ENGLISH WORK IN MEXICO.
By H. A. Bassett
[Rev. H. A. Bassett, in Northwestern Christian Advocate.] We spend thousands of dollars annually, and much earnest work is being done in the large cities of the United States for the foreigners who come to our shores, but very little consideration is taken of the need of religious privileges for Americans who have gone to foreign shores. The absent members of our families ought not to be forgotten. In Mexico City, temptations to dissipation are prevalent on all sides. The novelty of the allurements, and the entire lack of home restraints, induce many young men into lives of vice and crime who in other days spurned sin and walked in the ways of righteousness. Some time ago a young man came to me and said: “I have been on a drunken spree for three days and in fact for months past I have been living in sin, but I have been writing my mother at home that I was keeping up my religious experience. It would break her heart if she knew my actions.” This is but one of the hundreds of young men in this city who are going down to eternal ruin. Many Christians of all denominations come down to this sunny land every year, and about two-thirds of them say “good-by” to the Almighty when they cross the Rio Grande. Bull-fights and races and golf and cock-fights are largely attended by Americans. If Protestantism is to make rapid progress in this “land of the Aztecs,” she must make a strong effort to influence the foreigners coming here to live as noble representatives of the Christianity which has exalted the land of their nativity. Many of the Americans in this country are bright, intelligent, and shrewd, but they care little for morals or religion. To withstand the forces of worldliness here demands grace and grit. We need grace to keep us sweet, and we need grit to do aggressive work in the midst of such adverse circumstances. There are about five thousand English-speaking people in this city, which is fast becoming Americanized.