"Last year," writes Mr. Milne, of the American Bible Society, "one of our colporteurs in Ayacucho had to make his escape by the roof of a house where he was staying, from a mob of half-castes, led on by a friar. Finding their prey had escaped, they took his clothes and several boxes of Bibles to the plaza of the city and burnt them."
It was not such a going-back as the outside world thought, but, oh, it was a deeply significant one, when recently the leading men of the Republic of Guatemala met together and solemnly threw over the religion of their fathers, which, during 400 years of practice, had failed to uplift, and re-established the old paganism of cultured Rome. So serious was this step that the Palace of Minerva, the goddess of trade, is engraved on the latest issue of Guatemalan postage stamps. Believing that the few Protestants in the Republic are responsible for the reaction, the Archbishop of Guatemala has promised to grant one hundred days' indulgence to those who will pray for the overthrow of Protestantism in that country.
"Romanism is not Christianity," so the few Christian workers are fighting against tremendous odds. What shall the harvest be?
PART I.
THE ARGENTINE REPUBLIC
The country to which the author first went as a self-supporting missionary in the year 1889.
And Nature, the old nurse, took
The child upon her knee,
Saying, "Here is a story book
Thy Father hath written for thee."
"Come, wander with me," she said,
"Into regions yet untrod,
And read what is still unread
In the manuscripts of God."
And he wandered away and away
With Nature, the dear old nurse,
Who sung to him night and day
The rhymes of the universe.
—Longfellow.