News From Lake Titicaca by W. A. S.

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Apr 17, 1913

News From Lake Titicaca

By W. A. S.

Editorial

News From Lake Titicaca

BECAUSE of the message from Elder F. A. Stahl, asking special prayer in behalf of the work at the Lake Titicaca Indian Mission, we know that many will be watching for the first news from that frontier post. Shortly, no doubt, we shall have a full report from Elder Stahl of experiences the mission has been passing through in the fresh outbreak of persecution. The first word, however, comes from Elder A. N. Allen, superintendent of the Peruvian Mission, who writes from Lima, the capital. The Indian Mission is about five days' journey from Lima by boat and rail, so that as yet few particulars had come through over the telegraph-lines. Elder Allen writes:—

Our Indian work at Lake Titicaca is again in the limelight of publicity, caused by an assault made on our mission at Plateria by the bishop of Puno and about twenty mounted men and a number of others. Some damage was done to the mission property, and Camacho, our Indian teacher, and others of the believers were thrown into jail. A telegram just received from Brother Stahl says that they are free again. Brother Stahl was returning to the mission from La Paz, Bolivia, and arrived just a day or two after the attack. I got the wires to working through the American consul, and also through the pro indigina [the Peruvian commissioner for Indian affairs, as we should say]. Some of the papers in the south have been lauding our work too much to suit the bishop, I think. It will surely only mean another victory for us in the end. The work is God's, and to him be all the praise.

It was about a year and a half ago that one of the bishops came up to the town of Chacuito, the nearest town to Plateria, the mission location, and delivered in the church an old-fashioned Roman curse upon the mission, and ordered the destruction of the work. We in lands where the Roman Church has not full sway can little realize the power that the priests wield in those far mountain highlands.

The word was brought to Brother Stahl and to the Indian believers that they were to be driven out and destroyed. Every day the believers met and prayed the Lord to intervene in behalf of his truth. Word was telegraphed to Lima, and at that time also Elder Allen notified the authorities, and messages were quickly sent to the civil officers to allow no violence toward the mission.

Even independent of these official messages, some hearts were remarkably changed in feeling toward our work, in which our brethren saw clearly the intervening hand of God. Also at that time two local spirits who had been most antagonistic to our work were suddenly called to their last account, one by sudden death, the other by sudden illness terminating fatally, and it seemed that the fear of God fell upon the hearts of those who had arrayed themselves against the work.

In the meantime, however, the mission has been extending, and the numbers of believers have considerably increased. Recently the mission dispensary and school were moved from temporary quarters to our own buildings near the highway running round Lake Titicaca, and no doubt these signs of advancement stirred up again the ire of the ecclesiastical authorities. Surely our brethren will remember still this work and the workers in prayer, and as Brother Allen suggests, we may expect to see deliverance come and yet greater enlargement of the work. W. A. S.