Page:Travels in Mexico and life among the Mexicans.djvu/306

298 our heroes of that war,—their courage, high devotion to duty, the respect for the rights of, and their forbearance towards, the conquered people,—alone caused many Catholics to become sceptics. The firm stand of the patriot President, Juarez, encouraged the friends of mission work in this country. In September, 1862, we find the Rev. James Hickey, a Baptist minister, laboring in Matamoras as an independent missionary, and in the November following in Monterey, the northern capital, preaching from house to house and distributing Bibles. On the 1st of March, 1863, he delivered the first Protestant discourse to the public which was ever heard in Monterey, and in that year received as an assistant, who eventually became his successor, the Rev. Thomas M. Westrup, who was appointed as missionary by the American Baptist Home Mission Society of New York.

At present there are fifteen Protestant missions in Mexico, representing twelve Christian bodies. These entered the field in the following order: Baptists (1863), Church of Jesus (1869), Quakers (1871), Presbyterians (1872), Methodist Episcopal Church South (Border Mission 1872, Central Mission 1873), English Independent Mission (1872), Methodist Episcopal (1873), Southern Presbyterians (1874), Associate Reformed Presbyterians (1878), Congregational (1880), Independents (1882), and Southern Baptists (1882).

By way of explanation, it should be observed here, that Miss Rankin, a noble Christian woman, who had been laboring at Brownsville since 1855, crossed the Rio Grande about a year ahead of the Baptists. She at once began the establishment of Christian schools, and soon after, by the assistance of her own