Page:About Mexico - Past and Present.djvu/379

Rh for sin, and they ought to have spread the news; but for many long years the Church has been asleep over her duty. But you have heard it, and let us pray that the Holy Spirit may work in the hearts of God's people until their love and faith and zeal shall carry the news of salvation not only throughout Mexico, but to the utmost bounds of the earth."

When war broke out between the United States and Mexico, in 1846, agents of the Bible Society followed the invading army. The pioneer missionary in Mexico, however, was Miss Melinda Rankin, a devoted schoolteacher from New England, who took her place in Brownsville, Texas, just over the border, long before Mexico was opened, and there besieged one gate to this benighted land. The kind of faith which can say to a mountain, "Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea," was hers.

Poor vanquished Mexico was yet distracted with internal troubles, bleeding with wounds our country had inflicted upon her, and too ignorant of her real degradation to know that those of her own household were her worst enemies. While affairs south of the Rio Grande were in this forlorn condition, Miss Rankin, listening to the sad stories told by returning soldiers, felt that something must be done for poor Mexico. "Who," she continually asked with voice and with pen, "will go to the rescue?" Her efforts were all in vain. Then she resolved to go herself. She could not preach, but she could teach. She was told that Texas was given up to outlaws, and that even if she could pass there in safety through dangers the Mexicans were too embittered against the United States to listen patiently to what she said.

But love for perishing souls was stronger than all these