Page:Our Neighbor-Mexico.djvu/457

 Rh are ye when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely for my sake. Rejoice, and be exceeding glad, for great shall be your reward in heaven." He was so ill he could scarcely finish his sermon. He was taken from the pulpit. Soon he was dying. A friend asked him, in this solemn moment, "Do you now love Jesus?" "Much, very much," was the answer.

As memory commenced to fail, so that he was forgetting his nearest friends, one of them stooped over the dying man, and in his ear asked the question, "Do you remember the blood of Christ?" He had not forgotten that. He exclaimed, "The most precious blood of Jesus!" On breathing his last, a smile rested on his countenance, which abode still upon it when it lay in state in the Chapel of St. Francis. A great multitude attended his funeral, among whom were many Romanists. His hearse had properly upon it the emblem of an open Bible. By that he had conquered.

There is no doubt that Manuel Aguas is, so far, the chief fruit of the Mexican Reformation. Whether he would have proved the Luther, can not be known. Probably its Luther must come from abroad, or from the youth now growing up in the faith. More probably it will have, as it will need, no Luther.

The congregations were not confined to the two chapels of the "Church of Jesus," or to any organization. Laymen and clerics began to talk where opportunity offered. I attended one such meeting, held by R. Ponce de Leon, near the Tulu gate. It was a charming morning when we walked through dust and degradation to the preaching place. It was in a quadrangle occupied by a gentleman who acted as an interpreter to the Indians. He was a grave man of sixty. He led me into his library, and showed me books in different languages still in use. The Indians had come to the gate to do their trading. A few, in their blankets and wretchedness, sat on the clean floor of the little room, while the interpreter and a few of his sort occupied chairs. Señor Ponce