Mexico by G. W. CAVINESS

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Jan 23, 1913

Mexico

By G. W. CAVINESS

G. W. CAVINESS

Since my last report I have visited Moctezuma and La Visnaga. In Moctezuma we have a company of eight or ten. They have been anxious to have a small place of worship, as none of them has a room suitable for a meeting. One brother has some land, and he has gone ahead and laid the foundation for a small meeting-house, about sixteen by thirty feet, and has carried the walls up eight or ten feet. The believers will be able to get the structure ready for the roof. It is their intention to turn the land and building over to the mission, and we expect to put on the roof and complete the church for them. This will cost about seventy-five or one hundred dollars, more than one half of which is now provided for. The site is at one side of an open square, or park, in the background of which is a Catholic church. The accompanying picture shows the place where our church will be located. The brethren, though few, have put forth great efforts to get a church. One of them has gone to the United States to work in order to get money for the building. There is some interest in the place, and we hope when the building is completed to put forth an effort to strengthen and enlarge the company.

In La Visnaga the work is very encouraging. Several years ago a few persons in Matehuala received our paper, became interested, and were convinced of the truth. About four years ago, after much correspondence and many appeals, we sent Brother Marchisio to look after the interest there. He found that some of the interested ones had moved out into the country about seventeen miles to a small settlement, or ranch, called La Visnaga. He began work there, and soon had quite an interest, but there was much opposition. The Catholics had a little chapel in the place, but had had no services there for several years. As soon as they knew of our labors, they began to try to start their work again. Such was the opposition that it was scarcely possible to get a place in which to hold meetings. So Brother Marchisio gave thirty pesos, and the brethren built a little adobe hut about ten by fifteen feet, and in this meetings were held for quite a while. It was astonishing to see how many could crowd into this small room.

The writer spent several weeks laboring, and baptized ten. The work continued, and about three years ago six others were baptized, and on my recent visit fourteen candidates followed their Lord in baptism.

Three years ago we purchased about two acres of land with an old stone house that was roofless on it. This was repaired, a roof put on, and now we have quite a respectable little chapel. For two or three years we have had a school in operation, with an enrolment of about twenty-five pupils. There is no other school of any kind in the place.

The brethren are making advancement in other ways, having left off their vices and become more industrious. They are now buying small patches of ground and building little houses; and this year they have quite good crops of corn and beans. They are all very enthusiastic, and are planning to pay tithe.

Every one of the thirty baptized was present and partook of the Lord's Supper on the last day of my stay. One aged man, the father of the two first interested, was quite slow in giving up Catholicism. For a long time he kept his saints' pictures and images on the walls in his house, and followed his custom of saying prayers to them as he had learned in school in his childhood, but at last he gave them all up. Then he told Brother Marchisio that his saints were gone, and with them his prayers, and he wanted to know what he should do. He was told to go to the Lord as to a friend, and ask for what he needed, and his attention was called to the Lord's Prayer. He could read, and found in the Psalms of David some expressions that he thought were all right; so he committed these and the Lord's Prayer. Then Brother Marchisio thought that the pupil had learned to pray even better than the teacher. Although seventy-five years of age, he is quite vigorous, and I had the pleasure of baptizing him on my last visit. The father of the teacher of the school is quite a venerable-looking man, with a full beard. I am also sending a picture of these two patriarchs.

One good brother and his wife, from Matehuala, were baptized with the rest. They have had our papers for quite a while, and have been convinced, but were a little slow about being baptized. On my way to Visnaga I stopped overnight with this family, as I had done many times before. The wife told me her experience; for some time she had been convinced of the truth, and had felt it her duty to be baptized; but she was a slave to tobacco, and felt that she could not give it up, but had finally done so; she had not the slightest desire for it any more. After discarding tobacco, she dreamed that she was at a meeting and saw the water for baptism, and saw me very distinctly. The next morning she told her husband that she would be baptized the next time I came to their place, and he immediately responded, “All right; I will, too.” I did not know that the woman used tobacco until she herself told me of her victory over it.

This family has been making advancement in other ways also. On my first visit they were in a meson, which is a place with a corral for animals and a few rooms for the drivers. I shall never

forget the first night I spent there. The man took me to a room without any floor, but with a sort of bed in it, and told me I could spend a mal rate (an uncomfortable time) there, which I did. I did not sleep one single moment all night because of the many other inhabitants in the place.

I could but mark the great change between then and now. Now he has bought a little place, built a house of five rooms, and everything is in quite good shape for Mexico. On my last visit, I spent a pleasant time with them, and had a good night's rest. One of the pleasures of the work is to see the improvement that some of these poor people are making. The message is elevating in every sense of the word. The papers are full of revolutions, but we have not been disturbed by them. We are sure that our brethren will all be interested in these revolutions in character and life that the preaching of the message is producing among these poor people, and we earnestly ask your prayers that such revolutions may continue.