MEXICO by Rev. D. F. Watkins

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Aug 21, 1893

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 19, No. 41.

MEXICO.

By Rev. D. F. Watkins

"In Journeyings Oft." BY THE REV. D. F. WATKINS. [Missionary of the Methodist Episcopal Church South.]

WHEN on my late ten weeks' trip on horseback on the Pacific Coast, between the ports of San Blas and Manzanillo, I reached one afternoon a deep cañon, where the people live in small colonies for nine months in the year under the large trees that abound along the river. Not having eaten food that day, I hastily built a fire and was cooking a little meat I had secured on the way, when a sick mother, lying on her mat under a few branches with a baby three or four days old in her arms, called my Mexican comrade and asked him in a voice loud enough for me to hear if he would bring her a little meat in case we should return that way; she was "so weak." Never did a voice thrill a cook's heart more thoroughly than hers did mine, and it was not long before I had the great pleasure of seeing her relish the best part of the dish I had prepared for my hungry comrade and myself. I must confess that I have seldom done better missionary work than when cooking for that poor sick woman.

When I was spreading my blankets, I discovered that I was within about fifty yards of the spot where, a few years ago, two American engineers had been killed and their little hut set on fire to consume their bodies, and that several individuals of the fifty or sixty present, as I was assured, had participated in the horrible deed. The people were nominally Catholics, very superstitious, and hated foreigners. Nevertheless, until midnight I never had in my life, it seems to me, more earnest listeners to the words of life. Of course my cooking had undoubtedly helped matters. When I went to rest, a man threw himself near my feet, rifle in hand, and said to me, "Sleep, do not fear; I will take care of you."

I got up early the following morning and reached a small ranch of several huts, where but one family lived. My comrade and myself took possession of one of the huts. Soon after this, several travelers arrived and occupied

the hut next to us. While wondering who our neighbors were, so well armed, we were pleased to hear one of them read the Gospel to his Catholic friends; he was a man of influence and means. He offered to help support a preacher in his pueblo, forty miles from that place, if I would send one.

The following night I slept in a little ranch on the top of one of the high mountains on the coast. The "caçique," headman among the dozen families there, came and sat with us near our camp fire. This aged man, who had been years ago a highway robber, listened until late at night to poor singing and poorer preaching, but with the result that he made up his mind to live a new life and tell all the people in the rancho what he had learned of Christ; and I have learned since that his labors have been blessed.—Independent.