Through Brazilian Junglelands With the Book

THE very friendly reception accorded to my last book, “Adventures with the Bible in Brazil,” encourages me to publish further experiences of my travels for the Master in lesser known parts of this great Republic. To Him alone be all the glory.

It is remarkable how little is known abroad as to the actual conditions that exist in the far interior of a country nearly as large as the continent of Europe.

Of late years the southern states of Brazil have advanced very rapidly in every way, and could almost hold their own with many countries of the old world in matters of general prosperity, progress, and wealth. In the greater northern regions of the republic things are vastly different. As much of this territory yet remains to be discovered, it forms the greatest unexplored region in the world today, and is one of the most difficult and dangerous to penetrate, on account of the many Indian tribes therein, who resent the pale-face intruder. Since these forgotten tribes occupy so great an area of the country, it is necessary that some mention of them should be made, and several chapters will be found devoted to this fascinating subject.

Great as the progress of the Gospel has been, Brazil yet remains largely unevangelized, especially in the north, where, apart from the heroic band of Britishers working in dark Amazonia among the redskins, the number of missionaries directly engaged in preaching the Word does not exceed a score of men, with the co-operation of some thirty native preachers; this in a region over half the size of the United States of America. Nevertheless, much has been accomplished, as the reports of the Bible Societies can show, and never was the Book so well received as in Brazil at the present time.

Once again will be evidenced the fact of the power of God’s Word in humble, contrite hearts. As the days go by, this power is more and more in evidence, and as yet the Modernist Philistine has not dared to raise his uncircumcised head amongst us. To the writer it is an amazing thing to note the amount of time and effort the great missionary conventions and conferences devote to industrial and medical missions, to hospitals, universities, literature, philanthropy, and other means towards the saving of men, all good enough in their way, perhaps, and yet so very weak and fallible as compared with the Sword of the Spirit, the Word of God! If a tithe of the time spent in the consideration of the other matters referred to was directed to this means of God’s own provision, this infallible weapon of offense and defense, which never can fail wherever the good ground of sincerity and humility is found; if closer consideration were devoted to discovering ways and means of making fuller use of the Bible, of intensifying our circulation of the same, to our better training of colporteurs, and fuller co-operation with, and support of, the Bible Societies―then I feel assured that the results would be greater and richer all the world over; and, built upon the Word of God, would be safer and more enduring, and far more to His praise and glory in the great day at hand.

All true missionaries should be revolutionaries, in every age and clime. We seek, in the Name and with the aid of our great Captain, to overthrow the reigning prince of this world, and to set his captives free. We are rebels in the eyes of Apollyon, as well as in the estimation of his subjects of Vanity Fair. Years before my conversion on a Brazilian gold mine, I find that this same spirit of revolt was in action, as the following will manifest.

Only a few weeks before sailing to Brazil for the first time, though such a possibility was as yet undreamt of, I found myself in camp for the Easter maneuvers as a private of the 2nd Essex Volunteers. We were at Brentwood, training with the regular forces of the Army.

On the morning of Good Friday there came a break in the program, and we all formed up for church parade, marching to the barracks chapel with the regulars. After the usual beautiful and impressive service of the Church of England, the chaplain climbed up into the pulpit to preach―what a sermon! Though an unconverted man, I had an instinctive knowledge of the Truth, believed in the Bible, and strove for the faith that was in me. While working as an apprentice in a big locomotive works, I had endured much scorn and contempt because of my belief in God’s Word, unenlightened as I was, and as now I listened to the pompous, proud preacher, I knew he was untrue, and felt a hot indignation that these fine men were being given so unfair, unlovely, and untrue a representation of the message of Good Friday. Such men as this chaplain are as much a shame to the Gospel of Jesus Christ as any Roman Catholic priest could be.

The service over and the “dismiss” pronounced, it was natural for the men to discuss the parson, and to my added disgust I found that this representative of Christianity was cordially detested by the rank and file, especially as some had been put in prison at his instigation, for sleeping under his dreary discourses. To me it seemed so terrible that these soldiers were being trained to look upon Christianity as the worthless thing it seemed to be in that pulpit. I tried to be fair, however. “Perhaps he has no idea of how he is hated and despised,” I thought, “and thinks he is doing his best, nobody having the courage to open his eyes.” There and then I sat down in the barracks reading room and wrote him a letter. I don’t remember what I said, except that I gave him my own impressions of the service, spoke of the pity of it, mentioned the unbelief of the soldiers, and expressed a desire to have a talk with him at his convenience―all written in a studiously respectful manner. The letter finished, there came the moment to sign my name―and I hesitated. I remembered the bread and water, and the “solitary.” Then I thought of the chaplain’s red face, and the hard tones, and finally signed a “nom de guerre.” At the same time I indicated how he could let me know if he wanted to have a talk with me. Very cautiously I passed the letter through several hands to the sergeant of the guard, knowing that in due course the chaplain would receive it without being able to trace it back to me―somewhat cowardly, I admit―but then I was young and lacked the power of a regenerated life.

The rest of that day, and all Saturday, we marched and counter-marched over those Essex hills, and many were the hypothetically “killed and wounded;” yet, in the heat and fury of the fight, I could not forget that letter. At last Easter Sunday dawned on the camp, and there had been no reply, though I had cautiously inquired in safe quarters.

Once more the bugle called to church parade, and again we filed into the large barracks chapel, occupying one half of the building with our volunteer battalion, the regulars taking the rest of the space. The chapel had been seasonably decorated for the occasion with flowers and shrubs, and looked very attractive; while the commanding Colonel and the whole military staff were present in full uniform, as well as the officers wives―an imposing scene. The service passed off well, and the ventured choir sang an appropriate Easter anthem. Then came the sermon.

As the chaplain began to mount the pulpit steps an ominous presentiment came over me, and I felt as though I had become raised in my seat, or as if it were in far too prominent a position. At last the preacher came in view at the pulpit top, and I thought his face looked harder and certainly redder than ever. He paused, and his eyes roamed over the congregation. Was he looking for me? Had my letter not been in vain? Then he quietly gave out his chosen text. Again came a long pause, and a searching glance, what time he grew redder and redder, and in my imagination he seemed to swell. He opened his mouth several times, grew visibly more excited, and then―exploded! In all the years of his professional duties he had have improved his reputation. Another day of sham fighting followed, and then we disbanded and returned to our different occupations, but I resolved to continue the revolutionary correspondence as a private citizen. However, God had other plans for me, and within a few weeks I had signed a three-years’ contract with a foreign railway company, and had sailed away to Brazil.

Chapter 2: Early Days

“VERY few men are more than 16 years old when it comes to the pinch. So, if you can remember the style of a boy’s work, and more particularly of his play, you can make a close guess later on as to what he will do, and why, and how.”

Reading this, my mind goes roving into the past, and I realize that some of my revolutionary characteristics, and any faith or trust I may possess, had their beginnings well before the period mentioned by Rudyard Kipling.

At the age of twelve, when giants and dragons still seemed realities, I considered that every little town or village around Walthamstow demanded discovery and exploration, and was as full of promises of high enterprise and adventure as my youthful mind could dream of, or my ambition desire, Hearing my father speak of a little town named Park, separated from us by what appeared to be very enchanting country, where lived an aunt of mine, I marked this as the objective of my next exploration. Very early one morning I stealthily aroused my six-year-old brother George, and, with many whispered promises of great gain and honor, backed up by the display of a brand new three-penny bit, I drew him out of doors before anybody was about, and we set out to visit our relative, determined to be back for breakfast.

Nobody saw us depart, and the streets were deserted at that early hour; but as I had carefully inquired beforehand as to the direction to be taken, very soon we were well out of town, having for additional company our father’s pet Pomeranian pup.

The route seemed a rather devious and difficult one, as we had to pass through several other townships, but adventures soon came our way.

Before it was fully day we reached an old-fashioned wayside inn, with a large beer garden attached. There was an air of mystery and wickedness about the place that seemed very fascinating. There were odd-looking plaster statues of Bacchus and Venus, a dancing platform, some queer-shaped summerhouses, and other attractions; and as the side gate had been left open, I drew my wee brother into this strange new world. I regret to say that in order to enhance the effect, I persuaded him that he was a very privileged person, and that this treat had cost me―I don’t remember how much I said, but he opened his blue eyes wider than ever.

Then came a desert stretch with no houses, but with two wonderful “huge lakes,” I called them, though in reality they were only reservoirs, and by the time we reached the next village we were hungry lads, and the two halfpenny buns did not go far. We were growing tired, but very soon, on reaching the banks of a small river, we were simply fascinated by the sight of the oddly-colored barges, and the dark, deep lock, and at once forgot our hunger and weariness. Having heard that a grandfather of ours had once been some important authority on the river directorate, I was emboldened to board a very rakish-looking barge, and addressing a big, burly bargee, I said, “Please, sir, Mr. Glass was our grandfather; can we have a ride?” The man stared at us in a very surprised but good-natured fashion, and, though I don’t suppose he had ever heard of this grandfather, we were soon “all aboard” on the good ship, dog and all, on a tremendous adventure, traveling upstream to the next lock. My late descent of the big rapids of the Tocantins was not half so thrilling, and even today I never see one of those sturdy old barges, with their lovely smell of tar, without experiencing a delightful and inexplicable thrill. As we walked back along the towpath, again (once more I blush for shame) I duly informed my little brother that he was a most fortunate boy, and that this naval trip had been a great expense to me, and I fear there were several other similar “expenses” during that day.

We now felt in high feather, and passing through Tottenham town we soon reached Park. Only then I began to realize that we were faced with an unforeseen difficulty―I had not my aunt’s address! Nobody seemed to know the lady; until I thought to visit the railway station, though there the stationmaster shook his head gravely―he had never heard the name.

By this time we were both desperately hungry, and beginning to feel that things were not quite “according to plan,” when a sympathetic porter thought he remembered the lady, and soon we were hopefully knocking at the door of our much-sought-for relative. Our aunt opened the door herself, and at once gave way to expressions of astonishment and alarm on hearing our story. However, she soon prepared us a good breakfast, and our spirits revived accordingly; but without allowing us to rest, she at once packed us off home again, with the strictest injunctions to make haste about it.

It was now well past midday, and we began to remember we had a home, but I reassured George as to just what my father would say, by telling him that after so brave an adventure nothing could be said. In this very righteous mood we were rapidly covering the ground, and were just clear of Tottenham, when my brother exclaimed in great alarm, “Where is the dog?” In vain we searched around, calling and whistling. The dog was lost! The spirit of heroics rapidly evaporated as we thought of reaching home without the family pet. Sadly and very heavily we turned back to the last town, looking everywhere―but no Nell was to be seen. We had given up hope; it seemed a terrible catastrophe, when, finding ourselves in a secluded lane, we thought we might pray about it. Down we knelt together by the side of that hedgerow, and very earnest was our prayer. Suddenly, ere yet we had finished our supplications, a loud bark brought us to our feet, and, oh! most wonderful and joyful thing, the beautiful little dog came bounding towards us! This answer to prayer made a deep and never-to-be-forgotten impression on my young mind, and well I remember how, but a few years later, when hopelessly striving against the entanglement of a hated sin, the thought of the past came back, and I fell on my face before God and sought His deliverance, and deliverance came―once and for all.

Our travels were now nearing their end, though the barges had proved too strong a temptation against our aunt’s commands, and it was drawing very close to “the end of a glorious day” as we began to enter Walthamstow again. Then came a bolt from the blue! A dreadful giant bore down upon us in the shape of a burly policeman, who had been watching us for some minutes.

Tremblingly we replied to his questions; it seemed so terrible to be spoken to by a real, live policeman. Greater still was our alarm when he informed us that all the police of the district were on the lookout for two missing boys, adding, “And your mother is in a fine pickle about you. You had better walk on ahead quickly, and I’ll follow just behind.”

What an awful procession that was! What fearful criminals we seemed; how terribly tired we suddenly felt; and poor Georgie began to whimper. On reaching home we found everything in a tumult. We were supposed to be drowned, and my distracted mother was still out searching for us wherever streams or ponds were to be found. Very humbly I crawled up to the top attic to await my father’s return from the city, fully prepared for the worst. Downstairs, my little brother soon gave a very detailed account of our travels, and dwelt upon the amount of money I was supposed to have spent by the way, all of which greatly surprised the family. The financial side of our adventures troubled my father, however, and I found it far too difficult to explain, and so, of course, the inevitable happened, leaving me a sadder, though, I hope, a wiser boy, and here we shall draw the curtain.

Not many years later, in eighteen-eighty something, another event took place of a very different character, though with a happier ending.

I had left school at an early age, and was beginning what was to have been a great career in the “Daily Chronicle” office in Fleet Street, London, though I fear I did not yet realize the importance of life. For some weeks, instead of having a good dinner of beef and potatoes in a certain lane off Fleet Street, I had contented myself with a jam puff, a scone, and a glass of milk, spending the balance in fireworks for the coming 5th of November. With some sense of self-importance, I meant to have a special display that year, such as might well impress the neighbors. When the great day dawned many shillings had been spent in the way just indicated, and yet when lunch time came round, I used all my dinner money to buy a few small odds and ends for my younger brothers.

When I returned to the office it was still early, and it was a cold, foggy day, so down into the vaults I went. Beneath the great office I found a group of juniors warming themselves at the charcoal fires, which were kept burning day and night to keep dry the proof files of the great paper, which had been set aside daily since the first publication a hundred years ago and more. On such a day these fires were very attractive, but, alas! on this fatal occasion some imp or other must tempt me to poke a squib or two in the embers, and to test the efficacy of the crackers. A harmless performance it was, but a vast amount of smoke was unwittingly produced.

The clock struck one, and, quite unconscious of impending tragedy, we all made our way upstairs to our respective desks, and were soon engrossed in our duties.

A little later, a chance remark of one of the clerks caused me to glance towards the door of the vaults, and to my horror I saw a thin curl of gunpowder smoke issuing from beneath, and soon a pungent smell of fireworks began to fill the office. After that sight I dared not raise my eyes from the ledger, though I soon became aware of considerable comment and some kind of investigation going forward around my head. The very next thing I remember was feeling a tap on the shoulder from the chief of the department, and hearing the awful words: “The general manager wants to see you in Salisbury Square.” The private office of that great man was a kind of “holy of holies” to us youngsters, and he himself a very awesome being, never seen, and far more potent than Queen Victoria herself.

The dread interview was stern and brief, and though I otherwise had a good character, I was now requested to hand in my resignation forthwith; and thus, rather ignominiously, ended my journalistic career. That same night, away upstairs in bed, I lay listening with very mixed feelings to the loud shouts of glee from the children in the garden below as they let off all my fireworks, bought at such a cost. I felt I was surely the most miserable boy on earth... but, there came another day.

Twenty years now passed, when again I found myself walking down Fleet Street, and very much had happened in that interval. Best of all, I had found Christ as my Saviour while working on the deepest gold mine in the world, in Central Brazil, and I was now a missionary, home for my first furlough. There had been trouble in the house that morning, as our baby had turned on the bath taps, with damaging results, and the landlord had informed me that there would be ₤2 to pay. Funds just then were rather low, but we had made it a matter of prayer. The reader will be wondering what all this could have to do with the firework incident; well, we shall see.

As I walked along the old street, full of memories of days long past, the “Chronicle” office came in view, and, of course, I had to look in and see if any of the old generation yet remained. They did, and we had a great time talking and laughing together over those bygone times, nor was the Guy Fawkes incident forgotten. Then somebody suggested that I should visit the chief. It never is easy work to gain admission to such a man, but when finally I persuaded the beadle to let me enter, the awesome inmate looked up at me in rather a worried manner, and said, “What can I do for you, sir?”

“The last time I entered here was twenty years ago, sir,” I replied; adding, “and then it was to get the sack.”

“Oh,” said the big man, “take a seat.”

We had a most interesting and friendly talk together, in which it transpired that he was a Christian. Of course I had much to say about Brazil, and especially about the newly-awakening interest in her numerous tribes of redskins. As I rose to leave, the chief was most cordial, and said, “Do write us up something about those Indians, and we will put it in the paper.”

The article was written and duly published, and a few days later, to our great surprise, I received a three-pound check from the editor, which fully met the landlord’s claims―and covered the cost of those long-lost fireworks, too.

Chapter 3: Revolutionaries

WE certainly had rather a revolutionary look about us, more especially my two companions. It was Gillanders’ first journey on horseback in Brazil, and he had a very rugged, sunburnt frontispiece. Antao, our wise and faithful trooper, colporteur, cook, and a host of things besides, nevertheless had a very Sancho Panza appearance, with his round, but very black, unshaven face and a rather freshly-split nose―a result of his last wood-chopping―while I created some suspicion on account of my peculiar-looking straw hat, and still more so because of my carrying some compromising maps of the very region most involved in the plans of the revolutionaries now troubling this part of the country. Everybody exclaimed, “Here come the revoltosos!” It was most embarrassing. At a sudden turn in a forest I met one man who, on seeing me, at once unslung his gun, and deliberately dropped his ramrod down the barrel―to let me know it was loaded.

At one place we were virtually prisoners for some time, and barely escaped being shut in behind the bars. The authorities were astonished when I insisted that we were not at all afraid of the times; that our books were just what the country itself, and especially the revolutionaries, needed, and that if they would help us to circulate them it would soon stop the revolution.

They shook their heads gravely, and the crowd which stood gazing on us evidently considered we should be walked off and shot at once, for I was said to be a colonel of the opposing force.

At last we were reluctantly released, and hastened to depart; but barely had we swum our animals across the local river, and paddled ourselves and our baggage across the same, when we were again pursued and arrested. We were still suspected persons, and were ordered to be searched.

They examined all our baggage most carefully for bombs―but only found Bibles. This so impressed one of the police authorities that he at once purchased our very best book, and furthermore, invited us to put up at his farm on the way. After presenting a New Testament to the city judge, and distributing Gospels among the soldier guards, we were again released, and, pushing on to the aforesaid farm, we held a most impressive Gospel meeting among the farm hands, some twenty folk or more, who listened to all that we sang and said with deep and earnest attention; it was all so new and strange―yes, we were revolutionaries all right!

Night after night we put up at some rough farmhouse or other, and though they were a little suspicious at first, we were always well received by the farmers, especially after we had given them a taste of our hymnbook, and so prepared the way for the little Gospel meeting which always followed. One soon forgot the weariness of the day’s ride.

Our good colporteurs had twice visited those regions some years before, and now I could see the result of their work.

In one very remote farmhouse I found an old man, well over eighty, who was manifestly converted through the reading of one of these Bibles. His sons were all old gray-beards, and his grandsons had big families—quite a community, and all professing to follow the religion of their patriarch, a man of fine physique, with a happy Gospel shine on his face, but now very deaf, and an invalid in his last days. But, alas, only the old man could read, and he had never heard the Gospel properly explained, and did not know how to make things clear to his children, or how to lead them to the Lord. After a long and interesting meeting among all these men and women, I sought to deal personally with one of the younger married men, and eventually we went out together into the dense neighboring forest, and there in mutual prayer we settled the matter. When he rose to his feet, he exclaimed, “I’m so satisfied.”

I hope and believe that he will now be able to show his other relatives, old and young, this simple but royal road to Christ and eternal life. This made the fourth conversion on our journey.

On reaching Piranhos, on the banks of the great Sao Francisco River, we were again arrested, and the police said they had bad information about us. We seemed hemmed in on every side; with no escape from the revolutionaries on the one hand, or from the still more-to-be-dreaded Government forces on the other.

Just when we were in real perplexity, Gillanders rooted out some old documents he found among his baggage, and laid them before the suspicious magistrates. They were of rather an imposing character, with many strange stamps and seals, albeit of little real value, and all in English. The authorities could not understand a word of them, and probably were ashamed to confess their ignorance, but they were evidently dazzled by those seals―one, I think, was a Bible Institute Diploma―so without further ado they decided to let us depart. We did not do so without first selling a few Scriptures in the place.

Our departure was no easy matter either; nevertheless, it was imperative to get a move on, as there was neither pasturage nor corn for the troop, and we might be rearrested at any moment. At this crisis I persuaded the owner of a huge, old dug-out canoe, at a big price, to embark our animals, though we had a tremendous, tail-twisting job to get them all aboard. Just when we were ready to push off, a policeman appeared at the river side. I was “wanted” once more. This time it was the State fiscal who hinted at taxes and fines for selling books without a license, and my heart sank, for funds were low. Happily, I succeeded in convincing the man that our work was not a mere business concern, but that we were conferring a great boon and blessing on the country in circulating such books at such a trifling cost that all could purchase; and thus I escaped again. A few minutes later we were facing the difficult navigation of the great river Sao Francisco, at the mercy of its swift, swirling, muddy waters, in our precarious and primitive barque.

The journey took us the best part of the day, and was not without its exciting moments, especially when the mules started a little revolution of their own and threatened to kick the canoe to smithereens.

It was a great relief to us when, late that night, we sighted the little town of Pao de Assucar (Sugar Loaf), though some of the inhabitants seemed to be surprised at this aquatic invasion.

We had a profitable time at Sugar Loaf, though not as sweet as might have been expected. There still remained the ruins of a Protestant mission, now in deep spiritual decay.

The old leader, although he had done a good work in the past, was now a spiritual and physical wreck, on the verge of dissolution. He seemed possessed with an evil spirit, as a result maybe of dabbling in spiritism, or accepting their Satanic waters in his illness. After waiting on God, we were led to rebuke the evil spirit. From that moment until we left a day or two later, there was a marked change in the poor old man: a change for good, and there were no more blasphemies, or paroxysms of temper as before. To God be all the glory! We canvassed this place thoroughly with the Scriptures, but it was uphill work on account of the circumstances referred to, and also because the whole countryside was in a state of panic, and all trade was paralyzed. Here we met a rustic friend, who gave us news of a community of folk who were also of this “Nova Seita” (New Sect). They lived about thirty miles away, and, as he offered to guide us there by some little-known by-paths, quite unfamiliar to the warring parties, we accepted his offer, set out, and reached the place that same night, we riding our mules, and our guide running ahead through the tangled by-paths.

Here we found three or four families with one Bible between them, for only one of the number could read. They had never heard a Gospel sermon, or a Gospel hymn or prayer, or even seen a Gospel preacher. I held a little two days’ convention there, among some sixty people. Naturally, it was largely of a doctrinal and instructional character. They showed great sincerity and simplicity. Our principal gathering was under a large spreading tree, and some of the listeners were smoking, but as soon as I pointed out the evil of that vice they at once dropped their cigarettes. Many were really converted people and happy in their faith, in spite of persecuting neighbors. We arranged for six of these people to be taught to read the Book that had wrought such wonders, and a little later a school was established in their midst.

In nearly every place we found the people willing and hungry for the Word of Life. I was glad to have a good supply of little Gospels of St. John, so cheap that anybody could buy, or which we could afford to give away wherever the humble cent was not available. The country folk are so kind and hospitable that it was good to be able to repay their goodness with some such precious Word of Life as a single Gospel can convey.

On our return journey, one evening we rode into the little township called Poco das Trincheiras. The very atmosphere seemed thick with fanaticism, superstition, and crime; a kind of outlawed place it was, of one family tree. I have rarely seen such evil-looking men, and how they scowled at us when we entered the place and they had learned our business. They had no priest, in spite of an imposing church building, but there seemed to be many clerical relationships among them, and all seemed Catholics of the Borgia type. The head man of the place was tall and dark, with a very intelligent, but rather grave and forbidding face. However, he possessed one excellent characteristic. It appears that he has ever made it his special practice and pride to be hospitable to all travelers, without making any distinction, and he evidently could not break his rule on our account; so to our vast amazement we were, shortly after our arrival, invited into his very large house, the best in the place, and were soon seated at one of the finest spread tables I have seen in Brazil, while his wife and family waited on us assiduously―it was a surprise!

Just before sitting down I had given the youngest of the family, a boy of about twelve years of age, a little Gospel of John, which he at once began to read with extraordinary interest. When the feast was over, the boy was still reading. Then I asked if they liked music. Of course they did, and we sang them some of our most beautiful Gospel hymns―and how beautiful they are! Soon the fine sala was filled, and the people even crowded a kind of gallery on the floor above us. Never had such sounds and such sweet words charmed the hearts of these sad-faced folk, but throughout it all the little son of the family never took his eyes from that John’s Gospel.

After this I essayed, in a casual manner, to read a passage of Scripture―the story of the dying thief― to which I added a little commentary of my own, the Lord helping me. The most attentive and earnest listener was the wife of our host, though at this point most of the men arose and left―it was too pointed for their Catholic faith to tolerate―but the little lad kept on reading, reading!

That night we slept in high state in most luxurious spring beds, with fine bed linen and curtains, and other furniture to match, and we almost lost the revolutionary feeling.

Early next morning, after a refreshing swim, we began to canvass the town with our books. At once our kind but sinister looking host looked graver still, and said, “You had better not; we are all Catholics. You will sell none of these books here.” I smilingly assured him that probably he was right, but that at least we could do our duty and try. We did try, but it was not easy work; for though the men of the place might tolerate us as travelers and guests, it was dangerous work selling Scriptures. We canvassed house by house, and succeeded in selling fifty Scriptures, the most successful worker being Mr. Gillanders, who had landed from New Zealand only six weeks previously. Then we quietly collected our animals, saddled up, and were off while matters were yet in an easy state, and the way was open—but not without leaving a New Testament and a “Traveler’s Guide” in the hands of the hospitable wife of our gloomy host, who received them gratefully.

And so the seed was sown in many kinds of soil. It may be that the most unlikely may prove to be the most fertile, and that little boy, with his John’s Gospel, may become the harbinger of a new spirit and a new hope in a place where Satan has ruled so long.

We rode home to Garanhuns after our 400-mile journey with glad and thankful hearts, and none the worse for our experiences as revolutionaries of the Lord. During this journey our sales were: 107 Bibles; 203 New Testaments; 1630 Gospels, and 130 “Traveler’s Guides.”

Chapter 4: Through Jungle Land

SETTING out from Garanhuns with Mr. Gillanders for a companion, a good load of Scriptures and tracts, a few pots and pans, and a pick-ax, our first objective was Aguas-Bellas―a town about a hundred miles away. Here three good meetings were held, and at the close of the last one, in response to my appeal, seven men and women quietly rose to their feet as a sign of their acceptance of Jesus Christ as their Lord and Saviour.

To my dismay, I found that an intimation sent to another place some seventy miles beyond had not been forwarded, so that nobody would be expecting us. To remedy this somewhat, I purchased a dozen loudexplosive rockets at Aguas Bellas. As towards nightfall we neared the little community of Bananeiras, I sent up my rockets, which echoed and re-echoed over the surrounding forest-clad hills, and created quite a sensation―not to say a scare―through that countryside. Result: we had a crowded meeting that night among the thirty converts and their families and neighbors, the visible fruit of our previous colportage work and last year’s visit. After another meeting among these fine folk early next morning, we pushed on, and for another week or two we continued in the same direction, leaving Scriptures and tracts all along the trail, and holding many little meetings, mostly of the farmhouse order. We visited the wonderful falls of Paulo Affonso, 250 feet high, on the great Sao Francisco river, one of the least known of the world’s wonders, and after covering many hundreds of miles of rough country we eventually reached the city of Joazeiro, in the State of Ceara.

Joazeiro is one of the largest inland cities of Northern Brazil, a regular jungle town of thousands of mud huts. It is like a kingdom within a kingdom, and is ruled and fortified by a preposterous priest who claims Divine authority and attributes for all his strange and perilous pretensions. He has completely fascinated and fanaticized all that part of Brazil, and is worshipped as a miraculous saint. Famed far and wide, he draws many thousands of poor, ignorant, ragged, and travel-worn pilgrims to this, Mecca of Brazil. There is neither constitution nor law in Joazeiro, for the very Government fears this priest, and nobody can buy or sell without his consent. It was clearly a dangerous place for Gospel workers, and this was to be the first attempt to pierce its walls with the Word of God. At this point we were joined for a while by Senhor Antao, our faithful colporteur; so, after prayer was made, we divided the city up between us, and half-tremblingly launched out. Within ten minutes I had sold a Bible in the first house entered. It was imperative to work as briskly and unobtrusively as possible, for the danger was only too evident. Nevertheless, it is doubtful if we should have escaped alive or intact if much prayer had not been made. God’s hand covered us, and only when we had practically finished all we had set out to do, and sold about twenty-five Bibles and Testaments and many Gospels, did the storm break, and I was brutally ordered by one of the priest’s cut-throats to clear out of the place within two hours. “How dare you sell these new-sect books in this holy city?” he shouted.

A printed handbill soon appeared, directed against us, and one of the chief men in the place, a strong apoplectic Catholic, created an uproar in the hotel which formed our temporary headquarters. The situation was alarming, and I might easily have been torn to pieces by the ignorant rabble. Happily, my companions were still at work in another part of the city, ignorant of all this, and in less than half an hour I had so cooled down my hot-headed antagonist that he apologized and wanted to buy a Bible. Strange to say, in another town not twenty miles away, we were so well and so kindly received by the inhabitants that we had more demands for the Bibles than we had books with us to supply―our relay of Scriptures being in another city 30 miles distant.

Leaving the benighted state of Ceara, we hurtled along in the Ford through a lonely big forest with few inhabitants, and soon ascended the great divide which separates that state from the more westerly one of Piauhy. We had a very hard time of it that first afternoon, climbing up the rugged tracks of the great Ariripe Plateau.

My companion had more nerve―and youth―than I possessed, so he took the wheel, while I walked on ahead, far up the precipitous road, to keep an eye on the luggage and carriers, and mend the road. Whenever I heard the old Ford groaning and roaring far away down the hill, it became the occasion for specially earnest prayer―as very often happened on the journey―and when the headlights of the car began at last to appear, an hour or two later, great was my relief and joy.

Soon we were keenly on the lookout for some place where we could pass the night. Naturally, we were very tired and hungry, too, and every fitful firefly in imagination was transformed into some desirable sheltering hut, for our radiator was far too dry and dirty for us to contemplate with satisfaction the idea of another camp in the forest that night, with radiator soup and―ugh!―radiator tea.

Darkness falls very rapidly in these latitudes, and soon we had to reduce speed to avoid losing ourselves in the enfolding jungle.

Swinging round one of the numerous and abrupt curves in the forest track, quite suddenly we came upon one of the most bizarre scenes I can record. A large, high-pitched, thatch-roofed house (if such it could be called), open to the wind on three sides, seemed to promise poor accommodation―but the very quaint appearance of the large group of its inmates, lit up by the strong light of our car, gave good promise of an interesting time. Three or four men of rather ruddy and fair complexion―for Brazil― whose bearded faces beamed with good nature, and about the same number of picturesquely attired women and some few children, some of them with white sheets over their heads because of the cold, gave us a warm-hearted reception, and soon helped us to unload the car and make ready to pass the night. A homely meal was prepared of mandioca-root flour, sweet potato, and salt meat, and by that time we were quite one of the family, heartily laughing at each other’s humorisms, one of their young men being the source of much innocent amusement by his clever mimicry.

Supper over, I broached the matter of a meeting to welcoming ears, and let them into the mystery of the lantern we carried, The excitement became intense among old and young: it was such a great and unheard of thing in those wilds. The lantern was vowed to be the very latest and most wonderful invention of the civilized world, and somehow or other they soon managed to rig up a screen with an old towel of doubtful hue, which had evidently been used for every other purpose than its ostensible one.

The subject chosen was “Pilgrim’s Progress,” and the audience seemed to have as much to say about the pictures as the showman himself; but as it was all done in a respectful and intensely interesting manner, no objection was made. Nevertheless, I was enabled to finish with a little talk in a quieter mood, and to reply to a few pertinent questions from my rugged-looking audience.

It was quite late ere our new friends would allow us to turn in, but as it was a fine night, with no wind, we slept soundly till daybreak.

While preparing to push on I was approached by a young man of the previous night’s audience, who could read fairly well, and who keenly wanted a New Testament. Of course, we decided to let him have one, but for his own sake, human nature being what it is, especially among the gipsies, we did not give it to him, as we could have done. We therefore obtained our purpose, and the man his New Testament, by swapping hoes―his was a little less dilapidated than the one we carried―to straighten up the hills and holes en route. We also stipulated strongly that the book was to be read aloud to all, and as our gipsy friends are pretty sure to keep him to his promise, well, something is going to happen some day in that far-away forest!

We were just well on our way west, when right across our path stood a fine-looking young woman, with a colored scarf tied over her hair, and two children by her side. She, too, had been one of the overnight’s congregation, for several families had been present. We pulled up the car smartly, and smilingly she presented each of us with a lovely red rose. Thanking her warmly, we were about to move on when she hesitatingly ventured to ask me for a sheet of writing paper. Surprised at the request, I managed to find the article among our luggage, and gave it to her; but she handed it back again, saying, “Oh, sir, will you please write me out a prayer for a woman that is a sinner to pray?”

Taking her just where I found her, I complied by writing out in a clear, bold hand: “Oh, God, be merciful to me, a sinner, for Jesus Christ my Saviour’s sake, Amen!” And I gave her a Gospel.

Then we rode on into the forest.

Travel now became very difficult, and the country was more thinly populated, with towns a hundred miles apart, but we rarely failed to have a meeting of some kind every day. We used our lantern to good effect from time to time, showing slides of “The Pilgrim’s Progress” and Old Testament pictures, which furnished excellent occasion for teaching the Truth, especially the concluding picture―Moses and the serpent―which never fails to drive home God’s plan of salvation. In one little township, a rendezvous of the terrible bandit, Lampedo, we took the place by guile, offering to give a free lantern lecture. The whole village turned up to what they expected to be a cinema show, and heard a full Gospel Message instead.

We were soon in forest and jungle land with a vengeance, and the going was very heavy at times. Our car resembled a mowing machine for several hundred miles, and the amount of stuff we plowed up by the way each day would suffice to cook a good meal. It was traveling by faith, for the trail was out of sight, completely hidden by forest growth, which was sometimes as high, and higher, than the car itself. Many a night we spent in these lonely tiger-infested forests, though a good campfire ensured a quiet time. Some of the hill-climbs seemed almost impossible, making us feel badly the need of more horse-power than our gallant old Ford provided, and several times we needed the strong arms of a dozen men and youths to hoist us up bodily over the rocks and chasms of these rarely traversed regions; but wherever we went, mountain top or valley, forest or desert, there the Word was preached and the Bible left in the hands of the people.

Once we found ourselves benighted in a dense forest, with no water to cook our evening meal, and weary of radiator tea―a common resource―whilst it was far too dark to see the character of the country passed through. At length a glimmer of a fire was seen among the forest trees, and a closer examination revealed a little mud hut with somebody in it. After sundown these country folk will very rarely open their doors, or even reply to any questions from passing travelers, for bandits are far too frequent these days. On this occasion, however, the invisible inmates received our pot and rice over the top of the barred log door, and cooked us a badly needed meal. We passed the night under the lean-to thatch outside, and early next morning beheld the faces of our hosts. They were three lonely women, and very soon we had a grand opportunity of preaching to them. Rarely have I experienced such glad attention to God’s Good News as in that little log hut.

At last, after nearly 1300 miles of travel, we struck a bit of civilization again in the city of Floriano, on the banks of the big Parnahyba River, which divides the two states of Piauhy and Maranhao. Here we were delighted to find a small Baptist congregation of very real and well-taught converts, though they rarely receive a pastoral visit. In the whole vast state of Piauhy, as large as Great Britain and Ireland, there are only three native pastors and one missionary. Throughout our whole journey we came across only three small Christian congregations, although these fields are already “white unto harvest.”

In Floriano we made a careful canvass of the city, street by street and house by house, selling about sixty Bibles and Testaments, and many Gospels, and having many interesting conversations with the people, who received us well. We finished up with a splendid and inspiring meeting of several hundred people, many of whom came straight from the Catholic Church (where special services were being held to worship the Virgin Mary, whose month it was), to attend our gathering. One felt the Truth was going home. All this so stirred up the local priest that he sent a man who threw a burning Bible at us. Then he prepared a vitriolic manifesto, and sent it to the printer’s that it might be ready to broadcast through the city as soon as we were well out of the way. It was a terrible production, that might even have made an Anglo-Catholic blush for shame, and I wish that space would permit me to reproduce it integrally, as a sample of the Christianity after which, they hanker. I will, however, merely translate several paragraphs of this Catholic Apostolic (?) production.

“CATHOLICS, AWAKE!”

“It seems that the gates of Hell have been burst, and that legions of demons there detained have been scattered over this city, and all over our beloved Piauhy, in order to pervert souls.

“We are informed that there are going about among us two pseudo Englishmen, emissaries of the fatal heresy of Protestantism, engaged in a subtle, secret, infamous, and audacious propaganda to de-Christianize our country!

“They are sellers of false Bibles of Protestant origin labeled as Catholic.

“Catholics of Floriano! Repel with dignity these intruders, enemies of our faith, our families, and our traditions; enemies also of our free country.

“People of God! Vote a solemn contempt for these carriers of accursed heresy, mercenary sellers of false books; not receiving them into your houses, avoiding their friendship.

“Burn the books which in good faith you may have bought; thus their diabolic propaganda among us will be of no effect.

“TO THE FIGHT! TO THE FIGHT!”

It is difficult to imagine the mentality of a man capable of writing such inflammable rubbish. Into such dense dark jungles Rome leads its victims. Unhappily for the intentions of the reverend canon, the printer employed by him was a good friend of our host, and he ran across the road and surprised us with a copy of the priest’s bombshell, just wet from the press. “I shall earn enough with this to buy a Bible!” he exclaimed, and he proved as good as his word.

We were bound to leave that afternoon, and had only two or three hours to spare. It proved sufficient for me to write off a counter-bulletin, in the same form as the priest’s, to be scattered through the city as soon as the priest had launched his bolt at our absent heads. The rejoinder was largely Scriptural, and briefly read as follows:

“UM CONTO DE (₤25).

“The undersigned, British subject, of London, England, employed by the Bible Societies, which are not affiliated with any religious denomination, in view of the bulletin published by the vicar of Floriano, so full of inexactitudes and injuries, herewith offers the sum of Urn Conto de (₤25), if it can be proved that anything in the books we have sold in this city is not equally to be found in the priest’s own Bible.

“What is the motive of this conspiracy of the modern clergy in depriving us of our undeniable right, and our solemn obligation to read the Word of God for ourselves? Why so much fear and clamor? Is it because the vicar’s own Bible contains many such passages as the following?”―then came a striking series of Bible quotations, re the sin of idolatry, concerning the ONE Saviour and Sacrifice; that grace is free and full, and that the bishops should be married men; and other topics, concluding with the remark, “All this is in the priest’s own Bible; hence the reason of his interesting bulletin, for which I thank him, and which I shall take to England as an exuberant proof, not of the good education and courtesy of the illustrious sons of this progressive and emancipated city, which. I gladly acknowledge, but of the ecclesiastical intellect and the moral character of a man who styles himself a minister of God.

“Meanwhile, the ₤25 are at the disposal of the vicar or anybody else who cares to accept the challenge.

“(Signed) FREDERICK C. GLASS,

“GARANHUNS,

“9th May, 1928.”

On our journey we varied our itinerary somewhat in order to include several other cities (we canvassed thirty-two in all), and considering the terrible poverty abounding after three successive years of drought, our sales of Scriptures were good, little opposition was met with, and we even sold a Bible to an aged Catholic priest, He was a trifle suspicious, however, and asked Mr. Gillanders to what religion he belonged. “To the religion of the Holy Scriptures,” was the wise reply. The priest made no rejoinder.

Many other meetings were held, one being in the open air, after dark, at the close of a village fair. Here again the lantern proved of the greatest value. One young man was so impressed that he bought a number of Testaments to sell again.

In another place a woman handed over all her long-treasured and beloved idols, some of which were of real value, that we might carry away and destroy them. But enough. I have said sufficient to show that in the faraway jungles of Brazil, the old time Gospel has still its attraction and charm for all who are sincere at heart, and humble before God.

Of course, we had our troubles—broken springs, burnt bearings, etc., and heavy expense; but it was well worth it all a thousand times.

Our total sales were about 120 Bibles, 280 Testaments, and many hundreds of Gospels.

Chapter 5: Prospecting in North Brazil

A GOOD map of South America is one of the best textbooks of modern missionary enterprise. The more it is studied in its tremendous scope and varied aspects, the greater grows its fascination and its lure for the man on the look out for the most neglected and needy fields of the earth. The writer has a great weakness for maps of any kind, more especially for those concerning the great land of Brazil. The sheer immensity of this field dismays one, and glancing here and there, at this state or at that remoter region, or at the other great water way, one sometimes wonders: “When will the Gospel Message reach so far?” At last, maybe, comes the desired opportunity and the long-considered and dreamt of field is visited, perhaps only to discover that the Lord’s work has gone marching on, though out of sight of human ken, for “God is working His purpose out,” although churches or societies may sometimes fail to catch the vision or hear the cry.

Maranhão is the sixth largest state of the Republic, and its area is equal to that of Great Britain and Portugal. Its northern extremity is but one degree south of the equator, and it extends to ten degrees in the same direction. It seemed too far and too uncertain for a troop journey, and too venturesome and expensive for a motor trip; yet there came a day when a sequence of circumstances and providences seemed to force one’s hands, and so, in our car, laden with Bibles, pioneer tools, and billy-cans, my son Charles, Colporteur Antão, and I set out prospecting in this new region.

Little canvassing was done in the first week of travel, but, striking a small, bizarre country fair by the wayside, just when we were pressed for time, we stood up in our car and offered our books in cheap-jack style, drawing all the show―so to speak― and selling quite a good number of books in about half an hour. The usual farmhouse meetings were held nearly every night. We held an open-air meeting in the chief square of a very decadent and drowsy-looking little village, on the borders of Ceará, arousing attention by driving our car round about the place, and sounding the horn, until they must have thought that the circus had arrived, or that we were the “new revolutionaries.” When we dropped our car hood and started singing, perched up on the seats, a good crowd gathered, and we had a fine meeting.

Our first Sunday out from home was spent under a large spreading tamarind tree in a tiny village well within the state of Piauhy. The folk were very friendly, and we sold a few books, and on Sunday night we drew out the whole village to a Gospel lantern address, the white wall of the Catholic chapel serving admirably as a screen. few days later, after we had crossed a b mountain range, and had ferried the car across the swift waters of the Parnahyba River on two leaky canoes tied together―a nerve-racking experience―we soon found ourselves immersed in the lovely forests of the state of Maranhao. The thin trail carried us through extraordinarily beautiful palm forests, with attractive little huts every mile or so, built entirely of palm leaves. Their inhabitants earn a good living by collecting the nuts of the babassu palm, from which valuable oil is extracted and carried to the coast. We had an interesting time among these simple, clean-living folk, and they loaded us with gifts of fruit and eggs. Good seed was sown in these forests. A day or two later travel became very heavy, and the ax and pick were in constant use for several weeks. In one day we had to repair no less than fourteen crude bridges in order to render them comparatively safe to cross, while several broke up behind us as we cleared them at a run; and twice we were hung up perilously with two wheels through. It was often hair-raising work, especially for chauffeur Charles, but a way of escape was always at hand. When trying to cross a large river, it proved deeper than we had expected; we stopped in the middle, with water up to our feet in the car and a rainstorm well in sight. However, all the available men of a nearby village swarmed down the banks, and dragged us high and dry, and seemed well satisfied with a Gospel each for their trouble. When nearing our farthest northerly point, we struck a short stretch of about sixty miles of dense forest which took us sixteen hours of hard ax work to cut through, and that while perishing with thirst. We literally bowed down the forest before us, and the noise was terrific. There was one dreadful moment when the car stopped― it seemed for good―but with patience, perseverance, and prayer, through we went―in spite of the gloomy prophets.

It was the rainy season in that part of Brazil, and a tropical thunderstorm in a forest jungle is not pleasant, especially when it may compel one to pass a cramped night’s rest, mixed up with baggage, books, and provender.

Nevertheless, it was glorious! We soon forgot our troubles, and the many compensations filled our hearts with joy and gratitude Again and again we proved the power of prayer. When occasionally the car refused to move without visible reason: when a hill seemed unsurmountable when we broke a vital piece of mechanism, and it looked like the end of all things: when we lost our way, ran out of water, or sank into the terrible sands of the valley of the Tocantins River―then we found that God always answered prayer, and generally instantaneously!

Eventually we entered the important central city of Barra do Corda, to the music of a terrific thunderstorm. Here, to my astonishment, I found a Gospel work which has been carried on for thirty years by an unknown man from Toronto, Canada, named Perrin Smith. Without help of any kind from church or society, he has been used of God to accomplish almost the finest piece of pioneering evangelistic work I have met with in Brazil.

Drawn by what he had heard of the dire needs of North Brazil, he abandoned his visions of China’s millions, and realizing what property he possessed, he set out alone to the land of his choice, and found his field right in the heart of the state of Maranhão. Soon he was engaged in an intensive evangelization of a great area, calling for long and arduous journeys on horseback, over difficult and little-known trails. Everywhere the Message was given, in farmsteads, villages, and towns, and nearly always in the open air, as is still his custom. His labors have been so abundant and so blessed that now he can make journeys of many weeks’ duration, yet every night he can rest in the home of some believer or other. His visible resources exhausted, he supported the work for some time by engaging in Bible colportage, and I found the country well sown with the Word of God. At present he is able to carry on, and to support several native workers, by selling milk and honey in the city of Barra, where he is now highly respected, being once asked to become mayor of the town, an offer which he declined.

It was good to be able to strengthen the hands of this man of God in this isolated spot, and we pray that practical and lasting good may result from our visit. The work looks far too heavy for one man’s shoulders, and he is in the decline of life and strength.

Pushing on in a westerly direction, we passed a wonderland of many extraordinary, mushroom-topped hills that could never have been trodden by man since the Flood, some seeming to be several square miles in area, and rising two or three hundred feet sheer out of a level sandy plain of vast extent, probably the ancient bed of the river we were approaching.

There appear to be about a dozen tribes of Redskins in the state of Maranhão, and we had the honor of meeting two out of some six fine young Britishers, missionaries of the “U. F. M.” who are doing a very noble and self-sacrificing work among this most interesting race, a work comparable to that attempted by David Brainerd in his day. Real missionary heroes, and full of enthusiasm for their work, they are on the eve of great results.

Our entrance into the old-fashioned and very interesting city of Carolina, on the east bank of the mighty Tocantins, created a mild sensation among the people, for to them we seemed to have come from another world. We must have presented a curious aspect, with our travel-worn appearance, with the bonnet of our car off, and with the broken mechanism held in place by wooden forks and wire.

Here, again, we found a fine Gospel work of an independent character being carried on by two brave young Britishers, who are also attempting to run a Bible Training Institute for the young converts who may feel a call to service. At present the Institute is a crude palm hut, but better things are in view. During our stay we had several fine meetings, the open-air lantern service being greatly appreciated by a large and most attentive crowd of all classes of the community, who brought their own stools. Half an hour’s paddling carried us across the majestic Tocantins, and we sold a few Scriptures in the Goyaz town of Philadelphia ere returning. Charles felt especially proud, as he was born in the capital of Goyaz State, two thousand miles to the south.

Bidding a reluctant farewell to beautiful Carolina, we turned homeward by a more westerly course, but far and near I found that the name of the little, gray-headed Canadian gentleman was known and respected by friend and foe. One morning at daybreak, just as we were leaving the outskirts of a village where we had spent the night, I noticed a large group of men and women standing in the pathway ahead. I thought it was one of the usual groups we often met, who were anxious for a glimpse of the rarely seen world’s wonder, a motor car, and I was surprised when an old man in the group held up his hand, and called on us to stop.

Still more did I wonder when he addressed me, asking if we were “believers.” On my replying in the affirmative, the old man exclaimed with evident joy: “And so are we all here.” A little roadside meeting followed, with prayer and a word of encouragement, and they broke the impressive silence that ensued by spontaneously striking up a hymn which under the circumstances moved me profoundly. The refrain was: “Oh, make me brave to confess Thee, Lord Jesus, and to trust in Thy love evermore.” There was a true Gospel shine about the brave little band, one of the results of the ministry of Perrin Smith. A few more words, an embrace all round, and we were soon buried in the forest again.

As we neared our state of Pernambuco, we heard that the celebrated bandit, Lampião (pronounced Lamp-pea-yong), the worst scourge of his kind that Brazil has ever known, was again on the warpath, and murder and robbery were daily occurrences. We were right across his track, and discussed the possibility of an encounter, for I had long desired to meet this man. Imagine, then, our surprise, on riding into Floresta, to find that the very fine young missionary couple, Mr. and Mrs. Virgil Smith, had fallen into his hands a few days before, and had a wonderful story to tell us of their escape from death.

It seems that when only a few miles from home they were surrounded by this awful band, who had already murdered eight people that day. The bandit chief demanded a ransom of one hundred pounds, and threatened Mrs. Smith with the murder of her husband if it were not forthcoming! A message was sent to missionary friends, but only six pounds could be raised to meet the demand, and the gravest fears prevailed―but not in the hearts of the captives, to whom God gave, in answer to prayer, absolute calm and confidence. On the bearer returning with the small sum, the bandit showed no wrath, but handed back half of the sum (as it was in coin, which he could not carry), though he demanded their two horses. Evidently impressed by the unusual calm shown by his captives, and their seeming indifference to his dreaded presence, he turned to Smith and said: “Are you angry with me?” “No!” replied his prisoner, “I wish you well here, and happiness hereafter. But you have been an evil man and a great sinner before God. So, too, was I at one time, but God in His mercy forgave me, and cleansed my heart and made me a new man. Jesus Christ can save you, too, and forgive everything, if you trust Him!” While the missionary continued for a short time in this strain, the bandit stood with bowed head and downcast eyes, and said not a word, and also received and pocketed several Gospel tracts, given by probably the first man who had dominated the devil in him. When our brethren reached their home a few hours later, they were received as from the dead by the whole fear-stricken inhabitants of the city.

We still had some hardships to face, naturally, and the sight of some of the hills we were compelled to climb would make home friends stand aghast; but it had been a great time―we had sold nearly all our books, and were homeward bound!

Christmas was at hand, so we pressed forward, driving well into each night, and at 5:30 p.m. on Christmas Eve we arrived home safe and well, with two shillings and sixpence in hand after covering nearly three thousand miles through the far northwest, Only the goodness and strong hand of our God made it possible.

Chapter 6: The Way Out

ANTÃO, Gillanders, and I had set off from Garanhuns in different directions to the N. W., S. W., and S., and after jointly covering over 5000 miles by rail, canoe, and muleback, we met at a given rendezvous on the banks of the great Sao Francisco River, down which we paddled in the direction of the great cataracts. Thanks to the usual generosity of the British and Foreign Bible Society, we found relays of Scriptures waiting for us at different points of the long journey.

We parted with our canoe at Coraça, and continued overland with a good troop of mules into one of the darkest regions of the land. This place is the scene of the greatest national tragedy in the history of Brazil, a direct fruit of Romanism, and the latent dissatisfaction, fear, and unrest which this doleful creed always produces, and this chapter relates a few of our experiences in traversing this difficult and dangerous region. Every night informal meetings were held, for the first time, in some farmhouse. The little groups of rustic-looking folk in rough working attire, squatting around on crude bench or on the mud floor, their pale faces lighted up by the unusual acetylene lamp we carried, as they sat motionless with their eyes fastened on the speaker, made both a moving and an inspiring picture. Sometimes they would break in on the preacher with varied ejaculations, such as “E’ a verdade! Porque nao? Muito bem, Sim Senhor!” (“That’s the truth! Why not? Very good! Yes, sir!”), as they followed the argument of the discourse.

One of the main objectives of our journey was Canudos, in the S. W. corner of the State of Bahia, situated in a waterless region very difficult of approach, where rocks and thorns predominated. It is now only a small village of a few hundred inhabitants, but is the site of what, thirty years ago, was a big city or stronghold of mud huts, with some 50,000 souls, then despotically ruled by an aged, irregular priest of singular appearance and attire, and of a doubtful mentality, but who was worshipped as a holy, miraculous prophet of God, very much as the priest of Joazeiro is today. He drew the whole illiterate countryside to his standard, and soon defied the armies of the newly formed Republic, which he declared was anti-Christ. Time and again the flower of the Brazilian Army were defeated by these ignorant, ill-armed, untrained peasants, who fought with a fierce, fanatical persistence worthy of a better cause. The whole country was shaken, and soon the wildest stories were abroad, while a wave of superstitious fear swept across the land, and seemed to paralyze all efforts to end this long-drawn-out civil war, which lasted for about two years. When the final massacre of its miserable inhabitants was followed up by a complete destruction of their city and stronghold, the whole country around was left in an almost depopulated state, under a ban that remains to this day.

All this was but the fruit of ignorance and Romanism at its worst, the result of an utter lack of the Word of God, which Rome had banned and barred from the people. From that day to this nothing had ever been done, materially or spiritually, to introduce a new breath of life and good-will into these dark places. We brought the first message of peace and love to Canudos.

The chief man of the place received us indifferently, his wife being very strongly opposed to us, and this spirit determined the attitude of most of the inhabitants. Nevertheless an empty house was put at our disposal on the outskirts of the place, and thither we made our way. We soon found that next door lived two Catholic ladies, who seemed strangely excited at our arrival, and welcomed us as friends. It seems that only the previous night they had prayed God to send somebody with the Word of God. They could not read, but years before, in another town, they had become wonderfully interested through frequently hearing the Bible read aloud by a lodger in their house, an Army officer, and they were longing to hear it again.

We canvassed the place thoroughly with Bibles, leaving a free copy of John’s Gospel in every house; but it was uphill work.

A small detachment of soldiery had lately arrived to head off the bandits and revolutionaries then infesting the land, and one of these men welcomed us like a brother. His story was that several years ago he had fled from his evil father’s house, intent on becoming a brigand, for which calling it seems he had special qualifications. Times were bad, however, so he enlisted in the state police, and was sent up to a far interior town with a force on special duty. Finding the time hang heavily on his hands, and with nothing to occupy his mind, he inquired of a small boy in the home where he was billeted if there were any novels or such-like books in the house. The boy replied that he had seen a biggish book lying about, and went off in search of this promising novel. He returned a little later with a New Testament. A strange name for a novel, it seemed. Whatever could it be? For lack of anything more attractive, the soldier settled down to read the book from the beginning. Hour after hour He read that book; and it stirred him strangely. He had read it through in a few days, and then started to read it again. A change came over his life as he read, evil habits and companionships were dropped instinctively, and a new life and hope opened up before him. He knew nothing of the history of the book, nothing of Protestantism, and had never heard the remotest mention of the Gospel; yet when he was recalled to the capital a few months later he was a changed man. He soon discovered the connection between his little book and the Gospel Missions, and was baptized shortly afterward. He produced his Bible from his very limited kit-sack, for it is now his inseparable companion. What a cheer to us to find such a witness in such a place!

We held open-air meetings in the center of the little town, and our soldier friend was present. The attendance was meager, and the folk seemed scared, the local teacher running off into the forest in order not to hear a word of the preaching or singing.

However, several good little meetings were held in our hired house, and some few heard the Word gladly, but, best of all, before we left Canudos four days later, the two Catholic ladies and a friend of theirs knelt with us in prayer, and received Jesus Christ as their Saviour.

Travel through this ill-omened region was comfortless, and the going was very heavy, water for men or animals being scarce and of bad quality, muddy and evil smelling, and there was no pasturage of any kind. It was a gruesome country, full of dreadful memories, and of a repellent nature, as though cursed by God and man; and yet, right across this sad country, we sold a New Testament in almost every house we canvassed by the wayside, leaving a stream of the pure light of God’s Word right across a region where Satan had had his way so long and left his most dreadful scars.

In one town, after Antão had preached in the open air to a great concourse of people, one man openly exclaimed: “Ah, if we had only been taught this, who would be for Rome?” Who indeed?

In a town called Geremoabo, we had met with little encouragement, and had only sold one Bible, when I came to the prison house. With the jailer’s consent I traversed a long corridor, and entered the cell of the condemned prisoners. I found three men there. We had a friendly and interesting talk together, and they grew communicative. I was especially impressed by the sad face of one of the men, and after hearing suggestive bits of his tragic history, I broke in, saying, “Yes, but God may well have permitted all you tell me, to bring you to this prison and to this hour, that here you might find the Word of God, and with it a new life and hope.”

Deeply impressed by my words, he at once bought a Bible, and the other two men followed his example, for all could read―this sale of three Bibles being more than we had sold in the whole city.

In another place Antão met a farmer who had had a little John’s Gospel for over twenty years, never dreaming that it was a dreadful “livro Protestante.” It appears that some twenty years ago, while visiting his town on market day, this farmer had seen a peddler selling rosaries, chaplets, images, and other Romish rubbish, and among this pile of superstition and idolatry he had spied a little book. He could not read, but his curiosity was aroused. “That,” said the ignorant peddler, “is the true story of Saint John the Baptist.” It was his favorite saint, so he bought the little book for sixpence, and had his daughter to read it. Very soon he knew the book almost by heart, and became so attached to it that he never made a journey without having it in his pocket, and if by chance he forgot to take his beloved book, he would sometimes return many miles before riding on his way. Wherever he went his book was read, and the fame of that John’s Gospel went far and wide. The men of his town hearing of it began to borrow the wonderful book, and thus it went all round the town. It was bound and rebound, and then one day, to his great dismay, a page was missing, and by the time our colporteur knocked at his door, several others had disappeared.

Imagine his astonishment and delight when he found that his little book was but part of a much bigger volume of the very same nature! He eagerly bought up the best books in Antão bag. What an earnest listener and learner he was that wonderful night! The town itself was quite stirred up when the books were offered, but everybody wanted a John’s Gospel, and only John’s Gospel, so that in an hour or so two or three hundred little books were sold in that Catholic city. Small wonder that Beelzebub and his friends, the Modernists, have a strange dislike to the Gospel according to John. It works!

Outside Canudos I encountered large forces of the army in operations against the terrible bandit Lampião, the scourge of this part of Brazil, from whom the Lord had hitherto protected us. I called on the colonel commanding officer. There were other officers present, and he was embarrassed. Finally he blurted out rather abruptly: “In any case, this is a book that every man ought to possess,” and after buying a copy he hurriedly disappeared. I then sold four more Bibles among his officers.

One day, while resting by the wayside, we were suddenly aroused by the noisy arrival of three horsemen of a rather alarming appearance. “We are in for it now,” I thought. They were all armed to the teeth, carrying rifles and bandoleers. What they were I really don’t know—but ten minutes later they were riding off at a gallop with a couple of Bibles and a New Testament in their saddlebags, all bought at full price.

We crossed the S. Francisco River for the last time, but a short distance above the Paulo Affonso Falls, which are much higher and far more impressive than Niagara. This crossing is quite an interesting one, and is called “Valha-me-Deus” (“God help us”), referring, I suppose, to the fact that if anything happened to the crude canoe, with its load of men and animals, in those swirling waters, the probabilities are that the whole contents would go over the great falls. And as the canoe man was very tipsy at the time, and the embarkation rolled considerably, we were glad when we reached the farther shore.

We arrived home none the worse for our wanderings, and deeply grateful to God for such a privilege, and for such Divine guidance and blessing on our sowing of the seed in some of the dark places of the earth.

Chapter 7: The Gospel Tide

THE Bible wins! Neither Pope nor Bolshevist, Modernist nor monk, can stem the tide of life created by the Living Word. Together with the two companions of the previous chapter, we had a miniature evangelistic campaign in a remote corner of one of the northern states of Brazil, where the living Gospel had never before been preached, but where faithful Bible colportage has been in progress during the last two years; and never has the supreme value of this work had better exemplification. We covered over five hundred miles, held twelve meetings in five different places, with an attendance averaging about one hundred and fifty people at each. Yet not a rough, harsh word was heard throughout, and many were manifestly moved by the power of the Gospel.

We traveled in our Ford car, and surely rarely were the virtues of that classic vehicle so roughly tested as on this journey. The roads in places were almost unnavigable, even by ox-carts, with steep and multi-boulder-strewn trails, which strained every bolt and rivet of the car, and burnt out all our brakes at critical stages of descent, where any little extra bump or swerve would have hurled us down a precipice. My two companions had a hard time pushing and pulling the car in bad places, or carrying the luggage up the steeper hills, and many a chilly feeling they had, too, through my immature handling of it in dangerous spots. Once we crashed into a forest and got badly twisted up, and how we made the car to go again so soon after, as we did, was a wonder.

Yes, traveling was hard and heavy, for roads in Central Brazil are yet in a very primitive condition, and there were many anxious moments when one thought wistfully of our troop of steady, sure-footed mules; but the results were worth it all. Our main objective was the little town of Tavares, the home of our faithful trooper and colporteur, Antão, whom I had met twelve years before, two thousand miles up the Amazon. His conversion on that occasion, and subsequent faithful life and testimony had wonderfully impressed his townsfolk, and I had many an invitation to visit them.

We found the people of all classes most friendly and open, and held four excellently-attended Gospel services in the principal houses of the place, as well as an impressive open-air meeting on the Sunday afternoon. Many were convinced and well disposed, and three of them made open confession of faith. Then we took horse and rode farther inland, where even our valiant Ford dared not go.

Our next meeting was hastily arranged and quite unexpected. Passing a prosperous-looking farmhouse by the roadside, I was surprised to see the farmer himself―a fine, powerfully-built man―stretched out on a couch under a shady tree, while he superintended the work of his men. He looked a very sick man―suffering, I believe, from cancer of the stomach. It seemed a natural thing to stop for a while and speak to him of the Good Hope, followed by a word of prayer on his behalf. Deeply impressed, the farmer requested us to hold a meeting in the farmhouse, which contained an unusually spacious room. The service commenced at six o’ clock, and very rapidly but quietly the farm hands and neighbors from miles around slipped into the room, until about one hundred and twenty men and women were present, all breathlessly silent and attentive. I preached on the Prodigal Son, and one felt that the truth was going home to many hearts. This was immediately followed by a lantern address on Bible subjects, concluding with the “Pilgrim’s Progress.”

All so new, strange, and undreamt-of it was to by far the greater part of the audience, and when the meeting concluded at 8:30, nobody seemed eager to get away, and everybody began to talk. The crowd was great, and the noise greater; but above it all I soon heard of one who was anxious to settle the matter with God right there and then, in spite of the opposition of some others present. He was the local schoolmaster, a man of about twenty-five, and coming to me through the press with a white face and trembling body, he asked what he could do to be saved. Right there in the midst of the crowd we knelt down together on the bare earth floor, and he simply and sincerely accepted Jesus Christ as his Saviour. Ten minutes later we were jogging on our way in the intense darkness of that night, with only the stars to light our uncertain steps.

Four miles beyond the sick man’s house we pulled up at another farmhouse, where we found some fifty people who had been patiently awaiting our arrival for over two hours, although some had gone away. This second meeting lasted till nearly midnight, and many were the wayfaring men who crept in during that time and heard the strange Good News.

Sixteen miles to the west of Tavares there is a prosperous and very attractive little city called Princeza (Princess), and the political chief of the place―a man of great weight and authority in all that part of Brazil―was anxious that we should visit his city, where the Gospel had never been preached. On arriving we were warmly welcomed by this gentleman, who, besides being a State Deputy, was a man of real character, great initiative, and of moral and physical courage. At once he put the big local schoolhouse at our disposal for meetings, and Gillanders and I canvassed the city with invitations and tracts.

Passing through the central marketplace, I noticed the town priest seated in the shade of some trees, and, approaching him courteously, I bowed, complimented him, and asked after his health. The priest was manifestly ill at ease, and very pale; but ere he could reply to my greetings, I seated myself in an empty chair by his side, and continued the conversation in a studiously casual manner. I discussed the beauty and progress of the town, the weather, and―inevitable topic―the local bandits. But never a word said he, being only too well aware that the curious eyes of half the city were turned upon us.

When I remarked that we lived in evil times, the priest pulled himself together somewhat, and, glancing up at me from under his dark eyebrows, with rather a sinister look on his pale face, he remarked, “Yes, very dangerous times indeed, even for us who live in this city. How much more for those who come from the outside?” One could not help feeling that his reverence was mentally counting over what few of his “lambs” he might yet depend upon to give weight to his remarks with sticks and stones at our expense. He left it at that, however, as he well knew that the big man of the place was more than his match, and that all the town had turned Protestant pro tem.

That night, as soon as the doors were opened, the big schoolhouse rapidly filled with over one hundred and fifty men and a few women, while an equal number, perhaps, failed to gain admission. Our singing was much appreciated, and I spoke with liberty on the song of Zacharias.

Next day everybody was discussing the questions at issue, and, judging from the visits we made among the people, the majority were on the side of the Truth, quite a number of Bibles, Testaments, and “Traveler’s Guides” being sold. This was too much for the priest who, finding me talking with the local chemist, drew a crowd after him, and entering the establishment, addressed me gruffly and without salutation, not even looking me in the face. He said:

“I would have you to know, Senhor, that I am still vicar of this city.”

“I am well aware of that, Senhor Vigario,” I replied. “I called on you yesterday.”

“But,” said the priest, “it is my duty to demand an explanation of what you are doing here in my city.”

Pretending to misunderstand him, in order to avoid public discussion, I replied, “Without doubt, Senhor Vigario, you have very good reason, excellent reason, for your concern; but so also have I in faithfully fulfilling my own duty to this place.” And, turning to the chemist, I quietly continued the conversation so rudely interrupted. This rather nonplussed the priest, who, after opening his mouth several times to speak, finally turned and left the place abruptly, and I saw him no more. During the day so many people were anxious to hear the Gospel that the owner of the newly erected picture palace offered it for our use free of charge, and that night quite five hundred people crowded into the elegant little hall—a most inspiring sight!

I commenced the meeting with a declaration of faith, which I prefaced by saying that we were not there to fight the local Church or to speak ill of their priest, nor were we there to preach strange new doctrines, but rather to call them back to the old-time religion of their fathers and the doctrines of the Holy Apostles. One by one I explained the chief articles of our belief with relation to the Triune God, to the Saints, including the Holy Virgin―with regard to whom, I showed that we were more Catholic than the Roman Catholics themselves, as we sought diligently to obey her words: “Whatsoever He saith unto you, do it.” I spoke on the need of confession, on the meaning of Grace, and thus lightly on many other points of the Catholic Apostolic Christian Church. I said we were NOT there to proselytize to some other Church or denomination―there was no time for that: the danger was real, and the need too urgent―but rather to show them a way through grace alone, by which, very simply, and there and then, they might find peace with God through the Cross of Calvary. I invited questions, but none were forthcoming.

Throughout I was listened to with intense and respectful attention. Then followed the lantern address with its vivid, telling pictures, which find a way through the eye-gate of some who might not otherwise understand. The whole meeting lasted for about two hours.

Leaving this most promising place, we pushed on over terrible roads to the city of Triumpho, a center of idolatry, superstition, and their handmaid―crime. We found no entrance there, so continued our journey down almost the worst mountain road in Brazil. Only God’s mercy brought us safely to the bottom without disaster.

It was after dark, and we were very tired when we arrived in the city of Flores (Flowers), and put up at a local hotel for the night, intending to pass the next day at a friendly farmer’s house not far distant. I was lying, half-dressed and half-asleep, in my hammock, when I was suddenly aroused by the entrance of a score or so of well-dressed gentlemen, ill discernible by the light of our candle. It was a deputation of all the chief men of the place―the mayor, the public prosecutor, the judge, schoolmaster, commanding officer of forces operating against the bandits, and others―all come to welcome us to the city and offer us every guarantee of protection we required. I tried to look as dignified as I could, standing stork-like, with only one boot on, and in my shirt sleeves. I thanked them, and they bowed themselves out.

Again I turned into my hammock, when lo! in came another deputation of the chief of the police, all profuse in friendly sentiments. A guard was mounted at our hotel night, and early next morning down from the barracks there marched a picket of five armed soldiers which the lieutenant had put at our disposal. All this was very surprising, so we decided to spend the day there. I visited all the city authorities to thank them for their good will, and arranged with the chief man of the place to hold a meeting in the town hall that evening. This was to everybody’s satisfaction, the padre excepted, who at once sent a disreputable looking deputation of his own, commanding us not to preach, and pronouncing vague threats of what would happen if we did; all of which we calmly ignored.

That afternoon we had an interesting little talk with some twenty or thirty prisoners in the big jail, among whom we also sold two Bibles and Testaments. Many Gospel tracts were also circulated through the city. Meanwhile, the priest had wrought himself into a state of uncontrollable fury, and launched deputation after deputation to all the authorities, demanding that our meetings should be prohibited, and―as the chief man himself told me―fairly made all their heads ache with their noisy disputation; but all to no effect, and soldiers were told off to guard our meeting. The principal authority called on the priest to reason with him, and to point out the illegality and danger of his attitude, but found him intractable and weeping with rage; finally declaring that if we persisted in our intention he would carry the “Sacred Host” into the midst of our meeting. Now, as this piece of consecrated bread, to these untaught folk, is almost what the Ark of the Covenant was to the Israelites of old, such an action could only have engendered terrible confusion and bloodshed. Rightly alarmed at the danger, the chief magistrate and another high official shamefacedly requested us, as a favor to them, to desist from the meeting, which I eventually and regretfully decided, under the circumstances, was the right thing to do. The best people of the town were astonished and indignant at their priest, and that evening, seated in front of the hotel, we had plenty of opportunity of proclaiming the faith to individual hearers, the village schoolmaster being especially interested, and purchasing a Bible. Next morning we proceeded on our homeward way.

And thus the Gospel warfare ebbs and flows in dark Brazil; but the flowing tide is with us, praise God!

Chapter 8: My First Bible

IT was practically my first journey on horseback through Brazil since my late conversion on a gold mine in the central-south of the republic, and things were very new and strange, as I had yet had no experience in Gospel work beyond scrubbing the mission floor. My knowledge of Portuguese was very meager at that time; it had sufficed to boss the niggers in the assay office, but was not enough to sell Bibles, which was the main object of my two American friends in their long ride from Ouro Preto to the sea. I felt thankful, however, to be permitted to accompany them at all, for I was young and active, keen on new experiences, and eager to do something for the One Who had done so much for me. Willing to abase or abound, it fell to my lot to look after the animals, to rub them down each night, and find provender for them, besides cooking the unfailing beans and rice, and washing up the dishes after each meal, what time my two friends sallied forth with bags in their hands, to engage in the more honorable and interesting work of selling Scriptures at every town or village which we passed or where we spent the night.

In this way several hundred miles had been covered when we found, to our concern, that the exchequer was becoming very low. Book sales had been few―far fewer than we had anticipated, and we were largely dependent on these sales to pay our way across country; but it seemed that I was spending more money on the animals and the cooking pot than my companions were earning through their colportage.

I had now become an expert cook, and my vocation seemed assured and permanent; but alas! there was no improvement in the daily income, and we had yet a long, long way to go. One morning our leader astonished me by exclaiming, “Look here, Glass, I think you had better try your hand at Bible-selling today, while I do the cooking. You may do better than we have done, for you cannot do much worse, so let us see how you succeed, anyhow, for we cannot go on like this.” Here was a to-do! My heart sank within me, and how willingly I would have evaded this call. I would not and could not say “No,” however; so, swallowing my feelings and a hasty meal, I saddled up, and with my saddlebags well stocked with books, I reluctantly set forth ahead of the more slow-going troop, to canvass the next town, a few miles away. I fully expected to make a fool of myself, as I coldly reflected that I had never sold a book in my life, nor anything else for that matter; and then, too, my Portuguese―and here I began feverishly trying to string a few words together that might serve me in the all-too-novel and difficult vocation of a Bible colporteur. I could make a fair assay and melt a gold bar, but bookselling seemed out of my line altogether. At last a town appeared in the distance, and what a very ugly look it had, to be sure! Soon I was picking my way through the fringe of the place, with a very queer feeling down the spine of my back, as though I were marching to my execution; and I never prayed so earnestly.

Pulling up in the central square of the town, I tied my horse to a post, and then fumbled nervously at my saddlebags to gain time. I hardly dared to look around, feeling that all the eyes of the city were upon me.

Endeavoring to shake myself together, and feeling it was a case of “now or never,” I grabbed a few Bibles and Testaments, and dived in at the open doors of the nearest shop. The owner looked up in some surprise at this unexpected visit, and set me all in a flutter by making some remark I could not understand. Plunging into the breach, I started in with the first of the three sentences I had been compiling en route. “Tenho aqui Senhor urn born livro” (“I have here a good book, sir”), and I handed the man a Bible. I did not feel at all proud of my phrase; it sounded too much like a copy book, but the shopkeeper seemed to have a lot to say about it, all of which was Dutch to me, and I could only smile back at him vacantly and produce my second linguistic masterpiece: “It is a very cheap book, sir.” This very simple remark produced another lengthy rejoinder, equally unintelligible, but to which I replied, emphatically, “It only costs two milreis.” The man stared at me in rather a surprised manner, and I wondered what was coming next, when to my utter astonishment he drew open his till and handed me the price of the book. I had sold my first Bible within ten minutes of my arrival in the town.

I hurried forth lest he might want his money back, and sought a hiding place in the shop next door. Here again I essayed to trot out my three classic remarks at convenient intervals, and smiled at the voluble comments they produced, when, to and behold, another Bible was disposed of in less time than the first. I was the most amazed person living. It seemed like a dream, as backwards and forwards I went to those saddlebags to replenish my armful of books, and long before the troop caught me up I had sold every copy of my stock. It certainly was not owing to my vast experience, to my Portuguese, or natural capacity of any kind, but just to the gift and power of the Spirit of God, to Whom be the glory.

My two friends were duly impressed by my story, and had only to peep into those saddlebags to confirm the truth of the miracle. “You certainly have the gift for selling Bibles,” said the leader of the party; “after today we will do the cooking and care for the animals, and you can be colporteur.”

I confess that I did not feel at all impressed by this new arrangement, but the fact remained that at the very next town the same thing happened, and at the next also, while little by little my vocabulary became more elastic. I began to feel more confident, and, eventually, had real joy in the work―a joy I have never lost, though I have never been quite able to throw off that cold feeling referred to when starting to canvass a strange city.

After the event related we had no more trouble with the exchequer, and finally reached the seaport of Victoria, opening a Mission station there, which I was enabled to support for a considerable period by my sales of Bibles and Testaments.

You can never tell what gift you may possess until the Lord brings you face to face with some such crisis and call as that which launched me out into the great and glorious ministry of sowing the seed.

Chapter 9: Big John

VERY many years ago a godly missionary named Dr. B―, accompanied by a believing servant, visited the fanatical city of São Bento, forty miles from Garanhuns.

The priest of the place was a notorious enemy of the Gospel, and sent a ruffian to murder the man of God. The blow was aimed, but the faithful servant stepped between and received the knife in his heart.

After that terrible day darkness, seemed to settle on the city, and twenty years passed without any further attempt to evangelize the place, which seemed completely under the cruel dominion of Rome, while Spiritism also raised its hydra-head in the midst.

One of the nearby farmers was a fairly well-to-do man named “Big John.” He was greatly respected by his neighbors, and especially by the priest―his uncle―on account of his hearty, frank manner of speech and transparent honesty of character, being nicknamed “The Lion.” He was not a good Catholic, for he had little use for the Pope or the confessional, like a great majority of his countrymen, and like them also was dubious of other articles of Faith so called; but he greatly feared and distrusted the Protestants, and that covered a multitude of sins in the eyes of the priest.

John had a wife who revered him, and they both greatly loved their only daughter Marina, a lassie of fourteen years.

In lands where there is no open Bible, where superstition reigns, and where there is an absence of the covering, protective influence of Christian surroundings and testimony, the unseen powers of darkness have a far fuller action, and grave peril awaits the unconverted in every walk of life.

To the terrible dismay of John and his wife, their beloved child became possessed by evil demons. Filled with horror, the farmer took his child to the town priest, and all the idolatrous and pitiful chicanery of the Church was put into action on her behalf, with no results whatever. Then Spiritism was resorted to, and its votaries told John that the spirits were many, but promised to heal his daughter with their enchantments. Happily they failed, for benefits received from such a quarter tend to bring the receiver into hopeless bondage to the same. Marina grew worse, and John spent nearly all his money on doctors; he even carried Marina a long journey across country to seek help from a very notorious, miracle-working priest―only to return in despair, and his daughter deliberately shut herself in a dark room, refusing to communicate with anybody, as though dead to the world. This went on for nearly two years, and just about the end of that period a friend and I started out on our first long journey in a Ford car. I was driving, and noticing a newly made road through the denser forest, which looked like a short cut, I incautiously followed it. After proceeding for a mile or so with difficulty, we were pulled up with a bad puncture, and again within the next half mile we had two more. We were losing much time, and I had a very strong feeling of disgust when bang went number four. Considerably vexed, I looked around and found to my surprise that we had stopped immediately in front of a farmhouse, and that the farmer himself was coming out to greet us and to offer the usual hospitality or cup of coffee at least.

Whilst my companion was patching the tyre, I entered into intimate conversation with Big John―for it was he―and soon I was hearing the story of his unhappy child. I rather feared such cases, but sought to help the man by saying that what was impossible with man was possible with God through Jesus Christ. Then we rode on and I clean forgot the incident.

How many cases of demon-possession there are in the world today that need not be if only we had a little more of the Lord’s compassion and a little more of simple, practical faith― “Because of your unbelief.”

John had not forgotten, however, and was so impressed that he bought a Bible from a converted neighbor, and as he read the New Testament he learned of Him Who went about doing good and healing all the oppressed of the Devil, and about two years later I received a strangely-worded invitation to visit the district and recover his daughter.

This letter caused me some perturbation, and I felt a strong disinclination to deal with the case, yet I could not refuse such a call. In prayer I asked for a sign, that should I feel the natural revulsion of spirit that such cases usually produced, I was to leave the case alone, but that I should know it to be God’s will to deliver if I were given a sense of pity.

Arriving at the farm, I found a few people gathered for a meeting, and, strange to say, the young girl herself had voluntarily left her father’s house to meet me, though she at once shut herself up in a dark room. With a certain amount of hesitation and trepidation, I entered the room, and there, standing by her bedside dressed in white, with her out-turned hands by her side, I first saw Marina. Her face was like death, cold and emotionless as wax, and I was filled with a profound pity for this most unfortunate being. I spoke to her, only receiving a few words in reply, but I heard enough to strengthen my weak faith: she desired deliverance.

When I rebuked the unclean spirits Marina felt as though she had been struck, but immediately afterward she quietly followed me from the room, and to the general astonishment she took her seat among the congregation, and remained during the whole of the meeting. After returning home, from time to time we received wonderful news of a great change in Marina, but there being indications that she was not yet entirely free, we made a second visit, proceeding after the same manner, and then the spirit or spirits left her completely and she was delivered.

Another week or two passed, and reading that striking passage, Matthew 12:43, a sense of fear fell on me, and I was soon hastening away on my third visit to this strange case.

I quickly made known my object and desire. The girl responded with evident comprehension and sincerity, and as we knelt together Marina let the Lord Jesus Christ come in. Then we took her to our own home for two months, and my wife mothered and built her up in the faith.

We had not seen the father, but heard he was profoundly moved by what had happened, as indeed was all the countryside. A few weeks later there was a clatter of horses’ hoofs at my door. Big John had ridden over on business, and soon we were on our knees together, and he surrendered to the claims of the Saviour and became a new man.

John also built himself a new home, and invited us to come out and hold a service of consecration, and on that occasion the wife abandoned her cherished idols and accepted Christ.

Then came a great day, April 5th, 1931, ten days before we sailed for England, when all three rode in those forty weary miles to seal their profession by baptism. There was a manifest sense of God’s blessing, and I never saw such happy, shining faces, and they sang all the way home. The change in Marina was amazing, her deathly pallor had given place to rosy cheeks with a perpetual smile on her face, the bonniest lassie in all the countryside, with a deep love for Jesus in her heart, for Whom she is a faithful witness to one and all.

Ten days later my wife and I stood on the deck of a big trans-Atlantic liner, waving farewells to our dear children left behind in Brazil, and our thoughts often turned away to Sao Bento and Marina, though little dreaming that at that very hour a messenger had arrived from the King, and John was being suddenly called Home. It was Antão who conveyed the news, and he added that what had most impressed the countryside was not so much the miracle that had taken place under their eyes, but the marvelous calm and resignation shown by those two women so suddenly bereft of husband and father, in striking contrast to the grief and gloom which always overshadows Catholic homes in the face of death. His peace― “not as the world gives” ―was in their hearts. What could you do, that the number of such homes might be increased in Brazil?

Chapter 10: Prison Houses

“To open the blind eyes, to bring out the prisoners from the prison, and them that sit in darkness out of the prison house” (Isa. 42:7).

First comes the blind school in Garanhuns. Standing behind one of the pupils is seen blind Andre, the teacher, firstfruit of our blind schools in N. Brazil. He was a blind beggar, one of the unhappy swarm who beg from door to door for the miserable little vintem (tenth of a penny), which is all they usually receive. Helpless and hopeless is the sad lot of a blind beggar; but, Andre had an ambition for better things, and was the first pupil enrolled. As nearly all the textbooks and readers are Braille Scripture portions, Andre soon became deeply interested in the Gospel they conveyed to his dark mind, and he began to see. Six months later he was soundly converted and baptized.

He soon stopped his begging, and I essayed to employ him as a public Scripture reader, to which he took without fear, and soon proved a success. Week by week he takes his stand in the center of the big public marketplace of the town, drawing crowds of wondering folk about him, who look in amazement at the unheard-of thing―a blind man reading! He generally reads through his Braille John, and many hear those precious words for the first time who otherwise would never hear them at all. Now and again he rests in his reading, and, raising his voice, he very slowly and impressively gives a few words of personal testimony, which is generally of a striking and original character. At times he will hold up a John’s Gospel, and cry out, “A book to open the eyes of the blind, one penny.” Once the Bishop himself stopped to listen. A great impression was made in the marketplace, and the fame of Andre traveled far and wide. Large numbers of Scriptures were sold, many of which were carried away into the surrounding villages for twenty or thirty miles around. I am afraid he is a little proud of his accomplishments, and no wonder; he has escaped from the prison house.

Another of our blind students is Augusto Bello, once a blind beggar lad, but now a well-known evangelist and colporteur, who covers a very large area of N. Brazil on his Gospel journeys, made largely on foot.

He has sold many thousands of Bibles and Testaments, and been instrumental in the conversion of hundreds of Brazilians.

Next comes the Town Jail of Garanhuns. Every week Gospel meetings are held before the different iron-barred windows of this large prison house, with its fifty or sixty, prisoners. Most of its inmates are incarcerated for a breach of the sixth commandment. The sanitary conditions of the prison are of the worst description; no exercise is allowed, or work provided, and most of the men are herded together in one large cell. A few who yet await their trial are thrust in with those already condemned, and may have to suffer this ignominy for many months and sometimes for years before their case is dealt with. Our visits are always welcomed, and the messages of good hope and deliverance are eagerly heard by many of the miserable inmates, the lovely Gospel hymns also never failing to make their own appeal. A sympathetic handshake will often bring a rare smile into some of those most unhappy-looking faces. Once I took our sweet eighteen months old Winifred with me, and made her the preacher. She came like, a ray of sunshine. As some of those desperate, crime-hardened men gazed on her pure, innocent face, and noticed the trustful way in which she looked at them all, as she held on to her daddy, they must have thought of their own wee babies far away, and as I told them that the Gospel had power to transform their hearts and make them as pure and white as hers, I noticed some moist eyes. It seemed to them a thing so much to be desired, and yet so very impossible―so I told them the story of Naaman, the leper, whose flesh came again “as the flesh of a little child,” and explained the wondrous miracle of the New Birth.

One Sunday, as I sang “The best Friend to have is Jesus,” a husky voice cried out from behind those thick iron bars, “Ah, yes, there is no friend like Him!” I then visited the women’s cell to tell them of this “Friend indeed.” There were three of them; the youngest, a woman of less than twenty, had only been thrown into prison a few hours previously for a barbarous knife murder. She tried to hide behind an angle of the wall, but as I went on talking to the other two women she became interested enough to join her two companions and to listen attentively. I was telling them about Manasseh and his terrible reign and unspeakable crimes―crimes of the worst character; and how God caused him to fall into the hands of his enemies, who carried him away into a far country, loaded with irons and misery. Then I told them of his deep repentance behind those prison bars, and his earnest prayer to God, with the wonderful result that followed―sins forgiven, fetters riven, restoration to home—and even to his throne again! I spoke of his changed life, and how probably he earnestly sought to expiate in part those terrible lost years of sin. He could no longer influence his son, Amon, he was already too old in iniquity―but he could save his little grandson, Josiah, before he died; and I showed how the little lad became one of the best kings of Judah and a true believer― “Like unto him was there no king before him, that turned to the Lord with all his heart, and with all his soul, and with all his might.”

How eagerly those women listened, and as I applied the story to their own case and condition, and showed that the God Who saved Manasseh could do the same for them if they sought Him earnestly, doubtless a new vision and a new hope invaded those dark, tempestuous hearts.

There is no doubt but that a work of grace is being done in the hearts of many of these prisoners. All who can read are freely supplied with Gospels, New Testaments, and “Traveler’s Guides.” The many friends and relatives who come to visit these men also become interested in the Good News, and to them illustrated Gospels are given, as well as to the soldiers of the guard.

One Christmas night we paid the prisoners a surprise visit.

“Come in, Senhores!” cried the sergeant of the guard. It was a dark and windy night when we pulled up our car at the front gates of the prison, with its rather gloomy-looking exterior. Gloomier still, however, are its past traditions, and among them this: that a few years ago some eight political prisoners had been snared into this somber building, and there brutally murdered by their political opponents. Most of the victims were heads of the best families of the town.

“Come in, Senhores!” ―and in we went, with all our baggage, to the great surprise alike of soldier-guards and of the prisoners who peeped out at us from behind their strongly-barred doors.

Alas! the jailer, with all his keys, was away in a distant part of the town, keeping Christmas after his own fashion; so Gillanders and a young soldier hurried off in the Ford to capture him if possible, what time I was left explaining to all the inmates that the Chief of the Police himself had granted me special permission to hold a lantern lecture among them―and what a “lecture” it was, to be sure!

The jailer soon arrived with his bunch of keys and a very good will, and immediately the big front gates were locked and barred, while ammunition was handed round to the guard, who formed up in line, with their rifles at an alarming angle, while the inner doors of the jail were unlocked and we were admitted with all our luggage inside among the convicts. With similar precautions the prisoners from other cells were introduced, including four women, making a total of about forty-five prisoners, apart from the jailer and some of the guard who locked themselves in with us.

When all was ready there was some little hesitation about putting out the prison lights―for obvious reasons (some of the inmates were desperate characters) ―but out they went as soon as the guns were handily disposed.

Meanwhile, one of the convicts had busily pasted up the worst hole on the best wall with the aid of paper and soap, so that the lantern gave a splendid large and brilliant picture. There was a feeling of excitement in the air, nobody knowing just what was to come, but the quiet was absolute. It might have been a Sunday school instead of the band of murderers, as most of them were.

The program was extensive and very varied, both grave and gay in character.

The first item shook some of them badly, being pictures of little children, sweet and innocent, and finishing with a fine reproduction of that great picture, “A little child shall lead them,” speaking of the great time coming when there shall be no more curse, and no more prisons. Scenes from the always-welcome “Pilgrim’s Progress” were included, so impressive and so profound, and many another picture drew alternative smiles―and tears, perhaps.

It was a long meeting, yet, as I concluded with several of Dore’s pictures of the Fall, the Deluge, and finally the uplifted serpent in the desert―so full of Gospel truth―quite a sigh of regret went up, which, however, soon gave way to joy as we handed round our loaves and little sacks of sweets to each inmate, including the soldiers. The prisoners expressed to us their thanks and appreciation of a night that very few will ever forget.

The third prison house is inhabited by the Carijó Redskins, and it is, in some ways, the most terrible, in spite of its more romantic and picturesque setting. These Indians form what would be considered quite a large tribe as tribes go in Brazilian Amazonia, with its four hundred branches of this all-but-forgotten race. In the onward sweep of the invaders of four centuries ago, while many tribes were virtually exterminated, the Carijós seem to have held their ground. Perhaps it may have been due to their more pacific nature, or to their adaptability to the new conditions; but whatever the reason, it is nevertheless certain that they have proved marvelously tenacious of their old customs, language, and―alas!―of their religion, too.

The Carijó religion is of a very mysterious and disquieting character, though little positive information is available, it being so difficult to persuade an Indian to talk on the subject.

Though classified as “Catholic” in the Government statistics, they contemptuously but half-fearfully shake their heads at the term, and quietly affirm, “our devotion is different and older.” Without a doubt this is true, hut it is also a far more perilous and impregnable prison house of Satan than is Romanism. One of the outstanding features of this faith is, that every year, for about three months, the whole tribe disappears into the surrounding forest, to SOME remote part known only to themselves. No white man dare follow them, for very careful watch is kept, and the few who have attempted to do so in the past have been badly handled by the Redskin sentinels The greatest secrecy is observed as to what takes place at the Uricury, as it is called, and wild horses could not drag forth the revelation, for even the children are fearful and reticent on the subject, nor will even a converted Indian think of betraying the secret of his tribe.

I had long felt that they practiced a form of demon worship, akin to Spiritism in its nature and origin, and after I had preached to them on the words: “Believe not every spirit,” a few remarks from some of the listening Indians seemed to confirm that impression. I have often remarked to them that as the spirit keeps them so poor, and miserable, and ignorant, it is time they changed their “devotion” for a better spirit, but such suggestions have had a somewhat mixed reception. Fortunately, we have already succeeded in teaching a few of these Indians to read, and as each one now owns a New Testament, this may prove the way out of the darkness.

Among these most interesting people, Snr. Oliveira has carried on an uphill work. Meetings are held in the village, and much house-to-house visitation is being done. We certainly have the good-will of most of the tribe, and the strong friendship of a few; but ever there looms up the dark, forbidding wall of the Uricury, against which we seem to beat our efforts and arms in vain; yet, though this prison house of Satan is the most fearsome of the three― “Our God is able.”

Chapter 11: Among the Carijós

WHEN the early Portuguese invaders reached the northern shores of Brazil, they found the whole country fairly thickly populated by many tribes of Indians. Within the first fifty years the greater number of these tribes were exterminated, or else were gradually absorbed in the newly developing Brazilian type, a mingling of the white, black, and red races, the latter, perhaps, predominating. Many of these redskins, however, were driven back, league by league, and not without considerable cost to the invaders, until they found temporary protection beyond the swift waters of the mighty Tocantins and the splendid Araguaya rivers, where most of them are to be found to this day.

In this retreat before the advancing tide of these ruthless invaders, with their superior arms, several of these tribes were left “high and dry,” so to speak, and were rapidly encircled by the white settlers. For a century or more they succeeded in maintaining their independence, and a large area of the countryside; but the cupidity of the pale-face soon proved too much for their simple minds, and they have long been landless and poverty-stricken.

Such are the Carijós referred to in the previous chapter, who live within a hundred miles of our home in Garanhuns. Though closely shut in by the surrounding whites, who have robbed them of their ancient land rights and their water springs, they yet retain a pride of race, a native dignity, and much self-respect ―indeed, more of the latter than their circumstances warrant.

Though Portuguese of a kind is spoken by the adults, yet among themselves they only use their own ancient tribal tongue, which is quite dissimilar in form from the language of the Carajás of the Araguaya, mentioned in a following chapter. There is, however, a great similarity between the languages in their soft musical tones and accents. Most of the adults have familiar spirits, some have several, and these demons have the greatest influence and power over the Indians, who think that the strange and wonderful voices, and the supernatural manifestations of a physical character are the work of God.

The Indian dare do nothing without the consent of these demons, who can do them great bodily evil if they rebel, or attempt to escape from their tribe. The chief of the mediums are women, and every year a special conference with these spirits is held in the heart of the forest, from which the white man has ever been banned, under risk of bodily harm or death, so jealous are they of their dread secrets. This gathering of the tribe is called the Uricury, and no Indian dare absent himself from this occasion, which lasts for a month and more. The demons speak in eloquent tones, preach a morality of a kind, and say they believe in God, but the name of Jesus Christ is never heard, or anything appertaining to the Good News. Like their kindreds in religion of Los Angeles, and some demonized sects in Britain and America, they have the gift of tongues, but the demons speak only in Carijó. Practically every vice is condoned, and the moral standard is very low indeed. The spirits also consent to their being good Catholics, but have put a ban upon our own gatherings, which has been intensified since the conversion of a man and his son from among these people. Several years ago we held well-attended Gospel meetings from time to time, in the home of the vice-chief, and a good impression was created. I overheard one old Indian telling his companions that we were not Brazilians, but belonged to the “Royal Race,” which, whatever that meant, certainly seemed to raise us greatly in their esteem. We also started a school in their village, which was most successful, but now, since the conversions referred to, this has changed, and we have very uphill work, although many of the young men of the tribe seem in our favor. The tribe numbers about eight hundred souls, though a few of the young folk seem to break away from time to time.

It is noteworthy that the spirits have no power whatever over a converted Indian.

On a certain occasion we held a fine open-air meeting in the center of the village, and nearly all the Carijós were present.

Part of the meeting was to be a lantern display, with the willing consent of the inspector; but the difficulty was to find a suitable wall for the pictures, as, until the new houses are built, the place is only a collection of huts and hovels, some of them made only of palm leaves. There was, however, the newly whitewashed Roman Catholic chapel, lately built by a notorious priest, who has long been the worst enemy of the Gospel in all the country around, and now seeks to shut out the light from the Carijós.

“As that Catholic chapel is built in the Indians’ reserve, I suppose it really belongs to them?” I remarked to the inspector.

“Well, yes, I imagine that is so,” he replied.

“In that case there could be no objection to my using its outside wall for my lantern lecture?” I queried.

“Oh, none at all,” said he, and at that I left it. For evident reasons we kept the matter quiet until the hour of the meeting, and then we drove up to the chapel and quickly put up our apparatus ready for the pictures to appear on its fine clean wall.

To avoid discussion and to keep eye and ear employed, we lit up our 200 candle-power petrol lamp, and started a meeting, while the Indians gathered round. Our singing soon drew a large, friendly crowd, who listened quietly to my short address, as I warned them that material improvements were of little avail unless they were trusting in Jesus Christ and His great gift. I addressed them in Portuguese, which most of them understand.

Then came the lantern, with its big 9 ft. projections; and never did the pictures look brighter or better than on the walls of that Roman Catholic Church. What an attractive scene they made, with the bright moon shining over all, but leaving our wall in the shade; and how thoroughly the Redskins enjoyed themselves―but not more so than did Gillanders and I. When I showed them pictures of their brethren the Carajá Indians of the Bananal Island, their delight and satisfaction were most infectious, and pretty well everybody had something to say. After photographs of this and other tribes in Brazil, I told them I should now show them descendants of their forefathers, and views of their very ancient empire and capital, where once they had lived in peace and prosperity, with a good emperor and wise princes to govern them.

When the pictures of the Quechua Indians of Peru followed, a subdued air of intense excitement fell on our strange audience, now numbering five hundred Indians or more, and visions of a great and glorious past must have thrilled many a young Redskin, especially when I showed them a fine picture of Cuzco, their hereditary home in the Andes.

It was not all about Indians, however, and some attractive slides of English railway trains provoked much amazement, also views of my own city of London, with St. Paul’s Cathedral, where the Bible is read two or three times a day in the ears of the people. There were also natural history pictures for the children, and never did the lion look so fierce and realistic!

A few carefully chosen scenes from “Pilgrim’s Progress” followed, and quietly the Indians listened to the explanations, seeming to understand what was signified, and they solemnly wagged their heads in sympathy.

One or two pictures from the Old Testament concluded this part of the program, and then Senhor Laurencio stood up against the wall of the chapel and addressed the great assembly. He spoke well and impressively, but the meeting had already been protracted, and those who had been standing so long showed some signs of dispersal, which was very undesirable; but I had an inspiration. In my case I had several chromoscope slides, so, dimming my lantern considerably, I managed to throw a very faint, but attractive little star on the wall, just above the speaker’s head. The exodus ceased at once; it looked rather like a miracle, and Laurencio had close attention to the end. Then the star burst forth into full splendor and action―and our meeting ended.

Chapter 12: Opening Fast-Closed Doors

ABOUT two hundred years ago the great Northern states of Brazil fell into the possession of a Protestant power, which ruled it wisely and prosperously for several decades, and seemed capable of eventually obtaining the whole country. The great Dutch general and statesman, Maurice Nassau, was the governor of this splendid territory, with Recife as his capital, and had he not been unwisely recalled to Holland in a moment of crisis, the greater part, if not the whole, of Brazil would probably now have been a great Protestant Dutch Empire.

The final expulsion of the Dutch was made by the priests into a kind of Holy Crusade, and patriot and Catholic became synonymous terms. Largely on this account, up to the latter part of last century, the north of Brazil was one of the special strongholds of Rome, where she put forth her strongest and most unscrupulous efforts to bind the people to herself, and to keep out the Gospel by all means―fair or foul. Innumerable and magnificent churches and monasteries and countless orders of both a secular and clerical character, with monks and nuns of every hue, each with their special images and holy bones, made it their duty to bewitch the people with their grossly superstitious and idolatrous charms and practices, some of which would make a pagan African blush to own. Under cover of those times, the Jesuits also crept back to Brazil, from which they had been expelled for political conspiracy in the days of the good Marquis Pombal.

All these things made Gospel pioneering in North Brazil a rather perilous undertaking.

The first preacher of the Gospel to penetrate these fast-closed doors was a Scotch physician a Dr. Kalley, of Edinburgh, who, in the face of bitter persecution, succeeded in organizing a congregation in the city of Recife, in about the year 1873, which remains to this day.

The American Presbyterians followed later, but progress was very slow.

Early this century I was asked by the Bible Society’s Agent in Rio to undertake an intensive Bible colportage campaign, commencing in Recife, capital of the state of Pernambuco.

Street by street and house by house the whole of this erstwhile Dutch city was canvassed with the Scriptures, and with most surprising results. With very little opposition, twenty or thirty Bibles were sold every day, and not a few Testaments, and I managed to keep out of sight of the priests. After several months’ work in the city, I traveled up into the interior, with just the same results everywhere. The Roman clergy were taken by surprise, and had not time to organize opposition.

From those early days until the present time, thorough and systematic colportage has been carried forward, and several million excellent and attractive Gospel tracts have also been circulated throughout the whole region referred to, which today is the most prosperous and promising Gospel field in South America, there being more congregations in the one city of Recife than in the whole of the big republics of Colombia and. Venezuela together.

This result was not accomplished, however, without trial and suffering. I was helping a little congregation in Maceió, which assembled in an upper room for fear of persecution, when there came the sound of a rapidly approaching horseman, followed by the noise of some disturbance on the stairs, and a man burst into the room, covered with mud and bearing signs of considerable travel and great fatigue. After resting a few minutes he was able to tell us the following story. He was a Brazilian preacher named Marques, who had opened up an interior district of Pernambuco, establishing a little circuit of tiny groups of believers, whom he visited periodically. The priest living in one of these districts had greatly antagonized the work, and, when the time approached for the periodical visit, Senor Marques was warned not to proceed.

Being of a brave disposition, the preacher decided to ignore the warning, and set forth on mule back at the appointed time. When a few leagues out, an unknown stranger stopped him with a command from the priest not to proceed. Deeply impressed, but not dismayed, he still felt it his duty to go on, and a few hours later he was again stopped, receiving a still more threatening message from the Gospel enemies, and was told he only proceeded at his peril.

Saturday night was closing in as he finally reached his destination, and held a small meeting that night to encourage the frightened little flock in his charge. Sunday morning dawned with no sign of trouble, and the usual morning service was held. As evening drew on, in spite of terrible rumors, the little group of believers, greatly heartened by the ministrations of their faithful pastor, all assembled, with a few other interested folk, in a small hall on the outskirts of the city, and it was to be the occasion of the Lord’s Supper.

As darkness closed in over the city, the terrible plan of the priest began to mature. In groups of twos and threes, silent men rode in from all the countryside, until several hundred fully armed men were gathered outside the priest’s residence.

The orders were that the Protestants and their incorrigible pastor were to be assassinated that night, and that not one was to escape. The better to carry out their Satanic and cowardly design against unarmed men and women, the company were divided up into two groups, who, by thus approaching the meeting place in different directions, were to cut off any possibility of escape.

The meeting place was full, and the service had commenced when the attack was launched, and, with arms in full readiness, the two dark bands silently commenced their encircling movement, which at a given signal was to mean a terrible death to many of the Lord’s people. Escape seemed impossible.

Among these men were some whose nerves were overstrung at the prospect of so fell a deed, and there was intense, suppressed excitement on the part of many of them as the crucial moment drew on. Suddenly an unexpected shot rang out―one of the assailants had pressed the trigger of his cocked assassin-gun either too tightly or too soon, and the shot found its billet in the body of a member of the other group approaching in the dark on the far side of the hall. These were thrown into great consternation and wrath, as the shot seemed to come from the direction of the heretics, and they replied with a volley, which felled several men of the opposite band. In a few minutes a hot and bloody battle was raging between the two enemies’ forces, each thinking they were being assailed by the Protestants, who, extinguishing their lights, gave themselves to prayer.

The fight continued, and some twenty of the would-be assassins were killed outright and many scores were wounded ere the battle ended and the mistake was discovered.

Not a believer was injured, but so great was the sorrow and rage of the enemy, that many of them were imprisoned and suffered great injustice for a while, and the pastor had to flee that night, nor dared he draw rein anywhere until he had crossed over into a neighboring state, where guarantees were obtainable.

Soon after, with two good colporteurs, we canvassed this region, and there are now a dozen flourishing Gospel churches in the country round and about the city referred to.

The priest had a bad end, and some of those would-be murderers died by the sword, while others are now among the pillars of the Church they once persecuted.

Thus the Lord, as ever, knows how to protect His own, and to deliver them in spite of all the organized plans of the powers of darkness.

Chapter 13: Rome and the Bible

IN the ranks of the Protestant Churches there always have been those who find a strange attraction in the meretricious wares of the Church of Rome. Neglecting to judge her by the Word of God, and utterly blind to the awful facts of her past history, and indifferent to the seas of blood and tears she caused our forefathers in this and many other lands, they seem carried off their feet by her sensuous tinsel show and scarlet adornment, and one recalls the words of Cowper:

“To hide the shocking features of her face,

Her form with dress and lotion they repair;

Then kiss their idol and pronounce her fair.”

To see Rome in her true light one must be able to examine things as they are to be found in any Roman Catholic land where she has full sway, “high throned and unashamed,”

I sent a colporteur named Adolpho Pessoa to visit a city called Pesqueira, not a hundred miles from Garanhuns. The man mentioned was a very bright-faced, good-humored, and tactful young fellow, and the city the seat of a Roman Catholic Bishopric, the bishop being a noted persecutor of the Gospel way.

The big weekly fair was in full swing, and after spreading his Bibles, Testaments, and Gospels on a ground cloth, Adolpho began to offer his books in his own attractive manner, and in a little while a crowd gathered round, listening in a friendly fashion.

Adolpho spoke of the value and necessity of reading the Word of God, and the blessing and joy that resulted, enforcing his remarks by reading extracts from a Gospel, which he was selling for the equivalent of a halfpenny. While thus engaged he was rudely interrupted by three priests, who viewed these proceedings with great alarm, and they ordered him to leave the place. Adolpho replied that he was a free Brazilian citizen, and was protected by the free constitution of his country. At this one of the priests, who was blind in one eye, mounted on one of the stalls nearby, and falsely and fiercely denounced the colporteur who, however, sought to carry on his work.

“Enough!” shouted the priest. “There is no time to lose. Beat him!” At this the now infuriated people fell on the innocent servant of God, tore his coat from him, attacked him with sticks and stones, and destroyed all his Scriptures and bag. Tearing himself free from his assailants, Adolpho tried to escape, but the whole fair seemed to rise up against him, and even shopkeepers jumped over their counters to join in a piece of “good work sanctioned by the Holy Church,” Panting and exhausted, he was about to succumb under the hands of his tormentors, when he saw a soldier in a nearby shop, and rushing in, claimed protection. The brave soldier knew his duty, and, drawing his weapon, he held up the would-be assassins, and Adolpho’s life was saved.

That criminal priest is still a free man, no justice was done or any kind of restitution made. The soldier was reprimanded, and doubtless the priest will be promoted.

While we were traveling in a neighboring state selling Bibles, a high dignitary in the Roman Church published the following against us:

“WARNING TO CATHOLICS!

“Good Catholics!

“The emissaries of the ridiculous Protestant heresy, in a horrible rage, are seeking to push in everywhere, under the name of ‘believers,’ only to catch you in their net. Many times their audacity rises to the point of offering you money and false Bibles in exchange for your true faith, especially if they are North American foreigners. “Well then!

“When any one invites you to a Protestant meeting, tempting you to deny your faith, reply in the words of our Divine Saviour: ‘What will you give Me in exchange for My soul?’ Or remember what Peter said to Simon: ‘Thy money perish with thee.’

“Remember, too, the beautiful words of S. Cypriano: ‘He who is not a son of the Catholic Church, is also not a son of God.’ Also the lovely words of Saint Ambrosio; ‘Whoever leaves the Catholic Church loses his right to a place in Paradise.’

“When they invite your children to hear their erroneous doctrines, remember the terrible curses of God pronounced against the fathers of Israel who sacrificed their children to Moloch and the pagan divinities: “Deliver these precious trusts that God has given you from the Protestant plague, for which you will have to give a rigorous account in the hour of your death.

“Live and die in the midst of the only flock of Jesus Christ, that you may have a place in the eternal mansion.

“Away! away with the Protestant heresy!

“PRAISE TO GOD AND THE VIRGIN!”

Could anything be more Jesuitical?

When we sent out nicely bound copies of the New Testament by post to the authorities in a certain city nearby, the local friar illegally abstracted them from the post office, and had them all burnt in the public square. A few days later a petrol pump exploded, and burnt off the beard of the holy friar and broke his leg. He was carried to a Recife hospital, and a few weeks later he passed to his account.

The priests in Brazil find it politic always to call us Americans or Yankies, thus playing on the petty, latent jealousy and distrust the names arouse, as also because North America is the Protestant country which sends most missionaries to Brazil; and because of this the most ridiculously malicious falsehoods are invented to stir up the people. Another reason is to be found in the fact that, owing to the very great and friendly part Great Britain played in the history of Brazil for several hundred years, and owing to the proverbial honesty and punctuality of the early English traders, there is no country in the world that is more respected in Brazil; and for the trader or missionary, one of the greatest assets today is to be able to say, “Sou Inglez” (I am an Englishman), and without doubt some measure of my success as a colporteur is due to that reason.

The fact is that the priests of Rome are very embarrassed and beset with the rapid dissemination of the Scriptures in the mother tongue. They dare not declare the truth of their own dogmas, by which both priest and people are prohibited the reading of the Bible without the special permit of their Bishop, as per the Council of Trent. Several efforts have been made to publish the Gospels with full canonical approval and they have been sold at a very profitable price, but all such attempts have brought so many to a knowledge of the truth, that these editions have soon been withdrawn, or are only obtained with great difficulty, and are quite unknown to the common people.

Quite lately a very embarrassed priest, with whom I discussed the point, exclaimed: “Well, anyhow, the Lord did not say, ‘Go ye and sell Bibles and Testaments to every creature.’” I expressed complete agreement with his remark, but added: “He did, however, say, ‘Search the Scriptures,’ and how can this be obeyed by good Catholics if you don’t supply them?”

“If you will publish the Bible at a reasonable price, with all the ecclesiastical approvals, we shall be very glad to help you sell as many as possible.”

To all this the priest had nothing to say, even though the town judge stood by with a newly purchased Bible under his arm.

Many priests consider that the best way to deal with this “plague,” as they often style the circulation of God’s Word, is to use the confessional and other subterraneous methods of Rome, to collect every copy of the Bible they can lay their hands on, by fair means or foul. Often children are used to rob their parents of the precious volume, and sometimes a house-to-house collection is made, and a very spectacular bonfire follows in due course. The people are continually told that the Bible is false and Protestant, and is a very wicked and immoral book, to touch which is a mortal sin. Unfortunately for Rome, human nature being what it is, there are always very many people on the lookout for just that type of book, and many of these buy the banned volume who otherwise would not buy a religious book of any kind.

The very ashes of the burnt volumes seem to rise in judgment against the enemies of God’s Word, and the act generally arouse a spirit of inquiry which results in the sale of more books than ever, and the Bible has now become the best read book in Brazil.

Here, then, is the true inwardness of a Church that has ever been an enemy of God’s Word, and a proof that we are on right lines in seeking to broadcast the Scriptures by all ways and means throughout this great land of Brazil.

In 1930-31, assisted by maps and directories, I carefully organized an ambitious effort by which we have been able to reach the best educated and most independent class of the community in Brazil by posting about 100,000 attractive, nicely bound and illustrated New Testaments to all the authorities and governing classes, including the Army and Navy. Not only the coastal districts were affected, but regions were also reached by means of the Government mails, which could scarcely ever have been touched by ordinary colportage. Since then there have been hundreds of requests from all quarters for more books, which seems to have been accentuated by an odd coincidence.

Convents and monasteries are going very cheap in Spain and Portugal just now, happily, and so it happened that these little books carried the address of the printers operating in an ex-Convento dos Mariannos, which has led many (who seemingly don’t understand the little prefix “ex-”) to suppose that the books were Catholico Apostolico Romano, and I have had most appreciative letters from all quarters, including priests, one being addressed to the Prior.

Of course, the most important and effective work is that done by the regular colporteur who sells his books.

Very often the sale of a Bible involves the use of much tact and persuasive power, but by the time that the desired end has been accomplished, the happy purchaser of the book has also already acquired a good deal of instruction and light, and quite a body of sound doctrine, too, maybe, all of which will make the book of far greater value and prove of tactical use when comes the inevitable encounter with the village priest, who seems to have a special scent for these books, so dangerous to his faith. The man behind the book is a very great and important element in the transaction, and few men make really good colporteurs.

It is a splendid and most effective ministry, which carries a peculiar joy and satisfaction to the right kind of workers, especially where only the Word of God is handled. There is a very serious demand for such work in Protestant lands, and indeed its importance cannot be exaggerated at such a time as this. There is great need of a College for Colporteurs; or call it a School of Arms, if you prefer it, but one of such a name and character as will attract the brightest and best of educated young Christian men and women, who shall receive a brief though a practical training in such work as I have discussed, and which has been so effective and fruitful wherever adopted in Catholic or Protestant lands. There is no greater, safer, or more glorious and happier ministry in the whole universe.

The terrible process of preparing a young man for the Romish priesthood largely consists in seeking to crush out every noble and virtuous instinct of its unfortunate victim. He is subjected to a merciless, debasing, and utterly un-Christian process by which he may be fashioned into a docile slave and tool in the hands of his superiors. By the time the youth receives his first ordination, he consequently has usually become depraved, cruel, untruthful, and conscienceless, and a past master in sophistry, evasion, and superstition.

What measure of freedom he may yet possess will generally be manifested in acts of similar cruelty and oppression, not merely against the hated heretics, but against his own “lambs.”

The religious upheaval in Spain was largely a great reaction and revulsion of the Roman Catholics themselves against the age-long tyranny, humiliation, and oppression they and their fathers have suffered at the hands of the Catholic clergy.

The Bible in Spain has shattered the power of Rome in that great land of the Holy Inquisition, and her doors are now open wide to the Good News. Who will enter in?

Chapter 14: Darkest Amazonia

LEAVING his small farmstead in the drought-cursed lands of Ceará, young Antão Pessoa set out for the port of Para, at the mouth of the River Amazon, in search of the El-Dorado of his visions―the great rubber lands of the upper river, where fortunes were to be made with ease, and where life held the enchantments of adventure, hazard, and discovery. He fully expected to return to his home and aged parents within a few years, a wealthy man and a landowner, for he feared God and was a “good” Catholic.

Path is a fine, picturesque city of about 200,000 inhabitants, where it rains every day, and where consequently the glories of equatorial vegetation and insect life are seen at their best―and worst. The flora and fauna of the mighty Amazon are without equal in their variety and beauty, a veritable naturalist’s paradise, but the curse which fell on Eden has here also its sign and seal. Full of unimaginable wonders and awe-inspiring in their vast extent, yet cruel and merciless, “red in tooth and claw,” are the dark forests of Amazonia. These dense and untracked forests have swallowed up many a fine man who has incautiously ventured to penetrate its mysteries; and many a well-equipped expedition, too, has there been lost forever. Perils from savage, untamed Indians, who resent the “pale-face” intruders, are not the least of its hidden dangers. Perils of sudden death from unsuspected snake, prowling jaguar, or poison spider, from the terrible sting-ray, the electric eel and cannibal fish (Piranha), or from that bit of driftwood that seems to float so idly down the river, but generally in your direction, and which but hides the hideous form of some designing twelve-foot cayman―any of these confront the explorer in these regions. There was another greater peril yet that Antão was soon to prove―that of cruel, conscienceless men, who seek to exploit the bodies and souls of their fellows. Hidden away from the great river and its mighty tributaries, from the splendid river craft that thread its maze of sixty thousand miles of navigable waterways, and often hidden from the Government itself, are haunts of brutal slavery and crime, from which there is no escape. Woe betide the unsuspecting victim, Brazilian or Britisher, who falls into the toils of these human spiders!

Antão had walked the streets several days in a vain search for employment, and funds were low. Work, and work of any kind, was imperative.

“Hullo, camarada! Looking for a job, eh?” Antão found himself thus accosted by a striking and well-dressed individual in top boots and wide sombrero hat. A very fancy-looking pistol was stuck in his belt, with a suspicion of other such weapons about his person. A most attractive and desirable sort of friend he appeared to Antão. This good opinion was confirmed when the man of the big hat opened up before him a proposal which seemed to promise fame and fortune. He heard of a lovely rubber estate “somewhere” up the Amazon, where work was as plentiful as there was gold to pay for it, and where there was unlimited fishing, hunting, and similar joys―for Antão was a sportsman. Money would be advanced to cover his fare and expenses, and provide him with an outfit of tools, clothes, and the indispensable rifle.

Highly elated at such golden prospects, Antão thoroughly enjoyed the first thousand miles of travel up the Amazon to the big rubber city of Manaos, finding in his company another dozen or so young men who had also been beguiled by the fair words of the man with the big sombrero hat.

A few days were spent in that city, where vice and crime abound, and where white rum and other devilments considerably reduced the general balance in hand, and then they were all packed on board a tiny river boat and continued their long journey up the muddy waters of the Solomões, as the river is called above Manaos. After a week or two of this uncomfortable travel on one of the largest tributaries, they were again transferred into several dug-out canoes, and entering a narrower and darker river—the Japura—they toiled upstream at the rate of about twenty miles a day. It was hard, heavy work, and not quite what they had expected, but Antão and his mates consoled themselves with thoughts of the good time coming and the wealth soon to be theirs. For several weeks they labored against the heavy current, through dense, dark forests, seemingly destitute of inhabitants, and whose thick foliage sometimes met overhead and seemed to enclose them in its sinister embrace. The warm, damp atmosphere, charged with the fumes of rotting vegetation, is enervating and oppressive, and Antão’s bright vision began to dim.

At last, on a hut appearing away upstream on the river’s bank, one of the Indian boatmen blew a horn. It was the “barracao” of the rubber lord of the region, just as I saw it myself a few years ago: a crude building on high piles to clear the floods, made of split palms and rough logs, with a roof of palm leaf thatch.

As the canoes drew up at a crude wharf facing the unattractive barracao, a motley crowd of human scarecrows gathered round to witness the arrival of the newcomers. Victims of hunger, disease, and drink they were, an awesome and a most unhappy looking lot of men, with not a woman among them. It seemed to Antão to be a very cheerless kind of welcome, and fear struck his heart when one of the men, in reply to some optimistic remark, looked at him in commiseration, and said, “Ah, you will soon forget those fairy tales, as I did ten years ago, for you will never leave here again! No one ever has done so, or ever will get away alive!” Antão had virtually sold himself into slavery.

Rubber can only be extracted during the rains, and from this limited period, some weeks, and often months, must also be deducted for the lost days of ever present fever; so that far from ever paying back the advanced £50, the victims only increase the debt, for when workless and sick, food and drugs had to be provided to keep the slave alive, so that the debt was never overtaken. Escape was well-nigh impossible, for the only way was down the river, and a well-manned and well-armed crew of Indians soon overtook any attempt in that direction. Escape through the dense forests meant certain death from hunger, wild beasts, or wilder Indians―as many an unhappy wretch had discovered to his cost.

Such a prospect might well have dismayed a stouter heart than Antão possessed, but he was never a man to give way to despair, nor did he lack courage and resource. There and then he knit himself together, and resolved to pay the debt and to escape the entangling web at all costs.

At once he cut out every luxury and vice, for these things meant further bondage. Sugar and coffee and other such things were banned, and he resolved to keep clear of the ever-available white rum. He even denied himself his beloved tobacco. During the rainy season, when rubber is extracted, day after day he tramped over his long, damp forest trails in search of rubber trees in the section of forest allotted to him; until he had mapped out twenty miles or more of pathways, zigzagging here and there from tree to tree. Month after month he tramped those lonely paths, with his big tin for the rubber milk, a scoring knife, and the necessary rifle. Indians were ever present, though unseen, and sometimes Antão would find one of his newly opened paths had been lightly barred with a few crossed sticks. It was an intimation from the unseen Redskins that he must penetrate no further in that direction, and he knew better than to ignore the warning. When the rains ceased, instead of lying idly in his hammock like the other men, Antão was out with his ax cutting firewood for sale to any passing steam craft, or doing little odd jobs for the boss, with whom he was soon in high favor, so that he was even entrusted with a canoe for his own use. Happily he kept well, and never had to buy on credit, as his companions invariably had to do.

A year or two passed, and although Antao was no mathematician, and the account books in the “barracao” were never balanced he felt that his freedom must have been nearly purchased; though he dare not mention the matter yet, especially as the boss at that time was furious at the loss of several men who, after long absence, had been found murdered on their trails. They had ignored the Redskins’ warning through bravado or carelessness, and had paid the price. A further loss of one of his rubber slaves decided the boss on a dreadful retaliation. Gathering some of his men together, with his own band of trusted Indians as a guarantee, he marched through the forest along those phantom trails, guided by one of his Redskins.

For the best part of a week they traversed a tortuous course through the Amazonian forest until they found the sought for village of the suspected Indians. The place was surrounded without arousing the inhabitants, until they commenced their fusillade. Few Indians escaped, and the rest, both men, women, and children, were massacred in cold blood.

Though he managed to avoid participation in this barbarous business, it filled Antão with indignation and fear, and he redoubled his efforts to throw off the yoke that held him. One night he forgot to chain and padlock his canoe as usual, and it was stolen by three of his fellow-slaves, who sought to escape downstream by that means. For certain reasons Antão had no sympathy with them. It also endangered the goodwill of the boss, which had been acquired so laboriously, and he would have to pay heavily for the lost canoe. The barracão was 20 miles away, but cutting his way through the forests and swamps, and swimming the rivers and lakes which intervened, he finally carried news of the escape to headquarters. The runaways had had three days’ start towards liberty, when a well-manned canoe, with a dozen armed Indians, set out in pursuit. Six days later they overtook the fugitives, taking them quite by surprise as they rested on a sandbank. Loaded with ignominy and shame, they were pushed into the big canoe, paddles were thrust into their hands, and they were urged on unceasingly as they worked their way back to a hopeless captivity.

Three years had now passed by since Antão had been snared by the gentleman of the big sombrero, when one day, as Antão happened to be near the barracao, there was a scene of some excitement owing to the arrival of a Government launch traveling up the river to establish a frontier station thereon with the neighboring Republic of Columbia. There were some half-dozen officials and a score of sailors in the party, but the chief officer was looking out for one or two additional men to strengthen the force under his command. Good money and great privileges were offered, but nobody was forthcoming—for all were in debt. He could have the pick of his men, if he paid their debts, the boss declared, for well he knew that this price was too great, and besides, the Brazilian Government does not favor this form of slavery, however much they tolerate it.

Here was a chance for Antão, and pushing himself in front of the crowd, he asked if he would do. Eyeing him up and down, the Brazilian officer was attracted by his fine physique and smart appearance, and demanded the boss to show how much he owed. Very loathfully, the latter was compelled to produce his books, and, to and behold! Antão was a free man, with a nice little sum on the credit side to boot.

Wild as he felt to lose such a man, his old master felt compelled to bear testimony to the faithfulness and good character of his late slave. The old contract was soon annulled, and the new one signed and sealed, and off went the Government boat, leaving Antão to gather his few scattered possessions, sell up the rubber he had on hand, and follow on upstream to the newly-formed station. And thus he bade farewell to slavery, to the great astonishment of his late companions, and set off on his new venture. His purchased canoe was a poor affair, and he could hardly keep it afloat, the river’s bottom being clearly visible through a hole in its hull. The perils from crocodiles and other beasts were many and real ere he finally reached his new home some days later.

Here he had an easy, comfortable life, in vivid contrast to the past three years of torment, and he could now hunt and fish to his heart’s content, one of his duties being the provisioning of the station with fish, turtles, cow-fish, and any forest delicacies available.

One day he set out with his gun to explore a new section of the forest, some hours’ journey by canoe and foot. Here he found sport, and wandered incautiously farther and yet farther from his canoe into the enclosing forest. When he tried to retrace his steps, he soon found to his horror that he had lost his trail. Turning here and there, he walked miles in each direction, hoping to come across some sign he might recognize, but his efforts were in vain, and he became more and more involved in the denser forest, and soon lost his sense of direction. Night overtaking him, he climbed up a big tree to pass the night in its branches, to escape the perils that stalk in darkness. He was not without hopes of escaping, for he still had his gun, and he looked forward hopefully to the coming daylight to recommence his search for a way out. In this uncomfortable situation, however, there was no rest for the poor fellow, for several times a prowling jaguar sniffed suspiciously around the base of his tree, although happily it did not look up. Then it began to rain, and soon he was drenched and cold, and hungry, too, and oh! calamity of calamities!― with the wet his ammunition was spoiled and useless, All next day he wandered through the forest wherever he could penetrate, with only a few wild berries by way of food, and again he had to spend a night in a tall tree top, fastening himself in the forks of the branches, so that he should not fall if he dozed too much.

The third day found his strength fast failing him, but still he tried to crawl through the forest here and there as fancy led him, only to find his way back to the spot he had left hours before. Late that afternoon he thought he heard a gunshot away over the treetops. It was some of his companions who had been sent out to look for the lost man. There is a regular code among hunters by which signals can be made by gunshot, and intelligible replies received, but he could not reply as his ammunition was wet, and it was impossible to tell the direction of the sound. However, he passed the third night more hopefully among the branches.

Next day he anxiously listened for hours for some signal from his searching companions, and again he heard that distant gunshot above the treetops, but without locating the direction, and it looked as if he were going to die within sound of deliverance.

Then he had an inspiration, and detaching his rifle barrel from the stock, and painfully climbing the tallest of the surrounding trees, he used the barrel as a kind of bugle, and managed to make a long-drawn-out, high-pitched note, which sounded away across the forest. Then anxiously―how anxiously! ―he awaited a response. He had not long to wait, for to his great joy another gunshot sounded, and so much nearer that he was able to get his direction at last, and make his way towards his rescuers. Several signals were exchanged, and at last he found himself on the river bank again, and soon afterward was discovered by the search party and carried home, very limp and a bit scared, but otherwise none the worse for an adventure which might have cost him his life.

The next event of importance in his history took place a few weeks later, when, with one companion, in a dug-out with a few Bibles on board, I pulled up at this frontier station and asked for their hospitality while I waited for the arrival of the steam launch to take me down to Manaos. We had just concluded a very disappointing journey of investigation of the Indian tribes of that region. For what happened on the occasion, and just what the after results were for Antão, I must refer my readers to my previous book, “Adventures with the Bible in Brazil,” where a full account will be found, to which I can add but little.

Let it suffice to say that during a series of meetings which I held among his sailor colleagues Antão was converted and became an avid reader of the Bible. Soon after I had set off downstream to Manaos, in route for London, Antão started a school among the sailors, and taught eight of them to read the Bible, including a fine young Indian, and several of these men were eventually converted also. I kept in touch with him, supplying him with schoolbooks and Scriptures, and several years later he joined me in Maceio, and soon became the best colporteur in North Brazil, and a great soul-winner. Many a long journey we have made together throughout Brazil, and many have been the adventures and perils this lion-hearted man has cheerfully faced for Christ’s sake, which might not have been but for that hard preparation and testing time among the rubber slaves of the upper Amazon.

Chapter 15: Antao's New Vocation

FOR several years after his conversion in the forests of the upper Amazon, Antao continued to serve the Brazilian Government on the Colombian frontier station, bearing faithful witness to his newfound faith. At last his time expired, and he made the long trip down the river, and then the equally long journey to his old home away back in Parahyba.

His arrival caused a great sensation, not alone on account of his wonderful experiences and troubles, but still more because of the new religion he began to preach among his townsfolk. Some listened sympathetically, while others mocked―the same old story―but Antão was full of enthusiasm, and his sincerity was too transparent for any to doubt the reality of his faith. The local priest, after several attempts to confound him, retired from combat with a man who knew too much of the Bible for him.

After a year or two of farming he paid me a visit in Maceió. I persuaded him to try his hand in Bible work, and very timidly he made his first attempt. He made rapid progress, however, and soon I was able to send him far afield, where alone he visited the fanatical city of Correntes. He arrived on market day, and started selling Gospels among the country folk. All at once the town priest appeared with a crowd of armed men behind him, and commenced to denounce the colporteur as an enemy of the Church and of Jesus and the Virgin. Antão endeavored to hold his own, but the priest was furious, and struck him several times on the head with the stick he carried, while the crowd demanded their money back, and threw the little books at his feet. Emboldened in his malice, the priest snatched his bag of books from his hand, and tore the contents into a thousand pieces, while Antão narrowly escaped lynching. Only the grace of God prevented him giving the priest a good hiding, which he was well able to do, but he suffered all this indignity with patience. Nevertheless, he visited the local authority to protest against the outrage. While he was thus engaged the priest called a few of his special friends, and mounting their animals they rode out to the farmhouse a mile away, where Antão was staying, and where he had his stock of books for the whole journey. Bursting open his locked boxes, the priest piled up the books in the road and made a bonfire of them all.

This proved too much even for the semi-compliant authorities, who began to fear the probable consequences of this breach of the constitution, and calling Antão, they said he had the right to have the priest imprisoned and heavily fined. To this Antão refused to agree, and to the surprise of the town magistrate he read them words about forgiving and loving your enemies, and all he could be persuaded to accept was the bare value of the burnt Bibles.

All this frightened the priest, and he so completely lost his authority and the respect of the people, that he speedily moved to another town, and whenever one of our colporteurs passes that way, as Antão has done several times, he looks in another direction and has not a word to say, while in the city of Correntes there is now a very promising Gospel mission station.

Here and there in the remoter parts of these northern regions there are little communities of Christians who received their first light from the ex-rubber slave. In one place he sold a Bible to a man who had been first interested through reading a Testament lent by a woman who did not believe in it. The Word of God and the testimony of Antão made the man a believer; the first in all that part of Brazil. Then he in turn brought his cousin to the Lord, who was finally convinced of the Truth by reading an approved Catholic Bible. Together the cousins preached the Gospel to their friends, and so many began to turn to the Lord that they decided to send for a preacher, a Mr. Briault, living in a town three hundred miles away, who, arriving with his wife in his battered old Ford, was soon in the midst of a real spiritual awakening among all classes, one of the new converts being a brother of the State President.

Amidst all this movement and salvation the woman who had started the fire with her New Testament remained hard and bitter in her opposition, and when her own husband was converted she was indignant, and openly declared she would oppose him to the last ditch. One day, while she was letting off her spleen against the husband, the brother of the President entered the house, and hearing her conversation, reproved her severely, while drawing out his beloved little New Testament, and turning to Eph. 5, he read to her of the duties of wives to their husbands. The effect was instant and remarkable, for she there and then gave up the fight and surrendered to the Truth. She went home to tell her very astonished husband that she was now a believer in Jesus, and that from then on the Gospel should be preached in their home. She also sent him out at once to invite all the believers in the countryside to a thanksgiving feast, while she got busily to work preparing the victuals. Thus the good work went on among young and old, and those who were most in opposition generally became the best fruit of all. One very old lady was in great distress to see her children all being converted, but, attracted by the singing, she, too, went to listen afar off to the beautiful Portuguese hymns. Then one day a stranger visited her little house, and as he talked, drew her attention to the picture on her wall―The Sacred Heart of Jesus―pointing out that though it had mouth, ears, eyes, and nose, it could not use them; it was merely a piece of paper, and had no power. As they continued to converse, the blessed truths of the Gospel began to enter her heart, and when her nephew came in a little later she exclaimed: “It is only now I am beginning to understand something of the Gospel; the pastor spoke so beautifully to me just now!”

“That was not the pastor,” said he; “that was his chauffeur.”

“Well, well, if the chauffeur talks like that, what must the pastor be like?”

After that she began to attend the meetings, and one day, after the hymn, “Softly and tenderly Jesus is calling,” had been sung, she cried out: “Pastor, sing that hymn again!” This they gladly did, and at the close she said: “I am now a believer in Jesus.” Since then her bright face and clear testimony have had a powerful influence on her Catholic neighbors, who have dubbed her “Queen of the Believers.”

Antão has made many a visit to this place since he sold that first Bible, and nobody is better loved and welcomed. All this information was given me by Mr. Gillanders, who became Antão’s companion for many a long mile through the wilds of Brazil. One day the latter wrote me the following interesting account of their travels with the troop.

“We have just completed―Antão and I―another colportage journey on the borderland of Parahyba and Pernambuco, nearly 300 miles of our path being through a region where Romanism and Mariolatry hold sway practically unchallenged, with scarcely five believing souls in all the countryside. Electric light, tramways, picture shows, and merry-go-rounds—but of the Gospel of Christ, nothing.

“Yet people are willing to receive the Gospel message, if only we bring it to them. In Pesqueira, a place noted for its religiousness, with its convent, bishop, and half-a-dozen great churches, and its people―as an old man said― ‘most holy and most perverse,’ we were received well by the majority, and many bought Scriptures. Entering, however, the office of a great jam factory, which practically supports the bishop, I encountered a broadside of abuse and ridicule such as I have rarely faced.

“On the other hand, in a field where the foundations of a great convent were being laid, I sold a number of Bibles, New Testaments, and Gospels to the foreman and laborers, but as usual Antão had the best sales.

“In a quiet, sleepy little village called Villa de Cimbre, we had scarcely begun our work, and I was sitting reading out of God’s Word in the house of a kindly old man, when suddenly an apparition appeared in the doorway―a monk in Franciscan garb, with long, flowing beard and skull cap, and close behind him a crowd of men, women, and children. With a distinctly foreign accent he commanded me not to sell my Protestant books there, and proceeded to miscall the Bibles and Testaments, and to denounce Protestantism and Luther, whom he described as a most evil man.

“Thereupon those who had bought books returned them and demanded their money back, and I was asked by the old man, at the instigation of the priest to depart, which I did, and commenced to read from the Word to the villagers in the street, in spite of the padre’s warning.

“The sale of books now seemed hopeless, but we proceeded. I was kindly received in one house, given coffee, and listened to with courtesy, even though the man of the house is a seller of rosaries. From door to door and shop to shop I went, ever followed by the crowd, flat refusal being always the only answer, until one shopkeeper, a veritable John Hampden he looked, in the face of the crowd and his wife’s angry denunciation, that she would surely burn the book, bought a New Testament.

“We had a splendid little Gospel meeting one night in a ‘mud’ house, secluded from a village where we had labored during the day. There were present a Christian couple from the village, the members of the household, one young lady strongly pro-Catholic, yet intelligent and kindly disposed, and the chief man of the place, a humble old gentleman who had read much of the Bible, lent to him by this Christian couple. The hymns, the wonderful Word, Antão’s apt message, and the simple prayers, all so different from what most of them have been used to, made a deep impression upon them.

“The old gentleman came in the morning to see us off, and as we rode away said: ‘Do not forget to pray for the old man. Remember him in your prayers.’

“In St. Joseph do Egypto we had canvassed a fair part of the town and sold a number of books, but as I was offering a book to a boy in a shop, a voice at my shoulder said: ‘What are these books you are selling?’ and I was startled to find a big padre at my back, with a crowd filling the shop.

“He denounced the books as heretical, and when I presented him with a Catholic edition, he said that we put one good book among the bad to deceive the people, and afterward said it also was false. In the end he told me to get out of the town or he would take a stick to me.

“After visiting a few more houses, followed by a mob of boys hissing, and even spitting, I turned my steps homeward in the gathering dusk, and had passed on round the corner of a street when a soldier came up with me saying the police delegate wished to see me.

“He was awaiting my arrival, at the top of the street, and the crowd was gathering. To my surprise he turned on them and warned them that they would have a taste of rifle fire if there was any more nonsense. Turning to me, he assured me I was perfectly free to sell my books. I thanked him and he wished me good night.

“Leaving early next morning, we reached a neighboring village by midday, and offered our books in the fair and from house to house; and lo, almost everyone was eager to see and, buy the books that had roused the padre’s ire, while in the hotel where we stayed a big crowd gathered that night to hear the Gospel. Thus God made even the wrath of man to praise Him.”

A little later, Antão and his companion were engaged in the longest muleback journey we have undertaken, covering no less than three thousand miles, S. S. W., right down through the center of this great Republic to the capital city of Rio de Janeiro, passing through Goyaz city en route. They were away nearly a year, traveling part of the time through uninhabited or Indian-infested regions, with little food for men or beasts, and too often scourged by the prevailing fevers in the valleys of the S. Francisco and Tocantins. With all this they were not downhearted, for they were enabled to preach the Gospel in many a new center, and to scatter the Word of God freely by the wayside. So I take my hat off to the individual with the big sombrero hat with his guileful ways, for he was indirectly the means of giving us so very brave and valuable a soldier of Jesus Christ as is Antão Pessoa.

Chapter 16: The Lost Tribes of South America

THE Incas of Western South America were once a very powerful empire, a race of many millions, noble in form and mind, free and upstanding, forming a huge commonwealth which extended from Colombia to Southern Chile. They were justly proud of their great rulers―the famous “Children of the Sun” ―a people of ancient and mysterious lineage, and of real personal charm and dignity, yet who also knew how to govern with justice and benevolence, and how to cultivate the arts of peace.

Their splendid palaces, halls, and temples were raised high against the heavens, massive stone upon massive stone, each so faultlessly fitted to its fellow that they yet defy the ravages of time, and today excite the wonder and envy of our master builders.

Their populous cities were adorned with lovely gardens and artificial lakes; terrace above terrace brilliant with flowers and foliage, bright with the glad cries of happy children and the sound of fairy waters.

The contented peasantry were industrious and prosperous; valiant in defense of their prince in time of war, and abiding under a beneficent and just administration of the law. A wonderful picture of a wonderful people, with a setting which displayed a magnificence and wealth, coupled with a wise government, that might well recall the days of Solomon.

Four hundred years ago came a sudden and terrible change. There arrived a band of foreign armed men. Strangely attractive in appearance they were, but with subtle and cruel hearts. The Incas were fascinated and bewildered like a flock of sheep. Foul cunning, duplicity, and the deep-dyed treachery of the Spanish commander Pizarro, who was supported by his monks and friars, soon changed the scene; this noble race was shamefully betrayed into destruction, poverty, and slavery, and all that is left today of their past glories are the hundreds of isolated tribes which inhabit Peru, Bolivia, Colombia, and the great Brazilian Amazonia, some of whom are wild and indomitable savages, and a few are cannibals. The remnants in Bolivia number about a million debased, exploited, and poverty-stricken Indians, who are a disgrace to our common humanity. In Peru there yet remain about two million of the same race, known today as the Quechua and Aymara Indians, who, though not savages or cannibals, yet are little better than degraded serfs, without light and without hope. This is equally true of other scattered sections of the once proud empire of the Incas, who are yet to be found in nearly all the northwest of South America under one name or another.

In seeking to fulfill out Master’s great command to preach the Gospel to every creature, we certainly have begun at home, and lavished of our very best on the great white race. We have given of our sons and daughters to the needs of darkest Africa; the black man has not been forgotten. We have poured out our treasure on behalf of the yellow millions of China and Japan, and the brown men of India have had a few of our finest missionaries. But what have we done for the fifth great division of humanity? What have we done for the Redskin―the great forgotten race?

An Australian Mission has for many years been making a brave and uphill attempt to reach the Bolivian Indians for Christ. The “Unevangelized Land Mission” has launched out a score of precious young lives into the vast, dense, and perilous region of the Brazilian Amazon, to face a life of privation and suffering that few can long survive, in an apostolic attempt to reach some of these forgotten peoples for Christ and eternity. The Union with which the writer is connected has for some years conducted a large farm of territorial area, where the Quechua Indian may find the much needed protection from wrong, and where many learn to work honorably and are taught to read and write. An orphanage cares for their children, the Gospel is preached to them daily, and quite a few have been won for Christ. There is also the Anglican Mission in the Paraguayan Chaco, among several small communities of Redskins, where good work has been done, besides the efforts of a few individual missionaries here and there over the vast continent.

But all these efforts only begin to touch the fringe of the great problem of reaching this forgotten race with the Good News.

Many years ago my attention was drawn to one of the scattered tribes which are to be found along the banks of the Araguaya River, one of the largest and most beautiful of rivers, running almost due south to north through Central Brazil, debouching into the mouth of the Amazon at Para.

Odidi, a Carajá Indian, had come to Goyaz city on a visit, with several other Redskins, all in their natural state―without clothing of any kind. They had come out of their wilds to see something of the wonderful world they had heard of, and to them the very primitive and rather rude and rustic capital of Goyaz was a marvel of the pale-face. They also wanted to see the Tauri’s “iron horse with its belly of fire and its round legs of iron,” as they called it; but this was yet too far away. We clothed them as far as decency demanded, and gave them such a warm welcome generally that Odidi gave us to understand that he wished to stay on with us, to “improve himself,” as he put it, the others returning to their riverside huts far away. He cut his long hair, donned my cast-offs, and, took up his residence with us, calling me “father.” Rapidly he learned to read and write, though he spoke very little Portuguese. His efforts to abandon the tobacco habit were very pathetic, and sometimes he would disappear into the forest for a week at a time, and then come back very pale and sickly-looking, reeking with the smell of the subtle and perilous weed. He eventually gained the mastery over this evil vice.

Nearly a year after his arrival I set out on my long-anticipated voyage of exploration among Odidi’s people, the Carajá, Indians, and traveling together on horseback we traversed the hundred and twenty miles to the little port of Leopoldina do Araguaya. Here large and interesting open-air meetings were held, the hearers showing great satisfaction on hearing the Good News. I managed to purchase an old twenty-five-foot igarité canoe, hollowed out of one log, with its sides raised by two rows of boards, and a small platform at each end. It is propelled by two or three single-bladed paddles, and by long poles in the shallows. My crew consisted of an old deaf half-caste named Sylverio, and his son, a lad of about thirteen, accompanied by their dog, and Odidi. Our boat was well loaded down with food and necessaries for a long voyage, over half a ton in weight, although we depended upon fish and turtles supplying the greater part of our larder. Then followed the most interesting and important journey very briefly related in the next chapter.

Chapter 16: On the Araguaya

A LITTLE group stood at the water’s edge to witness the departure of our canoe and to wish us a “feliz viagem” (good voyage), and I felt a thrill of satisfaction when a turn in the stream hid Leopoldina from sight, and there stretched before us the solitary grandeur of this splendid river. Even at 2000 miles from its source, the river averages 300 yards in width, opening out to a mile or more in its lower reaches.

On our first night down the river we slept fairly well, having paddled about forty miles. I arranged my bed on a dry ox-hide under the tolda, the others sleeping out on the cool sands, in the broad moonlight. I had little rest at first; the novelty of the situation, the occasional strange sounds of animals and fish around us, and the monotonous cries of certain night birds kept me awake until my weariness gained the upper hand, and I slept until, daybreak.

Throughout the course of this magnificent river all is grandly primitive, silent, and lonely, untouched by the hand of man. Just before stopping as usual for breakfast, we were at last agreeably surprised by the appearance of three big “ubás” (dug-out canoes), with a dozen or so Carajás on board, traveling up the river. They were all men, big, corpulent, and quite naked, and looked wonderfully interesting in that early morning light.

About midday Chrichas was sighted, a Carajá village of some eight houses and 70 people in all. We ran the nose of our igarité on the sandy island about a hundred yards from the huts, and several redskins ran out to greet us. Leaving the canoe with my three companions, I walked across the hot sand to the village, accompanied by two stalwart young giants, whose bodies were stained a bright red, with a black design on top, this being their only dress; yet withal, their native dignity and carriage were worthy of a foreign ambassador. I found that the village consisted of lightly constructed huts of palm leaf; they were of a roomy character, the larger ones being arched, about 15 feet wide and 30 feet long, and open at one end; the only furniture being the usual reed mats stretched on the sand. Occasionally there was also a curiously made stool, somewhat resembling a double-headed tortoise with a flat back, a long nose, and staring eyes of pearl shell fastened on with beeswax, perhaps a relic of the old Inca empire. The smaller huts are of the usual angular shape, and all were scrupulously clean and sweet. There are no bad smells about an Indian village, owing, perhaps, to the fresh, dry airs that blow over the sandy plains, where not a trace of vegetation is visible.

One of the redskin warriors, a tall, finely built man of keen, aquiline features and the usual Japanese type of eyes, conducted me to the hut of the chief. Excepting his beautiful long black hair, which fell in loose tresses to below his shoulders, he, like all other Indians of the tribe, had no hair whatever on any other part of his red body, which was as smooth and shiny as a billiard ball. They even pull out the hair of their eyebrows, as they consider it a blemish, and generally serve the eyelashes the same way. The chief, who was a man of about 50, was ill, and lying on a mat outside his residence, shielded from the hot sun by a light erection of palm leaves. His wife, a big, hearty-looking woman, was kneeling at his side, with her fists pressed into his stomach to afford relief of some kind. She showed real concern, and I regretted my inability to help the old chief, who was evidently suffering much pain. He spoke a little Portuguese, so we conversed together for some time, he immediately arousing himself and betraying great interest when I mentioned our desire to live and work for the Carajás. “Ah, yes,” he said, “we need it. They work for the Bororó and Caiapó, but nothing is ever done for the Carajá” (referring to the work of the Dominican and Franciscan monks). “Be sure,” he said earnestly in conclusion, “and tell me when and where it is to be, and do not deceive me.”

I then visited all the huts one by one, and found them as clean and pleasant as the chief’s, though so primitive. The interior of the hut is generally covered with artistic and cleverly manufactured spears, bows and arrows of all kinds, and Indian clubs, armlets, and feather ornaments of curious design.

Scattered around are numerous calabashes of all sizes and shapes, and earthen pots with strong concoctions of food, which it might be well not to taste, while one often sees little piles of cooked sweet potatoes here and there, as well as mandioca root. The only culinary utensils are earthen cooking pots, calabashes, and river shells, which serve in lieu of spoons.

Producing some fishhooks, I handed one to each of the Indians. These they received with eagerness and evident satisfaction. If you displease a Carajá by not being liberal enough with your gifts, you are soon made aware of it for they look at one another with a most solemn expression, and say, “Ebina, ebina” (It is bad, it is bad!). After visiting all the huts in succession and making myself at home on the proffered mats, I found it was time, to move on, so walked back to the canoe.

On reaching the igarité, I found it surrounded by huge Indians, among whom we seemed as pigmies. Some were squatting most unceremoniously on our canoe, others in the water, while the rest were gravely seated on the shore. They were very quiet, dignified, and self-respecting, but evidently expecting something. Most travelers carry tobacco for such occasions, and I was probably the first to venture down the Araguaya without it.

The sand retains its warmth for some hours after sunset, and we lay around our camp fire enjoying the cool air and moonlit waters of the Araguaya, while I had a long talk with Odidi, first about the moon and stars, and then about the Creator of the whole universe, and how He loved the Carajás also, and wanted them to be with Him in a better and happier world than this. He appeared to understand and appreciate all that I tried to say to him.

At daybreak next morning we continued our way, and after three hours’ paddling stopped for breakfast on a small island. While Sylverio was preparing the rice, Odidi started to explore, and hastily returned with the startling information that a group of the terrible Chavante Indians were breakfasting on the far side of the same island. I crawled cautiously a short distance in scout fashion, trying to keep well out of sight, and saw a group of red savages seated around a fire roasting fish; but, quick of eye and ear, they soon noticed my presence, and made off into the thicket, and I saw no more of them, for I cleared off just as quickly―in the opposite direction!

Paddling on, we passed several canoes full of Carajá Indians, who greeted Odidi with their musical cooing cries, but we did not stop. After a time we reached the small, decadent village of Sao Jose, the last solitary outpost of civilization.

There are about 20 odd houses in the village, forming three sides of a square around a small Roman Chapel, all in much need of repairs, with an air of poverty and lack of ambition over the whole place; while the thick undergrowth is allowed to accumulate to such an extent that the river is hidden from sight, although the village stands on a high bluff.

The people are only visited every few years by a friar, and they at once agreed to my suggestion to hold a meeting that night, the principal man of the place, Senhor Souza Lobo, offering his house for that purpose, and sending his sons out to invite the people to attend. We had a fine and inspiring crowd of about fifty people, who listened to the Gospel of grace with great quiet and attention. At the close of the meeting I invited questions or criticism, but as none responded, I asked them to prepare some queries embracing any doubts or suspicions that they might have as to our faith, and I would gladly reply to them a month hence on my return journey.

Immediately after the gathering we paddled another two miles to find a resting place for the night. The quiet of the nights on the Araguaya is sublime, and paddling by moonlight on this vast expanse of smooth water is most refreshing and romantic. There are, however, some hidden dangers for the night traveler, for although the river is completely free from dangerous rocks or cataracts of any kind, there are numerous stranded wrecks of trees and logs, which project at intervals along the river’s course. The danger is increased when these are hidden a few inches below the water’s surface, for there is always the risk of knocking a hole in the canoe on one of these snags. Our boat would not stand much of that, for it was already leaking, and needed constant bailing.

We passed the night between two small villages off the mouth of the Crichas River. Early next day we passed three other villages before breakfast, and continually met Indian ubás skirting the river’s edge, generally with a single stalwart occupant with a bow and arrow, seeking for fish, or for tartaruga (turtle) eggs.

We determined to make an effort to reach the Bananal Island that evening if possible.

The night was splendid and cool, with a full moon. A sharp look out had to be kept for snags, but Odidi, in common with his race, has most remarkable eyesight, and can see a projecting snag by moonlight long before I would suspect its presence. He can also detect the sunken ones by some all but unnoticeable movement of the river’s surface. Oftentimes he discovered and pointed out Indians on the shore ahead of us, or a ubá, some wild animal, or a crocodile, where I failed to detect anything, until we were a good deal nearer.

At last, however, well on into the night, we sighted the low-lying southern point of the island, with its broad bank of sand, and our arrival was greeted by a loud chorus from hundreds of birds, much resembling seagulls.

My satisfaction was extreme on landing upon this immense island, which is 300 miles in length, and I felt that at last I was really in the home of the Carajás. But the point of the island where we had landed did not prove suitable for our camp that night, so we pulled over to a dry bank on the Matto Grosso side of the river. We slept well, and when I awoke it was already broad daylight. Odidi and I crossed to the point of the island, and found that the right channel was dry. Its clean, sandy bed, which is about 100 yards wide, is fringed by dense forests, and presents a striking appearance, like some fine, broad highway of silvery sand, threading its way through the forests, and on and on through unexplored country, until it rejoins the Araguaya again, three hundred miles below.

Early the next morning I aroused the men, and we traveled for about two hours before sunrise. We encountered many ariranha seals and shoals of botos―a kind of dolphin which, first on one side of the canoe, then on the other, spurt and puff and wheeze, as if to provide us with a little amusement.

We pulled up at a specially beautiful sandbank that night, but it was marred by the presence of an impertinent crocodile, who refused to change his quarters, and came up quite close to Manoel while he was cleaning the rice for dinner. Happily he noticed the reptile in time, and drove it off with a pole.

During the night I awoke with a start, and saw Odidi, by the glimmer of our camp fire, with a firebrand in his hand, chasing one of these crocodiles, which had ventured out of the water to reconnoiter the sleepers, I kept my gun handy and the fire burning all night.

Towards evening we drew up about 150 yards from an Indian village, but finding that the igarité drew too much water to pull up close to the shore, I pointed to a high sandbank which could be seen lower down the river, with promise of deep water, and told my companions to leave me with the Indians and I would join them later on in an ubá. So they paddled the canoe down the river, leaving me with five stalwart redskins, who conducted me over the stretch of sand to their little village. Their huts were small and of a lighter construction than usual, some having no roof, but only a palm leaf shelter against the wind.

In one hut several women and children were seated on the usual mat, and invited me to sit down with them, which I was very pleased to do. One young woman brought me a piece of boiled fish in her hand, and another gave me a kind of yam, which I endeavored to eat. The men were the usual fine, tall, intelligent-looking Indians, with their lustrous and muscular bodies painted in the usual way. The women do not go in for so much fancy coloring, except perhaps the unmarried ones, who have designs on their faces, resembling the caste marks of the Hindu.

They invited me to spend the night with them, but on darkness setting in, I rose to leave, after one of the happiest experiences of my life.

Four Carajás paddled me down in their ubá to the place where our igarité had drawn up for the night, another canoe following us, filled with women. On arrival at our camp I treated them all to pieces of raw sugar brick, farinha, red handkerchiefs, fishhooks, and some little colored bags for the women. These and the children returned to their village, but the men lay all around us on the sands, intently watching us as we prepared our dinner of rice and dried salt meat. It was growing dark, and the light of our campfire lit up their fine interesting forms to good effect. When all was ready I gave them two big plates of rice between them, an agreeable change from their regular diet, which is almost exclusively fish, with an occasional turtle or chameleon. I invited one boyish young fellow named Una, whose body was stained black all over, as happens to all the uninitiated youths, to share my plate of food, so he sidled up at once, and we started in together.

The Indians lay around us till quite late that night, largely on Odidi’s account, who had many wonderful things to tell them of his experiences with us in Goyaz. He did most of the talking, his attentive listeners punctuating each sentence with a sonorous “Um―m” of varied tones and pitch, according to their degree of interest. Odidi also produced his spelling book and copy book, recited the alphabet, and spelled out a few words to them, to their evident surprise and amazement, Early next morning we reached the mouth of the Rio das Mortes (River of the Slain), which is separated from the Araguaya by a long spit of sand. Here we had a narrow escape from shipwreck. One of the perils of the Araguaya is the “banziera,” a very strong northerly wind that comes without warning. We were steering along in midstream, when suddenly the wind struck us full in the face, and in a few minutes the river assumed a stormy aspect. Big waves broke over the igarité in a most alarming fashion, while the boat pitched as if in a rough sea, threatening to go under. Another gallon or so of water would have sunk us, when we managed to pull under the lee of the shore, which protected us from the violence of the waves, and in ten minutes we were safe at the river’s edge. Praise God for the deliverance! We were very tired when we finally stopped for the night at a large Indian village of eight huts, and about 100 persons. The chief, an elderly, fatherly-looking man, visited us at once, and not icing that the sandbank was destitute of firewood, he immediately paddled off with his wife to fetch some from a neighboring forest. We had our usual pot of rice for dinner, the hungry Indians crowding around. Gathering boldness through Odidi’s presence and privileges, while I was talking to the old chief and his wife, the other Indians thrust their hands into the pot and made such short work of the contents that we all went hungry to bed that night. The Indians did not return to their huts, but spent the night with us, stretched out on the sand by our fire, along with the chief, with no bed covers between them―their customary sleeping arrangement.

We spent another night on the usual quiet sandbank, after catching enough fish for three meals, and salting what was left. At this time the moon rose late, and the nights were dark, though the starlight was bright enough to show the dark line of the Chavante shore, a mile away across the Araguaya. A forest fire, not far from the opposite edge of the river, threw a bright red glow across its waters, and, reflected in an overhanging cloud of smoke, made an impressive and awesome scene, all the More so because of our immediate surroundings. Above and below us on our side of the river are the Carajás, while just across the river is the land of the feared Chavantes, who but a few months previously had attacked and killed a few Carajás who had ventured to cultivate a small piece of ground on that side of the river. To the right of the Chavantes, and below us as far as the Tapirapé River, lives the tribe of that name, while directly behind us a few miles inland, is a branch of the Carajá tribe known as the Javahés, with several large villages.

We sighted Odidi’s village early in the afternoon of the thirteenth day out from Leopoldina, but long before we could see the place he had sounded his horn repeatedly and vigorously with the call peculiar to the Carajá tribe. He was visibly excited, and produced a linen collar, tie, and studs from his bundle, in which he arrayed himself, and with these and his black jacket he quite put me in the shade. On reaching the village we found that most of the men were away fishing, including the chief, Joao, but nevertheless Odidi had a great welcome, and was received with many expressions of joy and amazement. The men flung their arms round his neck, and some of the women did so, too, the rest chattering away with smiling faces, while the children jumped and whooped with delight, and then proceeded to examine his clothes carefully and critically.

His short hair was evidently not agreeable to them, but they tried to improve it, and trimmed it to their liking. I found the people much less grasping than in other villages, and it was therefore a greater pleasure to give to them.

Meanwhile, two ubás arrived, laden with fish of all sizes and shapes, all of which had been shot with the arrow, perhaps 500 fish in all. They also had on board a quantity of short, green sticks, with which they proceeded to build a rough stand about two feet high, and about eight feet by three in area, on which they laid all the fish, just as they were taken from the canoes, without cleaning them or taking off the scales. Firewood was then arranged beneath and lighted at one end, burning gradually from one end of the stand to the other, and roasting the fish as it did so, while the dripping oil aided the combustion and kept the fire bright. The supports of the rough table, being of green wood, did not burn. After being roasted, the fish is eaten just as it is, without salt.

One of the new arrivals was an old aunt of Odidi’s, who raised her voice and howled over him with great lamentation, and when she noticed my presence, she talked to me at a great rate. I felt rather embarrassed, not understanding the meaning of the demonstration. Perhaps it was a reproof for keeping Odidi away so long―or was it because of his bobbed hair?

We paddled away, with a strong current in our favor, and in a few hours had made such unexpected progress that, when I had just settled upon an excellent spot for our camp, Odidi, to my great surprise, pulled out his horn and began to blow, afterward explaining to me that we were already within earshot of the mouth of the Tapirapé. We had, therefore, almost reached the last Carajá village that I wished to visit; so we paddled on, and before long I could distinguish several ubás coming in our direction, and a little farther on the huts of a large village appeared. Another blast on the horn and the village was alive with redskins, while more ubás put out to meet us. The first man to reach us happened to be a, brother of Odidi, somewhat like him in appearance, but taller and broader, while a boy at the helm was Odidi’s nephew. They welcomed my Carajá most warmly, and the boy especially was delighted. Ere we reached the village the shore was crowded with men, women, and children, and the greeting was uproarious. We pulled up about a hundred yards from the village, which I found to be the largest yet visited, with nine huts and quite a hundred Indians.

To escape the crowd I left the canoe in charge of Sylverio and the boy, and strolled across to the huts. Walking was difficult owing to the quantity of fish bones and scales, which pierced my feet, while the sand itself was scorching hot with the sun’s rays.

On reaching the first hut, I found a woman engaged in rubbing some red ooracoom seed and oil between her hands, and then, with the finger of one hand used as a paint brush, she proceeded to adorn the face of her lord and master until she had worked a fancy design around his eyes and nose, which did not improve his appearance―at least, in my estimation.

As I approached the other houses the children ran away to hide, some bawling with fear and apprehension; even many of the women were frightened, in spite of the presence of some of their men, and the fact that I was alone, unarmed, and far from my boat. Sometimes, however, I was cordially invited to enter a hut and to be seated on the family mat. One old lady, with a very kind and motherly face, particularly interested me, beaming away as she talked to me in a most patriarchal manner.

On returning to the canoe my troubles began. About five or more Indians were squatted on board, including the chief, and a big crowd of them were standing around in the water. Some wanted this, and some wanted that, while a surly looking Indian who could speak a little Portuguese told me I was to show them all I had, and let them take their choice of a present. Others had brought bows and arrows and clubs to exchange for anything and everything they could get out of me. Finally, they were becoming so aggressively impertinent, especially the chief, that I jumped to my feet and ordered them all off the canoe. Odidi was away in the village, deaf old Sylverio was some distance off making a fire, and the Indians were all armed with bows and clubs, but they all obeyed me at once, excepting the sly old chief, who slipped on again at the back, where he could peep under the tolda and note all its contents. To mollify them I exchanged some of the proffered articles, bows, wristlets, and such like, for many times their real value, and also gave them some sugar and farinha.

I had now covered over 500 miles in the canoe, visited a considerable number of Indian villages, and obtained a fair amount of information concerning these interesting Indians. This, I hoped, would lead to the establishment of a Gospel mission in this very remote region, though the, difficulties and dangers would be many, so I now decided to descend the great river no farther―though there are many Carajá villages below this point―and it was not without some feeling of relief that I thought of returning to home and civilization on the morrow.

There is a vast difference between traveling downstream with the current and traveling upstream against it. This should be carefully borne in mind hi all prospecting work of this kind, and in determining the right spot for mission stations. Common strategy demands that however difficult the advance may be, the way of escape in case of sickness, danger, or hunger should always be downstream if at all possible, as the upstream travel is very laborious, may take several times as long, and in cases of flood seasons becomes absolutely impossible―a real peril.

After a rather uneasy night’s rest I awoke with the very first faint glow of the rising sun. All were wrapped in heavy slumber, but I quickly and quietly aroused the crew, and gave orders to embark without delay on the long and heavy upstream journey home.

Already some few Indians had crept up to us from the sleeping village, but the rest were quite unaware of our departure until we were out of sight in the dim, early light. I confess to having felt a sense of great relief, for although the Carajás are a fine race of savages, with morals and customs far above those of the average aboriginal Indian, yet they are still savages, and as such are capable, under certain circumstances, of attacking a small unarmed company such as ours was, especially with the tempting prospect of loot, or when worked up to some pitch of excitement by intertribal war and bloodshed.

Soon after we had lost sight of the village, I noticed a dark, figure accompanying us along the river bank, which we found to be Wirina, a cousin of Odidi’s, who wished to accompany us to Leopoldina, so I agreed to take him to help us pole up the river. By daylight his companions would probably have stopped him from going with us. My crew was thus increased to five, three Carajás and two white men.

The next day we were away two hours before dawn, and poled slowly by the light of the moon, for we had to use great caution owing to the numerous snags beneath the water’s surface. Manoel, the boy, found that he had been bitten by a vampire during the night, and, as usual, upon the big toe, which is the favorite spot for these bloodthirsty creatures. They do their work in such a scientific manner that the victim, be it man or animal, is absolutely unconscious of any pain.

About four hours’ travel brought us to the home of the Carajá who had accompanied us during the last four days. He left us here, receiving in exchange for his services a pocketknife, necklace, comb, some hooks, a brick of sugar, and some rice. He had proved a capable and reliable man. I took on in his place a strapping young Indian named Tchana, whose body was painted and striped like a zebra. For the rest of that day WE poled in the face of a heavy wind, which greatly hindered our progress. Every now and again, when one of the Indians would feel too hot, without warning he would drop his pole and plunge into the river. The canoe would continue on its way, and the Indian perhaps climb on board or else swim ashore, to join us from some projecting point higher up. Two other ubás kept us company here, and apparently expected to dine at our expense while doing so. So I bargained that they must supply us with fish and turtles. We passed the night within sight of the fires of an Indian village, and the number of my redskin companions was increased to six.

It is rather trying on one’s nerves to be alone among a crowd of these huge, naked, chattering, laughing savages, whose language you cannot understand, except that an occasional gorilla-like laugh or gesture, and the glances cast in your direction, indicate that the conversation concerns yourself. For a day or two you can manage to stand alone, but longer is very trying, and I do not think I shall travel again in this way, at least not with a deaf “camarada.”

I awoke very early next morning to find the blanket beneath me soaking wet, and springing up I found the canoe was full of water; so without waiting to awake the others, I set to work vigorously bailing it out before greater damage was done. Then I awakened the sleepy crew and we examined the cargo. The spare sack of farinha was badly wet, one of my bags was soaked through and some of the contents damaged, and nearly all the clothing was saturated with water. Not a very cheering outlook by the dim, cold moonlight! After a hasty cup of coffee, embarking our things as best as we could, I urged the men with paddle and pole until some three hours later, the sun gaining warmth, we pulled up for the day to dry out. We managed to dry the wet farinha, which is our principal article of food, as well as the other things affected, and then Sylverio tried to caulk the old boat with cotton and beeswax, which we hoped would keep us afloat for another three weeks’ travel.

Late that afternoon, while continuing our journey, I heard the men cry out, “Onca! Onca!” (“A tiger! A tiger!”), and springing from under my tolda, I saw, about one hundred yards away from the river, a big animal, perfectly black except for some white spots on his feet. It was walking quietly and majestically, along the inner edge of the shore, and had not noticed our approach. Stopping the canoe, I landed, and walking at a safe distance, I fired at it carelessly, not so much with a desire to kill as to see what it would do. It stopped, glared round at us, and without increasing its speed, turned off and with a few strides disappeared into the forest. The Indians are very much afraid of this kind of tiger, which is reputed to be very dangerous and brave. Not half an hour afterward we saw another spotted yellow and black variety on the opposite bank. We also sighted a number of deer careering over one of the sandy shores, and the Indians were soon after them with bow and arrows, but the nimble creatures were too quick for even an Indian hunter.

A couple of miles beyond Capitão Ercke’s village is the hill of Izabel do Morro, a sandhill about two or three hundred feet high, rising up rather abruptly from the river’s edge. I had heard that there was an Indian cemetery here, and though the sun was rapidly approaching the horizon, and the spot is said to be barred to the white man, I felt a strong desire to see the place. We stopped the igarité at a small clump of black rocks, from which Odidi pointed out a very narrow, sandy path, which went straight up the hillside, without a curve to ease the ascent. Jumping from the boat, camera in hand, I ran to the path indicated, and started climbing as fast as I could, fearing the sun might set ere I reached the summit. It was no easy climb owing to the loose, dry sand, which offered no secure foothold on that steep incline, and with each step I seemed to sink back half the distance or more. Several of the Indians, also curious to see the place, soon came scrambling up behind me, and arrived at the summit long before I did. I found that the view was entrancingly beautiful, probably the finest obtainable on the Araguaya. The magnificent, broad, winding river lay far beneath, eventually hidden from view above and below by the dense, dark forests that fringe its borders, and melt away on the horizon. I had little time to appreciate the view, and cast about to find the reputed cemetery. The Indians soon discovered it to the left of the hilltop, where the view was finest. Under the shade of a few overhanging trees were many earthen pans or urns, varying in size, but averaging about fifteen inches in diameter, some being black with age. Here lay the earthly remains of generations of bygone warriors, the earthen pans containing their bleached bones and skulls, where time had not already reduced them to powder, to be scattered far and near by the strong winds of the Araguaya. The spot was most impressively solemn to me, as I thought of the unknown history of this race, who hunted and fished and died on the banks of this great river before South America was heard of, and whose descendants still live the same primitive, savage life their fathers led within sight of these ashes. I thought, too, of the countless thousands of Indians represented by these bones and ashes, who in these enlightened days of Christian missionary endeavor have been allowed to drift away into Eternity having never heard the Gospel tidings, not one effort having been made to win some of them for the Kingdom of Jesus Christ. It is too late now to regret what might have been done for the dead past; God grant that we may not hold back from what can be done for the living present.

I could have spent much more time at this interesting spot, but the shades of night were coming on, and I had to hurry down the hill in order to reach our night camp ere darkness set in.

We poled away from our night quarters with the first peep of day, passing an Indian village about eight o’clock, and soon had several ubás in pursuit. They seemed to know that it was near breakfast time, but we succeeded in giving them the slip―our supplies were running out.

A little above this point we entered the Rio das Mortes, and headed our boat up those mysterious waters, the home of the Chavante. As we slowly poled up the river my Carajás showed themselves slightly apprehensive of their old enemies, and eyed the banks suspiciously. Suddenly one dropped his long pole in the river and plunged in himself, and I could see his red body gliding along at the river’s bottom through the crystalline water. What did it mean? Was he giving me the slip for fear of the Chavantes, or was it only a bath he wanted? No, here he comes back, describing a semi-circle under the water; now he is making straight for the boat, his head appears above the water close at hand, and in his embrace he holds a fine large turtle. We shipped the newcomer at once, and he kept another little turtle company until dinner time.

The ubá with the other two Indians still accompanied us, now ahead, now behind, on the look out for fish or other sport. My three Carajás were keen sportsmen, too, and twice this day they dived from the igarité, bringing up a turtle each time. We had four live turtles and about 200 eggs on board at this time. Sometimes when passing over a broad sandbank where the water was shallow, they would spy a big fish, some twenty or thirty yards away. Two of them would spring into the water at the same time, one with his pole and the other with bow and arrow, and then would commence an exciting chase. They would run hither and thither through the pool to head off from the deep water the fish, which dodged them in all directions in its endeavors to escape. Finally the fish (generally a barbado of about fifteen pounds weight), too tired for further exertion in the shallow water, would be easily captured by a shot from the bow or a blow on the head with the end of the pole.

I slept on the sand at night in preference to my usual bed under the tolda, mosquitoes not being so numerous, and the starry, clear sky overhead being very attractive. The Indians are very fond of gazing at the stars. They say that a long time ago a great spirit carried away many of their brethren to a lovely country in the skies, where they live happily, hunting and fishing all the time, and as night comes on the stars we see are really the camp fires of the far-away Carajás.

One night the dinner preparations presented a most barbarian aspect, and to see how an Indian prepares and eats his food is to realize what savages they really are. In addition to the food which I provided, and which was ample, the five Carajás ate four turtles, three chameleons, and two big fish―quite eight pounds each, not to mention the amount of sand they always swallow with their food. After dinner I walked out over the sands, away from the smoky camp fires, away from the noisy, chattering Indians and their never-ending feasts; alone under the bright stars I stretched out on the cool, soft sand, and gave myself over to reveries and dreams of the future, when those who live like gods yet die like beasts shall become sons of the Most High and jewels in the Saviour’s crown. Each night before returning to the camp I pray for the Carajás and the speedy spread of the Gospel among these forgotten tribes.

During that afternoon I shot another crocodile, and we landed Manoel, who with an ax cut off about three feet of its tail for dinner that night. Before turning in at night I tried my hand with the big line, and caught a sixty-pound pirara, and had to call for help to the Indians before finally landing him.

One Sunday we passed a restful day in an abandoned Indian hut, situated between two Carajá villages, which were about a mile apart. Visiting one of the latter, I found the men above the average intelligence, and I could converse freely with several in Portuguese. I had a long talk with one Indian on the need and means of salvation through Jesus Christ.

Early on Tuesday morning we reached Sao Jose, where the Brazilians seemed really glad to see me, and I soon found them to be eager for another Gospel meeting. The village schoolmaster was now in full agreement with all I said, and a night meeting was soon arranged.

As soon as it grew dark, Senhor Antonio’s house was crowded with men, women, and children, and I had much freedom in giving God’s message to a most attentive and sympathetic audience of about 60 people, among whom I noticed the bright red naked forms of some Carajá Indians, looking on in amazement, but, I fear, understanding very little of what was said. It was an impressive scene, all the more so perhaps because of the dim, uncertain light of the solitary taper of black beeswax, which threw a fitful gleam around on the upturned faces.

After singing a concluding hymn I invited questions, but none were forthcoming, several men saying they were satisfied with what they had heard, so I pointed out God’s promise in James 1:5 as their sure safeguard against false doctrine, and safe guidance in the way of eternal life. Then, after prayer, I bade them all farewell collectively, and, hurrying down to the river, embarked my scattered crew, when we poled up a couple of miles to a friendly bank and passed a cool, agreeable night stretched out on the soft, clean sand, free from the terrible mosquitoes of Sao Jose.

In one Indian village I witnessed an exciting wrestling match, in which one of my crew took active part. The splendid physique and matchless forms of the Indians appeared to great advantage. The struggle was keen, and the men were well matched, and seemed to be expert wrestlers, as are most young Carajás. Everybody watched intently each turn, twist, and trick of the contenders, until suddenly both fell together, and the result was therefore not final. After a short rest the wrestling was renewed, and nobody could say who had the advantage, until after a sudden struggle Tchana lay on his back, and with a whoop the other returned to his place. These proceedings terminated, my Indian crew were conducted to the village, and food was placed before them on the reed mat.

While they were still eating, a shout was raised, and looking up I saw a redskin running like a deer over the sands. Reaching the water, he still ran on into a shallow, sandy bay, until, about 20 yards out, he sat down in the water and yelled for the rest to go and help. I ran with a few others, and found it to be one of the many ingenious ideas of the Indians to catch fish. On the deep edge of a sandbank they build up the sand with their hands, so as to form a wall encircling the bay, disguised by about an inch of water, and with one deep, narrow entrance from the outside river. Refuse food is occasionally thrown in to attract the fish, generally of a kind called pacú, which much resembles a small plaice, and which generally travels in large shoals. When any number of fish enter the trap, the surface of the water soon betrays their presence to the keen eye of some Carajá, in the village, who immediately makes a beeline for the narrow entrance, and sitting down in it, prevents the fish escaping, and with the help of others―generally the women and children―the fish are all caught by hand, sometimes several hundred at a time.

Dinner over and darkness rapidly succeeding, all at once the light of a big bonfire shone out across the sands from the “casa do bicho,” and a sound resembling a big rattle was heard. The “dança do bicho” was about to begin. Accompanied by several of the more elderly Carajás, I strolled over the sands in the bright moonlight to the hut, outside which a big fire was burning, and lying stretched out around the blazing logs were all the men and youths of the village, engrossed in silently watching a mechanical kind of song and dance, in which the chief performers were my two Indians, Daoori and Tchana, both completely hidden from sight by strange costumes and surmounted by very weird-looking feather helmets. The women are not permitted to see these dances under penalty of death.

Next morning we halted for breakfast at the mouth of Lake Cangas, which entering we found to be very extensive and deep, fringed by dark, dense forests, and evidently a favorite haunt of crocodiles, which float lazily on the water’s surface here and there, looking for trouble, though with only the point of their noses appearing in view. These caymen are often known to attack larger canoes than ours.

At different sections of our journey we were troubled at night by a very poisonous variety of mosquito called the “murisoca,” and the sandflies by day were hard to endure patiently; latterly therefore we traveled both day and night, keeping well in midstream to avoid these torments, and cooking on board.

Early one morning, soon after midnight, we rested for a spell while the crew indulged in “jacuba” and some hot tea I made for them as a special treat, after which we pushed on again. Suddenly I heard a cockcrow, and just ahead of us there loomed out the white buildings of a farmhouse which I had hoped to reach some hours later. Never did a cock crow so agreeably! So well had the men worked at their poles that we were within three hours of our journey’s end. Resting for the remainder of the night on a spit of sand stretching out to the center of the river, soon after daybreak we sighted the port of Leopoldina, announcing our approach by repeated blasts on the horn. Quite a crowd was at the water’s edge to welcome us back to civilization and home, though I had yet to traverse a hundred and thirty weary miles across country to Goyaz city, accompanied by the whole of my Carajá crew.

Thus ended my first journey into the home of the redskins. At the time I made the foregoing notes there was not one Gospel missionary working among the Indians of Brazilian Amazonia, whereas at the time of publication of this work, there are at least thirty young men, mostly Britishers, who now are bravely, in the face of tremendous difficulties, seeking to make known the Gospel message among “these other sheep also.”

Chapter 18: Clearing up

CR-UNCH! Bang!―and the car made a shuddering stop. Our longsuffering Ford had kicked at last, and smashed all her back gearing.

We looked at each other in dismay, for it was soon clear that our well-laid plans would need radical revision ere the next bill was paid.

We had just climbed over the big divide which separates the states of Pernambuco and Alagoas, and the going had been rather heavy, but we had not counted on this. It was certainly disconcerting, but there was nothing for it but to turn our best faces to the situation, and search for a friendly mechanic and new cog wheels. Fortunately the latter were available, and the former was not far off, though he took over a day to clean up the situation, robing us badly in the process, I fear, which made the proposed modification of plans imperative, for gasoline is an expensive liquid in Brazil.

Now the town where our misadventure occurred is called Quebrangulo (broken cornerstone). There we found a small Presbyterian congregation, which seemed to have rather vague views on the doctrine of the forgiveness of sins; so two days later while our car was being patched up, I preached on the subject and sought to clean up their ideas of this cornerstone of Truth.

Once more we were ready for the road, but instead of making the long round of colportage through Alagoas as projected, we felt it might be best to concentrate on a brief preaching campaign in a large sugar plantation ten miles away, and thither we went. Our arrival caused great surprise, but, unfortunately it seemed, the farmer-owner of the plantation and sugar mill was away. Now, I had the privilege of being this farmer’s father in God ten years before, so that I felt I could make pretty free with such a situation, and three hours after our arrival we had a splendid and most inspiring meeting among three or four hundred of the farm and mill hands.

Next day we continued the cleaning-up process. The man had built a little Gospel chapel facing his house on the highroad, but there was nothing to indicate its purpose to the many passers by. The walls inside were bare of Scripture texts also. This needed reformation, so we managed to make some kind of paint, and inscribed across the front of the building the words, “Casa da Oracão” (“House of Prayer”), in artistic style, “while all the world wondered.” Then we painted three large wall texts on the bare interior walls. My son Fred was the chief artist. After this I turned my attention to the farmer’s bookcase. The windows badly needed cleaning; one could hardly see the contents, and I found a still greater need to make a careful survey of the library. Among these I found some queer books, some of a Sabbathist character, whose sting I was able to remove with my penknife―just a section or two sufficed; but several I felt bound to clear out altogether―they simply disappeared!

That night we had another splendid meeting of two hours’ duration. During the service I earnestly sought to clean up some slack ideas prevalent concerning the Lord’s Day, the sale of intoxicating drinks, the use of tobacco, and the modern fashions of the women, not omitting to remark on the perils that await the shorn female.

Next day the farmer himself arrived, and I felt rather anxious as to how he would view the cleaning up process. He was certainly surprised, but was honestly delighted to see me. He approved of the texts, and I soon persuaded him that I had really improved his bookcase. He also promised to end the wine-selling, and I am sure that Giant Tobacco got a very grave wound.

Yet another meeting was held in the church of the “broken cornerstone,” and we were soon on our homeward journey over the hills again. Shortly afterward we were at work cleaning up the old car ready for our next adventure abroad.

Chapter 19: A Cure for Cancer

WHILE visiting a well-known medical missionary in Canhotinho, my attention was drawn to the arrival of an old woman accompanied by her daughter. I soon discovered that the girl was a believer, and that she had persuaded her fanatically Catholic, but very sick, mother to come quite a long distance to consult the Protestant doctor.

The old lady was evidently very ill indeed, and I never remember seeing a more unhappy looking face than hers. The daughter told me privately that her mother and all her family and relations were bitterly prejudiced against and fiercely opposed to the Gospel, and had refused to permit her even to mention the subject, but she begged that I would speak a word as occasion might offer. An opportunity presented itself next day, but I was received with a frown and a muttered imprecation, and all I could say only seemed to produce a contrary effect, and to deepen the gloom that seemed to enshroud the dying woman, and I had to retire with a sad heart and a sense of defeat. The daughter seemed very disappointed, but she begged me not to desist from another interview.

A day or two later the consultation took place, and the doctor told me afterward that it was a hopeless case of cancer. She was too old to be operated on, but could not live long.

This was terrible news to me, and I wondered what its effect would be on the poor woman, as I thought of that sad face. The hours passed quickly, and the departure of the woman and daughter was at hand, and once again the girl appealed to me to speak to her mother. “We leave in a quarter of an hour,” she exclaimed, “and if you would do anything you must do it now!”

Hastening across to her quarters I now found the woman looking inexpressibly more miserable and hopeless. Again I essayed to speak to her of a Saviour indeed, Who could heal her worst disease, the cancer of sin, and urged her not to despise His forgiveness and gift of eternal life. There seemed to be less encouragement to go on than ever, and she hardly appeared to hear what I said, and replied not a word. There was no trace of desire or interest on that poor, pale face, and the case seemed hopeless, yet I felt I must go on.

Half-despairingly, I asked her if she would like me to pray for her, and to my intense astonishment she nodded her consent to the proposal. Soon after she was kneeling at my side, and repeating in a cold, mechanical way my promptings in prayer for forgiveness through Jesus Christ, and then essayed to thank God in similar fashion. Then the daughter came in, we said a very hurried good-bye, and―as so often happens―I quite forgot a case which had not given much evidence of reality.

About ten years later I visited a pastor in a neighboring state. When he greeted me I noticed that evidently something had transpired that greatly moved him, and I ventured to inquire the cause of his commotion.

“Forgive me betraying my emotions,” he exclaimed. “I have just witnessed a sight I shall never forget. It was the deathbed scene of a member of my church, an old lady who ten years ago was given up by Dr. Butler, who said there was no hope of her recovery from an incurable disease.

“However, on that same occasion she had been converted to Christ, and had long lived to be a great blessing and inspiration to the church and neighborhood.

“As the end drew near, the daughter called me to give some final word of cheer, and I went prepared to encourage and support the aged sister in her last hour of supreme trial. But, Senhor, it was she who encouraged and helped me. There was no need for my ministrations. It was a marvelous scene I saw. Surrounded by her friends and neighbors, full of joy, she just sang and sang, until her last breath. I never knew that death could be so glorious.”

Thus gloriously passed over the river the once sad and hopeless old lady of Canhotinho, and all the trumpets sounded for her.

Hallelujah!

Chapter 20: Unto the Uttermost

HE was only a poor, underpaid Brazilian soldier in the far interior―no very happy lot, under the best of circumstances, for it is hard work to make both ends meet with a salary of only twelve shillings a week and nothing found―even in a land of plenty―especially, too, when a man is addicted to tobacco and rum, as are ninety-nine in every hundred who follow this calling.

But in Genadio’s case this was aggravated. He was the worst drunkard in his regiment, and always under the influence of the fiery stuff they call “cachaca,” except when he was locked up in the guard house―which was pretty often―as the result of some drunken misbehavior.

Somehow or other Genadio suddenly manifested great interest in the Gospel. just how it began I cannot say—perhaps as an answer to somebody’s prayers; but the fact remains that he was very serious and in earnest when he paid me his first visit. It was true he was rather unsteady on his legs when he entered, and a little thick in his speech, but even so I could not fail to note a despairing desire to know “this Gospel,” which he understood had power to deliver him. “I’m going to leave all this,” he muttered; “I want to join this religion; I want to save my soul.” I spoke to him as well as I could, and gave him some good advice, but he seemed too stupefied with rum to understand. Finally he asked for a Gospel, and left. This was the first of his visits, which he repeated every few days, in more or less the same condition, and each time he carried away a tract or a different Gospel with him.

His visits to the house of the “Protestante” were soon noticed, and provoked great hilarity among his companions, with whom the idea of Genadio’s reformation was an impossible absurdity. They chaffed him unmercifully, and gave me a fair share of it, though at long range. “Oh,” they cried, “if Genadio gets converted, we will all join this religion, too!” But the poor fellow continued his visits, and redoubled his assertions and good resolutions with evident sincerity.

One day, however―on his sixth visit― I thought the matter had gone far enough, and when he started with the usual string of good intentions for the future, I stopped him abruptly with an emphatic “Never!” He stopped and looked up at me in stupid surprise. What! he thought, was there then no hope for him? Had he been deceived all along with a vain idea that this new religion might deliver him from a bondage he loathed? “Never!” I repeated. “You never will be able to leave these vices, and all your good resolutions will NEVER save you from Hell―the end of every Christless life.” He had nothing to say, so I continued: “Look here! You have been trying now for about two weeks, and far from improving, you even seem to get worse and worse, and you may as well know it sooner or later. You never can free yourself. You have tried and failed. Now give God a chance; trust in the power of Jesus, Who is able to save to the uttermost. He will not, cannot fail you.”

There and then we knelt down together, and he prayed; and that poor, miserable drunkard in a moment was set free, and passed from death unto life.

Everybody was astonished, and could hardly believe their eyes when they saw Genadio out, with a steady step and a transformed look on his face. He left his old associates, burnt his pipe and tobacco, crowning it all three weeks later when he was baptized (together with some other soldier converts) into what they called “the new faith.” With God nothing is impossible.

Chapter 21: A New "Angel"

DURING my residence of two years in Goyaz city, the capital of Goyaz State, I witnessed the welcome given to a new Roman Catholic bishop, and watched with interest the effect his presence had upon people and things generally.

The people of Goyaz had declared they would never have another bishop. I was told that the new arrival’s predecessor was such an unprincipled money-grabber that at last the Goyanos rebelled, and he was compelled to leave the State. Even so, several Catholics assured me, he was able quietly to carry off some mule loads of gold and silver candlesticks, crucifixes, idols, salvers, etc., spoils from different churches in the State. When the losses were discovered, the people were indignant, and some clamored to have the bishop prosecuted directed by a capable ex-Army official. The telegraph wires were cut in many places, and in all the surrounding mountains the approaches to the city were occupied, in order to prevent the arrival of reinforcements for the Government. The new Bishop and pastor, who now had the opportunity to manifest his influence for good at this crisis, tried to make peace between the parties, but utterly failed; no one paid any heed to his exhortations, in spite of all the recent homage and honor paid outwardly to his person. When their own interests were concerned, his flock cared nothing for him or his words, and a group of his traveling monks were unceremoniously held up by the rebels as suspects.

One realizes that, while perhaps the majority of Catholics are willingly fascinated by the seeming learning of their spiritual masters, as well as by their millinery, pantomimics, and perfumes, nevertheless they have but slight respect or trust in their moral integrity and truthfulness, or belief in their real love for souls.

The State Army only numbered about 300 men, and nothing was done to put the place in a state of defense. Food became scarce and dear, and the city was in a condition of semi-panic. The very worst was expected, in view of the dangerous character of the rebel army, and many families managed to escape from the town.

At this time I walked out one evening to a village only two miles away, and found the place almost deserted. The few remaining families had gathered together and were discussing the situation in doleful terms.

As I approached a group, I cried out: “I have the remedy!”

A little startled, they awaited my explanation; so I handed round appropriate Gospel tracts to each person, saying, “There would be no revolutions if this were known and believed,” and, accepting an offered stool, I preached the Gospel into willing ears. Then I passed on to the next group in like manner, and with the same result―they all agreed. By the time I had finished it was quite dark, and I walked home over the hills with joy unspeakable in my heart, though every rugged rock and projecting stump seemed like a waiting bandit, ready to spring.

A day or so later, when things were at their worst, I had some printed labels stuck on the front of copies of Mark’s Gospel: “The Revolution―the Cause and the Remedy! See page 46.” and scattered them broadcast throughout the city. On page 46 they found underlined in red verses 24 and 29 to 33 of chapter 12. They were eagerly received, and I have reason to believe they caused a profound impression, which was certainly more than the Bishop’s intervention produced.

The situation grew critical. An armed force, accompanying a newly-elected member, sought to break through to the city; but falling into an ambush a few miles from their goal, they were utterly routed, and left over twenty dead or mortally wounded on the field.

Being now thoroughly terrified, the Government sought to come to terms; but the rebel leaders were obdurate, and only when they had obtained a complete surrender, and with trumpets and flaunting of banners and red sashes, had ridden fully armed and triumphant through the awestruck city, was the siege raised.

We had the opportunity of preaching Christ to five of the rebel force who came into our meeting on the next Sunday night. They presented rather an alarming appearance, but God was manifestly working, and they all seemed really impressed.

It is a terrible thing to realize the darkness in which all South America lies, with no Gospel light shining upon her. The vast majority of the people are destitute of any saving knowledge of God. The religion of Rome has been from the first idolatrous and mechanical, devoid of spiritual life or power, and forming a veritable cloak for covetousness. The Word of God has not been given to the people; but instead a gaudy ceremonial of image worship, combined with feasts and revelries notorious for their licentiousness and drunkenness.

A debased, immoral priesthood, arrogating to itself the sole right of mediatorship between the people and God, has for generations been selling, in the name of God, but for its own enrichment, the license to indulge in sin without guilt or penalty; so that the public conscience has been utterly deadened to all apprehension of sin as God sees it. Thus Satan seeks to dazzle and deceive these people, so that they drink greedily at this stagnant pool; and, paying heavily for the privilege, cannot lift their eyes to Him Who offers the Water of Life freely, and Who alone of the Sons of men is worthy of all honor and praise.

It is not easy to calculate the spiritual power and influence wielded by a Roman Catholic Bishop with his small army of monks and nuns in a town like Goyaz, situated far away from the influences of modern civilization and thought, and where the Bible―the only basis for a pure, right judgment in religious matters―is denied the people. In many respects Goyaz savors more of the seventeenth than of the twentieth century; and here may yet be found the old-time inquisitorial spirit that Rome so successfully disguises in other lands where the Gospel light shines.

This spirit was manifested soon the new “Angel’s” arrival in the city. A leading article came out in the only newspaper in the State, then published by the Bishop, headed: “To the Fire!” One felt that he deemed it a pity that, in addition to Bibles and Gospels, he could not consign to the flames the believers also, and that the law would not permit a real live autoda-fe―Rome’s only effective answer to the continual protest of Christ’s witnesses against her apostasy.

The article read as follows: “We recommend our worthy countrymen, who have given so many proofs lately of not desiring any other religion than the Catholic, that they cast into the fire without the least scruple, all the Protestant Bibles and Gospels, with books or tracts of this religious sect that may fall into their hands.

“These books and tracts are well known, and are customarily offered to children or to careless people, for others refuse to accept them (happily untrue). Sometimes at night they are tucked under the doors, or, as has happened to some families, slipped through the Venetian shutters.

“To the fire with all that are distributed from today on! To the fire with any or all that may yet be in the house, where no Catholic may retain these books!”

In spite of its tireless activity, however, Romanism loses ground daily. This has been said elsewhere in the book, and her persecution of the Word of God is proving her own undoing in South America.

Chapter 22: A Wolf of the Forest

SUCH work as that described in my different books could only be made possible through the most generous and hearty co-operation of the Bible Societies. To the American Bible Society of New York, and to the British and Foreign Bible Society, is due a very great share of credit for the results obtained. This is doubtless true of all that is best in evangelistic work throughout the world, and if only missionary-hearted people realized more fully the very important part played by these Societies in preaching the Gospel to every creature, then their enthusiastic support of these “Handmaids of Foreign Missions” would be intensified.

A very large proportion of the conversions recorded from year to year from different mission fields is directly due to the reading of the New Testament, and of this there is abundant evidence.

Only lately a well-known Brazilian pastor in Rio related the following story:

“In the State of Minas I became acquainted with one of the most feared gunmen of the region. Obliged to defend his father’s home from highwaymen, this man became an outlaw, and, as row followed row, he grew to be the most feared man in that region. His appearance at any place was cause for apprehension and horror; he was charged with many crimes, and was called ‘the Wolf of the Forest.’ While engaged in one adventure of his uncertain and hazardous life, he passed through the district where I lived, and I invited him to come to my house, which he did. He placed his Winchester against the wall, and, while waiting for the customary cup of coffee, he with bitterness related to me the episodes of his vagrant, uncertain, and restless life, always pursued by the police and by his rank enemies. As a token of his visit I gave him a New Testament, and also a ‘Pilgrim’s Progress.’

“After a year, more or less, I was surprised by another visit from that ‘Wolf of the Forest.’ He was not carrying his Winchester this time, nor his pistol, nor his knife. He told me he had been converted, and he came to deliver himself to the authorities and to be judged by them. His stay in my home was short, and soon I saw him disappear round the corner on his way to the police station.

“Before we parted, however, he made me promise to wait for him on the day of his trial at the meeting of Barra do Manhaussú, for, he said, if he should be absolved, on this same day he would make public confession of his faith, as was his ardent desire to do. But, in case he should not be pardoned, it was his intention then, during his long years of imprisonment, to occupy his time in the evangelization of the criminals.

“On the day of the trial I went to wait for the result, as agreed upon, about a mile and a half from the city. To me it seemed impossible that he should be absolved; he had committed so many crimes, and was so feared, that only an act of Providence could save him. We spent the time of waiting in prayer. The hours dragged on. The night advanced. Near ten o’clock we heard steps approaching. Then a nervous knock. We opened the door. It was he.

“The court had found extenuating circumstances for his crimes, and, taking into consideration that the criminal had delivered himself up voluntarily, and had good deportment during the long months of waiting for the trial, resolved to pardon him.

“Free from prison, his great wish was to confess his faith. He was examined; he knew the truth of redemption, and gave proof of being sincerely repentant; I therefore decided to receive him and baptize “When he departed I accompanied him through the yard, and as I bade him good, bye, I felt that the fragrance of the nearby forest enveloped us both. I insist that is impossible to estimate the value of the service rendered to Brazil by the Bible Societies, which stand forth sublime and invincible through the regeneration of her sons.”

Such instances as the foregoing could be, multiplied, nor do they only apply to the criminals and outcasts of society. Some of the finest men of the country have been brought to God through the same means that won that “wolf of the forest.” The proprietor of the chief newspaper of Brazil and of South America is a devoted believer in the Bible, about which he has written considerably. Januzzi, the greatest architect of Brazil, is another sincere convert, as also have been several presidents of different states. Dr. Jose Paranagua was recognized as one of the leading men in the political life of the country, and was for some time president of the state of Piauhy. In the course of a long cross-country journey to the coast to take steamer for the city of Rio de Janeiro, in fulfillment of his duties as a Federal senator, while being ferried across a river he witnessed a very dangerous quarrel between two workmen, in which foul words were soon succeed by blows. At this moment a man intervened between the contending parties. He was a seller of books, and seemed to have a kindly nature, and soon persuaded the antagonists to desist from their strife, as fellow-countrymen, and both created by the same God; and thus in kindly fashion the peace was made.

Deeply impressed by the conduct and language of the colporteur―for such he was―the senator entered into conversation with him, and after inquiring about the books he was selling, he bought a New Testament.

As he traveled across the country he read that book and became sincerely interested and convinced of the Truth. A seemingly chance encounter with a missionary soon afterward settled the matter, and he was converted and baptized. His conversion made a great impression among his old friends, for he was never ashamed of hi faith. He died in 1926, when over seventy years of age. When the news reached Ride Janeiro, a member of the Federal Congress spoke before the House, and among other things said: “This, our noble fellow-countryman, became in his last hours a Brazilian Tolstoi. Enjoying high distinction, he abandoned all to exercise personally a mission of education in the town of Correntes, where he had his cradle at birth, and where death plucked him. A man of vision, Paranagua believed in the instruction and in the evangelization of these people.”

It is not too much to say that the Bible is already a power in the country, where it is beginning to make its influence felt among all classes. So real is this influence that the Church of Rome has been compelled of late to publish several editions of the Gospels with the usual copious notes and explanations, though the results have generally been so unfavorable to her pretensions that these editions have been strictly limited, and sometimes recalled altogether.

May many be led to devote their lives to the scattering of this precious seed, beginning in our own dear homelands, for the results are assured. “My Word shall not return to Me void.”

Mr. Stanley Baldwin described the Bible as a “high explosive,” and revolutionary in character. May this book witness to the truth of this testimony, and lead others to test the efficacy of the Divine weapon, the only foe that Rome really fears.

Chapter 23: A Great Pioneer

NEARLY a hundred years ago an Edinburgh physician named Robert Kalley felt called to dedicate his life and talents to the Master’s service, and he never looked back.

First in Madeira, and then in Brazil, the marvelous results that followed the many years of stirring and tempestuous evangelistic labors of this apostolic hero entitle him to a place among the foremost pioneer missionaries of our age.

At first he was greatly attracted to China, but was not allowed to go forward for health reasons. Then by God’s providence his attention was drawn to the beautiful little Portuguese island of Madeira. In those early days no missionary society had ever thought of the dire need of the Roman Catholic world, so the good doctor decided to start work on his own account, using his profession as a means to open up the way to direct Gospel effort, consecrating all his time and energy to the winning of sinners to the Saviour.

He commenced operations on the island by teaching English, free of charge, the Bible being the textbook used.

As soon as he knew enough Portuguese, the astonished poor were invited to receive gratuitous medical aid, and soon the sick of Madeira flocked to the home of this unlooked-for friend. A little later on free elementary schools were started in Funchal―the capital―and in the villages around.

A hospital soon became an imperative need, and while Dr. Kalley was preparing a small house for the purpose, an incident occurred, the first of many such to follow, which may be related in his own words.

“I think it was in the summer of 1840 that Senhor Arsenio da Silva, father-in-law of one of the principal judges of the island. first came to consult me about his daughter’s health, and, having prescribed for he, we had a little conversation about the soul. After several visits, he asked to see me at my own house. de came, and on my inquiring of what subject he wished to speak, said: ‘I want to know how a guilty man, under the government of a just God, can escape the punishment which he deserves?’

‘Well,’ I said, ‘tell me what you think about it.’

“‘I understand,’ he replied, ‘that in baptism the death of Christ is applied so as to free from original sin,’ and then he went on to speak of penances, etc., for actual transgression.

“I interrupted him by saying: ‘I understand that the Blood of Christ cleanses from all sin.’

“‘What?’ he cried.

“‘I understand,’ I repeated, ‘that the Blood of Christ cleanses from all sin, of every kind.’

“‘Tell me that again.’

“‘No,’ I said, ‘but read here―and here,’ and I pointed to several texts.

“Great tears rolled down his cheeks as he read the words of God; and the doctrine of His free love, in pardoning the chief of sinners, broke on his soul for the first time. I had often heard of him as ‘O Avarento’ ― The Miser. At the time of this interview I was furnishing a small hospital. He sent me a large basket full of sheets, towels, and other things, with a note saying, ‘My heart was gangrened; it has felt the power of the love of God, and I send you the firstfruits of it.’ This gentleman suffered much for his faith, and was among those who were eventually compelled to abandon the island for Christ’s sake.”

So far there had been little or no opposition except on the part of the “doctors,” who resented this interference with their own gains, but by that time the good man had so completely captivated the inhabitants by his benevolence and goodness, that the doctors lost the day.

Little by little the Bible was divulgated throughout the island, and the surprise of the people was as great as that of any heathen when they found what it contained, just as happens in Brazil today.

One natural result of this sowing was the beginning of little Gospel meetings. These developed rapidly in number, and sometimes thousands of Roman Catholics assembled in the open air, drawn from and far by the wonderful words of life and hope.

The Roman Catholic Churches began to get deserted, and then followed long and stirring times of great persecution in which the native converts were tested as by fire. They were beaten, and sometimes driven into the surrounding forests, while their houses and belongings went up in flames. Some were imprisoned for years in filthy, pestilential prisons, and every indignity inflicted upon them, yet their faith failed not, and some of these became pioneer colporteurs in Brazil at a later date.

Dr. Kalley stood to his post, and bravely faced the storm of calumny and fanatical hatred of the Catholic priests, and set a great example of patient endurance to the little flock. Finally he himself was imprisoned for six months in the Funchal jail, and was only released through the tardy influence of the British Government.

So much for the vaunted kindliness and toleration of Rome when she has power!

Stirring times followed the doctor’s release, and hundreds of believers were compelled to seek refuge in other lands. At last the end came, when an overwhelming mob, plied with liquor by the priests, and drawn from a part of Madeira where Dr. Kalley was little known, broke into his home and hospital, destroyed all his property and sought to assassinate the man of God who for eight years had only endeavored to do them good.

Only by a singular series of providences, including the unexpected arrival of a British steamer, the doctor was enabled to escape from the island, rolled up in a fisherman’s net carried by friendly hands.

It was about this time that Dr. Kalley met his future wife and faithful helper and partner in all that follows.

In 1853 Dr. Kalley took charge of some hundreds of refugees from Madeira, forced to leave their homes and country through Papal intolerance. Like a new band of Pilgrim Fathers, the doctor carried them across to America, founding a Christian Portuguese colony in the State of Illinois which remains to this day.

After remaining with the little colony a short time, seeking to enlarge their knowledge, faith, and love, he became ranch impressed by news of the terrible spiritual destitution of Brazil, and felt that his knowledge of the language and the experience acquired in Madeira justified a hope of becoming a means of light and deliverance in that great Empire, as it then was.

In May, 1855, Dr. and Mrs. Kalley landed in Rio de Janeiro.

At first the doctor resolved to proceed with great caution, and to avoid publicity, he being the only Protestant missionary in the country. But within a few days met with so many people he had helped or befriended in Madeira, that all such methods were soon abandoned. At that period only Christian agency in Brazil was a newly established depot of The British and Foreign Bible Society, so the doctor sent for some of his old converts from Madeira, and trained them as Bible colporteurs, sending them far and wide.

This important step colored all succeeding missionary enterprise, and gave the work in Brazil its distinctive Bible character throughout.

He had not been long in Rio before the Papal Legate applied to the Brazilian Government to compel Dr. Kalley to either abstain from speaking about religion, or to leave Brazil. The Legate’s protest was ignored, and the Emperor Dom Pedro himself became the doctor’s friend from that hour, a friendship that developed into one of mutual respect and esteem as the years went by.

This was but the first of many victories won by this single-handed servant of the King against all the massed powers of Rome, in a land where she had full and despotic sway, and he lived to see the Legate himself compelled to leave Brazil, and the Church of Rome itself disestablished.

Meanwhile, the persecution of the priests became untiring and perfectly unscrupulous. Time and time again his house was besieged by furious mobs, bent on destruction and death. The number of believers grew rapidly, and the sales of Bibles and Testaments increased by leaps and bounds. Many good tracts were prepared, and a translation of “Pilgrim’s Progress” appeared.

Very soon an attempt was made to carry the Good News into a neighbouring State, and at this the hatred and violence of Rome burst forth anew, which I will describe in the doctor’s own words: “The threatening and insulting language was much worse; fireworks were exploded in the room among those met for worship: and the determination to put down such meetings by club law was loudly avowed, while the street was crowded with rioters, whose vociferations rang through the house. Having no available means of defense or escape from the enemies within the building. Mrs. Kalley and myself went out into the street, accompanied by a small number of earnest Christian men, and placed ourselves in the doubtful protection of the police, who formed round us; but we were followed by a cursing, raging mob, throwing stones and dirt, and shouting, ‘Death to the Protestant.’ About midway between the house and the ferry boat, the wild fury of the mob was very threatening; the police obliged us to stop, placed themselves between us and the rioters, drew their swords, and made signals for help. When reinforcements arrived we were safely conducted to the ferry boat.”

Writing of another such frequent happening, he says: “One Lord’s Day evening in August, 1861, when the afternoon congregation had dispersed, and before the evening inquirers had assembled, a mob gathered round the house in Rio. The rioters came armed with clubs and stones, uttering hideous threats and yells, and shouting, ‘Biblia! Biblia!’ in all imaginable tones of scorn and rage. The windows were soon smashed, and the tiles of the roof broken, and if the house had not been built on the top of a rock, without access except by a long, exposed stair, they would no doubt have burst open the door and barbarously maltreated, probably killed, all who were within.

“At one time the mob was making a rush up the stair to the door, when a well-directed bottle from one of the windows was dashed upon the stone of the side wall just before them. It broke into a shower of pieces of glass, and they retreated; but they persevered in shouting, threatening, and bombarding the house with stones for three hours before being interfered with by the police” ―who at that time were largely at the beck and call of the priests.

It was in the face of such opposition that the Gospel gained its first foothold in Brazil, and today there are at least fifty important evangelical congregations in the city of Rio alone, besides many fine institutions and Christian agencies, including one of the finest hospitals in Brazil.

It was not, however, the zeal and courage of the Kalleys that made the deepest or most lasting impression, but rather the saintly character of this admirable couple, which has left an ineffaceable mark upon the churches in Brazil.

His next great work was to translate many of our finest hymns into Portuguese; to which a number of his own composition were added, and a music edition published, now, used, in an enlarged form, by nearly all the churches in Brazil.

Dr. Kalley never organized any missionary society to support this work, but constituted a Brazilian self-supporting Church. By this time other Christian workers had begun to arrive in Brazil, principally from America, and all these found valuable assistance in the opening-up work through Dr. Kalley’s well-trained colporteurs, and this, as already has been mentioned, largely determined the methods and character of the new societies. So much is this true that the early believers were all called “Biblias” (Bibles), and “Death to the Bibles” was the popular Papal slogan of that day.

In 1873 Dr. Kalley visited the North of Brazil at the earnest invitation of two of his colporteurs. A church was organized in Recife at that time, which was soon after carried forward by the pioneer missionary for North Brazil, James Fanstone.

This heroic young man landed in Pernambuco on a pair of crutches, and, with such a terrible handicap, and in the face of much mockery and of similar persecution as that endured by Dr. Kalley, he strengthened the work and extended its border into the far interior of Pernambuco, while wholly supporting himself and large family by teaching English to the Brazilians.

Dr. Kalley died in 1888, and James Fanstone has now retired from Brazil, leaving two of his children in his place. Much of the splendid spiritual prospect that Brazil now presents is due to the self-sacrificing lives and holy examples of Kalley and Fanstone.