Page:About Mexico - Past and Present.djvu/398

390 the law guaranteeing religious liberty is no longer a dead letter.

The Presbyterian church in Capulhuac (just referred to) has had an interesting history. It was organized in 1873. For a long time the services were held in a secluded pine-forest on the mountain-side over-against the place. After many threats from their enemies, they were warned that an attack was about to be made upon them. An armed mob started for their retreat one Sunday afternoon, and were seen crossing the valley to make their way up the hillside, when a violent thunder-storm suddenly arose and so darkened the air and blinded their adversaries with pelting rain and hail that the little flock escaped unharmed.

One of the Bible Society's colporteurs was one day seeking to find the residence of a Methodist brother in the city of Leon. He had the difficulty in finding the street and number which is common in Mexican cities, but at last he came to a house which bore marks of a recent assault. The windows had been broken with stones, and the walls were well spattered with mud. "This house has been mobbed lately," he said; "it must be the one I am looking for;" and on inquiring he found his conjecture correct.

Another colporteur tells of a brother Martinez, an earnest Protestant preacher, who went to visit the family of a convert in a town called Rancho de Dios. The townspeople had been making a new road between their place and Zacatecas, some miles distant, and they had invited the bishop of Zacatecas to be the first to ride over it. Unhappily for himself, Brother Martinez came riding into town first, taking, of course, the new road. Finding that he was a Protestant, they rushed upon him,