Presbyterians were first
to answer the Macedonian Call from
The Philippine Islands
     By Josiah Ang, PM

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On the occasion of the first Protestant Service at Manila’s Fort Santiago on August 21, 1898, Bishop G. C. Stull of the Methodist Episcopal Church of India, declared saying, “That the power of God will use this day to make a good Catholic better, any weak American stronger, any backslider ashamed, and the gloomy old dungeon the beginning of wonderful things in these islands . . . ”

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Not so many knew that at the close of the 19th Century, the Presbyterian Church (USA) was one of two U.S. agencies that first responded to a “Macedonian Call” from the Philippine Islands; the other was the Methodist Episcopal Church of India, a North American mission extension. Following the “victory” of U.S. commodore George Dewey at the Battle of Manila Bay, Dr. G. F. Pentecost laid before the 1898 General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (USA) the responsibility of American Christians to evangelize the Filipino people. Together with Dr. A. J. Brown, they stirred up the cause for a Protestant missionary beginning in the Philippines. It was not however clear why it took the General Assembly eleven months to dispatch the first missionaries to Manila.

However, a story is told that at the Hyderabad Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church of India in November 1884, Dr. J. M. Thoburn suggested to Conference that Englishman W. F. Oldham be sent to evangelize Singapore at the invitation of Charles Phillips, headmaster of the local Seamen’s Institute. Oldham, together with Thoburn, arrived at this bustling seaport on February 6, 1885. Through these contacts, according to H. C. Stuntz, two Catholic friars he identified as Fr. Lallave and Fr. Castello were persuaded to enter the Philippines by 1889 as pioneering agents of the Calcutta-based Methodist Episcopal Church. These inroads entrenched the 400-year-old Roman Catholic Philippines by the emerging 20th Century American Protestant Christianity.

Meanwhile, in the Western Hemisphere that 1898, a U.S. civil war was just ended and another political turmoil was creeping around the Caribbean Triangle. By mid-February, the USS Maine was blown up at a Havana harbor in Cuba that ushered unceremoniously the U.S. into a war with Spain. Nonetheless, Washington D.C. had the slightest idea that as early as February 8, Theodore “Rough Rider” Roosevelt, as the assistant secretary of the Navy, secretly ordered the Hong Kong-based U.S. Asiatic Squadron under the command of Commodore George Dewey “to engage the Spanish fleet at Manila,” which the latter dutifully did on the early dawn of May 1. The surprise attack devastated the Spanish Far East Naval Fleet that was under the command of Rear Admiral Patricio Montojo y Pasaron. Montojo was soon to be court-martialed by his government for this shameful defeat.

On May 4, with approval from American officials, revolutionaries against Spain in the Philippine Islands led by Gen. E. F. Aguinaldo were returned from Singapore on board the USS McCulloch and arrived at Sangley Point in Cavite on May 19. By June 12, Aguinaldo read a Proclamation of Philippine Independence at the balcony of his Kawit home in Cavite. U.S. colonel L. M. Johnson, Dewey’s private secretary, was an eyewitness to the celebrated ceremonies. In the meantime, starting from June 27 around the Manila Bay, an array of foreign naval ships begun to assemble to observe the exchange of events in the South China Sea; these ships included five German under the command of Admiral Otto von Dietrich, three British, one French, and one Japanese, the SS Itshukushima.

Fearing that foreign powers will come to the aid of the Filipinos, Dewey, on June 30, called for M/Gen. T. M. Anderson in San Francisco to come to his aid with his 2,500-strong volunteer contingent that was composed of the 14th Army Infantry, 2nd Oregon Regiment, and the 1st California Regiment (Col J. S. Smith, commander), including 400 tons of additional ammo for the U.S. Asiatic Squadron. On July 16, another 1,086 soldiers from the 18th Army Infantry and the First Colorado Volunteer Infantry (B/Gen. F. V. Greene, commander) reinforced the American forces already there.

By July 25, M/Gen. W. E. Merritt assumed the command of all the armed forces in the Islands that was christened the U.S. Expeditionary Forces in the Philippines. Its aim was “to reduce Spanish power in that quarter (Philippine Islands) and give order and security to the islands while in the possession of the United States.” Merritt immediately ordered the assaults on Manila on July 31; by August 22, the Spanish-American War veteran, U.S. Army M/Gen. E. L. Otis who came from Cuba, replaced Merritt.

On August 13, the First Colorado under Lt. R. W. Means swamped into Malate in Manila and took control of the Spanish Fort of San Antonio de Abad. Capt A. M. Brooks was honored to be the first American to hoist the “Old Glory” in that part of the world. That evening saw Anderson busy mapping out his next-day operation sans their Filipino counterparts that enraged Aguinaldo who kept his revolutionary forces outside Manila.

On the day following, which was a Sunday, two laymen representing the YMCA in the U.S. Army (C. A. Glunz and F. A. Jackson) led the first American Thanksgiving Service on Philippine soil, which according to J. M. Dean was held “at the south end of the Puente de Espania” but Rev. F. C. Laubach insisted that “a tent (was pitched) by the Pasig River . . . (where) Charles and Franck called to the soldiers, “Come on boys. This country has won religious liberty at last, so now we are going to practice it. We’ll hold the first public Protestant service these islands ever saw’ . . . (they) sang “Fling Out the Banner” and “Fight the Good Fight” (then) Charlie Glunz gave them a straight talk: Make a resolution with me, boys, that everybody we meet here will be better and happier because we have come.” Fortnight following, on August 28, Dr. G. C. Stull, a Methodist Episcopal chaplain assigned with the 1st Montana, conducted the first Protestant Minister-led Worship Service at Fort Santiago near Manila Bay where the following information were recorded in his journal: “Sunday, Aug. 28, 1898 . . . arose early from my bed in the Mortuary Chapel and looked about for a place to hold services. The most acceptable place was one of the Spanish dungeons facing the bay . . . my text was, ‘The Power of God ’.“

On September 15, before a crowded Barasoin Catholic Church in Bulacan, Aguinaldo declared the Malolos Congress to be opened, and on September 29, ratified the Declaration of Independence he proclaimed on June 12 at Kawit. Three days later, Aguinaldo sent for Sr. Felipe Agoncillo to Washington, D.C. to secure the U. S. recognition for the new republic; however, U.S. president William McKinley received Agoncillo as merely a private visitor and did not officially recognize him as Aguinaldo’s ambassador. Sensing dissatisfied reactions from Aguinaldo and his revolutionary Katipuneros, McKinley, on October 26, instructed his Peace Commission that was chaired by Charles Denby to immediately annex the Philippine Islands, many many months before the signing of The Treaty of Paris on December 10, 1898.

To show his seriousness of action, McKinley reinforced further the U.S. forces in the Islands by dispatching the First Washington (Capt. J. M. Derry, commander) that came from Seattle and arrived on November 22. With this unit came Rev. & Mrs. C. A. Owens, Methodist Episcopal missionaries. [Bishop Charles McCabe appointed the Owens that September at the Puget Sound Conference in Tacoma but they did not have the official mandate of the Missionary Society, and so, they soon returned to the U.S. with heavy frustrations in July 1899].

The First Washington was assigned to the vicinity of Santa Ana within the Manila suburbs whereupon, on February 4, 1899 at the foot of the San Juan Bridge, it figured in a freak shootout with the revolutionary Katipuneros that triggered the Philippine-American War of 1899. The contingent was eventually recalled home on September 5 but was temporarily dispatched at the Presidio in San Francisco before it was disbanded on November 1.

A. W. Prautch, an American buddy of Thoburn in Calcutta arrived in Manila on December 17 to do import business. Being Christian leaders, he and his wife Eliza, who came on February 24, 1899, did the first evangelistic thrusts among the executives of the Escolta Business District in Manila. On that same week at the Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., McKinley gave his famous address, “The Benevolent Assimilation” before members of the U.S. Congress. No sooner did he appoint former Cornell University president Jacob Schurman on January 20 to head a five-man Philippine Commission in order “to investigate conditions in the Islands and make recommendations.” Coincidentally that weekend too, self-proclaimed Philippine president Emilio Aguinaldo y Famy announced before his Cabinet that the Philippine Islands was then the first republic in the whole of Asia.

In the report the following year, the Schurman Commission acknowledged the Filipino aspirations for independence but declared that they were not ready for it. Because of this pronouncement, on January 22, the Methodist Episcopal Church of America finally manifested her intention to do missions among the Filipinos. Mission board secretary A. B. Leonard asked Thoburn to immediately sail for Manila following his U.S. furlough. He arrived on February 28 followed by Rev. T. H. Martin and Rev. & Mrs. J. L. McLaughlin who came on April 21 as “observers.” The Presbyterian Church (USA) had, arriving with this group, dispatched its regularly appointed five-man missionary team that was headed by Rev. James Rodgers.

In March, Thoburn started the first series of missionary crusades; he was further asked by his Mission Board “to prepare the way for the sending of regularly appointed missionaries to this new field” and makes it a part of the Malaya Mission Conference. About the same period, U.S. chaplain Stull concentrated his series of messages ”He shall Not Fail Nor Be Discouraged ” before the American soldiers at the Teatro Filipino on Calle Echague in Manila. A. W. Prautch, whom he later licensed as a local preacher, and J. C. Goodrich of the American Bible Society, regularly assisted him. The trio subsequently established the Soldiers and Sailors Institute in Intramuros near the Port of Manila as a “playground” for their new-believer contacts.

On April 21, Dr. Rodgers, Dr. & Mrs. G. W. Wright, and Dr. & Mrs. D. S. Hubbard, Presbyterian missionaries, arrived in Manila. Rodgers was to remain in Manila and work with Sr. Nicolas Zamora while the Wrights and the Hubbards were headed for the South into the Visayas. In Dumaguete City, the Hubbards founded on August 28, 1901 the Silliman Institute (later to become Silliman University); before this, they already had established an infirmary center that would become the University Hospital in 1926, the largest non-government medical institution in Eastern Visayas today.

In June, several local Freemasons asked Prautch for services for the Filipinos where “ . . . Stull preached in English and were translated into Spanish.” On the fourth meeting, Sr. Paulino Zamora, a son of Fr. Zamora of the Gomburza fame, suggested that the interpreter who was absent for the day be replaced by his son, Nicolas, who could preach interchangeably in English and Spanish without the aid of an interpreter. By August, Sr. Nicolas Zamora was ordained a deacon in The Methodist Church; a year later, the Presbyterian missionary Dr. Rodgers ordained him the first Filipino Protestant minister.

Speaking before a group of Protestant missionaries about to leave for the Philippines at the White House on November 21, 1899, McKinley explained why he decided to retain the Islands: “Before you go I should like to say a word about the Philippine business. The truth is I did not want the Philippines. I went down on my knees and prayed Almighty God for light and guidance. And it came to me, there was nothing left for us to do but to take them all, and to educate the Filipinos, and uplift and civilize and Christianize them.”

The first group of organized missionary workers that came in February 1900 was from the Women’s Foreign Missionary Society of The Methodist Episcopal Church of America. It included Dr. Annie Norton, a civil war widow and former missionary to New Mexico, who organized the first Methodist church school; Ms. Julia Wisner who organized the first Manila Girl’s School in Quiapo; and Ms. Margaret Cody who started kindergarten work among the American kids. Soon came F. W. Fritz, assigned to San Fernando in Pampanga, and W. A. Goodell, assigned to Malolos in Bulacan, seat of the Philippine revolutionary government. By May, the Methodist Episcopalians elected McLaughlin the first presiding elder of the local church and was to organize the first district conference in the Islands. Meanwhile about this time, The American Baptists sent Rev. W. O. Valentine to pioneer work at Jaro in Iloilo where he later established the Jaro Industrial School that became the Central Philippines University.

Early on March 16, McKinley appointed former U.S. Supreme Court chief justice W. H. Taft to head the Second Philippine Commission. The Second Commission was granted additional powers, both legislative as well as executive. Between September 1900 and August 1902, it issued some 499 laws that established, among others, a judicial system including a Supreme Court, a legal code that was drawn up to replace antiquated Spanish ordinances, and the civil service.

In August, the Methodist Episcopal worship services were transferred from the Teatro Filipino in Echague to Plaza Goiti in Santa Cruz Manila. However, the increasing Filipino congregants met exclusively at the Zamora Home in Intramuros with Dr. Rodgers leading. On August 20, the first district conference of the Methodist Episcopalians was held at the Methodist Girls School in Ermita with Bishop Frank Wame presiding; in attendance were three army chaplains, the Manila YMCA secretary-general and Mr. Goodrich of American Bible Society.

At the District Conference held at the Saint Paul Methodist Church in Tondo in Manila on February 28, 1909, Sr. Nicolas Zamora, together with four conference members and 245 pastors, withdrew their support for The Methodist Church and formed their own IEMELIF Church. It is not known whether Dr. James Rodgers of the Presbyterian Church (USA) had anything to do with this split, he being Zamora’s spiritual father.

By 1901, the Americans had complete control of the northern portion of the Philippine Islands when on April 1, Aguinaldo and his revolutionaries laid down their arms and took their oath of allegiance to the Constitution of the United States.

On March 15, the Evangelical Union was organized from among all American Protestant denominations represented in the Islands “to bring about a spirit of comity, unity, and cooperation among the mission groups and setting the common name for the newly organized churches, the name agreed upon was the Evangelical Church.” Despite these advances, the Seventh Day Adventists (R.A. Caldwell, lead missionary) and the Episcopalians did not join the Union. At about this time, the Church of the United Brethren in America sent Rev. E. S. Eby and S. R. Kutz to join in the evangelistic enterprise. By August 3, the Foreign Christian Missionary Society of the Church of Christ (Disciples) sent in Dr. & Mrs. W. H. Hannah and Rev. & Mrs. H. P. Williams. The Congregational Church American Board of Foreign Missions sent Rev. Robert Black who chose Davao to be his mission field. The Christian & Missionary Alliance joined the bandwagon and concentrated on the Muslim areas of Western Mindanao & Sulu.

On March 25, 1952, Fr. L. A. O’Leary, a C.SS.R. Priest assigned to Manila, gave the following observation of the State of the Catholic Church in the Philippines during First Quarter 1900 inclusive:

“They told us of great massive churches and cathedrals gradually falling into decay, of deserted monasteries and convents, of seven hundred parishes left almost overnight without a priest; of Catholic people left abandoned in their thousands and tens of thousands, with no priest to baptize their children, to celebrate Mass, to hear their confessions, to administer the last Sacraments to the dying . . . Not until eighteen months after this Evangelical Union had been formed, did the first Catholic priest arrive from the United States . . . If America could or would have sent some 800 priests to replace the Spanish priests who had left all would have been well. Even if 50 had come, they could have checked the growing danger. Yet, it is pathetic to count the number of American priests in the Philippines during those first twenty years. By 1912, eleven years after America had complete control of the Islands, there were only eight American priests. In 1919, there were four. In 1920 there were two!”

On March 25, 1952, Fr. L. A. O’Leary, a C.SS.R. Priest assigned to Manila, gave the following observation of the State of the Catholic Church in the Philippines during First Quarter 1900 inclusive: “They told us of great massive churches and cathedrals gradually falling into decay, of deserted monasteries and convents, of seven hundred parishes left almost overnight without a priest; of Catholic people left abandoned in their thousands and tens of thousands, with no priest to baptize their children, to celebrate Mass, to hear their confessions, to administer the last Sacraments to the dying . . . Not until eighteen months after this Evangelical Union had been formed, did the first Catholic priest arrive from the United States . . . If America could or would have sent some 800 priests to replace the Spanish priests who had left all would have been well. Even if 50 had come, they could have checked the growing danger. Yet, it is pathetic to count the number of American priests in the Philippines during those first twenty years. By 1912, eleven years after America had complete control of the Islands, there were only eight American priests. In 1919, there were four. In 1920 there were two!”

As the territory gradually became occupied, Washington D.C. was set to “educate” the Filipinos with her 540 volunteer teachers who came from the West Coast, including E. E. Schneider. They arrived in Manila on August 27 on board the USS Thomas – whereby they were popularly known as “The Thomasites.” Twenty seven were dead within two years: Mr. Collins drowned in rough seas while crossing from Negros to Cebu; Mr. Guernsey died of diphtheria in Balayan in Batangas; Mr. Jamizon died of cholera in Dinalupihan in Bataan; Mr. Allen died of smallpox in Naga in Cebu; and Mr. Badger died of cholera in Malasiqui in Pangasinan.

The Presbyterians in Manila had joined every other fraternal unity in the Philippine Islands starting with the Evangelical Union (1901) to the Iglesia Delos Christianos Filipinos (1912) to the Union of Evangelical Churches (1929) to the Philippine Federation of Christian Churches (1939) and finally, the United Church of Christ in the Philippines (1948). Today, you will not necessarily know a Presbyterian by his baptismal card but by his thankful heart because he carries the U.C.C.P. stump instead of the PC (USA).

References:

R. L. Deats, The Story of Methodism in the Philippines,
Peter Gowing, Islands under the Cross, 1967
Cesar Majul, Anti-Clergy during Reform Movement: Studies in Church History, 1969
L. A. O’Leary, Soul of a Nation,

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