EARLY BEGINNINGS

When Admiral Dewey defeated the Spanish fleet in Manila Bay in May, 1898, one era came to an end and another began. American rule replaced the Spanish colonial administration, as the short lived first Philippine Republic went down in the battle between the two Western powers, thus snuffing out the high hopes the Filipinos had for building the first democratic republic in Asia. The dream for independence was to be denied for half a century but it did not die. Finally, on July 4, 1946, independence – this time lasting – became a reality again.

During the first half of the twentieth century, many significant changes took place in the Philippines – political, economic, social and religious. It is to one aspect of this religious change that we shall address ourselves here: the beginning and development of what was to become the largest single Protestant denomination in the Philippines. We are particularly concerned with the part played by nationalistic and ecumenical impulses in the growth of The Methodist Church in the Philippines.

Christianity was brought to the Philippines by Roman Catholic missionaries, after Magellan had claimed these islands for Spain in 1521. The Christianization of this Spanish outpost spread rapidly throughout much of the archipelago. With this process came religious, social, political and economic improvements. Higher concepts of morality began to take hold among the people. The Christian family started to become a reality in the islands.

The Church used its influence to outlaw slavery and to curb the cruelty of the colonizers. Schools, hospitals, libraries, orphanages and museums were founded, and Western science, art, music and architecture were brought by the missionaries. In such ways did the Roman Catholic Church make a lasting contribution to the life of this nation.

By the end of the nineteenth century, however, these great contributions were being tragically offset by clerical abuses. The zeal and devotion of the early missionaries were often followed by the greed and avarice of many of those who came later. As the religious orders gradually extended their control over the lands, the towns and the government, their power became absolute and tyrannical. The "indios" (a term of derision given to the Filipinos by the Spaniards) were looked down upon, their rights were violated, and their national aspirations denied. Rigid dogma and widespread superstition hid the practical meaning of the Christian faith for everyday life. Religious freedom was strictly prohibited throughout the islands.

It was into such a situation that Protestantism came to this country. The message it brought was religious freedom, the open Bible and the priesthood of all believers. The reformation of Christianity, which had begun in sixteenth century Europe, was continuing. This was made possible by the overthrow of the Spanish regime. Before the Americans came to the Philippines, religious practices other than those sanctioned by Roman Catholicism were forbidden by law. Strict religious loyalty to Rome was deemed just as important as was full political loyalty to Madrid. Divergent religious or political views were held to be equally evil and traitorous by the Spanish governmental and ecclesiastical authorities. It was but natural that this whole oppressive situation should change when the United States, with its Protestant and democratic heritage, replaced Spain.

The first Protestant service held in the Philippines was on Sunday, August 28, 1898. Chaplain George Stull, a member of The Methodist Episcopal Church, came with the occupying forces. Although his primary duty was to minister to the soldiers, he recorded in his diary that that first service, held in an old Spanish dungeon facing the bay, was attended not only by his own men but by many Filipinos as well. He commented on this service:

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, is my prayer.¹

It was not until March, 1899, however, that the first Protestant work in the Philippines was actually begun by one of the missionary societies in the United States.² Bishop James M. Thoburn, missionary bishop of The Methodist Episcopal Church* for Southern Asia, was asked by the Missionary Society of his Church in America, to go to the Philippines in order to prepare the way for the sending of regularly-appointed missionaries to this new field. He went to Manila and on March 2 began a series of messages at Teatro Filipino on Calle Echague. He was assisted by Arthur Prautch, a layman who was working as an exporter in the city at the time, and who formerly had worked under Thoburn in Calcutta. These meetings were held during a time of mounting tension, for fighting had broken out between the Filipinos and the occupying American forces. The bishop introduced his series with the text:

He shall not fail nor be discouraged till he has set judgment in the earth; and the isles shall wait for his law.³

The evangelistic meetings were largely attended by American soldiers, and a number of them were brought into the membership of The Methodist Church. Bishop Thoburn, in good Wesleyan tradition, organized the converts into classes under Mr. Prautch, who was licensed as a local preacher. After Thoburn left, Mr. and Mrs. Prautch continued the meetings at Teatro Filipino, in cooperation with chaplains and YMCA workers. In June, several Filipino Masons asked Prautch for services for the Filipinos, and out of this request the meetings began to be extended to an increasing number of Manilenos. Chaplain George Stull preached in English and then his sermons were translated into Spanish. At the third or fourth meeting the interpreter did not come, and an elderly gentleman, Paulino Zamora, stood up, informing all present that he was a Protestant. Mr. Prautch asked him to preach. The old man declined but said that his son, Nicolas, would. Nicolas Zamora was an excellent speaker and was received with great enthusiasm. He continued to volunteer his services, adding greatly to the presentation of the gospel message in those early years. The following March, 1900, he was ordained by Bishop Thoburn, becoming the first ordained Filipino preacher.⁴

A word should be said about the Zamora family. The uncle of Paulino Zamora was the famous Filipino priest, Father Jacinto Zamora, who, along with Fathers Jose Burgos and Mariano Gomez, had been garroted to death in 1872 by governmental authorities, on the basis of trumped-up charges made by the Spanish friars. These three Filipino nationalists were falsely linked by the friars to the Cavite mutiny of that year. Actually the friars wanted an example to be made of these three, so that the other Filipino priests would "stay in their place" and realize the futility of doubting the racial and religious superiority and the absolute power of the friars. This cruel act of injustice deeply embittered the Zamora family against the friars. Paulino Zamora later disobeyed the rules of the Roman Catholic Church by obtaining a Bible from a sea captain and studying it in secret. As his convictions grew increasingly Protestant, he invited his neighbors to study it with him, although he had never attended an evangelical service of worship. The friars found out about this new act of defiance, by a member of the Zamora family, and Paulino Zamora was thrown into Bilibid prison. Later he was banished to an island in the Mediterranean, and was not released until the Treaty of Paris was signed with the United States in 1898. While he was in prison, his son, Nicolas, a student for the priesthood, also obtained a Bible and his disaffection with the Roman Church began to grow. It was at this juncture that 'the father, now returned from exile, and his son began attending the Protestant services -I being held in Manila.⁶

In August, 1899, the services were transferred from the Teatro Filipino to Plaza Goiti, which subsequently became the center of Zamora's early work.⁷ The Zamora home in Intramuros became the Protestant Filipinos' first meeting place, under the leadership of Dr. James Rodgers.⁸ Dr. and Mrs. Rodgers, incidentally, Presbyterians, arrived in Manila in April, 1899, as the first regularly appointed permanent Protestant missionaries to the Philippines.⁹

Early Methodist work continued among the American soldiers and the Filipinos. In February of 1900, the first missionaries of The Methodist Church arrived: Dr. Annie Norton, Miss Julia Wisner and Miss Margaret Cody, all representing the Woman's Foreign Missionary Society. In addition to her medical work, Dr. Norton organized the first Methodist church school in the Philippines, in the Quiapo District of Manila. Miss Wisner organized the Manila Girls' School with thirteen students, ten of whom were Americans. This attempt to organize a boarding school for girls was in reality the beginning of what was later to become Harris Deaconess School. Miss Cody began kindergarten work with eight American children. Misses Cody and Wisner, however, were transferred in late 1900 to schools in India and Singapore, respectively, when The Methodist Church decided, ill the light of the beginnings of a public school system, not to go into general educational work.¹⁰ Dr. Norton, the first Protestant medical worker in the Philippines, did not stay long either. A Civil War widow and former missionary in New Mexico, she served in Manila only a short time and was then called to Jubbalpore, India. Her health failed in India, however, and she had to stop her missionary career. She returned to Manila at her own expense and lived in the Philippines until she died in 1926.¹¹

Shortly after the women workers arrived, the Rev. Thomas Martin and the Rev. and Mrs. Jesse McLaughlin came to the field. The former was assigned to work in the north, in Dagupan; and the latter remained in the city to work with the Prautches.¹² In the following year, G. W. Fritz and W. A. Goodell arrived in the Philippines, Fritz being assigned to San Fernando, Pampanga, while Goodell went to Malolos, Bulacan.¹³ The first District Conference of Methodism in the Philippines began on August 20, 1900, at the Methodist Girls' School in Ermita. The old conference records disclose the fact that the work was called "The Philippine Islands Mission of The Methodist Episcopal Church," organized as "The Philippine Islands District of the Malaysia Conference." Bishop Frank Warne presided over the meeting with the Rev. McLaughlin being appointed as the District's presiding elder. At that historic meeting the following statistics were recorded:¹⁴

7 preaching places for Filipino work
8 weekly services
220 probationers
7 native workers (1 ordained; 2 exhorters; 4 assistants)
38 marriages

In attendance at the meeting were also three army chaplains, the secretary of the Manila YMCA and the Manila agent of the American Bible Society. Methodism began to spread rapidly. An example c the growth is seen in the fact that the church organize at Malibay in 1900, through the preaching of Brother Zamora, had by the summer of 1901 gained "a total a , members and probationers such as exceeded the visible missionary results that were secured in China fifteen years.” ¹⁵ Presiding Elder Stuntz wrote of the work in Malibay:

….on Christmas-day, 1901, I received more than " three hundred from probation into full connection : in the weather-beaten old chapel After receiving eight times over as many people as could stand in a double row in front of the altar, we had the sacrament of the Lord's Supper. It was the first time many of these poor people had ever received the cup. The wafer was all that had ever touched their tongues. There was perfect reverence, and deep spiritual interest. Here were over four hundred partakers of the Holy Supper, nearly all of whom were in the possession of as clear and definite acknowledge of the forgiveness of their sins and their acceptance in Christ as any whom I had ever ministered to in settled pastorates in the twenty years of my ministry.

That church at Malibay is now over four hundred strong and has never cost the missionary appropriations from the Board one cent. It carries on services in several barrios, and will soon have another Church formed from the results of the voluntary labor of its membership in a neighboring place.¹⁶

Thus it was that The Methodist Church began to take deep root in the Philippines in the opening decades of this century. To the extent and variety of this growth, let us now turn.

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* The Methodist Episcopal Church became "The Methodist Church" when, in 1939, the three major branches of American Methodism were reunited. For convenience, therefore, we will refer simply to "The Methodist Church" in all future references.

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