Zacatecas was transferred by the American and For- eign Christian Union to the Board of the Presbyterian Church, which in the same year also stationed mission- aries at San Luis Potosi and in the city of Jlexico. In 1873, there were in all from ten to fifteen little congre- gations connected with the missions of the Presbyterian boards. Two schools, one for each sex, had been formed in the capital, and two also at Cos, a small town of 4000 inhabitants in the state of Zacatecas. The mission at jMonterey, at the beginning of 1873, numbered six reg- idarh'-organized churches, the number of members in these ranging from twelve to sixty. As the American and Foreign Christian Union in 1873 suspended opera- tions in foreign lands, Miss Rankin offered the Monterey mission to the American Board of Commissioners of Foreign Missions, which, in September, 1872, had sent from California the first missionaries into Mexico. Dur- ing the decline and ruin of the empire of Maximilian, the foreign committee of the Board of Missions of the Protestant Episcopal Church of the United States sent out an agent to collect information in regard to the pros- pects of an effort for the establishment of a congrega- tion under the jurisdiction of the Protestant Episcopal Church. It was found that there was a wiclespread preparation for a reformation of the National Church, and that a large number of priests sympathized with the movement. Though the government of Maximil- ian strongly favored the Roman Catholic Church, the foundation of a Reformed Catholic Church, called " the Church of Jesus," was laid. After the re-establishment of the republic, the movement soon assumed large di- mensions. The government sold to the Reformers some of the most beautiful churches in the capital. During the greater portion of this time the Rev. Dr. Riley, a clergyman of the Protestant Episcopal Church, ^vho had been born and educated in one of the Spanish republics of South America, had been the constant adviser and friend of the Reformers. He hail brought ;vith him from New York to jNIexico a printing-press, and used it for the dissemination of the principles of the Reformed Church. He had prepared a Liturgy in Spanish, con- formed in all essential respects to that of the Protestant Episcopal Church. He had purchased one church in the capital and one half of another, and presented them to a boaril of trustees, to be held in trust for the benefit of the movement. As the foreign committee of the Prot- estant Episcopal Church was restricted by its constitu- tion to the support of missions of its own Church, and on that account coidd not comprise an independent Church like that of the Church of Jesus, the American Church Jlissionary Society in 1873 took the movement under its charge. The Methodist Episcopal Church es- tablished a mission in JMexico in 1872. In November of that year the Rev. Dr. William Butler was appointed superintendent of the mission. He accepted, and ar- rived in the city of Mexico in February, 1873. Ha reported the statistics of the work of the Church at the close of its first quarter as follows : four Mexican con- gregations—two in the city of Mexico, 75 persons ; one in Pachuca, capital of the state of Hidalgo, 45 persons ; one in Rio del Monte, five miles beyond. 10 persons ; to- tal, 130 souls; two English congregations — in the city of Mexico, 60 attendants, and Pachuca, 45; being an aggregate of 235 persons in six congregations; 12 schol- ars in day-schools, and 42, with 9 teachers and officers,, in two Sunday-schools. The mission had two class- meetings, about 14 Mexicans and 16 English and Amer- icans attending. A missionary property has been pur- chased in Puebla. The Methodist Episcopal Church, South, also resolved in 1872 to take up Mexico as a mis- sionary field. Bishop Keener proceeded to [Mexico and purchased a chapel for the mission, and in 1873 the first missionary was stationed there. The progress of these Protestant missionary labors produced a great excite- ment among the strict adherents of the Roman Catholic Church. In a number of places mobs insulted the Prot- estants, as well as the members of the Reformed Church
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of Jesus. At Chapulhuac three persons were killed and 1 several wounded. The :Methodist and Presbyterian mis- sionaries in the city of Mexico, with the representatives of tlie British Uiblc Society, solicited through the \ United States minister, the Hon. Thomas II. Nelson, an interview with the presitlent of Jlexico, in order to seek from liim an assurance of his disposition to protect Prot- estants in Mexico in the enjoyment of their religious rights under the constitution. The interview took place on April 25, 1873, when president Lerdo de Tejada as- sured the missionaries that the opinion of all the en- lightened classes of society favored religious toleration, and that he, the president, would answer for the con- duct of all the authorities depending directly upon the federal government.
See Lorenzana, Concilio (Mexic.') primero y seguvdo (Mexico, 1769) ; Lorenzana, Histor. de Nueva EspaTia escrito por su esclarecido conquistador II. Cortez, aunien- tada con otros documentos y nofus (Mexico, 1770); Pres- cott, I/isl. of the Conquest ofJ!< xir,, ,• 1 ;,ilulli, U America un iei/ipo t^paynuolu, riguurdalu .-inih, I nsjictto religiose didV epoca del sua discuoprimeiito Ktno (d 18-13 (Ancona, 1844) ; Brasseur du Bourbourg, I/ist, des nations cicili- sees du Mexique (Paris, 1858-60, 4 tom.); IMiihlenpfordt, Schilderung der Republic Mexico (Hanover, 1844); Kichthofen (Prussian ambassador in ^Mexico), Die duss- ern u. innern polit. Zustdnde der liepuhlic Mexico (Ber- lin, 1859) ; Neher, Kirchl. Statistik, iii, 337, sq. ; Kalkar, Gesch. der rom-kathol. Mission (Germ, trausl. [Erlan- gen, 18G7]). (A.J. S.)