NEW MEXICO'S SPIRITUAL NEEDS.
THE above title is suggested only from an evangelical standpoint, for the Roman Catholic Church has done practically nothing for New Mexico in the three hundred years it has been the ruling ecclesiastical power in that Territory. The evangelical denominations have been represented in New Mexico for years, particularly after the advent of the Santa Fe road, in 1879-80, and, owing to the topography of the southern part of the Territory, a fair share of the western Texas peninsula has been included in the New Mexico field of operations. New Mexico will continue for some years to come, as in the past, a missionary field, and to a considerable extent the same methods of evangelization that we adopted in foreign lands must obtain here, noticeably among the Mexican and Indian populations. The Presbyterian and Methodist home missionary boards long ago established Mexican branches of the work; the Congregationalists have done so to some extent, and in El Paso they have every reason to be proud of a fine manual training school in immediate connection with their local mission. I do not know of any other denominations taking active steps in evangelization among the native population. The Roman Catholics have never taken any steps toward "conversion," as General De Vargas late in the seventeenth century attended to that with his invading soldiery from the City of Mexico, and his successors did the job so thoroughly that Rome has not had any occasion to worry until of late years over the loyalty of her most Catholic subjects in New Mexico. At the time of the Mexican session, in 1848, the Spanish priesthood in New Mexico refused to remain under American rule, and returned to old Mexico. To fill the vacancy, priests were sent from France, so that in New Mexico and Arizona the priesthood are almost entirely French. Since the advent of the railroads the progress of Protestantism has been continuous, tho often not as marked as enthusiastic Christians might desire. But it is noted that with the Anglo-Saxon immigration evangelical houses of worship are springing up all over the territory, noticeably in the southeastern section, which is being now so rapidly opened up; also in the northwestern part of the Territory, where new vigor is being infused into the local life, and in the southern and middle northern parts. The Romanists have just grounds for apprehension, for the steady increase in Protestant congregations is not matched by Catholic growth. The Irish miners who migrate thither are, of course, nominally Catholics; but their spiritual activity is largely in the line of "wet goods," and, taken as a whole, they are of no particular strength to their church. Protestant churches are now found all over the Territory, those in the larger centers of communication being of some architectural pretensions. However, back in the older and more undeveloped settlements, the same dense apathy and ignorance in spiritual things remains, until the activity of the missionary dispels the darkness by the Gospel.—Gospel in All Lands.