Page:Our Neighbor-Mexico.djvu/200

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190
OUR NEXT-DOOR NEIGHBOR.

of a Saint Bartholomew's day. The two scruples have been overcome once and again, though not at the same time, since I have visited a theatre, for religious purposes, on Sunday, and have witnessed Sunday-school exhibitions which imitated the theatre in every thing but artistic excellence and success.

That this was a sort of Sunday-school exhibition was clear, from the fact that that Sunday night the play was to be "Samson." So even in their sports the angels of Puebla are pious. Probably their Sunday bull-fights are with the sacred bulls, such as Egypt once worshiped; not those of the pope—these they never fight.

That play shows what their earnestness yet is, and what Protestants may have to suffer ere the city is truly redeemed to Christ. Yet they are willing to suffer. Twelve brethren and sisters gathered round their beloved minister when the storm broke over him of pistols and paving-stones. Sixty gathered to hear the Word. They will come together again. The government must protect liberty of worship, and Puebla be indeed, in heart as well as in name, the City of the Angels; religious with a happy religion that does not wail with ceaseless confession, Mea culpa, mea maxima culpa, "My fault, my greatest fault," but exclaims in joyful confidence,

"My God is reconciled;
His pard'ning voice I hear;
He owns me for his child,
I can no longer fear.
With confidence I now draw nigh,
And Father, Abba, Father, cry."

May that soon be the blessed experience of this City of the Saints and the Angels!