“The Protestant movement in Mexico has for the past year been making considerable progress, chiefly owing to the efforts of the American clergyman, Rev. H. Chauncey Reilly, a letter from whom upon this subject was forwarded by me, forming an enclosure to my No. 38, of August 9, 1869. There are now about fifty congregations or assemblies of Mexican Protestants in this city and vicinity, and an equal or greater number scattered throughout the country. Most of these assemblies still meet in private houses, though in some small places of the interior they form a numerical majority, and have, therefore, acquired possession of the parish churches. In this city, through the efforts and personal liberality of Mr. Reilly, the Protestants have acquired two fine churches of those which were secularized and sold by the government some years since; one of these is the former convent of San Francisco, the most magnificent as well as the first one erected in Mexico. It is now being repaired for its new use. The other is the commodious church of San José de Garcia, which, having been thoroughly repaired, was dedicated to the Protestant service on Sunday, the 23d instant, in the presence of an immense multitude. Two or three Catholic priests of some prominence have, within the past two or three months, joined the Protestant communion, and two of them have ventured upon the decisive step of matrimony. One of the recent converts, Father Manuel Auguas, formerly an eloquent preacher of the Dominican Order, has become the pastor of the new church. This event has caused a vigorous polemic in the newspapers of this city; the two papers considered especially Catholic have been filled with attacks upon the new religious movement, while most of the other papers have exhibited a commendable spirit of tolerance or even of good-will toward the Protestants. I enclose an interesting article upon this subject from the _Two Republics_ of to-day, translated from the _Federalista_, and written by M. Ignacio M. Altamirano, who is considered as the chief of the Mexican literary writers of the present day. Yours, etc.”