Page:Travels in Mexico and life among the Mexicans.djvu/311



in its extent and baseness, she would gladly burn all who teach the truth. The National Museum may, with reason, enclose within the same walls the blood-stained sacrificial stone of the Aztec paganism, and two skeletons of victims of the Inquisition. Martyr blood has consecrated several churches in Mexico. . ..

"3. That the necessary conclusion is that the opportunities and responsibilities of the Mexican transition belong to Protestantism. The door is wide open."

The Mexican government guarantees the protection of all religious denominations, yet there have been many disturbances and frequent murders. The first week I was in Mexico I met two missionaries who had been chased out of Queretaro by a mob incited by the bishop of that city. Though the government vindicated its honor and supremacy by returning them under the protection of troops, yet on the withdrawal of the latter they were left in the same danger as before.

A few weeks later, a native missionary was set upon and stabbed to death by a mob of religious fanatics, near Apizaco, on the principal railroad of Mexico, and nothing was done to punish them. A month later another native preacher was shot at, near the ancient city of Tezcoco, and then lodged in jail upon complaint of the very men who attempted his life. And his accusers? They are pursuing their peaceful vocations unmolested, ready to renew the fight whenever opportunity offers.

It is not in the large cities that these outbreaks occur, as a rule, but in remote settlements in the country, where the people yet blindly follow priestly counsel. But year by year Mexico is growing more enlightened, and newspapers and books are increasing in circulation with great rapidity. In the republic there are some twenty large libraries, containing in all 236,000 volumes, and private libraries with from 1,000 to 10,000 volumes each, and collections of rare manuscripts.

There were published, in the year 1874, 168 magazines and pamphlets, of which 18 were scientific, 9 literary, 2 artistical, 26 religious, and 118 political. In 1882 the newspapers published in Mexico numbered 283, of which 94 appeared in the capital.