Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States, Transmitted to Congress with the Annual Message of the President, December 4, 1871

No. 288.

Mr. Nelson to Mr. Fish

No. 383.]

Legation of the United States, Mexico, April 29, 1871. (Received May 12.)

Sir: The Protestant movement in Mexico has for the past year been making considerable progress, chiefly owing to the efforts of the American clergyman, Rev. H. Chauncey Riley, a letter from whom upon this subject was forwarded by me, forming an inclosure to my No. 38, of August 9, 1869. There are now about fifty congregations or assemblies of Mexican Protestants in this city and vicinity, and an equal or greater number scattered throughout the country. Most of these assemblies still meet in private houses, though in some small places of the interior they form a numerical majority and have therefore acquired possession of the parish churches. In this city, through the efforts and personal liberality of Mr. Riley, the Protestants have acquired two fine churches of those which were secularized and sold by the government some years since; one of these is the former convent of San Francisco, the most magnificent as well as the first one erected in Mexico. It is now being repaired for its new use. The other is the commodious church of San José de Gracia, which, having been thoroughly repaired, was dedicated to the Protestant service on Sunday the 23d instant, in the presence of an immense multitude. Two or three Catholic priests of some prominence have, within the past two or three months, joined the Protestant communion, and two them have ventured upon the decisive step of matrimony. One of the recent converts, Father Manuel Auguas, formerly an eloquent preacher of the Dominican order, has become the pastor of the new church. This event has caused a vigorous polemic in the newspapers of this city; the two papers considered especially Catholic have been filled with attacks upon the new religious movement, while most of the other papers have exhibited a commendable spirit of tolerance or even of good will toward the Protestants. I inclose an interesting article upon this subject from the Two Republics of to-day, translated from the Federalista, and written by M. Ignacio M. Altamirano, who is considered as the chief of the Mexican literary writers of the present day.

Your obedient servant,

THOMAS H. NELSON.

[Inclosure.]

A PROTESTANT CHURCH.

Yesterday a Protestant temple was dedicated in the locality which was formerly the church of San José de Gracia, and which was adorned with that Christian simplicity that characterizes the temples of the reformed religion, in which the second commandment of the decalogue is rigorously observed, i. e., that neither images nor idols are admitted.

The audience was immense, and completely tilled the nave of the church throughout the day. We learn that 1,500 seats were placed, but they were not enough, and very many of the believers remained standing.

We were present for the purpose of observing the scene, as we do not profess the Protestant form of religion, and we were able to note:

1st. That the throng was made up of all classes, sexes, and ages—ladies, gentlemen, artizans, and numerous Indians; all were mingled in one sentiment of real fraternity, according to the spirit of the gospel, and all read from their prayer-books and participated in singing their hymns.

2d. That although the audience was so numerous, there was manifest a spirit of devotion such as we have never seen hitherto in any of the Roman churches of this city or country, inasmuch as we are accustomed to regard them rather as places of pleasure, of amusement, and of flirtation, than as houses of prayer.

3d. That the democratic sentiment is better developed by Protestantism than by Roman Catholicism, on account of its form of worship and the suppression of that species of fetishism imposed by the sacerdotal hierarchy among the Romans; since, though the Lutherans, for example, have bishops, they scarcely differ from presbyters, and do not present themselves in public with such a pompous staff of chaplains, familiars, secretaries, masters of ceremonies, cross-bearers mounted on mules, vergers, acolytes, and beadles, as causes such bishops to be considered almost as a fourth person of the Most Holy Trinity.

Among the Protestants this is not the case; the bishop is scarcely to be distinguished except by the greater amount of labor that he performs.

All day worship was kept up in San José de Gracia, the Presbyter Aguas preaching, and another, who is the pastor of the new church, and in the afternoon two children were baptized.

Perhaps we were the only one who attended through mere curiosity, as all the others showed, by the handling of their prayer-books, that they were old Protestants

Assuredly Protestantism is making rapid progress in Mexico, which forces us to congratulate the Voz de Mexico, since they constitute its triumph.

M. ALTAMIRANO, Federalista.