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j^ome bife in Mexico. 
 
 It is said of the French, that their language 
 contains no word equivalent to home, in an Eng¬ 
 lish sense, that for “house” conveying all the 
 meaning given by that nation to the word home. 
 It is true that the French have not English and 
 American homes, but it is hard for one who has 
 read of some phases of French life, and who has 
 traveled in rural France, especially, to believe 
 that there is no spirit of the home in that republic, 
 however lacking the language in adequate ex¬ 
 pression of this charming word. 
 
 The Spanish language, as used in Mexico, has 
 somewhat the same limitations as the French, in 
 conveying the idea of home,—although there are 
 expressions corresponding to English terms for 
 house, dwelling, domicile and others, and, not¬ 
 withstanding the dictionaries, Mexicans, in com¬ 
 mon speech, rarely use any other word for home, 
 except that meaning house, which is casa. 
 
4 
 
 There is one Spanish word which to me always 
 suggests a pleasant idea, and which is used in 
 literature to convey the more spiritual idea of the 
 intimacy of the family relation in the house, and 
 this word is Iiogar, meaning hearth. Strange 
 word to be used by a people who never have fire¬ 
 places in their houses, and who do not know 
 what hearths are, as we use the word ! Yet “ El 
 Hogar” is the frequent title of that page of the 
 newspaper devoted to the home circle, and many 
 Spanish poets have glorified the hearth. 
 
 I have dwelt at length upon this, merely to 
 show that while the Spanish, along with other 
 languages, may seem to us deficient in an expres¬ 
 sion for home-life, the idea that the word conveys, 
 is not unknown to the Mexicans, and their homes 
 are homes, although not conducted in accordance 
 with our American idea. 
 
 The missionary, after long residence in Mexico, 
 or extensive travel through the Republic, while 
 “ opening up ” the work here and there, may be¬ 
 come acquainted with a few families of the better 
 or best class, but as a rule, he works and lives 
 identified with the lower class, with poor, and not 
 always “ respectable ” people. 
 
 Let us in the first place, consider the home-life 
 of a family belonging to the upper and wealthy 
 class. Such families, in a city, sometimes occupy 
 an entire house, or they may use suites of apart¬ 
 ments comprising one or two floors of the house, 
 renting the lower floor as stores or shops, and 
 
5 
 
 having a private entrance and staircase for their 
 own use. 
 
 These houses are of stone or oi^adobe, plastered 
 over, and often colored blue, yellow, green or 
 gray. Whether of one or several stories in height 
 they are always built around a court, with win¬ 
 dows and doors and corridors opening upon the 
 court. The grim exterior of many of the houses, 
 with their iron barred windows, massive entrances 
 and stone-paved halls, is relieved by glimpses 
 from the street, into the court, where flowers 
 bloom, fountains play, and statues hide among 
 the plants and orange trees. The large salas, or 
 parlors of these houses of the prosperous are 
 furnished richly if somewhat primly. Costly cur¬ 
 tains hang at the windows, and brightly-dyed 
 skins, or thick carpets are spread over the tiled 
 floors. There are pictures on the walls, and long 
 rows of chairs are arranged against the walls 
 facing each other, while at the end of the room 
 is the sofa, the seat of honor, flanked by a pair of 
 huge arm chairs or American rockers. A centre 
 table holds a medley of curious bric-a-brac, of 
 plaster images, marvellous vases filled with 
 grasses or topped by the many colored glass 
 balls intended for beautifying Christmas trees, 
 candle-sticks and lamps. There are no books to 
 be seen in the sala, as the room is devoted to the 
 reception of visitors and to family gatherings. 
 In the breezy corridors the ladies of the house sit 
 
 *A large sun-dried brick of a gray color. 
 
and work at embroidery and other sewing, while 
 the men ride or drive out to the haciendas (farms,) 
 or spend the day in office or store. 
 
 Breakfast is served at a more or less late hour, 
 and is a slight meal, a cup of coffee and bread 
 being what is u.sually required, and while some 
 dine at one o’clock, many lunch lightly at that 
 hour, then have inerienda, or afternoon lunch of 
 chocolate and buns or cakes, and dine at a late 
 hour of the evening. 
 
 The evening often finds happy domestic gather¬ 
 ings in the big sala, where the father and mother 
 are surrounded by their children, and merry con¬ 
 versation and music enliven the hours. Often the 
 theatre, concert, ball, or promenade in the electric 
 lighted plaza, or open square, interferes with the 
 family gathering at home, as the senoritas must 
 be chaperoned by the mother, aunt or other female 
 relation, at the dance, or in the strolls round and 
 round the beautiful square. In the plaza the de¬ 
 lightful music of. the far famed Mexican bands 
 charms the ear on certain evenings of each week, 
 the night-blooming jesssmine and the orange- 
 flowers fill the air with fragrance, and the geran¬ 
 iums and marguerites, grown to trees in size, 
 throw large shadows across the pavements where 
 the promenaders pace to and fro, the gentlemen 
 in one direction, the ladies in the other, constantly 
 meeting, constantly passing yet rarely exchanging 
 a word. 
 
Ten o’clock usually finds the plazas hushed and 
 the streets deserted by passers-by, though the 
 lights burn late in the home, and the cook and 
 house-maids are still clattering dishes in the 
 kitchen when the town clock points to ten. 
 
 Though there are no warm hearth-stones for 
 the Mexicans in winter, the sun shines always in 
 the court and street, and for warmth, the gentle¬ 
 men merely muflfie themselves in picturesque 
 cloaks, faced with velvet or plush, while the ladies 
 wrap their shawls more closely about their heads 
 and shoulders, and out-of-doors, even wear the 
 wide-sleeved imported cloaks with their Parisian 
 bonnets. In summer these fortunate ones go to 
 watering-places or baths, or to their country- 
 houses, closing the town-houses for the season. 
 
 Many travel abroad, to the United States, to 
 France, to Spain. 
 
 The family priest is a familiar and trusted friend, 
 especially among the women, and the light ocupa- 
 tions of the day—embroidery, drawn-work on 
 linen, and perhaps a little French novel-reading, 
 are varied by attendance upon mass, confession 
 and vesper services. 
 
 In short, the home-life and pleasures of the 
 so-called better class of Mexicans resembles that 
 of the rest of their brothers and sisters of a like 
 religion and civilization in other countries. 
 
 It is only in the last quarter of a century that it 
 has been considered necessary to teach the 
 women of the land anything beyond a knowledge 
 
8 
 
 of the “saints’ lives’’ and the prayer-books, a 
 great deal of exquisite embroidery and a little 
 music ; therefore, it is not surprising that these 
 are behind the men in a growing liberality of 
 opinion, and that they are still, in a measure, 
 ignorant of the common branches of knowledge 
 and religiously superstitious. 
 
 The pleasures and occupations of the middle 
 class are those of the higher on a slighter scale. 
 
 In attending the Sunday bull fights, these buy ! 
 their tickets for “seats in the sun’’ if unable to , 
 afford those “in the shade.’’ They patronize the 
 six-cent baths rather than those costing twenty- 
 five cents. The women of this class wear no 
 hats, always using black shawls instead, and they ' 
 often work to help in the support of their families I 
 as seamstresses, milliners and teachers in the ' 
 public schools. 
 
 The homes of this class are clean and attractive. ' 
 If no other picture adorns the walls of the home, 
 some representation of “ Mary the mother of j 
 God ” hangs there ; perhaps a picture of her is | 
 found in every room. Instead of the summer 
 spent at San Pedro, or a winter in the City of 
 Mexico, an outing, or paseo, on the street car 
 once a week is ample diversion for the family of i 
 the middle class. From many cities of the ! 
 republic the mule street-car lines run out into the ! 
 country for many miles to pleasant spots on the j 
 river, or to private gardens, which may be hired 
 by the year at a moderate cost, or to the delight- 
 
9 
 
 ful bathing establishments, where baths cost from 
 three cents upward. As the years pass, many of 
 the happy middle class are being brought to 
 attend our mission services, and now and then, 
 here and there, the gospel is introduced among 
 them by the conversion from Romanism of the 
 thoughtful, intelligent father, or of the boy or 
 girl in attendance upon our mission-schools. True 
 it has been that from the days of our Saviour’s 
 teaching in Syria until now, where we are trying 
 to fulfill his command of teaching “all nations,’’ 
 to the poor the good tidings are preached. Per¬ 
 haps it will always be that the gospel will first be 
 preached to those of low degree, however better 
 those of higher mental culture might seem to us. 
 
 Therefore, I turn with pleasure to the homes of 
 those among whom the missionary finds his 
 readiest hearer. These homes are not unworthy 
 of notice, though the house-walls are of adobe, 
 the floor often the ground upon which the walls 
 are built, and the furnishings common and scarce. 
 I have in my mind one home which may serve as 
 an example of hundreds of those and of others 
 belonging to the poor, yet perhaps not the most 
 destitute class. 
 
 The entrance opens directly from the narrow 
 sidewalk into a hallway, thence into a wide court¬ 
 yard, surrounded by the rooms of the house, all 
 of which are of one story, and covered with a 
 dingy, crumbling plaster. Several families occupy 
 this house, connected or not by ties of blood. 
 
10 
 
 Entering the court and turning to the left, there 
 is a doorway leading into a long room lighted by 
 this doorway and a small window high in the 
 wall and overlooking the street. The earth-floor 
 is worn into holes and ridges from much leaking 
 of the roof above and much trampling of san¬ 
 dalled feet. Here the family spends its days and 
 nights. The father makes a cheap kind of beer, 
 besides working at the huge hand-and-foot loom 
 in one corner of the room, and his small vat and 
 other appliances occupy a closet opening out of 
 the larger room. Posts here and there support 
 the roof, and the window is filled with bird cages 
 whose little occupants, canaries and gold-finches, 
 drown my voice while reading or speaking, and 
 from their nest on the sill tiny white mice scamper 
 over my hat brim and tickle my shoulder. 
 
 The mother and daughters work all day long, 
 winding the thread from hanks of dyed cotton on 
 short pieces of reeds, to be slipped into the 
 father’s shuttle, for weaving into scarfs. The 
 busy workers sit on low stools and turn their 
 wheels often in silence, yet I do not doubt that 
 grave subjects are at times discussed among 
 them, and I know that I have sometimes seen a 
 New Testament and a pair of spectacles lying 
 conveniently near a certain wheel. The babies, 
 little grandchildren, who live with their parents 
 in other parts of the house, sprawl on the floor or 
 slumber in their mothers’ laps, and work rarely 
 pauses during the whole day except for the simple 
 
11 
 
 preparation and eating of the midday meal of 
 beans and thin cakes of cornmeal. It takes many 
 hours of hard work to gain even the few cents 
 needed for the daily wants of a poor Mexican 
 family, whether the work be thread-winding, 
 blanket-weaving, shawl-fringe tying, tortilla¬ 
 making, or any of the more common trades. 
 
 In the house described, there is but one bed, 
 hard and narrow. I never learned which of the 
 family occupied that post of honor and comfort, 
 but it was easy to understand that the rest simply 
 folded blankets about them and stretched them¬ 
 selves upon the floor at night, happy if possesing 
 a cushion or a mat of reeds. 
 
 Sometimes I found the family at work in the 
 sunny court-yard with the blue sky overhead, and 
 hardy flowers blooming in boxes and pots at 
 their feet. The love of the Mexican woman for 
 her flowers is only surpassed by her intense love 
 for her children. Here, I must mention, that the 
 making of flower-jars is a branch of industry 
 much cultivated. On certain days in the week, 
 donkeys are driven in from the small ranches 
 near the cities, laden with immense cargoes of 
 red or yellow jars of every size and shape, to be 
 sold at the markets, from a cent and a half, in 
 price, up to several dollars. Large bananna trees 
 are raised in jars of the largest size, and the 
 delicate smilax and oxalis in the graceful little 
 ones, over which American travelers grow wild 
 and extravagant. The poorest family will have a 
 
12 
 
 green plant in the court, even if it be nothing i 
 more than a sprig of some savory herb, to season | 
 the broth. ^ 
 
 Sundays and the very frequent religious and j 
 national feast-days are observed as holidays by { 
 all classes, and no work is done from eve to eve. ! 
 Stores are closed and the streets filled with care- j 
 less and happy saunterers, and devout church ; 
 goers, while ^ 
 
 “Bells make Catholic the trembling air.’’ j 
 
 Bull-fight and theatre-plays have free course on < 
 such days, and the street cars are thronged with 
 pleasure seekers, at three cents each. Returning ;; 
 home at sunset, tired, yet contented, they lie I 
 
 down to sleep, needing but an inch of candle to >. 
 light them to their respective mats or beds. 
 
 It is wonderful to find how many homes con¬ 
 tain a relative, not one of the immediate family, 
 
 —an aged grandparent, an aunt, an orphan child, 
 who has been given to them or found in distress. 
 The patient, kindly Mexican opens his door, and ' 
 shares his *tortillas with the needy, and believes • 
 that he is pleasing God, and thus helping to save 
 his soul. 
 
 The Christian home, by which, I mean the 
 Protestant home, where parents are no longer 
 Roman Catholics, is essentially different in two 
 respects from the home of the Romanist. First, 
 the Bible is read lovingly and studiously, and it 
 is often the only book possessed beyond the 
 
 *Thin corti-cake, the national bread of Mexico. , I 
 
 ■i-r 
 
 ■. r j; 
 
 i. I 
 
13 
 
 paper-backed school books of the children, where 
 the children can be spared to attend scliool. Sec¬ 
 ondly, Sunday is observed as a day of sacred rest, 
 and by attendance upon worship in the mission 
 church. The children and adults attend Sunday 
 school and preaching services, and afterwards 
 spend the rest of the day in quiet reading or talk¬ 
 ing in their homes, until the evening service, 
 which is also faithfully attended. As the years 
 pass, and the children of Protestants marry, and 
 rear families, a Protestant ancestry is being es¬ 
 tablished. Few of the adult members of our 
 churches have had Protestant parents. Remem¬ 
 bering this, can we wonder at the weakness of 
 some of our Mexican brothers and sisters ? Truly, 
 the heritage of Christian foje fathers is a blessed 
 one, and parenthetically here, I would urge in¬ 
 creased interest in our Madero Institute for girls, 
 and the Zaragoza Institute for boys, both in 
 Saltillo, where many of the mothers and fathers 
 of the coming generation of Mexicans are being 
 instructed, not only in the Bible and Baptist 
 doctrines, but also in the principles of cleanliness, 
 orderly lives and loyalty to their country. 
 
 Since the partial emancipation of Mexico from 
 the rule of the clergy, legal marriage has become 
 possible for the lower classes. The exorbitant 
 demands of the priests, in former times, for the 
 payment of large sums upon a performance of the 
 marriage ceremony, hindered many a poor man 
 and woman from taking upon themselves any 
 
14 
 
 VOWS more binding than those imposed by their 
 relations to each other. The great patriot Juarez 
 had a part in the making of the law by which the 
 rights of civil marriage were restored to the courts, 
 so that the marriage ceremony, performed except 
 by a civil officer is no longer legal according to 
 the laws of Mexico. 
 
 Naturally, the devout Romanist has his civil 
 marriage confirmed or introduced by a religious 
 ceremony at the altar, if possible, but this is no 
 longer a necessary form. 
 
 Those who have been living out of wedlock 
 under such compulsion of fate, and who wish to 
 unite with our mission-churches, as members “in ! 
 good standing,” are of course required, before 
 admission, to submit to the legal ceremony of 
 marriage, and it makes one happy to realize the 
 greater peace and security resulting to both 
 parties in such a transaction, by the restraints of 
 a wise law imposed upon them. 
 
 A volume might be written to set forth' the 
 many interesting points in the home-life of the 
 Mexicans, impossible to be touched upon in this 
 space. I have not yet asked you to enter with 
 me the home of the utterly destitute, where the 
 worthless father drinks up the earnings of sober | 
 days, and leaves his wife to work her fingers to j 
 to the bone at fringe-tying, or corn-grinding, I 
 while the children beg in the streets, where the 
 miserable one room of the family is bare even of 
 mats, and a chair has to be borrowed from a 
 
15 
 
 neighbor, when the missionary visitor arrives, and 
 where the tortillas are few and far between. 
 
 To such, however, especially to such, are the 
 good tidings to be borne, and for such, a welcome 
 is always ready at the mission-house. I have 
 seen a work-worn mother wipe the tears from her 
 eyes, with a corner of her dirty cotton shawl, 
 while listening to the reading of the Bible in the 
 mission-chapel, and I have been convinced by the 
 sight, that to such as she, to the “poor” and the 
 “meek” the word of God is sent through us. 
 
 May God who “ always leadeth us in triumph 
 in Christ,” “ manifest through us the savour of his 
 knowledge in every place” and home in fair 
 Mexico! 
 
 J ' Janie Prichard Duggan, 
 Wake Forest, N. C. 
 
Mi55ion^ry H('Iper5. 
 
 KIND WORDS, the Sunday School paper pub¬ 
 lished by the Sunday School Board of Southern 
 Baptist Convention, has its fourth page in every 
 issue devoted to missions. From month to month, 
 S. B. C. fields. Home and Foreign, are presented. 
 A program, invaluable to Band leaders, appears 
 in the first number of each month, with a cate¬ 
 chism upon the country under study. Missionary 
 blackboard exercises of simple yet most suggest¬ 
 ive design are regularly furnished. The other 
 contents are varied in form—descriptions of 
 country, peoples, religions, sketches of mission¬ 
 aries, with suitable stories. Southern Baptist 
 Sunday Schools will keep their young people in 
 touch with S. B. C. through this paper. Mission 
 workers cannot afford to do without it. Weekly 
 issue, 50 cents per annum. 
 
 THE YOUNG PEOPLE’S LEADER is a bright, 
 wide-awake publication, prepared for young 
 people. It, too, has a valuable missionary depart¬ 
 ment, in line with S. B. C. missions. A weekly; 
 75 cents per annum. Sample copies sent, free, 
 on application to Baptist Sunday School Board, 
 Nashville, Tenn.