Wanted—Leaders!

The earliest instance of a State peopled and governed under a constitution made by Negroes, is the Republic of Haiti. For this reason it shares with Liberia a place of first interest among all the communities of the world. At its head is a president, with a parliament of two Chambers, acting under the revised Constitution of 1889. Republican in form, the spirit of the Government is French, since the language and customs are inherited from the French occupation of the Island. Unfortunately, however, the country was, for years, ruled by a succession of military despots, each of whom was so occupied with maintaining his position against rivals that, even if capable of doing so, he had no time to develop the rich natural resources of the country or to establish democratic institutions. The population has, therefore remained a backward race.

The history of Haiti began with its discovery by Columbus in 1492. The aborigines were Indians, but these were enslaved, some sent to Europe, and the balance gradually exterminated. To take their places, negro slaves in great numbers were brought over by the Spaniards at first from Europe, later from Africa.

Columbus established six flourishing settlements, including the present capital; he opened mines, and established agriculture. Sugar was introduced, and ultimately became the chief crop. It is evident that, from the very outset, slave-labor was used in the development of this colony; and further, that the slaves employed in Haiti were brought thither from Europe. It may, therefore, be of interest to recall the facts concerning the first establishment of negro slavery in the western hemisphere. For this, we must turn back the pages of history to a period fifty years prior to the discoveries of Columbus.

In 1442, during the reign, in Portugal, of King Henry, surnamed “The Navigator,” Antam Gonsalvez, returning to Portugal from an African cruise, brought with him three captive Moors. The Moors offered to purchase their liberty with negro slaves if their captors would return them to Africa. Prince Henry accepted the offer, giving a reason which served to quiet his own conscience, while suggesting a subtle motive which was to justify the traffic for many a long year to come. It was “because the Negroes might be converted to the Faith, which could not be managed with the Moors.” So the trade was made—ten Negroes for three Moors—to the greater triumph of “the Faith.” They were landed in Portugal in 1442; and, within two years, so zealous became the apostles of the Faith that the “Company of Lagos” was chartered, others soon following, whose industry included the traffic in slaves from Africa. Hundreds, yearly, were brought into Spain and Portugal.

Alfred H. Stone of Dunleith, Mississippi, furnishes the facts which we are using, and from which we quote rather freely:

“In the description of the landing of the first Negroes——we may read the first count in the indictment against modern slavery, destined to be repeated ten thousand times in the English-speaking world during the 417 years which elapsed between that time and the destruction of slavery in the southern States: ‘But now, for the increase of their grief (Chronicle of Azurara), came those who had the charge of the distribution, and they began to put them apart, one from the other, in order to equalize the portions; wherefore it was necessary to part children from parents, husbands and wives, and brethren from each other. Neither in the partition of friends and relations was any law kept, only each fell where the lot took him.’ We are further informed that the Infante was present to look after the fifth part, which fell to his share, ‘considering with great delight the salvation of those souls which before were lost.’”

In 1501, nine years after the discovery of America, the first slaves were transferred from Spain to the King’s Colony of Haiti. At first, only Negroes Christianized by European life, were sent. This custom probably persisted until the direct trade between the colonies and Africa was begun, in 1518. It was then that the good Roman Priest, Las Casas, desiring to save the Indians from the killing labors of the mines, advised the direct traffic in slaves with Africa. Without impugning Las Casas’ motives, it is only fair to add that, in the estimate of the time, one Negro was equal to about five Indians in mining-labor. This great value of negro slavery as an economic institution is, above all considerations, responsible for the enormously increasing traffic from this date down to the era of abolition. Such, in brief, is the story of the institution of slavery in our hemisphere, and especially in Haiti.

Because of the insular life, the great predominance of the Negroes, the almost constant civil strife, and the slight contact of the races, the conditions for the maintenance of racial traits and habits were more favorable in Haiti than anywhere else in America; hence the development and persistence of that debasing mixture of magic, superstition, and secret rites, known as Voodoo, which seems to permeate all classes of the Haitien population. The Roman Church, by law established in the Republic of Haiti since 1869, seems to have failed in eradicating this cult or of reaching helpfully any large proportion of the people. This is doubtless due in part to the difficulties of travel in the interior, and to the fact that the evils of illiteracy were never sufficiently realized to compel any adequate attempt toward education. The children of the wealthier, city-bred people have usually been sent to France to school; the great mass of poorer children entirely neglected. Inherent laziness served to re-enforce the ill effects of ignorance among the people at large, and instability of Government added a further counter-weight against progress.

Again, the laws of marriage (or the lack of them) have had a vicious effect upon the Haitien Negro. Where marriage is not recognized by the State as legally necessary to the legitimacy of children and is therefore rarely observed, polygamy with all its debasing results is bound to lower the moral tone of a people, and of the Negro above all. It is fair to say that, after a century of independence and self-government prior to American intervention, the people of Haiti, kindly and hospitable and amenable to civilizing influences as they are, gave little, if any, evidence of progress.

The proverbs of a people, just as their folksongs, reveal much as to the character, habits and mental traits. The Spirit of Missions for September, 1875, records a collection of Haitien Proverbs, from which these are selected:

It is only the knife that knows the heart of the yam—used with various meanings—as, for example, distrust outward appearances, it is not what you see that counts, and the like.

Shoes alone know if the stockings have holes—doubtless a later application of an older proverb, meaning that only the most intimate know the weakness of others.

Conspiracy (or combination) is stronger than witchcraft—a useful encouragement for minds just emerging from superstitious fear into the conviction that “spirits fear a crowd.”

The wild goat is not cunning that eats at the foot of the mountain—a comment on the folly of ignoring points of vantage, and of abandoning safety for publicity.

If the frog says that the alligator has sore eyes, believe him—the trustworthy testimony of an unfriendly neighbor.

The ox never says to the pasture, “Thank you”—a possible implication that it is only a beast which gives no thanks for favors.

Joke freely with the monkey but don’t play with his tail—an evident warning against outraging the sensitive feelings of others.

All wood is wood, but mapou (a worthless wood) is not cedar, meaning that all people are good for something, but none good for everything.

There are certain qualities of mind and character which appear plainly in these popular sayings, and the latter are re-enforced by an old southern proverb of doubtful origin which applies to the Haitien, as to our Southern Negro, however lowly. “If you burn him for a fool, you will lose your ashes.” Certainly it is a huge mistake to discount the Negroes’ wisdom, no matter how homely and often rude the expression of it.

We may now return to a consideration of the history of the Island, pausing only to call attention to the fact that we are chiefly concerned with the western third composing the Republic of Haiti. For here, in contrast to the Dominican Republic, with its largely mulatto population under the political domination of whites, we find a population, ninety per cent of which is pure Negro and with a negro government. We shall here see the Negro developing out of slavery in an insular, French colonial environment.

In 1630, a mixed company of English and French occupied the Island of Tortuga and became formidable buccaneers. Obtaining a foothold on the mainland of Haiti, their descendants became French subjects when, by the Treaty of Ryswick, in 1697, the part of the Island which they occupied was ceded to France. A period of strife followed, involving the whites, the mixed, and the Negroes. As a result, the whole Island became subject to France. In 1801, Toussaint L’Ouverture, a Negro of remarkable military genius, successfully renounced the authority of France and set up the Republic of Haiti with himself as Governor. Captured by treachery, he was taken to France where he died in prison in 1803. The next year, Dessalines became Governor, massacred the remaining whites, proclaimed himself Emperor, and was assassinated in 1806. The Spaniards again reappeared about this time, and gained a footing in the eastern part of the Island, but, after years of cruel warfare, they failed to maintain their hold, and the Negro Republic of Santo Domingo was established in 1844. More recent events are newspaper history, read and fairly known by all.

The Island is shared by the two Republics, the western third being Haitien, the eastern two-thirds Dominican. The former is French in language, the latter Spanish. Repudiation of obligations and a continuous state of disorder finally compelled the American Government to intervene. In 1915, a concordat was established with the Government of Haiti whereby American resident officials were given certain advisory powers, and in 1916, the Dominican Republic was taken in charge by an American Army of Occupation. Thus the United States became a virtual protector and guardian of the peace, serving the whole Island in an educational and developmental capacity, very much as in the Philippine Islands.

The political history of the Island of Haiti, whether in its French or its Spanish aspect, naturally led to the early establishment there of the Roman Catholic Church, and in 1869, it became the representative of the established religion of the Haitien Republic. In this Faith the people were brought up (in so far as they came under any Christian teaching at all). Thus, from the beginning, the history of the Church in Haiti differs widely from that in Liberia.

In 1861, an American negro priest—the Rev. James Theodore Holly—went to Haiti with a company of 110 persons, and there formed the nucleus of a Mission of the American Episcopal Church.

The early history of this leader of his people is full of interest as is shown by the following, taken from Men of Maryland by the Rev. Dr. Bragg of Baltimore, the historiographer of his race in the Church.

Born in Maryland, in 1829, young Holly was baptized by a Roman Catholic priest from Haiti who had fled to this country before the fury of the Negroes, at that time intent upon ridding their country of the last vestige of the white people. Twelve years later, he was confirmed by the Archbishop of Baltimore, the Rt. Rev. Dr. Eccleston, but his connection with the Roman Church was not destined to be permanent. He learned the trade of shoemaking, working in Washington, and later in Detroit. Influenced probably by the peculiar circumstances of his Baptism, and by the romance of the negro Republic battling for self-government, he seems early to have been possessed with the desire to offer himself as a helper. This he disclosed in a letter written, after his desire had been gratified, from his Haitien home: “I was ordained deacon in 1855 (by Bishop McCoskry of Michigan) with the express understanding that I should be sent to work in this field. As a matter of fact, two weeks after my ordination, I set out from Michigan to New York, from which I was sent ten days later, by the Foreign Committee of the Church, to collect information as to the possibility of establishing such a Mission, and returned from thence with a favorable report. Six years were then spent in gaining pastoral experience for the work in view; and to this end I was advanced to the priesthood by the Bishop of Connecticut on the 2nd of January, 1856, when I accepted the pastoral charge of St. Luke’s Church, New Haven, in that Diocese. Aside from the active pastoral work of that congregation, every fitting occasion was seized during those six years to stir up an interest by tongue, pen, and the press, in the contemplated Mission. In 1861, my face was again set towards Haiti, accompanied by 110 persons (of whom I was the pastor) for the practical establishment of the Mission in this land.”

Among the most forward in promoting this enterprise, were the Bishops of Ohio and Connecticut. It was through the latter’s influence, that his Diocese generously aided the Mission of Mr. Holly for sixteen months. At the close of 1862, the Mission in Haiti was adopted by the American Church Missionary Society, with Bishop Lee, of Delaware, as Provisional Bishop. The next year, the Bishop made his first visitation to the new Mission. From this time forward, the Church at home kept a kindly oversight over the Mission in Haiti. So faithfully and successfully did Mr. Holly and his band of Churchmen work, that, in 1871, the Haitien Church, by vote of its Convocation, petitioned General Convention to elect and consecrate a Bishop for Haiti. The response was sympathetic, and the petition was referred to the Board of Missions to ascertain the best means of securing adequate episcopal supervision. Three years passed, and the Convention of 1874 entered into a covenant between the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States and “The Orthodox Apostolic Church” of Haiti. The following are the more important terms of this covenant: (1) That the Church in America recognizes the Church in Haiti as of right and of fact a foreign Church under the definition of our Constitution; and that, with this recognition, the assurance is given that the Church in Haiti will enjoy the nursing care of the Church at home until such care shall no longer be needed. (2) That the Church will designate and consecrate one of the Haitien clergy to be Bishop of Haiti. (3) That a Commission of four American Bishops will be named to act with the Bishop of Haiti as a Board of Administration, to extend the Episcopate when needed, and to administer discipline pertaining to the episcopal order. (4) That the Church in Haiti agrees to guard, in all their essentials, a conformity to the doctrines, worship and discipline of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States, departing from them only as local circumstances require. (5) That the Haitien Church agrees to concede to the Church at home the designation and consecration of the Bishops of the Church in Haiti until three Bishops shall have been established therein.

In accordance with this agreement, General Convention, in 1874, elected, from among the clergy of Haiti, the Rev. James Theodore Holly, and, on Nov. 8th, in Grace Church, New York, he was consecrated as Bishop.

Eager to be back at work, Bishop Holly set sail ten days later, and thus describes the glad, joyous reception of his people upon his arrival at his home and old parish, Port-au-Prince: “I found all the members of my family and of Holy Trinity on the lookout for me. A deputation of the clergy and of the vestry were in waiting with a carriage. I was conducted to the church where the faithful had gathered for a thanksgiving service, entering under the triumphal arch surmounted by the phrase, ‘Gloria in excelsis Deo,’ which had hastily been constructed that morning, after the steamer had been seen at a distance entering the harbor. The service over in church, I retired to my residence, where I was besieged during the rest of the day by visits of the members of the congregation, from neighbors, friends, and the citizens in general, all coming to welcome me home, and to present me their warm congratulations. These visits were continued in like manner all the next day. Saturday morning I called on the President of the Republic, and the Minister of Public Worship, to pay my respects, and thus rendered to the civil authorities the honor due to them before appearing to officiate in public in my new vocation. Mr. Preston, the Minister Plenipotentiary to Haiti, had made an official report to the Government of my consecration as Bishop, at which he assisted in Grace Church, New York, and the President and Minister expressed to me their highest gratification at the new position thus gained by our Church in Haiti. Advent Sunday, I addressed the English congregation after Morning Prayer at six o’clock, and the French congregation at the 9 o’clock service, taking, on each occasion, for my text, those words of Zechariah iv. 6, ‘Not by might, nor by power, but by my spirit, saith the Lord of hosts.’ The drift of my remarks, in setting forth all the circumstances leading to and attending my consecration to the Haitien Episcopate, was to impress on the minds of the people committed to my charge that human instruments and worldly powers were of no value in this matter, but that the movements of God’s Holy Spirit were the basis of all our successes in the past as they must be of our hope in the future.”

Thus began the Episcopate of the first negro Bishop of the American Church, a man of unusual ability; of highly developed powers of leadership; a courteous, Christian gentleman.

The statistics for 1875 are: The Bishop; priests, 6; deacons, 4; lay-readers, 14; candidates for Orders, 3; number of missions, 18; of churches, 3; of rectories, 2; whole number of souls, 751; of communicants, 238, and perhaps 3 schools.

The Bishop’s early letters supply information concerning the nature of the field. Transportation was difficult with only paths or trails to guide the traveler. All of the travel by land was done on horseback, and the Bishop was gradually accumulating the means of locomotion. On December 24, 1874, he writes, “I have already bought a mountain saddle (to be paid for when convenient to me) and have yet to get bridle and knapsack. However I borrow these things, with the use of a horse, to make my trip tomorrow”—a comfortable, leisurely approach to equipment, with the blessing of handy friends by the way.

Other travel was by boat, very leisurely too, a week to come and go if the places be near, and more if they be far. The Bishop is already longing for a “Bishop’s Horse,” and says so; a “Bishop’s Boat” is probably as yet only a dream, because “the interior stations are among the most interesting in which we are engaged, and work ought to be encouraged and strengthened by the visits, as often as possible, of the missionary-in-chief.”

The Bishop’s travels were wonderfully fruitful—large classes confirmed, and glad response given to the ministrations of their new, but already beloved, Father in God. The schools, too, were filled with boys and girls in training for the new day of the Church in their homeland. But church-buildings were lacking, and many of the congregations were worshipping in rented or private houses.

In Port-au-Prince, the capital, the Church was firmly established and included two parishes where services were constantly held in English as well as in French; but the poverty of the people was a drawback to independence. The Bishop writes, “We have from three to four hundred souls to look after in this way at the Haitien Capital; but the most of them are in unfortunate or very moderate circumstances, and therefore can do but little to sustain the Gospel among themselves. They must not be expected to keep up, without generous aid from abroad, the work of the Gospel in Haiti. The time may come when the great mass of men of the so-called better classes, who now live in complete religious indifference, shall be awakened to a sense of their great spiritual danger. Here, as elsewhere since the beginning, it is the common people who follow Him gladly.”

For their shepherding, the Bishop felt the need of more men from the American Church, consecrated to the Master’s Mission. There were men already at his disposal, but the means to employ them were lacking. Here again, as so consistently in our mission-fields, because of the poor, cramped purse, the Bishop—sent to organize and to evangelize—was estopped within hearing of yearning calls for preachers and teachers. “I need to found at once a Theological Training School for young men desirous of preparing themselves for the Ministry, and a first class female Boarding School,” the latter, to supply his schools with teachers. How like the cry of Ferguson in Liberia is this urgent appeal of Holly in Haiti, and how natural the cry of each!

By the close of the first year of the Bishop’s episcopate, he had completed the round of visitations of his rather disconnected group of missions. The year had been a very successful one, yet not without its distresses and difficulties. There had been 106 confirmed, 36 baptised, and schools well filled with children. Property had been repaired, and at least one church-lot donated for the new parish of St. Andre, in Trianon. This was given by General Hyacinth Michel, who was appointed lay-reader of the new parish.

We have lingered about the opening scenes of the Bishop’s first year that we might gain an insight into his plans and methods, and realize something of his difficulties and successes.

During the early years, the Bishop is evidently intent upon the great purpose which consistently faced him—the creating of a national Haitien Church. After five years, his report to General Convention in 1880, tells us how earnestly he has been striving, more to strengthen the faith and character of the little parishes, than to extend faster than such faith and character can be established. The statistics show but a feeble increase in the numerical strength. “Nevertheless,” writes the Bishop, “there has been, during this period, that which figures cannot show, viz., an increase among its numbers of the knowledge of the ways of the Church, greater attachment to the same, and a decided deepening of their inner spiritual life. Our Church in Haiti also occupies the high vantage-ground of being the only denomination exercising independent local jurisdiction and aspiring to a complete national organization. In pursuance of this object, this feeble Church has now twice as many native ordained clergymen as all the other religious bodies combined. It has also more advanced stations than any of them, established in the interior country districts among the rural population, where the heathen customs of Africa have hitherto prevailed. Our work has conquered the esteem and respect of the Government and people of Haiti, and enjoys the full protection of the authorities under the guaranties of the Constitution and laws of the country.”

It is probably because of this conservative and cautious policy of Church extension, and still more because of the poverty of the people and the small amount available for clerical salaries, that we find no appreciable increase in the number of clergy and other workers. For the Bishop, in 1883, reiterates the statement, “we have no difficulty in finding the needed laborers; not only can we find them among ourselves in Haiti, but, in case of need, the whole of the British West Indies are at our beck and call, islands where the Church and Church training institutions have long been established. Therefore the only difficult problem that remains to be solved is that of supplying the money necessary to inaugurate the central training institution that we propose to establish.” Such an institution, it will be remembered the Bishop had had in mind from the very beginning.

Passing rapidly over the intervening years to 1895, the story reminds one of the more tragic record of the foundation-period in Liberia. There were successive angry waves of warfare, involving the Church through her people and property; and the sometimes surly, sometimes lethargic, aspects of peace, which in turn follow family outbreaks. There were rebellions against the ruling powers; and frequent changes among the officials upon whose stable protection the Bishop, in earlier years, had grounded so much of his hope. There were the severe losses of people, and the death of pastors and teachers, bringing burdens upon the Bishop’s aging shoulders. But through it, he battled bravely onward, filling the ranks as the communicants fell away, and slowly, very slowly adding to them; supplying the leaders as these passed on, and very slowly increasing their number.

In 1891 The Twenty-fifth Convocation of the Haitien Church (being the seventeenth of the Bishop’s episcopate) organized itself into a Missionary Society, of which each member of the Church was declared a member. The Convocation itself became the Board, while the Bishop and other officers formed the Executive Committee. The churches were growing in the spirit of self-help. The people of a mountain section, poor in worldly goods, earned the money for, and built the walls of, their church; and the President of the Republic gave $650 to supply the roof. The church at Port-au-Prince, destroyed some years before and hindered in its plans for rebuilding by various obstacles, was settled in a better location through the good offices of the President and Parliament. These are samples of the problems, some perplexing, still others stubborn, which delayed and harassed the workers. A year of peace (and there were not many) witnessed “some steps taken in advance for the further extension of our Gospel work. Three new stations (in 1890) for the preaching of the life-giving Word have been occupied.” One of these was initiated by a small band in the mountain region, who, gathered into the Church and knowing the blessing, desired to spread the Gospel to their unconverted neighbors.

In 1891 the Bishop records, with pride, the fact that one of his presbyters, the Rev. Shadrach Kerr, had been transferred to the Diocese of Florida. Mr. Kerr, while still canonically attached to Haiti, had been temporarily at work on the Isthmus of Panama, under Archbishop Nuttall of Jamaica. Another of the Haitien clergy had been transferred to Jamaica. Thus the products of the Church in Haiti were being spread abroad.

A farm-school for education and demonstration, established about 1887, and requiring three years of instruction for graduation, sent out its first class in 1890. One of the young men at once established a school in a needy mountain district. Thus was demonstrated the quality of these negro Churchmen.

The year brought much sickness, however; and amongst the victims was the young teacher, who had already begun the work of a missionary to his people. It was doubtless this visitation which constituted a call to the Bishop to hasten the establishment of a Medical Mission, so greatly needed, and which had already been his earnest wish. Two students had been sent to Boston, to be trained, one as a physician, and the other as a pharmacist. The Bishop sent an urgent appeal for sufficient money to establish these men in their professions upon their approaching graduation.

The year 1892—the fourth centenary of the discovery of America—was a memorable one in the annals of their history. “Here,” wrote the Bishop, “the first permanent settlement of Europeans in the New World was made. Here, later on, the first landing of African slaves in this hemisphere was effected. Here, following the example of the United States, the second colonial yoke of European vassalage was broken, and the second free and independent nation of the New World thereby established.”

“This people,” continues the Bishop, “by the powers of the merely natural man, have indeed conquered their earthly freedom, but they still have need to obtain the emancipation of the soul—freedom from sin—by that liberty wherewith Christ only can make us free.”

The plea of the Bishop rings out—his plea for help to realize his well-founded plan which again and again he had described to the Board of Missions, and which follows the eloquent and urgent presentation of the claims of Haiti just quoted.

“For upward of thirty years, since it was planted here in 1861, we have stoutly held on to the almost forlorn hope of making this Church a blessing to the people among whom our lot is cast. Among other things for which we labor, we are striving to complete the well-being of their acquired nationality by raising up a native clergy among the people, bone of their bone and flesh of their flesh—a most desirable object, the accomplishment of which no other religious denomination, aside from ours, has essayed to realize in a systematic manner. To this end, we need a theological training-school. We are also wrestling with the problem of extending popular education among the illiterate masses; to do which, more successfully, a better equipped normal school is needed. We also have in hand for solution, the problem of introducing scientific medical treatment of the sick and neglected poor; to do this effectually, we need a well-organized medical mission. We have the personnel (doubtless the two students referred to above) for such a mission, but we need the pecuniary means necessary to effect such an organization.”

Surely this plan should have found friends and helpers in America, and must find them even yet, in order that Haiti may realize a more worthy measure of the ideal of her first devoted Bishop. He closes his report thus: “On our part, we ask you brethren, one and all, to pray for us that our faith fail not, and that we may not grow weary in well doing, but be always animated with the blessed and soul-consoling hope, that in due season we shall reap, if we faint not.” In 1895, after seven years of weary but persistent patience, the Bishop was able to hold services in the church at Port-au-Prince, the center of the mission work of the District, which was so far completed as to be fit for occupancy. The same year he was able to announce the joyful tidings that “five of the sons of our clergy have been graduated as physicians to co-operate with the clergy in the work of the Gospel among the afflicted poor; and thereby emphasis has been given to the humane aspect of the Gospel of Christ, while the ministry of the clergy gives due emphasis to its divine aspect. We have every reason to believe that our triple Gospel work, carried on by ministers, physicians and teachers, has given us a grasp on the very vitals of the nation, which will grow with its growth, and increase with its strength.”

But the Bishop is not deceived by the fresh hope which the year has brought. “Let it be borne in mind,” he writes, “that our work is carried on under the enervating influence of the Tropics, and amidst the sluggishness of an undeveloped people; and, therefore, such marvels of rapid progress are not to be looked for here as characterize the railroad speed with which things more forward in the United States under far more favorable circumstances.”

During the next ten years, the first steps were taken towards the realization of the most important features of the plans for the District. In 1901, following Bishop Holly’s visit to the States, the much needed Theological School was opened at Port-au-Prince, with the Rev. P. E. Jones as Dean, and the Revs. Alexander Battiste and Theodore F. Holly as professors. Dean Jones had, for many years, been the very efficient Principal of one of the Schools of the Republic at Aquin, and his experience and success had singled him out as the man to reorganize the Lancastrian School, needing reconstruction, in the capital city. His transfer by the Government made it possible for the Bishop to realize at least the beginnings of the Theological School, so long a cherished hope. At first this school was conducted in the evenings, after the example of the Government Law School. Six students were enrolled at once, and others awaited the means necessary for expenses. This school, or its successor, has been reopened by The Rev. A. R. Llwyd, and three new clergymen recently graduated.

The Medical Mission, so important to the development of the Bishop’s plans, began to take definite form about 1904, through the training of two nurses in an institution extemporized for that purpose by Dr. A. C. C. Holly, a son of the Bishop. In 1905 two lots were secured for the projected hospital and dispensary, for the erection of which funds were asked of friends in the States. Awaiting these, Dr. Holly opened a small hospital in one of the mission-buildings, with Miss Lidia Boisson, one of the nurses trained locally, in charge of the sick ward. Two other young women had been sent to the United States for training as nurses, at the expense of the Board of Missions. The ministrations of the hospital and the ministries of the physicians and nurses wrought untold blessings to a country to which sanitation was unknown and hygiene unheard of. The well-laid plans of the Bishop and his co-workers, the physicians, were never completed; for, with the coming of the Americans, in 1915, all sanitary and medical work was taken over by them, and the necessarily imperfect equipment and methods of the old medical mission were thereby superseded.

In the face of the infirmities of greatly advanced age, Bishop Holly continued to administer the difficult work of the District until March 1911, when he was called to his rest. Through fifty years of devoted, unfaltering service he gave himself to the land of his adoption, and the people whom he loved. In 1855, he had sought the permission of our American Episcopal Church to found the Church in Haiti. In 1861, the petition granted, he landed with a colony of American Negroes in Haiti. During the succeeding years he raised up a native ministry—a notable achievement in view of the fact that the Roman Church, with a far longer history of missionary work in Haiti, has, to this day, not a single native priest there. During the first years, services in the capital were said in both French and English; at the close of the Bishop’s Episcopate, there were but five English-speaking communicants recorded.

When the Rev. Mr. Holly arrived in 1861, Haiti, except for a few Church members in the new colony, was barren ground for the Church. In 1874 the Bishop and his staff of six priests and four deacons were ministering to nearly one thousand souls, of whom 238 were communicants, divided among 18 missions.

At the close of Bishop Holly’s administration, there were 12 priests; 2 deacons; 2 candidates; 2 postulants; 18 lay-readers; 54 teachers (of whom 9 were in day-schools); and 26 missions. More than 2,000 souls were under the ministrations of clergy and teachers, with 651 communicants.

The National Convocation of the Haitien Church, following the Bishop’s death, requested the Church in America to send a delegation to Haiti to look over the field and counsel with the native Church as to the measures to be adopted which would best serve its interests. Meanwhile, the Rev. Pierre E. Jones, Dean of the Convocation, administered the District pending the decision of our American Church. Mr. Jones gives the following most significant information: “Only a strongly organized, national, Protestant Episcopal Church can surely bring about a revolution in the religious views and opinions of our Roman Catholic fellow-citizens. The English Wesleyans entered Haiti in 1818, and have today four Missions, two native ministers and one foreign. The American Methodists entered the field in 1824, and have today one mission and one foreign minister. The American Baptists entered the field in 1848, and have today three native ministers and three missions. The Protestant Episcopal Church entered the field in 1861; it became an autonomous Church in 1874; and has today fifteen well-organized parishes, seven mission stations, and fifteen ordained native ministers. We have also a young Haitien in the Divinity School in Philadelphia, and a young woman in the Deaconess House in the same city. After their courses are completed, they will return home to strengthen our little army of brave ones.”

In January, 1912, the Board of Missions requested the Rt. Rev. Dr. Knight, Bishop of Cuba, to be the chairman of the delegation in response to the above request. The Bishop, with his party, arrived at Port-au-Prince about the close of the month, and later sent an interesting account of the expedition, which was published in The Spirit of Missions for September and October 1912. As a sidelight on the difficulties which had beset the path of Bishop Holly, this extract from Bishop Knight’s letter is illuminating. Referring to Port-au-Prince he says, “There is a saying that it has been burned and rebuilt every seven years as a result of frequent revolutions.” And then, as an earnest, let us devoutly hope, of what may come to pass, this sketch is given of the newly elected President Le Conte. “It was some time before I understood that this gentle and soft-spoken Negro was the chief executive of this turbulent black republic. There was nothing uncouth about him; he had no braggadocio manners; on the contrary, he seemed refined and effeminate. It was hard to realize that only a few months before he had landed on his native shores, after five years of exile; had gathered a few followers; and had swept his course onward to the Capital, until the martial Simon fled before him. With his advent to power, better days for Haiti seem to have dawned. Le Conte belongs to one of the oldest and most refined families of the Island. He is grandson of the first President, the military genius who, taking up the sword of Toussaint, completed the deliverance of Haiti from France. He has been highly educated, and has spent much time abroad. He has come to power when militarism has ridden his country for many years, and crushed out its industries. He is reversing these things. The number (of the army) has been reduced. The new broom is sweeping clean. Our Church can be a great aid at this time if she rises to the opportunity.”

Bishop Knight met and advised with the Council of the Haitien Church, called in special session. The action taken is thus described: “The Convocation remained in session for a week; and, finally, by a practically unanimous vote, passed a resolution requesting the American Church to receive the Haitien Church as a Missionary District.” One can but regret, and deeply, that the purpose of Bishop Holly’s fifty years of vision, which seemed so great to him, should have been abandoned, when the Convocation voted to relinquish its autonomy. Let us hope that this is but a temporary status.

It was not until 1913 that General Convention could reply to the request of the Church in Haiti, and meantime Bishop Knight was deputed to render episcopal service there. In that year General Convention, having elected the Rev. Charles B. Colmore as Bishop of Porto Rico, appointed him to the charge of the Missionary District of Haiti. The connection between Porto Rico and Haiti is exceedingly remote, and the means of transportation most difficult, so that Bishop Colmore found a task impossible to be done efficiently. Like a good soldier, he obeyed orders, and the Church must take all the onus for the short-comings. He holds the District together, promoting the existing enterprises, and greatly encouraging the work of the Woman’s Auxiliary, of which little or no notice seems previously to have been taken. To overcome, as far as possible, the disadvantages of the conditions, the Rev. A. R. Llwyd was appointed commissary to the Bishop, and, in 1918, he began work in this capacity. With headquarters in Port-au-Prince, Mr. Llwyd has indefatigably labored to repair rents and build up waste places.

The reports, as well as the comments of visitors, all agree that what is most needed for the upbuilding of the people is the Christian Industrial School. This was Bishop Holly’s dream; it must still be the objective until realized.

In 1919, General Convention resolved that Haiti must have a negro Bishop of its own, and elected the Rev. Samuel Grice of Payne Divinity School. He felt constrained to decline, and the Rt. Rev. Dr. Morris, of the Panama Canal Zone, was appointed to take the oversight of the Church in Haiti. At best, an absentee Episcopate can do little more than conserve, and Haiti awaits the day when love and generosity shall overflow in the American Church, so that she may fully seize the day of opportunity. It is her chance to do for the struggling Church of the Haitiens what our American representatives, civil and military, are doing for their Government,—settle and establish and train, and thus in good time set free a people from the thraldom of ignorance and vice. It is doubtful if either can succeed without the other; it is pretty certain that social training must fail unless religious culture accompany it. “Except the Lord build the house, their labor is but lost that build it.”