Prowling about PanamaMiller, George A. (George Amos)
Philosophy
Prowling about Panama
Miller, George A. (George Amos)
Panama -- Description and travel
Too much praise cannot be given to the earnest and efficient missionaries
who founded and have maintained this mission. The Seawall Church has
already sent out its influences to the ends of the earth. The standards
and results attained in Panama College, so far as that institution has
been developed, have exerted a strong influence on the educational and
moral life of the city and of the republic. The work in 1919 included a
Spanish base at the Seawall location, with its church and school, and
American congregation, a West Indian school and church in Guachapali, a
Spanish mission Sunday school and evangelistic service in the school
building kindly loaned by the Wesleyans, a Spanish mission school and
preaching service in Guachapali, a West Indian Sunday school and service
at Red Tank, and a Chinese mission near the market. Present plans for
future expansion include, in addition to the work now under way at David,
an adequate program of interior education and evangelization, an
industrial and agricultural school, a strong institution church in Panama,
an institution of higher education, and adequate work in Colon.
This mission shares with the Northern Baptist Convention and the Northern
Presbyterian Church denominational responsibility for most of Central
America. The Baptists have work in Honduras, Salvador, and the
Presbyterians in Guatemala and in Colombia, further south. The Methodists
complete the chain by the occupation of Panama and Costa Rica, in which
latter republic work was begun in the latter months of 1917. Costa Rica
presents an attractive field with its good climate, fertile country,
Spanish-speaking population of intelligence, and large capacity for
progress. The new mission met with success from the start and promises
rapid growth.
The three denominations named are working together in complete harmony and
have developed a unified program of Christian education for Central
America, as the beginnings of further coordination of effort. There is no
overlapping, no competition, and, above all, no overcrowding, in this
promising but sparsely occupied field. The Protestant denominational front
on this field is well unified.
There are several independent missions working in this field, some of
which do not find it in their purposes to unite in any general movement,
and none of which place emphasis on education. Chief among these is the
Central America Mission which maintains workers in all the republics of
Central America who confine themselves largely to evangelistic effort.
All of the Central republics have constitutional religious liberty, and
the work of Protestantism is officially welcome everywhere. Of petty
persecutions and ecclesiastical opposition there are numerous examples.
The spirit of the Inquisition still smolders beneath the surface, but the
new spirit of world-democracy makes more and more grotesque and futile the
intolerance and bigotry of the Dark Ages.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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