Page:Our Neighbor-Mexico.djvu/190

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180
OUR NEXT-DOOR NEIGHBOR.

says, "is Puebla." It has proved this faith by its works. Among its residents is Mr. Blumenkron, a Jew, born in Philadelphia, raised in Europe, but a citizen of Mexico these twenty-five years—a Jew more outwardly than inwardly, a gentleman of pluck and persistence. In the breaking up of their convents he secured a slice of the Santo Domingo for himself, the Convent of the Inquisition. He also bought a church. This last he offered to the evangelists.

Rev. Gabriel Ponce de Leon came down from Mexico to preach in it. The people rose upon him, three thousand strong, rushed into the little church, hurled stones at his head and those of his associates, who fled upon the roof, and from roof to roof, and so escaped out of their murderous power. I have never heard that the grave and gentlemanly Bishop of Puebla ever publicly disapproved of these proceedings, or that the less grave, though not less gentlemanly, Archbishop of Mexico ever censured the Bishop of Puebla for not condemning the conduct of his own church members. I fear that when, the next Sunday, he and these rioters repeated the Litany with exceeding warmth and fullness of response, they did not pause at that prayer, "From battle, and murder, and sudden death, good Lord, deliver us," and think how earnest they had been the Sabbath before to inflict murder and sudden death upon an innocent preacher of the Gospel of the blessed God. When will the Protestants become like bloody murderers of those who oppose them? Have they not been so in some of their branches? "Let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall."

That riot made the few English residents timid, and, though we went to the houses of two English families, we could not get either of them to open their doors to an English service. Disappointed, we returned to the hotel. After dinner an American gentleman, Dr. Tinker, spoke to us; we told him our failure. He said we could hold a meeting in the hotel. It was doubted. He immediately applied to the landlord, who instantly offered his best and biggest room, and there, at three on Sabbath afternoon, just seven persons assembled, including the two ministers, and service was held—praise, prayer, and preaching. It was a goodly season, and