A NEW BAPTIST MISSION

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Nov 25, 1903

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 29, No. 47.

A NEW BAPTIST MISSION.

On June 4, 1903, it was decided by the Foreign Board of the Southern Baptist Convention to open a mission in Argentina, South America. Argentina comprises the southern portion of South America. It lies south of Bolivia and southeast of Paraguay, Brazil, and Uruguay. Chile separates it from the Pacific Ocean. The area of the country, including Patagonia, is estimated at 1,125,000 miles. The population is nearly five millions and is mostly white. The schools are fairly good, and the main products are cattle and wheat. The metropolis and capital of Argentina is Buenos Ayres, the greatest city of South America. It is the commercial, educational, social, political, and religious center of influence of the Republic. The government is Republican in character; the religion is Roman Catholic, tho not of as severe a type as in other South American countries. In many cases the people have turned against the tenets of Catholicism and into infidelity and indifferentism. Any religion is tolerated. The American and the British and Foreign Bible Societies have been doing a great work, giving out God’s Word to the people. The Methodist Episcopal brethren have done a great work. The Salvation Army has also done a good work. By opening work in the Argentine Republic we extend the lines of our South American missions about fifteen hundred miles. We now have stations from Manaos, 900 miles up the Amazon, to Sao Paulo, a distance of about thirty-five hundred miles. To take this full 5,000 miles and strengthen and re-enforce it, is a mighty task.—Foreign Mission Journal.