Smyrna times., 1889-10-02
Ratnrnad frnm Mevinn

Rev. VIM. B. Gordon spent the most
of the past week in Smyrna in pleasant
intercourse with his former Pensioners
and citizens of the town who extended
to him warm welcome. On Sunday
he preached at St. Peters in the morn
ing and made an address after the
Sunday school exercises were over in
the afternoon ON his experiences in
Mexico, on both occasions having full
houses. 1t had been two wears and
four months since he had gone out
from us after a rectorship of nine years,
to accomplish difficult work in reOr-
ganizing the missions of the Protestant
Episcopal church that had no compet-
ent one to see after them since they
had been left four years before to the
bad management of Bishop Riley.
These missions, some sixty in number,
had grown up after the success of the
Liberal party under Jaurez had made
it possible for Protestants to worship
at all in that country. To reach those
in the different States it had to be
done by horseback riding and some
times in difficult and perilous journeys.
Much of this was through a country
with natural advantages and scenery
as beautiful as the sun ever shOne
upon. But over 800 years of papal
rule he said with the Bible and the
liberty of conscience shut out, had left
the people with civilization but little
better than existed among the Aztecs
when Mexico was discovered by the
Spaniards. They were both idolaters.
He says the Catholic Church is wholly
corrupt from the archbishop down to
the lowest priest, and gave several in
stances in proof of this. Their religion
consists in contessing to the priests and
praying to some image. The priests
are very hostile to any effort to establish
Protestant worship whom they de-
nOunce as heretics, and but for the fact
that the Liberal instead of the Clerical
party is in power, all such teachers
would beincaceratedin in the dreadful dun
| geon where formerly heretics were plac-
! ed to pine and die. Mobs had frequently
been excited from the violent denucia-
ton of the priests, and one instance
was named where twenty-five persons
who were engaged in Protestant wor-
| ship were set upon and killed. His
chief Mexican helper carried on his
| face the marks of a dreadful wound
| thus made by stone thrown in a mob.
Mr.. GOrdOn's chief work was to bring
! form and organization out of chaos and
to vitalize religious worship among
these half-tutored people who are earn
estly looking for the light. He thinks
the field one of great hope for evangel-
izatiOn but it will need a more active
and earnest cooperation on the part of
the church of this country. He told
the children that they ought to bless
God that they were born under the
stars and stripes that guaranteed them
not only a good government but gave
them the advantages of education, the
freedom of individual choice and the
right to worship God as they please
without molestation. He saws that
under the policy of the Liberal gov
ernment (which from the necessities OF
the case is largely military despOtism
IN its political management Mexico is
making rapid advancement which was
very observable in the short time he
was there.
He went to Wilmington on Monday
to deliver a lecture there that evening
and from there to New York the next
day to attend the National Episcopal
Convention.