Rev A Brandram - No 125
Mexico 28th October 1842
My dear Friend,
Your letter of 20 July, with a note of 1 August, reached me here on the 19th September. It gives me great pleasure to learn the prosperity which God is still vouchsafing to you as a Society, and in spite of prophecies uttered or muttered among you to the contrary. The case of Dr. Haeberlin's recovery from such imminent danger is a subject of gratitude and instruction to us all. Oh that all of us may ever be good and faithful servants while we live, and thus be ever ready to die, to die unto the Lord, and be forever with him.
As yet no ship, nor books from England, has arrived since I came here. But some vessels are looked for very soon, and with one of them I doubt not your books will be. I long to put them on their trial for acceptance, but fear of our sales will not be rapid, for besides what stands in the way of this from the nature of our books and the circumstances of this country, that is another hindrance, namely, the general dullness of all sales of all things, from the general scarcity of money, owing to the distracted state of things here for some years past, and which kind of things, I am sorry to say, still continue. I think it not at all improbable that we shall have another revolution before this letter reaches you.
What has most occupied my thoughts and my attention since I came here, is the new version of which I wrote you. I am most anxious to get this introduced into the schools, and have made a Representation to the government to that effect, stating your readiness to cooperate in providing the books for schools at a very cheap rate, besides making a present of some at the outset to encourage the object. I expected to be able by this packet to have given you some account of the reception and success or failure of this Representation. But all the government people have been so occupied with their own immediate affairs of late as to have been hindered, it should seem, from attending to this. The bustle has been owing to Santa Anna's delivering the reins of government to General Bravo during the winter, that he may retire for rest and a warm climate to his family residence near Veracruz. He left this city yesterday for that place.
I feel doubly anxious about this Representation. Could the word of God be got into the schools all over this country, it would soon also come into the hands of all classes of the community both indirectly and directly. But there is another reason also why I feel anxious for the success of this representation, which is, that if the New Testament could be got into all the schools here by public sanction and encouragement, the same would act as a powerful example and stimulus to all the other States over Spanish America. May the Lord prosper this object to the hastening of his kingdom in this, and over all these lands. I ever count on the prayers of you all for success in all my little efforts, and pray the Lord to answer these your prayers, and my own feeble but as earnest supplications for a blessing on all my poor doings. We are nothing. Perhaps our prayers are something, for God has made them so. But it is God himself who worketh all in all, and to his name be the glory.
The other object, or rather the third one, of my solicitude here is, that of getting some portion of God's holy word into the hands of the Indians in their native tongues. The great body of the people in this country arc Indians, and they are of different nations and tongues. There are many schools among them, and a goodly number, all things considered, can read. A considerable portion of them can speak Spanish, and do speak it in the market-places, where they are required to do so in their business. But they are strongly attached to their own languages, and ever speak them among themselves. I hear these tongues daily spoken in the streets of this city as I move along, and observe the Indians speaking with one another. The two chief tongues spoken within the diocese of Mexico are what are called the Mexican, and the Otomi. One of the Gospels, you know, is already in the former of these dialects, and I long to hear about it from you and from Dr. Mora. Regarding the other, the Otomi, I am making efforts to get a fit translator, and have one in view. The advantage of getting the Scriptures into the Indian tongues is, I conceive, considerable; for although many of them, as already stated, speak Spanish, they will feel a peculiar pleasure in having the word of God in their own tongues, as was and is the case in the Highlands of Scotland, Wales, and Ireland. I request, therefore, your prayers for this object also. The Indians are all Christians nominally, and I fear most of them, as well as most here of all classes, nominally only. I look upon it that when the True Gospel begins to make way in this country, it will begin with the Indians, similar to the Gospel progress in the West Indies. The Slaves were first awakened; and through the black and slave population, the whites and other free people were at length led to a greater attention to religion. Thus does God choose the weak things of this world, and things that are despised, to bring to nought all the proud thoughts and gloryings of men. Let us not glory in our work, though most sacred and holy as it truly is, but let us glory only in the Lord.
Please to remember the poor solitary, you who live in the city of God.
I am, My Brother, Ever Affectionately Yours,
James Thomson.