For the past three months it has been my privilege to work for a people who have borne scarcely any fruit from all the seed sown among them. Various societies have sent workers to this country, but after years of labor without any results they have either become discouraged and left or have been recalled by their societies. In all Honduras I do not know of a convert among the Spanish-speaking class. Nearly all the Bibles that have ever been brought into the country have been burned. One colporteur, while in Tegucigalpa, was driven from the market place by a shower of vegetables, while trying to hold a street meeting. Another missionary mysteriously disappeared. We had been here only a month when we were compelled to seek another house because we were Protestants.
A VIEW OF SAN JUANCITO
Surely this is a moral desert, and a wilderness of superstition, ignorance, and false doctrine. "Gross darkness" is covering this people, but, praise God, the entrance of his word gives life; it gives understanding unto the simple. Ps. 119: 130. It is on the strength of the promise, "So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereunto I sent it" (Isa. 55: 11), and, "The wilderness and the solitary place shall be glad for them; and the desert shall rejoice, and blossom as the rose" (Isa. 35: 1), that we are working. Although we have been without the written Word much of the time, we have not been idle. We have been breaking and preparing the soil; and as the rays of the Sun of righteousness pierces the darkness of formalism, kind and tender hearts are revealed, and hard hearts softened.
Some of the most reserved have given their order for our Spanish paper El Mensajero, and are now reading with interest. Last week I sent in fourteen more yearly subscriptions for this paper, making sixty-one in all. Besides this we are using a club of fifty each month. To-day I received a small case of New Testaments in Spanish, and a cargo of Bibles will soon reach us. Some of our own books are also on the road. Many have already spoken for Bibles and books.
The gospel must be published among all nations. Mark 13: 10. "The sower soweth the word." Chapter 4: 14. This is what we are doing. And God says, "It shall not return unto me void." We have here in San Juancito, Americans, Germans, Scandinavians, Jews, Chinese, and negroes, besides the Spanish and Indian population. The mine furnishes employment for about eight hundred men. These come and work a few months or years, and return to their homes. The population continually changes; and in this respect it is an important station from which the light of truth can shine with advantage. We hope soon to see those accept the truth who shall feel a burden for their own people.
San Juancito, where the ore is worked, has an altitude of thirty-six hundred feet. The ore is brought down from the mine twenty-two hundred feet, in iron buckets fastened to a cable wire which revolves like a belt, carrying the ore down, and the empty buckets up. This mountain, over which we have to climb in going to Tegucigalpa, is 7,240 feet high. The mine was once worked by Spaniards, probably two hundred years ago. Many dark holes may still be seen from which they removed the ore containing gold and silver. They used slave labor. The present population of San Juancito is forty-five hundred. The accompanying picture will give some idea of how the town is built on the mountainside, overlooking the mills and other buildings.
We have just received word asking us to return to the Bay Islands, and take the Utilla school, which has been without a teacher for some time, in order to make ourselves self-supporting, on account of the present financial condition of our Mission Board. However, we hope to return at a more favorable time. Meanwhile the El Mensajero will be making its monthly visits, and we leave the work with God.
