jewels, so do the Filipinos enjoy
the splendor of the congregation on feast days. The women are robed
as for balls in silken skirts of every hue--azure, rose, apple-green,
violet, and orange. Their filmy camisas and panuelos are painted in
sprays of blossoms or embroidered in silks and seed pearls. On their
gold-columned necks are diamond necklaces, and ropes of pearls half
as big as bird's eggs; while the black lace mantillas are fastened
to their dusky heads by jewelled birds, and butterflies of emeralds,
sapphires, and diamonds.

The first time I went to church in Capiz and looked down from the choir
loft on the congregation, I could think of nothing but a kaleidoscope,
and the colored motes that fall continually into new forms and
shapes. When the results of the war had made themselves felt, and
the cholera had ravaged the province, this variety of color was lost,
and the congregation appeared a veritable house of mourning. This was
not, however, due to the appalling mortality, but to the Filipinos'
punctilious habit of putting on mourning. When death visits a family,
rich or poor, even the most distant relatives go into mourning,
and they cling to it for the required time.

If the reader will take into consideration all that I have said about
the part played by the Church in Filipino life, and at the same
time consider their insular isolation, their lack of familiarity
either through literature or travel with other civilizations,
he will readily perceive that religion means a totally different
thing in the Philippines from what it does in America, even in Roman
Catholic America.

To the complacent Protestant evangelist who smacks his lips in
anticipation of the future conquest of these Islands, I would
say frankly that there is no room for Protestantism in the
Philippines. The introspective quality which is inherent in true
Protestantism is not in the Filipino temperament. Neither are the vein
of simplicity and the dogmatic spirit which made the strength of the
Reformation. Protestantism will, of course, make some progress so long
as the fire is artificially fanned. There will always be found a few
who cling ardently to it. But most Americans with whom I have talked
(and their name is legion) have agreed with me in thinking that it
will never be strong here.

The attitude of the Filipino Catholic is at once tolerant
and positive. It is positive because without any research into
theological disputes the ordina