# Our Neighbor-Mexico/Book 3/Chapter 15

XV.
CHRISTIAN WORK IN MEXICO.
Not yet.—The First Last.—A Telegram and its Meaning.—Perils and Perplexities of Church purchasing.—Temptation resisted.—Success and Dedication.—Cure Hidalgo and his Revolution.—Iturbide and Intolerance.—Beginning of the End.—The Mexican War, and its Religious Effects.—The Bible and the Preacher.—The first Revolt from Romanism.—Abolition of Property and of Institutions.—Invasion of the Papacy through France and Maximilian.—Expulsion thereof through America and Juarez.—The Constitutionalists the first Preachers.—The first Martyr: "Viva Jesus! Viva Mexico!"— Francisco Aguilar and the first Church.—The Bible and his Death.—First Appeal abroad.—Response.—Rev. Dr. Riley and his Work.—Excitement, Peril, Progress.—President Juarez, the first Protestant President.—The chief native Apostle, Manual Aguas.—His Excommunication by and of the Archbishop.—A powerful Attack on the Church.—His Death.—The Entrance of the American Churches in their own Form.—Their present Status.—The first American Martyr, Stephens; and how he was butchered.—San Andres.—Governmental Progress.—The Outlook.—Postfatory.
Not quite yet Good-bye. A journey undertaken solely for Church purposes should not omit the consideration of that work from its pages. It has not been largely thrust into the body of the work, brief and infrequent references only having been made to the subject. The aim has been to give a transcript of the land and people, apart from all especial views or ends, so that those who sought light upon the country or sought the country itself should not have too much, to them, extraneous matter set before them. It seemed better to put such matter in a chapter by itself, so that those who wished it not might avoid the dish entirely, and those who wished for it might enjoy it all by itself. At the risk of slight repetitions in minor points, let us glance at the story of Christian Work in Mexico, and put that which was first in its appropriate place, the last.
CHURCH OF SAN FRANCISCO, CITY OF MEXICO.
​At the very close of the journey, in the little village of San Antonio, where the grateful husband acknowledges the lordship of his lady in the painted confession along the ceiling of his casa, I received a telegram, which drew my eyes and soul far away from the handsome family, obedient husband, and horrible breakfast. It was an electric shock in which was more than magnetic currents; for it foretold a future of unmeasured and immeasurable vastness, a future of spiritual currents of divine magnetism, that shall permeate, thrill, revive, and renew this whole land. Its enigmatic words were these: "Puebla business closed. Mexico will be today."
The brief line was inexpressibly grateful; for doubt had hung over the last purchase. Foes were many and sharp. One effort had failed through treachery, a priest appearing before the judge the day the papers were to be passed, and getting the property (the Church of Santa Inez, then used as a cotton warehouse) transferred to minor heiresses, and another portion of the estate set off to the youth to whom this church had been already assigned, and who was going to sell it to us. What might happen between the beginning of the effort to purchase these more central quarters and its completion, even to the frustration of that completion, it was impossible to tell. Had any priest suspected the possibility of this attempt, every member of his guild, and, primarily, its primate, the archbishop, would have put forth every effort to have prevented success.
And such efforts could have hardly failed of success; for there were so many parties to negotiate with, that it seemed well-nigh impossible to preserve the secret. The real owner was in Paris. His administrador was a warm Papist. The holder of the first mortgage was a widow lady, residing in San Luis Potosi. The holder of the second mortgage was a carpenter in the city. Besides these proprietary interests, a person held it under a written lease for two years, for a theatre. Here were four, if not five, parties to be consulted; for possibly the administrador might not have power to sell without a legal authorization from the actual owner.
​A more perilous adventure was never more successfully executed; thanks, and thanks only, under God, to the sagacity and shrewdness and patient push of Dr. Julius A. Skilton, our consul-general, James Sullivan, Esq., and Señor Mendez, their attorney. To them the whole business was intrusted. A glance at the spacious quarters on the Monday after my arrival, which was the previous Saturday night, was sufficient. I have never seen them since. I hardly dared glance at them as I passed the street, for fear some Jesuit looker-on might notice a too fond expression in the eyes, and report the danger to the high-priest. So great is this peril, that Bishop Keener, of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, who was at the same time negotiating for suitable quarters, informed me that he had made his selection, but only by riding by the place in a carriage, he not daring to inspect it more thoroughly. I regret to add that he failed in securing this spot, perhaps because the man he rode with or the man who drove him was in his secret, and put the priest on the track. The difficulties in my case were increased by the distance at which the first mortgagee lived, and the fact that it was a lady who held the claim as a portion of her husband's estates. She must be corresponded with in the slow process of the mail. A telegram would have quickened her fears and her covetousness. She must consult her compadre and all her family. The least conception that it was being bought for the Protestants would have probably cut off all negotiations at the start, or would certainly have leaked out and cut them off very soon thereafter.
FIRST METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH, CITY OF MEXICO.
​made Peg of San Antonio more beautiful than she really was. It was not powerful enough to transform the almuerzo into a breakfast of delights. There were limits to even its ability.
The end of the journey and its objective end are reached at one and the same time. The cause of our coming puts its doxology and benediction in at the end of our going. Against unseen and unnumbered foes, against Mexican procrastination, against possible treachery, against perils without and fears within, success is assured.
How great this peril was, a single fact illustrated. Mr. Sullivan was approached, the very day he had consummated the purchase, and when he yet held the titles in his own name, by the leading native broker of the city with an offer of five thousand dollars for his bargain. The offer was undoubtedly from a higher source, for the property had laid idle for years, and was of no possible use to the broker, there being acres of like convent ruins at his command over all the city. It was instigated by the archbishop, undoubtedly, who had watched the coming and going of these invading ministers, and who had supposed as they left the city, with no possessions secured, their mission had failed, and who only woke up to the fact after their departure, when, the papers having all been passed, it was allowed to creep forth that this Irish gentleman, the fear of every brigand, whom he had more than once made to know the accuracy of his shot, and whose protection at El Desierto showed like skill and pluck, the successful rebosa manufacturer and silver operator, had bought this central and spacious property for a Protestant Church.
But he mistook his man. The splendid bribe was spurned, and in due time the property was transferred to the real owners. It was soon fixed up as the residence for its missionary, school for girls, and the beautiful audience-room of the Trinity Church. The Christmas following saw the joyful consummation of this undertaking in the dedication of this church by the services of Rev. Drs. Butler, Carter, Cooper, Ramirez, Guerro, and Señors Hernando, Pascoe, and Morales. A large audience filled its handsome ​auditorium. The dome of wood and glass lifted itself over the once open patio, erected by the first purchaser for his circus performers. Screens inclosed the area behind the pillars. The desk and platorm and melodeon, with its simple style of sacred service, reminded the auditors that a new day had dawned in Mexico, or, at least, that a new hour of the day had struck. That day began to dawn and to shine before this glad hour arrived. Other men labored, and we were entering into their labors, not in any spirit of envy or strife, but with a desire for their enlargement, and with a purpose to unite with them in common love and labor for the recovery of this heritage to our common Lord and Master.
The Church planted by Cortez on the ruins of the Aztec superstition, with its horror of human sacrifices, existed unchallenged, so far as organized effort went, over three hundred years. From 1523, when Zaragossa, appointed to the headship of the Mexican Church, two years after the subjugation of the state, had exterminated the ancient worship, unto 1823, there had not been an organized, hardly a visible protesting to the absolute sovereignty of that Church. Men had been burned at the stake, but more because they were Jews and Portuguese than as heretics, though heresy was the charge under which they were slain. The native had no disposition in his peonage to assert his religious liberty, not even his civil. And but few Spaniards ever emerged into the heights of faith and of martyrdom; though undoubtedly some, brethren of those whom Torquemada burned in Spain, avowed here like precious faith, and received like honored torture and burning.
Out of sheer malice they slew those that dared profess a higher and better faith; nay, they slew them on suspicion of such faith. The history of the Inquisition in Mexico remains to be written. We hope some missionary or native Christian will give to the world the story of this tribunal from year to year, its victims and its crimes.
In 1811 the Curé Hidalgo raised the standard of independence from Spain; but though of the priesthood, he had no countenance from the Church; and so, after terrible slaughter, his enterprise ​failed. He is remembered now, and a superb statue of heroic size, "in form and gesture proudly eminent," stands in the walls of the Church of San Francisco, executed by two young brothers, awaiting its transfer into marble or bronze. It is most apt and fit that the moulded form of this earliest hero of emancipation and independence should be placed in the walls of a church which has also secured its independence from an oppressive and foreign faith.
The cause of independence lay sleeping, but not dead, for a dozen years, when the General, Iturbide, who had been chief in suppressing the revolt, headed it, and made it a speedy and almost bloodless triumph. But he succeeded because he recognized the supreme authority of the Church. His declaration of independence began after the Jeffersonian sort: "Mexico is and of a right ought to be free from the throne of Spain." His second declaration how different: "The Roman Catholic Church is the religion of the state, and no other shall be tolerated." Had that been in our Declaration, our path upward had been equally slow and bloody. It, however, secured him the alliance of the Church, and was a wise political measure, viewed in the exigencies of the moment; unwise, viewed in the light of the future.
So rigidly was this state of intolerance maintained, that in a treaty made with our Government ten or twelve years after, while we granted perfect liberty of worship to their citizens resident in our territory, Mexico granted such liberty to ours only in their own private residences, and then "provided that such worship was not injurious to interests of state." And that treaty, I am told, on high official authority, remains unmodified to this day; so that now, were Romanism in power, it could suppress even private worship in an American family, and there could be no redress under our treaty stipulations. So rigid was the grasp of the Church over the whole state.
The first ray that shot its solitary light across the dark was the bold act of Mr. Black in burying the poor shoe-maker, assassinated for not sufficiently respecting a kneeling Mexican's prejudices, in ​his prostration before the passing priest and wafer. This occurred in the year of Iturbide's successful revolution against Spain and more successful subjugation to Rome. But the real gray of the dawn was the American war, twenty-three years after the proclamation of dependence as well as of independence. Before that event not an open Bible could have been seen in the whole realm, which then included California, Nevada, Colorado, up to, if not across, the line of the Pacific Railway; nor could a minister conduct worship other than after the form of the Roman Church.
That war carried the Bible and the Protestant Church into Mexico. The soldiers brought the Book in their knapsacks or pockets, and falling out by the way, through cowardice, capture, or sickness, they dropped this seed of the Gospel along these new paths. They could easily talk with the natives after a few weeks, and in their hours of sickness, sometimes unto death, they translated its lender words into the common tongue. Thus the thirsty peon tasted the first drop of the Water of Life. Then, too, the Bible Society sent its agents with the armies, who carried and scattered the Word wherever the troops marched. I have met with several since my return who engaged in this work under the shelter of our flag.
Besides the sowing of the seed in this form, was the more noticeable though not more valuable revelation of it in the shape of public worship. To that hour, no Mexican in his own land had seen any Christian worship, except the celebration of the mass and its attendant ceremonies. The gaudy array of the priests, the mumblings in an unknown tongue, the prostration before a carved image, the uplifting of the Bread and Body of God, the swinging of incense, and ringing of bells, and beating of breasts, and wailings of people, and mournful and triumphal music of the organ and choir—this was their only daily food. The extras were after the same sort: preaching that fostered the follies of superstition and
It was a new sight, the standing of a gentleman in the garb of a gentleman, among soldiers and civilians, the reading of a hymn in their own language which all join in singing, the utterance of a prayer in the same language, in which all reverently bow and join, the reading of the Bible in their own tongue, and the deliverance of a discourse upon its passages; only this, and nothing more. They had never seen it after this fashion. A gentleman said to me, "The first time I ever saw Protestant service conducted was in the palace of the President, by the chaplain of General Scott."
The effect of this was heightened from its being performed by these foreign invaders and conquerors under their own flag. The inquiry shot from mind to mind and heart to heart of the on-gazing multitudes, what is the new mode of religion? The Spanish conqueror's form of worship was no greater novelty to the Aztec, than the American conqueror's was to the Mexican. And each was associated with the victory of the worshiper. "Had this religion," they were compelled to ask, "any thing to do with the sudden and complete overthrow of our armies? Is this anti-Roman faith so much greater than the Roman, that a dozen thousand men can carry the fortified and well-defended gorges of Cerro Gordo, march, over the volcano passes, storm Chapultepec, and capture the city in less than half the time it took Cortez to subdue the land, and that against a people of our own European nationality, trained in every art and weapon of war with which we are conversant?"
What can the answer be, but that the cause of the conquest is Religion? And as the Montezuma and his men recognized sadly that their faith caused their overthrow, so the rulers of Mexico acknowledged that like slavery was the reason of their subjugation. So will France yet confess that it is her religion that made her sink before the German arms, and that only the highest faith can produce the highest race.
The revelation of this conviction appeared in a very few years after the American conquest. Our withdrawal from the land ​delayed the revelation; but it came. The first proclamation of independence from Rome was made by Comonfort in 1856, less than ten years after our coming and going. The Bible had been allowed to stay, and was steadily, though slowly and almost imperceptibly, leavening the lump. The street that went out from the western end of the plaza, parallel with the Street of San Francisco, was intercepted by the Convent of San Francisco. Comonfort saw that if he was to improve the city anywhere, it must be begun here. This splendid suite of buildings must be pierced. The archbishop resisted. "Touch that, and all is touched." He was right. He touched that, and all was touched. That fell, and all fell. The convent was cut in twain, and the street opened from the plaza to the gates. That was Mexico's first proclamation against Rome. On one side that street to-day you will see parks and dormitories of the convent; on the other, the patio, chapel, and church, with several blocks of private dwellings, two chapels, used for a stable and a blacksmith shop, and the former library, now used as the chapel for American service, and blocks of residences.
That was the key-note of the revolution. On it went, sweeping out the friars and nuns, and cutting their superb estates in pieces. It was Protestantism in the State, blindly destroying, but not building up.
Juarez followed Comonfort, and the war prevailed yet more. Confiscations of convent property became general. Schools were established without the control of the Church. The institutions of friarhood and sisterhood were abolished, and the claims of the Church, formerly loaned on the estates of the people, were declared of none effect. As this claim covered almost all property, it was a proclamation of universal financial emancipation. The disruption of Church and State was violently going forward. Had no religious influence come in to build up a better Church and State, that conflict would have resulted in the resubjugation of the State to
A DISTANT VIEW OF CHURCH OF THE EX-CONVENT OF SAN FRANCISCO, CITY OF MEXICO.
​the Church, as has always been the case in France and Spain, and, but for the very active Protestantizing of Italy, would be the case there also. The Church saw this, and took advantage of our civil war to revive her fallen fortunes. Maximilian and Carlotta, two bigoted Papists, were imported and upheld by the arms of Napoleon and Eugenie, the last the most bigoted of Papists, in order to bring the State again at the feet of the Church. Not Napoleon, but Pius IX., is the instigator of that war. He who alone of temporal sovereigns recognized our slave power as a nation, sought to help that rebellion to succeed by getting up this rebellion in a neighboring state, and fostered that for the sake of making this triumphant. He succeeded. The French army subdued the republican, and from Vera Cruz to Paso del Norte freedom in religion and in government went down. Rome was mistress of Mexico.
Not until our war was ended did the Papal dominion cease. Juarez enters, Maximilian is captured, and justly and wisely shot, and Mexico is delivered from Rome, as she had been nearly half a century before from Spain. Her progress from that hour has been steady and rapid. But this progress has been because of the increase of the leavening power of the Bible and the Church. This has a story of its own. Papers lie before me, prepared by a Mexican Protestant at the request of Rev. Dr. Riley, which give the story of the rise of the true Church. From this imprinted pamphlet I am permitted to make up this narrative.
It declares that Mexico was groaning under the hard yoke of the Roman clergy; that after a war of many years, and after long and cruel sufferings, the republican government was established, and freedom of religion. "How much blood was shed," it plaintively cries, "in settling these laws! How many families are still weeping for their fathers, how many mothers for their children, slain in the wars of the Reformation!"
After the first election of Don Benito Juarez to the Presidency, and before the last civil war, that is between 1858 and 1863, some clergymen, called Constitutionalists, established a new worship like ​that which is to-day performed by the anti-Romanists. To these ministers the President gave the use of two of the confiscated churches, Mercy and the Most Holy Trinity.
When the French came in, the monarchical government, at the instigation of the priests, seized one of these ministers, and having scraped his hands, and his clerical tonsure on the top of his head, in order to degrade him of his priestly character, they led him out to execution. When about to be shot, seeing the rifles leveled at his breast, he cried out, just as they fired, "Viva Jesus! Viva Mexico!' (Long live Jesus! Long live Mexico!) This vivid expression of devotion to the Lord Christ and his country is the inspiration of the whole movement. The scattering of the Bible resulted in the conversion of Rev. Francis Aguilar. After the expulsion of the French in 1867, he opened a hall for public worship in San Jose de Real, in the old convent of the Profesa. He was the first preacher of the true faith. His meetings were well attended. He also translated a book entitled "Man and the Bible," which had a large circulation. In a few months he became sick unto death, and in the last hour, taking his Bible, pressing it tenderly to his bosom, he said, "I find in this peace and happiness," and fell asleep in Jesus. The second dying witness was as serene and triumphant as the first. "Jesus," "the Bible," were their several words of victory. Francisco Aguilar circulated the Scriptures with great zeal, and helped greatly to extend and establish the true faith.
On his death, his church, being without a pastor, sent a committee to the United States to seek aid from the Protestant Episcopal Church. This Church, through its bishop in New Orleans, gave them pecuniary help, but could not aid them farther. Rev. H. C. Riley, a native, of Chili, born of English parents, but conversant with the language from his birth, was preaching at that time to a Spanish congregation in the city of New York. He listened to the cry, gave up his congregation, and in the spring of 1871 started for the country. The American and Foreign Christian Union supplied means for the furtherance of the cause, and his own purse, and his ​father's, with the gifts of William E. Dodge and others, gave him the necessary sinews for the war upon which he was entering.
That war quickly broke out. Almost as soon as he had arrived and taken quarters at the Hotel Iturbide, there was a conspiracy formed for his murder in that very hotel. He saw the band meeting to plot against his life. He escaped to safer and less noticeable quarters. He fought fire with fire, bringing out pamphlet after pamphlet, the first of which was called "The True Liberty." He wrote and arranged many of the hymns and tunes that are still in use. He also prepared a book of worship, with Scripture readings and prayers, after the form of the Episcopalians.
The excitement grew, and the priests thundered against the new worship which had so speedily assumed form under the experience and energy of the new apostle. An American Spaniard, versed in their whole style of procedure, versed equally in the opposite and better style, with singing and Bible reading, and praying and preaching, and publishing, was making himself felt and feared throughout the city and surroundings.
This uproar drew attention of politicians and priests to the new man and his work. His friends at home seconded his zeal. Private persons gave largely for the purchase of two church edifices, that of San Francisco, and that of San Jose de Gracia. The latter was chiefly, if not solely, the gift of his own father. Rev. Dr. Butler, secretary of the Society, traversed our country, eloquently pleading for the new enterprise, and aiding its extension by liberal and especial gifts of many gentlemen. The Chapel of San Francisco and the Church of San Jose de Gracia were fitted up and occupied by large congregations. The latter is a comely church within, though possessed of but few external attractions. Among the worshipers at the latter place were President Juarez and his family.
Meantime the pamphlet and pulpit war went on. But Dr. Riley was not left alone on the field. Out of the cater came forth meat. The most popular preacher in the cathedral and the Church of San Francisco, over whose eloquence thousands had hung entranced, who was a violent persecutor of the rising faith, a ​Dominican friar, Manuel Aguas, read the pamphlets, was convinced, withdrew from his pulpit and from the mass. He read the Bible, distrusted his former teachings, visited the "Church of Jesus," as the new church called itself, and at last confessed unto salvation.
CHURCH OF SAN JOSE DE GRACIA.
It made a great stir. He became very bold in his preaching, and aggravated his former associates by his ability and enthusiasm and popularity. The archbishop ex-communicated him in the cathedral in the presence of an immense crowd. But the deposed priest did not fear the anathemas. He stood in the audience, and even sought debate while the terrible curses were being solemnly recited—anathemas that a few years before would have been instantly attended with burnings on the plaza of his own convent, and in which also, a few years before, had it been another of his brethren who was being thus accursed, he would himself have taken part joyfully in the burning. He waxed bolder, and wrote to the archbishop a powerful paper, in reply to his excommunication, showing up the follies and falsehoods of the Romish Church.
It is worthy of being scattered over our own land. It professes to give a conversation between Paul and the archbishop. The former visits the cathedral, witnesses the performances, condemns the heathen idolatries, and learns, to his surprise, that he is finding fault with what some assert to be the most ancient Christian ordinances. He inquires farther, and finds no Bible permitted to be read, marriage of the clergy forbidden, idolatry observed in the worship of ​the mass, the bread of sacrament alone being distributed to the people, the wine being denied because, as Aguas says, one council affirms, "the blood of the Lord would be squandered by adhering to the mustache." In these charges he utters some truths not so well known to Americans as they should be, and in a masterly, sarcastic manner. He declares "Prohibition of matrimony has driven many unfortunate proselytes to commit great immoralities;" that fastings are not very painful, the rich on such days fasting over tables laden with delicacies and wines for four hours, "rising very contented, not to say inebriated;" that the God whom the priest creates in the mass "has been deposited in the abdomen of mice, when these mischievous little creatures have eaten the consecrated host, a misfortune which has often happened, though kept secret from the faithful." He charges the priests with stealing the alms deposited to pray souls out of purgatory, and mocks at their saints for every thing, declaring that "it is a very fortunate arrangement to ask Saint Apollonia to cure us of the toothache; Saint Lucy, of cataracts on the eyes; Saint Vincent Ferrer, of pains of childbirth; Saint Anthony the Capizon, 'so called on account of the large head the sculptor has seen fit to place on his shoulders,'to find lost things; Saint Caralampius, to keep our houses from being burned; Saint Dinias, to preserve us from robbers; Saint Judeus Thaddeus, to deliver from slanderous and lying tongues," although he sarcastically adds, "the nuns have multiplied the prayers to this saint in vain, since Padre Aguas will not leave Mexico, nor cease invading the Holy Cathedral." He notes what was mentioned as being absent from the catechism sold at Leon, the erasing of the Second Commandment. He also sarcastically refers to the priest's family as "nephews who are the legitimate sons of their uncles," and presses home on the archbishop not only these unwelcome facts, but the severest denunciation of the apostle for permitting and approving them. Pitifully he concludes with the story of her cruelty, and describes her great inquisitor, Dominic de Guzman, as surpassing all others in cruelty, and yet canonized and worshiped by the Church. Nowhere in modern history has there been ​a severer, sharper, more sarcastic, and more effectual rebuke to the pretensions and career of Papacy than in this powerful pamphlet. Can not our tract societies give it to our people?
MANUEL AGUAS.
The separation was complete. The most popular of her preachers, confessor to the canons of the cathedral, doctor and teacher of divinity, giving medical advice to multitudes of the poor of the city, was so cast out by the greater excommunication, which was nailed on the doors of the churches and announced in the papers, that all his friends forsook him, and, had it not been for the police, the boys would have stoned him in the streets.
He preached to large houses in the two chapels, and superintended the work after Dr. Riley's departure. Sickness seized him, some think poison, and he died in the spring of 1872, when only about fifty years of age. His last sermon was on the text, "Blessed ​are ye when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely for my sake. Rejoice, and be exceeding glad, for great shall be your reward in heaven." He was so ill he could scarcely finish his sermon. He was taken from the pulpit. Soon he was dying. A friend asked him, in this solemn moment, "Do you now love Jesus?" "Much, very much," was the answer.
As memory commenced to fail, so that he was forgetting his nearest friends, one of them stooped over the dying man, and in his ear asked the question, "Do you remember the blood of Christ?" He had not forgotten that. He exclaimed, "The most precious blood of Jesus!" On breathing his last, a smile rested on his countenance, which abode still upon it when it lay in state in the Chapel of St. Francis. A great multitude attended his funeral, among whom were many Romanists. His hearse had properly upon it the emblem of an open Bible. By that he had conquered.
There is no doubt that Manuel Aguas is, so far, the chief fruit of the Mexican Reformation. Whether he would have proved the Luther, can not be known. Probably its Luther must come from abroad, or from the youth now growing up in the faith. More probably it will have, as it will need, no Luther.
The congregations were not confined to the two chapels of the "Church of Jesus," or to any organization. Laymen and clerics began to talk where opportunity offered. I attended one such meeting, held by R. Ponce de Leon, near the Tulu gate. It was a charming morning when we walked through dust and degradation to the preaching place. It was in a quadrangle occupied by a gentleman who acted as an interpreter to the Indians. He was a grave man of sixty. He led me into his library, and showed me books in different languages still in use. The Indians had come to the gate to do their trading. A few, in their blankets and wretchedness, sat on the clean floor of the little room, while the interpreter and a few of his sort occupied chairs. Señor Ponce ​read prayers and Scriptures; his wife and daughter sang superbly, and he talked earnestly. It was an impressive and profitable hour.
With the death of Manuel Aguas the movement assumed a new departure. The American and Foreign Christian Union abandoned the field. The Presbyterians, encouraged by Dr. Porteus, of Philadelphia, for many years a resident of Zacatecas, accepted the mission in Villa de Cos, in the State of Zacatecas, and sent their missionaries there in the fall of 1872. They have now flourishing missions at Toluca, Zacatecas, Vera Cruz, and in and around the city of Mexico. Rev. Mr. Hutchinson at the capital is very efficient and successful.
The Baptists flourish in Monterey under the supervision of the Rev. Mr. Westrup. A native preacher introduced their form of faith. The Congregationalists at Monterey and Guadalajara have already had precedence of all other missionary churches in the seal of martyrdom to which they have attained, in the brutal massacre of Rev. Mr. Stephens, by a mob incited by a Romish priest.
This martyr, John Luther Stephens, deserves especial mention. Born at Swansea, Wales, October 19, 1847, murdered in Ahualulco, March 2, 1874, he had barely passed his quarter of a century ere he captured this crown. His father, a sea-captain, was drowned at sea in 1850. His mother went to live in Petaluma, California. In 1866, when nineteen years of age, he joined the Congregational Church in that place. He spent nearly five years in study for the ministry, graduating in May, 1872. That fall he entered Mexico from the West. He staid at Guadalajara, doing valiant service with his colleague, Mr. Watkins, printing the Biblical and Roman Ten Commandments, and placarding them over the city, distributing Bibles, and holding meetings. Great was their boldness of speech toward their malignant enemies of the Roman Church. Several times they were threatened with assassination; but their would-be murderers were baffled. Mr. Stephens visited Ahualulco in the fall of '73, sixty miles from Guadalajara. Here he had great prosperity, though also great peril. One attempt was made to shoot him, but the man was prevented. At last they succeeded.
​This is the story as told by Mr. Watkins, his colleague, and printed in the Missionary Herald:
"For three months he labored with success far beyond our most lost sanguine expectations, winning many souls to the truth as it is in Jesus. He had gained, through his labor of love, the favor of the majority of the people of Ahualulco. This grand success infuriated the cura, and the day before Mr. Stephens's death he preached a most exciting sermon to the numerous Indians who had gathered there, from the various ranchos and pueblos near by, 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. And on March 2, at one o'clock in the morning, a mob of over two hundred men, armed with muskets, axes, clubs, and swords, approached the house where Mr. Stephens lived, crying, 'Long live the religion!' 'Long live the Señor Cura!' 'Death to the Protestants!'
"The house which dear Stephens occupied was fronting the public plaza, and on the opposite side of the plaza were a few soldiers, acting as guard to the prison and to the town, from whom he expected protection. But we have learned that these soldiers, instead of giving him protection, aided the enemy to carry out their evil design of murder and robbery. As soon as Mr. Stephens and the two brethren that were with him saw that the mob was fast breaking down the front door they entered an open square, which was in the centre of the house. From this square, Mr. Stephens and Andres, one of the brethren, made their way into the back yard, seeking there a place of shelter. Here they separated, Mr. Stephens taking a pair of stairs that led to a hay-loft, and Andres making his escape by climbing over the wall of the back yard and letting himself down among the ruins of an old house, from which he made his way, unseen by the mob, to the mountains.
"Mr. Stephens had been in the hay-loft but a few moments when the furious throng entered, and he, seeing in the crowd the soldiers alluded to, ran to meet them, thinking they had come to his help; and when he cried out, 'Protect me! Protect me!' they replied, 'They come! They come!' and at the same time soldiers and others discharged their muskets and other fire-arms nil our beloved brother, killing him instantly. One shot entered his eye, and several his breast, and as soon as the villains reached him they used their swords, cutting his head literally to pieces, and it is said, taking the brains out with sticks.
"Nor was it enough for these ferocious assassins to take his life away so inhumanly, aid commit such barbarities on the dead body, but they afterward robbed his body of every article he had on, and the house of every thing he had in it. They took all his books and burned them in the public plaza. The small English Bible that was in the dear martyr's hand when he died shared the same
JOHN L. STEPHENS.
"It was an absolute impossibility to bring the body to Guadalajara, on account of the great heat and the insecurity of the roads, so it was secretly buried Monday night, by five of the brethren, in a place only known to them."
​A letter from Mrs. Watkins narrates this incident:
This is the favorite hymn, referred to previously, "Voy al cielo, soy peregrino (page 93), and shows how wide-spread is that familiar melody, and how befitting it proved itself to be in this supreme moment. The Church that slew him hailed his death with the same gladness that it did the like and larger massacre of Saint Bartholomew. A priest in the theological seminary of Guadalajara told his students that when Stephens was killed "the Church had one enemy, and the world one thief, the less;" and "would to God that the other one" (Watkins) "were destroyed." The local government arrested two priests and nine of the people, but all were liberated. It is as impossible to hang one yet, or to punish him in any shape, for murdering a Protestant. Mexico prevents, sometimes, these murders, but is powerless to punish those who may commit them. But their commission will yet be followed by punishment, and Mexico be redeemed from this horrible sin and crime.
The Methodist Episcopal Church South has initiated work in the capital, having secured the Chapel of San Andres, and is preparing missionaries for other sections. The Chapel of San Andres is in the rear of where the Church of St. Andrew stood, which church received the body of Maximilian, on its way to Europe, and where it lay in state. Juarez, consequently, leveled the splendid structure with the ground, and opened a street over the very spot where Maximilian lay.
The Episcopal Church, though not formally present, is the chief patron of the work of Rev. Dr. Riley, which is called the Church of Jesus, and in an indirect, if not direct, form will probably continue to support that organization. The Methodist Episcopal Church ​has flourishing missions at Orizaba, Cordova, Pachuca, Miraflores, and other places, and in the city itself, where it has four missions as well as its central quarters. So that from the seed-germ of Consul Black, fifty years ago, watered and replenished by the American war, and nurtured by the martyrs who suffered unto death not ten years ago, there has sprung already a goodly harvest, while promises of yet greater harvests beckon the Church to yet greater sacrifices. It is reported that sixty-nine churches are already organized and flourishing throughout that land. It is probable that this number is less than the facts will warrant.
The state, meanwhile, is progressing in the ideas of a proper distribution of the powers and prerogative of itself and its co-ordinate, the Church. Getting clear of the terrible tyranny that so long held it down, and striking blind blows at all ecclesiasticism, in its efforts to free itself, it is settling down calmly and strongly to a proper discrimination of its own functions. It has protected the new Church in many places from danger, and will not do less, but more, in that direction in the future, if need shall be.
Meantime, the enemy rages and rises at times into ferocity of hatred. At Toluca it assailed with riotous bands the little conregation, shouting "Death to the Protestants!" At Tirajaen a gang set on fire the house of a family, while all were sleeping, and wounded the father severely with the sword. At Cuernervaca a Romanist stabbed one of the brethren with a poniard, and killed him. At Capulhuac they killed one and wounded three. At the capital, earlier in the movement, one was assassinated. At Acapulco a mob killed and wounded a dozen. It was suppressed by volleys discharged into its midst by the commandant of the place, which resulted in several deaths. Other persecutions have occurred, and may occur: for the country has hardly yet been penetrated, and the pagan, which is the village population, may rise fiercely on the teachers and preachers of a better faith. But rise and grow that faith will. The labors of Riley, the martyrdoms
TOWN AND CASTLE OF ACAPULCO, MEXICO—SCENE OF THE RECENT MASSACRE.
​of Aguilar and Stephens, the heroism of Aguas, the vigor of the present workers, shall not be in vain. To-morrow shall be as this day, and much more abundant.
Another topic, touched upon in the beginning, deserves notice at the end. I had the privilege of going out in the same steamer with railroad managers, abode in the same hotel with them, and rode with them over the same paths. Success has attended efforts in that direction. Mr. Plumb, former secretary of legation, and a son, I believe, of a missionary, has succeeded in getting an agreement signed by the Government which insures a railroad to Leon and to Texas. He was not the representative of the party I was most conversant with; but it is with railroads as with Christian churches: it is not of so much importance who build them as that they be established. His bland manners, admirable tact, elegant bijou of a house, fine command of the language, and knowledge of men, with a constant perseverance that was not to be put by, secured him the precedence. Undoubtedly, the parties behind both leaders will be united in the prosecution of the gigantic enterprise. Railroads and religion have an affinity. They come from the same land, and for the elevation of the people. Together they will develop and regenerate the nation.
A correction may find place here. Reading, since these pages were written, the interesting work of Judge Wilson, I find a suggestion there, which I am inclined to adopt. It is that the Pyramid of Cholula is natural, and not artificial. He explains the adobe stratifications that were noted, as buttresses to preserve the road. There is some plausibility in this; but only a thorough research can verify it. Nor does this prove the other pyramids near the city to be natural. His views as to Cortez and his conquest I do not support. It is, therefore, with pleasure that I admit this suggestion.
I have carefully abstained from giving any information that I had to learn from books. All such information is better found in its own place. I have not told you the number of the states, their names, their boundaries, their populations, their trade, or any thing belonging to that valuable department of Mexican knowledge. I ​could have easily written out from books the facts that Mexico has 9,176,082 inhabitants, not one more, nor less; that it is as densely populated as the "United States of the North;" that it is made up of twenty-three states, one territory, and one district, whose names I could write in, but you would not know any more then than now. All this and more you will find in cyclopaedias and gazetteers, and chiefly in a coming guide-book which has never yet been gotten up, but which I learned that an enterprising gentleman was engaged in. I have not discussed the various tribes and tongues of the Indians. That has been done, and is being done, by expert and accomplished hands.
I should also add, that I know of no previous itinerary of the tour from Mexico to Matamoras, a French brief military journal to Saltillo being all I have seen. This part of the journey, therefore, is entirely without any aid from other sources than my own eyes. The rest has been once and again spread before us on other canvas. Yet a new picture of an old, familiar landscape may convey new and agreeable impressions. May this have that fortune.
The work is done. It remains but to thank the many friends who have aided in putting it into this comely shape. Mr. Kilburn, of the firm of Kilburn Brothers, Littleton, New Hampshire, whom I met in the capital, has kindly allowed the use of many of his superb photographs. Messrs. Skilton, Butler, Riley, and others have aided with their superior knowledge. The secretaries of the several missionary boards operating here have kindly supplied me with the data at their command. How patiently the compositors and proof-readers, and that chief, unknown of men, who superintends them, have gone through the obscure manuscript, and brought it forth in comeliness, only they and the writer know. They, at least, shall be gratefully remembered. To all, thanks. Not the least to you, brother reader, for having accompanied me thus far on this long journey. May you break the icy monotony of our long winters by a visit to our Next-door Neighbor, and forget this story in the delights of your own experience. Hail and farewell!
* ↑ See page 257.
* ↑ See Madame Calderon De La Barca, for animating descriptions of these institutions at the height of their prosperity, hardly forty years ago. Her travels are still the best description of the people and their pastimes.
* ↑ See Appendix B.
* ↑ See Appendix C.
* ↑ See Appendix D.