# About Mexico - Past and Present/Chapter 25

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CHAPTER XXV.
REGENERATION OF MEXICO.
THE people of Mexico had been praying in an unknown tongue for more than three hundred years, when a devoted priest, Francisco Aguilar, began to read and to ponder the teachings of the Holy Scripture with regard to prayer. As he studied the history of the apostolic Church the great doctrine of justification by faith loomed up before him as a new truth, and that peace which he had so vainly sought in fasts and in penances began to flow into his soul. His eyes were now opened to see the miserable perversions of Scripture which Rome had taught for truth. Like the apostle Andrew, Aguilar abode with the Master for one day, and then, eagerly seeking: for some one to whom he could communicate the blessing which filled his own heart, brought a brother-priest to Jesus. Thus one friend told another, until a band of fifty Bible students had been formed whose undreamed-of strength at first woke no opposition. But as the truth spread the spirit of persecution was aroused. The Church began to thunder out its warnings and curses, but Aguilar, strong in the Lord, went on his way undismayed.
An effort had been made by a few earnest souls as early as 1861 to leave the Church of Rome and build on true foundations. This work now took shape, and in ​1865 the first Protestant congregation was gathered in the capital, under the leadership of Aguilar. They called themselves "The Church of Jesus," and were known from the outset as strong advocates of an open Bible in the language of the people and of prayer in their mother-tongue. Aguilar's ministry was short, but productive. He died in 1865, a victim to the cruelty of Rome. The Church of Jesus had been put under ban. No Romanist would give or sell its members food, and they were driven out of every house where they attempted to find shelter. The pastor was among the first victims of these privations, and after his death the little flock were scattered by their relentless persecutors.
In the summer of 1868, Miss Rankin was in the United States soliciting aid for her work in Monterey, when she met the Rev. H. C. Riley, then the pastor of a Spanish Protestant church in New York and her own personal friend. Her statements convinced him that it was his duty to go to the City of Mexico, where two hundred thousand souls were sitting in almost heathenish darkness. Three years afterward Mr. Riley carried out this plan, coming to Mexico under the auspices of the American and-Foreign Christian Union. His command of the Spanish language enabled him at once to take hold of the work. He had brought with him a printing-press, and this was set up and secretly began its work.
The effort to regather Aguilar's flock and organize a church resulted in a split on the subject of prelacy, a strong party preferring the simplicity and freedom of worship with which they began. As time went on one party affiliated with the "Church of Jesus," and the other—nine congregations in all—united under a ​byterian form of government. The Church of Jesus adopted the old Spanish liturgy used by Christians of Spain during the centuries in which they held aloof from the Church of Rome.
At last the liberal government felt strong enough to provide the Protestants with a house for public worship. Confiscated churches by scores were standing empty, and one of the handsomest of these—the church of San José de Gracia—was sold to Dr. Riley for a merely nominal sum. The fury of the Romanists knew no bounds. They declared that the day the Protestants took possession of that church the pavement should stream with their blood.
One night, as Dr. Riley returned to his lodgings, he found a letter thrust under his door; in this letter he was told that six men had sworn to waylay and kill him. He knew that in those lawless times it would be easy for them to fulfill the threat, but said, "If life must be short, let it be earnest."
A pamphlet exposing the errors of Rome was now sent out from the press. A copy of this was given by a brother-priest to Manuel Aguas, the most earnest and eloquent champion of the Church of Rome known in Mexico, and a bitter enemy of Protestantism. Aguas was called upon to answer at a public meeting this bold challenge of the Protestants. In order to prepare himself for his task, he took the tract home and sat up all night to read it. Other Romish priests had done the same, and had been hardened in error; but Aguas was pierced to the heart. He opened the Bible, so long neglected for the traditions of the Church, and it proved to be a sword of the Spirit to him. He wept and prayed, and at last, yielding to his convictions, he went to Dr. ​Riley, saying, "Like Saul of Tarsus, I have persecuted the Church of Christ." The next time the Church of Jesus met they were astonished to see their old adversary in the pulpit preaching the faith he had once so bitterly denied
The Romanists were panic-struck. That the man on whose devotion to Rome, on whose talents and influence, the Church had depended for their overthrow should join those despised Bible Christians was indeed a terrible blow.
When the day came for the opening service in the church of San José de Gracia, Romanists were there thirsting for Protestant blood; but Aguas was not with them. He stood boldly by the pastor, ready to die, if need be, for the faith.
The storm of persecution now raged fiercely around this devoted band, but like one inspired Aguas preached Christ and him crucified as the only salvation from sin. His whole soul was in the work. Twelve times in one week he was in the pulpit. "Destitute, afflicted, tormented" by his enemies, he toiled on for three years, until at last he sank under the tremendous strain to mind and body. His last sermon was from the text, "Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness' sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." Aguas was carried from his pulpit to die. As sight and memory failed some one leaned over him and whispered, "Do you remember the blood of Christ?" The old light kindled again on his pallid face: "Oh yes! yes! The precious blood of Jesus!" and so he passed to his reward.
A noble band of more than forty martyrs have sealed their faith by their blood in this Church of Jesus. ​Manuel Aguas, the pastor and bishop-elect of this church, died in 1872.
Planted in fertile soil, this organization seemed destined to outnumber all others and become the leading evangelical Church in Mexico. At one time they claimed over six thousand adherents, and half that number of communicants. It is now sorely rent, however, by internal dissension. In 1884 the communicants numbered about one thousand, and fifty-two preaching-places were reported.
Elsewhere in Mexico, God's word had "free course and was glorified." In 1862 the Rev. James Hickey, a Baptist minister, began a good work in the city of Matamoras as an independent missionary. In 1863 he was preaching in Monterey. His assistant at that time, the Rev. Thomas Westrup, has since been murdered by the Indians. Mr. Hickey died in 1866.
The American Baptist Home Mission Society still holds its ground in Monterey, and has also established itself in the capital. It has (1886) six ordained ministers and a membership of three hundred. The American Baptists of the South also report stations in Saltillo, Progreso, Palos and Banas, and much that is encouraging.
"More important," says one, "than the rise and fall of states and empires is the going forth of the missionaries of the cross to Christless lands." The years 1872 and 1873 are thus marked in the annals of Mexico. Branches of the Presbyterian, Friends and Methodist churches began evangelical work there.
The Presbyterian Church built on foundations already established. Their work began in the State of Zacatecas, in Villa de Cos, a mining-town about sixty miles from the State capital, where Grayson Prevost, M. D., of ​Philadelphia, then practicing medicine in Zacatecas, had gathered a company of Christian believers. These people had been interested in the religion of the Bible by a visit of Miss Rankin's colporteurs from Monterey some time before. In two years after this beginning by Dr. Prevost there was in Cos a church of one hundred and seventy members, a church-building and a religious paper started, called The Evangelical Torch. News of this awakening reached America, and in September, 1872, at the earnest request of Dr. Prevost, the Presbyterian Board of Foreign Missions sent out its first band of ordained missionaries to Mexico. Protestant influences had then been at work in the capital for ten years. Among those thus inclined were many whose republican principles were so true in type that they preferred a "Church without a bishop" as decidedly as they desired "a State without a king." At nine different points in the city and the surrounding villages were congregations who had turned for sympathy to the little church at Cos. The Presbyterian missionaries, on their way to that point, stopped at the capital, and, finding there this waiting church, they ran up the old blue flag—a token there and everywhere else of republicanism of the best type in Church and State.
Mexico city, Zacatecas, San Luis de Potosi, Monterey, Jerez, Saltillo, Durango, Vera Cruz, Acapulco and Tabasco are now centres of the constantly-enlarging work of the Presbyterian Church. Says the Presbyterian Board's forty-eighth annual report: "Our Church has congregations in a continuous line of States from the Rio Grande to Guatemala, and from the Gulf of Mexico to the Pacific Ocean, thus marking with a large cross the map of the republic." The northern and southern ​missions of this Board were united in 1884; they now centre in the capital, and are connected by rail and telegraph.
The theological seminary founded in Mexico city will soon be established in San Luis de Potosi. In this institution a force of fourteen native ministers and three licentiates has been trained and is doing efficient service, and ten other young men are preparing for the gospel ministry. A mission press is in operation, and the first number of a new paper, El Faro ("The Lighthouse"), was issued in January, 1885. The girls 7 boarding-school in the capital has (1885) 23 pupils. Another of the same character is soon to be started in the important field of Zacatecas, and one has long been in operation in Monterey.
Statistics for Mexican missions of the Presbyterian Board, as reported in May, 1885, are: Ordained ministers, foreign and native, 14; licentiates, 11; total force of native helpers, male and female, 71; organized churches, 92; church-members, communicants, 6629; adults baptized in Southern mission in 1884, 631; boarding-pupils (girls) in two schools, 68; day-pupils, 677; Sunday-school children, 1233; contributions, $1673.
The Society of Friends (Orthodox) are doing a good work in the State of Tamaulipas, which they entered in 1872. They have an enterprising publishing-house in Matamoras, which sends out a gospel literature to all lands where the Spanish language is spoken. They have a boarding-and day-school in the same place, with 136 pupils, and a membership of about 250 in the State. About a thousand persons attend their services in six established meetings. A boys' school will soon be opened. ​The Southern Presbyterians have also a mission in Tamaulipas, and report 5 churches and 331 members.
The Southern Methodists, who entered the field in 1873, are strongly entrenched in Mexico city, San Luis de Potosi, Puebla, Oaxaca, Guadalajara, Monterey and Saltillo, besides scores of preaching-places and a large ministerial force, both native and foreign. They have a church-membership of 3022. In their central mission they report 65 Sunday-schools and 1300 children enrolled. A self-sustaining boarding-school for Mexican girls has been opened in San Luis de Potosi, and a free day-school.
The Methodist Episcopal Church (North) has circuits centring in Mexico, Guanajuato, Orizaba, Pachuca, Puebla and Queretaro. A large orphanage under the care of their Woman's Foreign Missionary Society is flourishing in the capital, and schools in Puebla, Leon, Pachuca, Miraflores, Queretaro, Real del Monte and El Chico. This mission reports, in 1885, churches, 14; full members, 625; probationers, 674; local preachers, 16; Sunday-schools, 18; scholars in Sunday-schools, 764; contributions, $1102.
The American Board of Foreign Missions (Boston) began work in 1872 in Guadalajara, a city of some eighty thousand inhabitants, situated on the west coast, in the State of Jalisco. They found here at first a wonderful spirit of inquiry among the people. Within a few months there were several conversions. Bitter hostility was soon provoked, and Mr. and Mrs. Watkins were stoned in the street by a company of men and boys. In November of 1872, Rev. Mr. Stephens, an unmarried missionary, visited Ahualulco, a small town about ​ninety miles from Guadalajara. Here he had a home and a welcome from a few sympathizing friends, and for several days he held meetings every evening in a room provided for him. It was decided that Mr. Stephens should take up his residence in this place, where the people were so much interested that they would sit for hours at a time to listen, and crowd about him afterward to buy Bibles and tracts. For three months he had great encouragement, and the majority of the people tolerated, and even favored, the Protestants. This success so exasperated the curate of the parish that he preached a most exciting sermon to his people, mostly Indians, in which he said, "It is necessary to cut down even to the roots the tree that bears bad fruit. You may interpret these words as you please." An extract from a Mexican paper gives the sad result of this appeal: "At two o'clock on the 2d of March the house of Mr. Stephens was assaulted by a mob crying, ('Long live the aura! Death to the Protestants!' They forced the doors and entered, destroying and stealing everything they found. Mr. Stephens was brutally assassinated, his head severed into several parts and his body very much mutilated." One of the Protestants was killed at the same time, and Mr. Watkins was threatened, but escaped, and others among the Protestants were assaulted and in danger from poison.
In 1876, in spite of bitter persecution—always traceable to the priests—the converts in Guadalajara numbered one hundred and fifty. The experience of the laborers here as elsewhere in Mexico proves that "in no portion of the unevangelized world is the preaching of the simple gospel of Christ likely to encounter more determined opposition than in countries decidedly Roman ​Catholic; that in no other land is that opposition, when not held in check by civil authority, more likely to proceed to murderous violence."
With all that makes Mexico one of the most fruitful of mission-fields, it has been called with truth one of the most difficult and dangerous. Scarcely one of the early Protestant churches but has its martyrs, and sometimes many of them. The Church of Jesus has had forty. One missionary writes: "More than once I have looked out on a sea of maddened creatures ready to tear me limb from limb, almost succeeding in forcing an entrance into the house, even cutting a large hole in the door, but held back by the unseen Hand." The same writer says, "The Mexicans are a revolutionary people more used to a breach of than obedience or respect to law. At times they seem to be incapable of anything which is necessary in deliberative bodies."
The Church party has stirred up the worst elements of society against the Protestants. Again and again the hand of a bishop or other dignitary of the Church has been discerned behind the scenes of violence which are constantly occurring. The advice of the curate of Ahualulco has more than once been given to stir up a fanatical mob. In one case the preacher gave the street and number where Protestant missionaries could be found. In Capulhuac, an Indian town not far from the capital, Louis Gonzales, the first man who dared to present his child for baptism in a Protestant church, was killed for his audacity; at Tisapan five of the brethren who came out were murdered in seven years. Until 1880, Protestants were often forced by mob-law to bow to the Host as it was carried about in processions, but ​the law guaranteeing religious liberty is no longer a dead letter.
The Presbyterian church in Capulhuac (just referred to) has had an interesting history. It was organized in 1873. For a long time the services were held in a secluded pine-forest on the mountain-side over-against the place. After many threats from their enemies, they were warned that an attack was about to be made upon them. An armed mob started for their retreat one Sunday afternoon, and were seen crossing the valley to make their way up the hillside, when a violent thunder-storm suddenly arose and so darkened the air and blinded their adversaries with pelting rain and hail that the little flock escaped unharmed.
One of the Bible Society's colporteurs was one day seeking to find the residence of a Methodist brother in the city of Leon. He had the difficulty in finding the street and number which is common in Mexican cities, but at last he came to a house which bore marks of a recent assault. The windows had been broken with stones, and the walls were well spattered with mud. "This house has been mobbed lately," he said; "it must be the one I am looking for;" and on inquiring he found his conjecture correct.
Another colporteur tells of a brother Martinez, an earnest Protestant preacher, who went to visit the family of a convert in a town called Rancho de Dios. The townspeople had been making a new road between their place and Zacatecas, some miles distant, and they had invited the bishop of Zacatecas to be the first to ride over it. Unhappily for himself, Brother Martinez came riding into town first, taking, of course, the new road. Finding that he was a Protestant, they rushed upon him, ​tore him from his horse, tied him hand and foot, built a fire and burned his books and papers, and were preparing to burn him on the blazing pile when one of the authorities of the town, who was a friend of the Protestants, came up brandishing his sword among the crowd and scattered them, but not until they had succeeded in burning off the poor man's beard and hair. The police were obliged to shut Mr. Martinez up in the town-jail to protect him from the mob which still thirsted for his blood.
The Presbyterian church in Zacatecas has been many times tried in the fires of persecution. Part of an abandoned Catholic church was rented by the Protestants. That this imposing structure should fall into heretic hands, its saints be taken down from the walls and Scripture texts put in their places was most exasperating. What gave a keener point to the indignity was the fact that the building had been erected by the Inquisition for its peculiar uses, and that in making necessary repairs the secrets of that awful tribunal had been unveiled—the torture-chamber, the rack and pulley, and even human skeletons with nails in their temples, and other relics of the horrid work of the Holy Office. The transfer was no sooner decided upon than bishop and priests united in plans for "putting an end to all Protestants." The mob were ready with knives and pistols, waiting in the cathedral itself for the order to rush upon the Protestants then assembled in their part of the edifice. These latter were out in large numbers. Even the Sunday-school children came and joined in the songs of praise which many a brave heart there thought might prove to be his last on earth. Happily for the almost defenceless church, the bishop and his friends had a ​quarrel with the governor as well as with the Protestants, and the city authorities, coming to the rescue of the latter, prevented the intended massacre. The whole of this vast building is now used for Protestant worship, the Presbyterian Board of Foreign Missions having sanctioned the purchase. It is a four-story edifice, with balconied windows and solid stone walls very rich in carving and other ornamentation, and can easily accommodate a thousand persons in its audience-room.
In 1875 fourteen Protestants were killed in Acapulco in a riot stirred up by an attempt to establish a Presbyterian mission there. The missionary who accompanied the party was obliged to flee for his life. He was taken for shelter on board a man-of-war then in the harbor. He made his way back to his home in Mexico city, a distance of three hundred miles, by going up the Pacific coast from Acapulco to San Francisco, thence overland to New York, and so by steamer and rail to Vera Cruz and the capital. The little flock already gathered in Acapulco, scattered at that time, "went everywhere preaching the word." Two of them who fled to Southern California were instrumental in gathering a circle of believers there, who were afterward found ready for organization as a church when a missionary came upon the ground. In less than a year after the massacre of their brethren thirty new centres of light appeared in mountain-villages in that region, and nearly five hundred believers traced their conversion to that time of bitter persecution. Native brethren had supplied their friends with Bibles and tracts, which had been secretly circulated and read. When the region was visited by missionaries, in 1883, there were thirteen congregations in and about Acapulco, and six churches ready for ​organization. The Rev. Procopio Diaz, who lost two fingers in the riot of 1873, came now as a welcome visitor. He took up his abode in Chilpanzinco, the capital of the State of Guerrero, where the governor was so friendly to the Protestants that he kept Bibles in his house for circulation. One of the church-members in Chilpanzinco died recently, and his funeral was the first ever conducted on Protestant principles in the State. The glorious hopes of the gospel shed a new and strange light on a scene too often marked by irreverence.
In addition to the usual irritation felt in isolated places against new Protestant enterprises, there are now many tokens of a revival of old prejudices. Says a mission report in 1885, "The pressure of opposition from the reactionary party in Mexico is greater than for many years past." The priesthood have charged Protestant ministers from the United States with being secret agents for their government, and that they are there only to prepare the way for the annexation of Mexico to the United States. Several mobs have resulted from inflammatory appeals to their religious feelings and their patriotism.
Following these appeals to mob law came the martyrdom of a faithful brother, Rev. Nicanor Gomez, pastor of the church in Capulhuac. He had gone with two sons, one of them also a minister of the gospel, to lay the foundations of a new and promising church in Almaloya, near Toluca. Not finding the official who was to give sanction to this enterprise, Mr. Diaz, another pastor, and several of the brethren waited his arrival in the house of a neighbor. There were evidences that a riot was determined on to prevent the Protestants from ​holding their services. People began to crowd in from other towns. Soon the Romish church-bell began to ring, and the crowd nocked thither. Two of the Protestants, suspecting mischief, went also. In the sermon the priest told the Romanists that, "at whatever cost, the Protestants must be prevented from holding their service; they were heretics, enemies of their country, abandoned in their moral character, and ought to be destroyed." Thus stimulated, the crowd rushed to the house where the brethren were waiting. The justice of the peace was there, but not the prefect or the police. Soon with wild shouts the surging mob came down on them with showers of stones. The Gomez brothers slipped out by a back door and went to bring the horses. The Rev. Mr. Diaz, assisted by his brethren, succeeded in getting on his saddle, and escaped with a few bruises from clubs after being chased two miles, but the elder Gomez, weakened by the blows he had received, was dragged to the ground in attempting to mount, and was so badly stoned that after lying unconscious for a short time he died.
"Twelve years ago," says a missionary writer, "this plain Mexican, Nicanor Gomez, while passing along the street was attracted to a book-stall, on which he found a copy of the Bible. Purchasing it, he began to study its contents, and, becoming more interested, he invited his wife to join him in reading it. After a while he called in his neighbors and opened his house to a meeting for the study of the Scriptures and for prayer. Thus a small congregation grew up, for whose accommodation he gave up the principal room in his humble abode, he and his family being content with less commodious quarters. Thus for several years he carried on religious ​services, being assisted only to a partial extent by the mission. He had, mainly by his own labor and resources, nearly completed a small chapel, which was about to be dedicated when death put the seal on his labors for the cause of Christ."
The history of this church enterprise is the counterpart of many another in Mexico. The good seed finds a scriptural variety of soil, but that which falls on good ground is wonderfully prolific. Little Bible-reading circles are found in out-of-the-way places in almost every missionary tour. The story of Don Denias Zitary is a case in point. He is a blacksmith working at his anvil all the week and preaching twice on Sunday to a thriving little church, which has been built up by his efforts. As he was walking out one evening with a visiting missionary he pointed to a large wooden cross on a hill near by. The ground around it was strewn with sharp flints, so common-in the country. The blacksmith said that when he was a young man several priests came to his neighborhood from Zacatecas on a collecting-tour, and also to exhort the people to penance for the salvation of their souls. The fervent appeals of these priests so excited the crowd that they all consented to walk barefoot in procession over these sharp stones, each with a crown of thorns pressed on his forehead and a rough rope around his neck; "and," said the narrator, "I was one of those who walked with bleeding feet around that cross."
Another layman, Don Mateo Goitia, a pure Spaniard, is doing a noble work for the Master in the same neighborhood. When young he was a bigoted Romanist. At one time, when looking over some old clothes and books which he had taken for debt, he came across a Spanish ​New Testament. He became interested in it, and read it over and over again, till its truths sank into his heart. He saw the falsities of his old faith. He was convicted of sin. He left off his former bad habits, and, as his new principles shone out in his changed life, he drew others to study a book which had brought such blessed results. He now set up a church in his own house; in two years sixty persons were worshiping there. In 1880 the members numbered eighty-seven.
There is something in the loving zeal of many of these untutored laborers for Christ which promises wonders for the future of the Church in Mexico.
The story of the introduction of the gospel into the State of Michoacan, as gleaned from the letters of Rev. J. M. Greene, gives a touching feature of humble Christian service in connection with the labors of Rev. H. Forcada and other native brethren among the Indians of that region. Mr. Forcada's first visit was to Junapeo, a small town among clustering villages in the lowlands west of the capital. A few Bibles and tracts had been sold or given by a Mexican bookseller in Zitacuaro a few years before, and these had no doubt been doing a silent work ever since among the people. But in 1876, when Mr. Forcada came, Junapeo received him very coldly. Shelter was most unwillingly given him in the village inn, and the storekeeper positively refused to sell the heretic anything. After three months' faithful work Mr. Forcada deemed best to abandon Junapeo for the time. He would not go, however, until he had asked the Master to have his way made so plain that he could not mistake it. That very night the little room where he had been holding meetings was full. The work increased in power. The inhospitable innkeeper was ​converted and became a pillar in the Protestant community. For five years the religious meetings were held free of charge in his large parlor. His wife, once a bigoted Romanist, was equally zealous after her change of heart, and taught her poor neighbors daily.
In time, Brother Rodriguez's quarters grew too strait for the people who flocked to hear a free gospel, and they began to build a church. Mr. Rodriguez gave a lot and six hundred and seventy-four dollars toward the building, besides superintending the work. The house, sixty feet by twenty-seven, cost twenty-six hundred dollars, of which ninety of the people gave ten hundred and ninety dollars. Four young brethren who are supporting themselves while they study for the ministry did the work on pulpit, tables, benches, etc. for their contribution, while the story of the sixty beams which support the roof is as interesting as though the scene had been laid where the old Sidonians hewed cedar trees out of Lebanon for the temple in Jerusalem: "When the walls of the church were complete, it became necessary to secure sixty stout beams thirty-six feet long. To have bought them in Junapeo would have cost ninety dollars. A good brother in Ahuacate, eighteen miles away, hearing of their need, sent them word that they were at perfect liberty to enter his pine forest and cut free of cost all the beams they needed. The offer was promptly accepted. All the oxen in the neighborhood belonging to the brethren or their friends were brought together, numbering thirty yoke, with two men to each yoke. On a Monday morning they started. Brethren along the road gave men and oxen their meals, and cared for them at night. Three days were necessary for the round trip, so that by Saturday night the thirty-six miles had ​been twice traversed and sixty fine beams were ready to be placed on the walls. The oxen were furnished without charge. The sixty brethren each gave a week of his time without cost, and the work was all done as a voluntary offering to the Lord. As I looked at those beams afterward, neatly hewed and placed in position, they seemed to me sermons in wood, objects as sacred as the gold which was given for the tabernacle, and I doubt not that they were equally acceptable to God."
When the church was done, eight of the brethren walked fifteen miles to Zitacuaro after an organ which had been sent to them by friends in the United States. As Junapeo lies three thousand feet lower and it was impossible to carry such a load on muleback down the steep mountain-paths, these men carried it on a sort of bier, accomplishing the labor of love by nightfall of the same day.
The house was dedicated on New Year's Day, 1883. Such crowds—men, women and children, most of them on foot—came from far and near that the opening services were held out of doors. Wrapped in their blankets, they camped out under the open sky. In the tropical climate of Junapeo this was the best arrangement which could be made for such a mass of perspiring humanity. But there came a time when the house had to be packed to its utmost capacity. Fifty persons were admitted to the church on confession of their faith on that occasion. We quote again from Dr. Greene: "As I looked over that audience of five hundred, filling all the benches and seated on the floor, the great mass of humble Indians clothed in white muslin, who receive eighteen to twenty-five cents a day, not more than one in ten of whom could ​read, and as I noted their earnest and devout attention to the reading of Solomon's prayer at the dedication of the temple, and to the preaching as I saw the peace and joy reflected on their faces, and in some cases the tear of penitence or gratitude stealing down their cheeks,—I longed to be able to photograph the scene and place it before all our Christian people at home who have loved and prayed for the Mexican work as a proof to them that their gifts and prayers have been most signally blest."
Junapeo has its counterpart in many a town and hamlet in Mexico. Help from abroad seems to stimulate to the utmost these generous people. The Indians, the chief actors in every anti-Protestant riot, furnish also the greatest numbers in the harvest of souls gathered by Protestant missions. The heaviest part of the work of evangelization now going on in Mexico is done by native brethren whose zeal and faithfulness have already been blessed to the saving of hundreds of souls in fields which have been entirely tilled by them. As soon as possible it is intended that the work shall be left entirely in the hands of the native ministry.
Many who are noting the signs of the times in Mexico believe that greater persecutions are in store for Protestants there than they have yet experienced. The star of conservatism seems to be once more in the ascendant, and Rome rejoices. She is still plotting against every principle on which Mexican liberties have been established. But, amid the turnings and overturnings to which these revolutionary people are subject, Christ is building up his kingdom among them on foundations firmer than the great mountains on which their cities stand. As "a leader and commander to the people" he ​has already caused his standard to be lifted up in this land. They are gathering out the stones and casting up his highway, and some happy day "the work of righteousness shall be peace, and the effect of righteousness quietness and confidence for ever."