Rev A Brandram No.31
Mexico 2nd March 1829
My Dear Friend
I have nothing new to communicate to the Committee this month respecting the circulation of the Scriptures. What I stated in my last as well as in my preceding letters will have sufficiently informed you of the cause of this stagnation in our work. Some months must necessarily elapse before there can be any alteration for the better. If the Lord shall be pleased to grant success to the measures proposed in my last with the new government, it will I think be a great triumph gained over the enemies of the free circulation of the word of God in this land. They will in that case certainly never be able any more to issue their impious edicts in this place, and the word of the Lord may then be expected to have free course and be glorified as it was beginning to be when these injunctions against us were laid on.
I have had a letter from the Bishop of Puebla since my last. His three translators had finished the task committed to them, but their translations were in such different styles that it was considered necessary that they should unite and make a corrected version of the two proposed chapters. This the Bishop offers to see duly carried into effect and advise me of the result.
I am happy to be able to hand you a new subscription this month, and which is intended to be annual. The sum is ten dollars, which at the present rate of exchange comes to £1:13:4 sterling, with which sum you will please charge my private account. This subscription is from John Stanley Esq. an English gentleman resident in this city.
Since writing the above I have received a letter from Guadalajara, a city and diocese, you will recollect, in which one of the edicts was issued. My correspondent informs me that a few Bibles have been sold there of late notwithstanding the edict. There is something encouraging in this little notice, inasmuch as we see that the circulation of the Scriptures is not altogether stopped even in those places where the greatest efforts have been made for this end. In this city also a Bible and New Testament are sold now and then, though this is the centre of the opposition. The continuance of the sale however slow is a gratifying circumstance, when we consider that the edicts forbid both the buying and the selling of the Scriptures. But it should seem that the ecclesiastical authorities find themselves not sufficiently for carrying their measures fully into effect.
Wishing that I may soon have more cheering accounts to send you, than I have of late,
I remain
My Dear Sir
Very Truly Yours
James Thomson.