Rev A Brandram No.38
Mexico 18 September 1829
My Dear Friend
I have hesitated a long time whether I should write you this month or not. This is no prelude to good news, you will say, and yet I have nothing that may be called unfavourable to communicate. I hope you are by this time sufficiently seasoned with the endless delays we meet with here, as not to be surprised that the decision I referred to in my last has not yet taken place. The Minister told me, agreeably to what I wrote you, that in eight days after the date of my letter he would decide our case and favourably. But before the eight days elapsed the Council of State resumed its sittings, and my petition was again laid before it. As the Council had to appoint new committees, and to refer my petition to one of them, and again as this said committee must give an opinion on the case, and this opinion must afterward be judged of by the Council, we are thus involved in delay upon delay. To all this must be added that the whole must be sent back again to the Minister whose duty it is to write out and promulgate the decree of the Government upon the subject. When I shall be able to send you the ultimatum of this business I cannot promise, nor shall I, warned as I am by experience, venture to prognosticate the day of its termination.
How happy you people in Earl Street are who have nothing to do with governments either civil or ecclesiastical. I have you see to do with both, and were one allowed to speak evil, many things might be said of the one and of the other that would not much tend to exalt them. I hope you believe that there is no third party accessory to these delays, and in truth it will be no little proof of your having well imbibed that charity which thinketh no evil, if you are satisfied that your agent here is pushing this affair as fast as he can. I am really doing so, and yet you see how little progress is made. To me who am pretty well acquainted by this time with these people the thing is not so surprising, but to you it must be otherwise. Please therefore to remember that charity believeth all things, hopeth all things, and never faileth.
What I have said respecting delays in this business of the edicts applies equally to the procuring of translations of the Scriptures into native languages. I have fixed my attention in the matter chiefly on the Bishop of Puebla, for reasons which you may easily suppose, and which indeed I mentioned in my former letters. But the Lord called the Bishop to lay down his office and his life, not choosing to honour him in accomplishing this good work. A new source or sources were in consequence to be sought for whence these translators were to issue. They have been sought and the work is begun in the Mexican and Tarasco languages, whilst a friend, a member of the national Congress has written to Yucatán to make some inquires regarding a translator to provide a version of a portion of the Scriptures into the language spoken over that peninsula. I hope you will exercise all patience towards us in our tardy movements.
You are placed of the Lord to feed and to drive towards of Zion the various flocks of mankind scattered over the earth. Please remember that there are among them flocks of which are tender and weakly, and that if they are overdriven they will die.
I shall keep in mind what you say about the books in the native languages for the use of your library.
I feel very anxious about Mr. Matthews, and look with increasing interest to some early notice from you regarding him.
I am truly glad to learn that a better feeling begins to spread in Edinburgh & through Scotland in general regarding the Bible Society. May the Lord unite all his people in the great work of circulating the Holy Scriptures in every land.
I remain, Truly Yours,
James Thomson.