A Trip Through Southern Chile
By H. F. Ketring
It is several weeks since I left home for this trip in the south of Chile. Last Friday I rode fifty miles horseback, the greater part through dense timber, to reach several families of Sabbath-keepers who are far on the frontier. Things were indeed very primitive. The house was made of posts, placed close together side by side to form the sides, with a thatched roof. A box served for a table, and each person was given a spoon, and we sat around one common dish of beans and potatoes. And while it was a little different from what we are accustomed to in the United States, after a fifty-mile horseback ride I could do justice to my share of the meal. After supper I preached to those present, and the entire day Sabbath was spent in instructing them in the different truths of the third angel's message. I baptized one, and others are waiting my next visit, to receive baptism. Sunday and Monday I rode about one hundred miles west, which brought me to the seacoast. Here we have two families obedient to the truth, and the father and the mother of a third have just decided to obey the truth. They have a family of eleven children. Having a desire to visit an Indian chief who lives about twenty miles south of here, yesterday Brother Hormaechea, a Spaniard, and myself started for his place. All but about three miles of our journey lay along the beach, which is lined with beautiful sea shells. Upon arriving, some time was spent in conforming to their custom of receiving visitors, when we dismounted and were invited inside. On being asked upon what business we had come, I told him that I had heard of him, and that I had a great desire to come and give him a message that the great God had sent to him. He expressed his entire satisfaction and willingness to receive the message. I then continued by telling him the story of creation and the fall; the promise of the Saviour, and his death and resurrection. I told him how he had gone to prepare a beautiful home for us, and that he promised to come again to take us to that home; that now the time of his coming is near, and he is sending his messengers to all parts of the world to tell the people to get ready to meet him and go with him to that beautiful place, and that he had sent me to tell him to get ready if he wanted to go with the Lord—he with all his family. Then I mentioned how he had given us signs by which we might know when his coming is near, and that nearly all the signs had been fulfilled, naming the signs in Matthew 24. He wanted to know what signs were lacking yet, so I told him the only one lacking was the shaking of the powers of heaven and its rolling back as a scroll. He listened with deep interest, and said he wanted to be saved when the Lord comes, but he said they were very ignorant, and did not know much. I said, 'Yes; but we want to teach the Mapoche Indians these things.' He seemed grateful, and asked that we establish a school on his land to teach his children and his servants' children. He has about a thousand Indians under his command, and is very desirous that they have some advantages in education. In a small section of country there are over sixty thousand of these people, to whom the message must be given, besides tens and hundreds of thousands in the interior. Can we not do something to give these people the gospel, that the Lord can take from among them a people for his name? A company of English missionaries are now translating the Bible into their language. I can not help feeling deeply in earnest about having a school for them. Don Pedro, the Indian chief, offered ten acres of land, and the lumber to build a house, if we would send a teacher among them. He said that a Catholic priest had promised to plant a school on his land, but he had not said anything more about it since. Now is our opportunity, if we do not want to let it go by. O, that the Lord may breathe such a spirit of self-sacrifice over his people as they have never yet experienced, that they may see the crying needs of people who are groping in the darkness to find some hope of salvation. These Indians are not like the North American Indians, always engaged in war, but are workers. To be sure, from an American standpoint, they are very9lazy; but before the Spaniards came to Chile, the Indians cultivated more than twelve different varieties of beans, and many other vegetables. Shall we be without blame if we do not extend the helping hand to them to lead them from darkness to light? We are of good courage, and are pushing the work as best we can. Pray for us.