"Dear Cousin: Here in the far off tropics where I thought to live and die with the people I have loved and given my life to help, the Lord has wonderfully blessed our labors. The Colony is prospering as I never expected to see it. The people are beginning to see that a true republic can only exist by governing one's own self, that in the hands of each individual is the destiny of the nation. We are a peaceful people, greatly helped under the Lord by the fact that not a saloon blackens the pure air of Victor. "How can the crazed brain of a drunken man help a nation only to weaken and destroy? How can children born under the curse of drink be otherwise than a burden and curse to the public weal? How can a righteous ruler handle this menace to freedom and purity save to stamp it beneath his feet? As we have no saloons in Victor, so we have no almshouses or prisons, the few poor and wrongdoers being cared for by private individuals, remunerated by public tax. "So greatly has the Lord prospered us that I felt I was needed elsewhere more than here; I felt that America instead of Africa needed the help of teachers of the Most High. Tidings have reached me from the Philippines that made me think it was my duty to go there. Into these islands, inhabited, as has been said, by people 'half devil, half child,' has been introduced the worst crime of America, the drink evil, the worst demon outside the bottomless pit, making of sane, good men brutes and demons, a danger to themselves and the whole community. "It is hard to believe that a Christian civilization, a Christian ruler, should send regiments of bright young boys so far from all the deterring influences of home and home life; send those who were the light of happy homes, the idols of fond hearts, to face the dreadful climate, the savage warfare, to colonize the graveyards in the sodden earth, to be thrown into the worst evils of war, to face danger and death, and with all this provided by the government that should protect them this dreadful temptation to ensnare their boyish wills and lead them into captivity. "Then I could not leave Victor, but now that I can I feel that God is calling me to go there to preach the gospel of Christ, to fight this mighty foe, Intemperance, to preach the gospel of sane and clean living and thinking. Knowing from my experience here in Victor, had I no other knowledge of it, how that blessed gospel of love is the only true liberty. For what advantage is liberty of the body when the soul, the weak will, is bound in the most galling of chains? "America is doing a great work in educating and helping this country, and were it not for this evil I go to combat, its work would be blessed of God and man. "So, as I said, I sail to-morrow for the Philippines with three of my native converts, good Christians, willing to die, if need be, for their faith."