Page:Our Neighbor-Mexico.djvu/56

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been validated.
52
OUR NEXT-DOOR NEIGHBOR.

estant climes shine forth here. Northampton has no rival here, that choicest of grave-yards in its simplicity of elegance and richness of Scriptural and Christian quotation. Mount Auburn is surpassed, however. I heard the Misses Warner once say they had found scarcely any motto of Scriptural faith and hope in that cemetery. It is as stony in its faith as in the hewn and polished walls that engirt each tiny lot. It has marble dogs, and granite sphinxes, and bass-relief expressmen, wreathed pillars, and statues of men of renown, but rare is a monument or a line of faith. It will strike others thus. Edwards, and Fisk, and Wayland ought to stand in marble among its statues, and Christianity speak from its faithless, glittering graves. Let those whose believing dead are buried there make them preach their faith from their sepulchres.

Yet in the Campo Santo itself I found food for meditation, if not in its inscriptions. I gathered its flowers, growing wild and beautiful over its area, and returned as from a Sabbath-day's journey, strengthened in the Gospel truth and work.

That evening, through the kindness of the American consul, a congregation of nearly thirty gathered in his rooms, and held a Christian service. "Rock of Ages" and "Jesus, lover of my soul," were sung, and the word spoken from "To you that believe, he is precious." It was the first service the Holy Catholic (not Roman) Church ever held in that city. It was good to be there, as many felt. We found young men at work on the railroad who were members of the Baptist Church. Those who were, in order or education, Presbyterians, Methodists, and Episcopalians, were also present. It seemed as if the day-star was about to arise over this long-darkened soil. If schools were established here by Christian teachers, and a service held regularly in English, the nucleus of a church would be organized, and the work soon be extended to the native population. This first Christian service has not proved the last. Already the Presbyterians have a flourishing mission. Others will doubtless follow.

The city is putting on its best bib-and-tucker, for to-morrow President Lerdo de Tejada is to arrive, and great is to be the re-