The people of the Philippines, their religious progress and preparation for spiritual leadership in the Far East,

THE INDEPENDENT PROTESTANT CHURCHES 303
Filipino Protestant preacher in the Islands. The Zamoras
became members of the Methodist Church, and Nicolas was
taken to Shanghai where he studied for several months.
When he returned and began preaching, his success was
phenomenal. One reads of a thanksgiving service in I902
at which he preached to I2,ooo persons, including Father
Aglipay and Isabelo de los Reyes (who had already started
the new Independent Filipino Church). At Hagonoy he
converted some of the most important persons in the city.
In the chapel in Tondo, he numbered among his converts
Doina Narcisa Dimagiba, who went to Atlag, started a church
of her own, directed the construction of the church building,
and sent for Rev. Zamora to come and dedicate it. At Duhat,
Rev. Zamora dedicated another chapel before a congregation
of a thousand people.
It was in the same year that there occurred one of those
incidents which reveal the moral courage which Nicolas had
inherited from his father. His brother, then presidente of
the town of Caloocan, invited him to come and give the people
of that town their first introduction to evangelical Christianity. A great crowd was gathered in the town theater.
We will permit Zamora to tell the story in his vivid style:
"As I was about to conclude my sermon in the theater, the
Filipino priest entered, took hold of my coat and showed his
desire for a discussion. I finished my sermon and then began a discussion upon the inutility of prayers to the saints (a
very essential doctrine for the Romanists), accompanying my
arguments with Bible references. The priest was unable to
reply. While he doubted the correctness of my Bible, printed
without the approval of a Roman bishop, he was unable to
cite references to his own Bible which justified the invocation of the saints. After a general discussion for some time,
I asked him to select any one of the doctrines taught by Romanists, and which would not be believed by Protestants, to serve
as a basis for our discussion. He was unwilling and simply
showed me his ignorance in regard to religious matters. In
response to his statement that up to the present he did not
know of one Protestant saint, I asked him who declared a