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And the wicked? Morals as we know them had nothing to do with their sin in his mind. The wicked were the unkind, those who were cruel to children, wives who made bad popoi, and whites with rum privileges who forgot hospitality. Non-Christians may grin at the efforts of missionaries among heathens.
Should one take a trip through the Arctic portion of Inupash land, it is doubtful if he would meet with very many really non-Christians, for the people are now accepting the Nazarene as their great good spirit.
Now, these non-Christians number over a million, and are themselves broken up into many subdivisions, not only differing in language, customs, habits and traditions, but until very recently bitterly hostile to one another, and so low in the scale of political development that, unlike our own Indians, they have never risen to any conception of even tribal government or organization.
It was further decreed that no Japanese Christians should thenceforth be allowed to go to sea in search of commerce, and that although non-Christians or men who had apostatized might travel freely, they must not visit the Philippines. Thus ended all intercourse between Japan and Spain.
The new Municipal Statute sanctioned the norm of one-third for "non-Christians," and reaffirmed the ineligibility of Jews to the post of burgomaster.
It is further true that we might retain it and still grant independence to the remainder of the Philippine Archipelago, but if we are to eliminate Mindanao from consideration because the Filipinos have no right to control the Moros, of whom there are in reality only about a hundred and fifty-four thousand on the island, and could not if they would, what about Luzón, where there are in reality no less than four hundred and sixty thousand non-Christians, many of whom, like the Ifugaos, Bontoc Igorots, Kalingas and wild Tingians, are fierce fighters and practically all of whom are bitterly opposed to the thought of possible ultimate domination by Filipinos, while most of them welcome American rule?
Luther has frequently propounded this perfectly sound view regarding the life and conduct of non-Christians: since these people do not acknowledge the laws of God as binding, it matters little what practises they adopt. All that can be done to keep the animal impulses in them somewhat in check is to fix certain limits by means of civil laws beyond which their license may not go.
Indeed, the fact that no expense would be voluntarily incurred for them became so evident as to render necessary the passage, on December 16, 1905, of an act setting aside a portion of the public revenues for the exclusive benefit of the non-Christians.
Moreover, in Moroland, in the great island of Mindanao with its neighbors, the situation is further complicated by the fact that the dominant elements are Mohammedan. Over most of these non-Christians the Spaniards had not even the shadow of control.
On the very day on which I write this page it is reported that Socialists have protested in the Reichstag against the official endorsement of outrages. We do not hear of any Christian protest, from end to end of the campaign. Yet I do not wish to disguise the fact that both Christians and non-Christians share the guilt of Germany and Austria-Hungary.
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