the lantern had
been removed. I was glad to be soon on the way
again. The memory of that night is not one of my
happy memories.
I went to the Market one morning. We all rather
enjoy visiting the big, clean native market with its
interesting variety of native foods and products.
A queer man from the mountains, scantily but
gaudily attired followed me about laughing, pointing, getting real fun out of me as he repeated,
"Amarillo ti boocna, amarillo ti boocna." Naturally I wondered as I did not understand his dialect.
But someone enlightened me. He was saying, "She
has yellow hair, she has yellow hair." The old




A MISSIONARY'S MEMORIES


179


women used to like to hold their arms close beside
mine, laugh and comment over the difference. They
wanted too, to touch my cheeks and look at their
fingers. The color wouldn't rub off them. It is
something to have been a whole curiosity shop.
Catalino is often in my thoughts. He was such
a clean-looking, attractive lad, as winning a personality as one could wish to know. He was a
senior in the High School, popular and gifted. He
came regularly to our Student Services and weekday Bible classes. He was almost daily in and out
and among those who tarried longest. Then we
heard of trouble. Catalino had been accused of
some earlier six and avoided us. Because of his
ability and his father's high position Catalino ought
to rise rapidly but instead an old sin was dragging
him down. One day he sat with me in our dormitory
office and we talked about it all, he with downcast
eyes and a tremble in his voice. For just a moment
he lifted pleading brown eyes to mine and all his
heart was in his cry, "If only I had found your
Bible Classes sooner." The appeal of that call is
one of my memories. And it brings thoughts of
other needs.
And these are but the beginning of my memories.








XII


SOMEBODY NEEDS YOU
W   HILE the courage and determination of some
of our Filipino friends inspire us and urge
us on to more consecrated service, still I'm thinking the weakness and need of others of them hold
us and take us eagerly back after furlough days.
And with all their splendid progress and brave
aspirations the Filipinos recognize this need.
Often I have thought in the midst of busy days
that a free hour was mine. No class to be taught,
no youthful student desiring an interview, no girl
of my dormitory needing counsel, not even a merchant woman squatting on the porch waiting to display her alluring pile of hand-woven things. I
could slip away to my desk to the long neglected,
accumulated duties there. But no sooner have I
settled myself to the task than I hear the patter of
bare feet on the floor or the shuffle of the foot clad
in the native toe slipper of the Islands, and when a
black head thrusts itself in the door a wave of irritation passes over me. I am so soon to be interrupted. But all irritation vanishes in a moment
and I go gladly to answer the summons. Now you
or I under similar circumstances would have said,
"You have a caller," or "An agent is at the door."
Not so the Filipino when he comes to make a request. Instead in his quaint English I hear, "Somebody needs you." And so I close my desk and the
181




182


PALM TREE AND PINE


task, even though it be a letter to you, waits while I
answer some new need, thinking to myself, "Just to
be here, just to be needed, just to be able to answer
when they call ought to be joy enough for one small
person." And need there is in the Philippines! And
if the need stopped there it would still be enough
to challenge us to our best living and giving for
Him. But it goes on to other places and peoples,
chaotic China, mystic India, savage Congo land.
It goes higher even than that.
The Christ needs us too. He told us so. You
remember? It is one of my favorite pictures in
the life of my Master. I have always thought it
must have been a cold, rainy, drippy morning
(though the Bible doesn't have much to say about
the weather) when He stood on the shore of a
Galilean lake with a hot breakfast waiting on the
coals for his weary fisherman friends. You remember how after they had eaten and were warmed
and refreshed, not so much by the food as by that
beloved presence among them, the Master turned
to one of them with a soul-searching, thrice-repeated
question. And I am sure He looks deep into our
souls today, asking that same question, "Do you
love me?" You and I, just as sure as was Simon
Peter of our love for Him, answer, full-hearted,
ready, "Yes, Master, you know that I love you."
Then, says the Master, to Peter, to you, to me, "If
you love me, feed my sheep." And, loving Him,
it seems to me that we can best tell Him so in terms
of service rendered to those who need us. The
Christ has a right to expect of you and me the very
best, the all we have. I know no better way to say






SOMEBODY NEEDS YOU            183
it, I think there is no other thought that I would
like most to leave with you than full-surrendered
self-service, in the words of an old song,
"When I survey the wonderous cross
On which the Prince of Glory died,
My richest gain I count but loss,
And pour contempt on all my pride.
Were the whole realm of Nature mine,
That were a present far too small;
Love so amazing, so divine,
Demands my soul, my life, my all."




I








UNIVERSP  OF MICHIGAN
3 9015 03703 7598
THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
DATE DUE
1997,.XI.s,, *t
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