Brazilian Sketches

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Robert Rowe, Charles Franks and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team.

Brazilian Sketches

By Rev. T. B. Ray, D.D.

Educational Secretary of the Foreign Mission Board of the Southern
Baptist Convention. TO MY WIFE WHO SHARED THE JOURNEY WITH ME

CONTENTS

I. THE COUNTRY
II. THE CAPITAL, RIO DE JANEIRO
III. A VISIT TO A COUNTRY CHURCH
IV. TWO PRESIDENTS
V. THE GOSPEL WITHHELD
VI. SAINT WORSHIP
VII. PENANCE AND PRIEST
VIII. THE GOSPEL TRIUMPHANT
IX. JOSE BARRETTO
X. CAPTAIN EGYDIO
XI. FELICIDADE (Felicity)
XII. PERSECUTION
XIII. THE BIBLE AS A MISSIONARY FACTOR
XIV. THE METTLE OF THE NATIVE CHRISTIAN
XV. THE TESTING OF THE MISSIONARY
XVI. THE URGENT CALL
XVII. THE LAST STAND OF THE LATIN RACE
APPENDIX

FOREWORD.

I was dining one day with a very successful business man who,
although his business had extensive relations in many lands, was
meagerly informed about the work of missions. I thought I might
interest him by telling him something of the effects of missions
upon commerce. So I told him about how the civilizing presence of
missionary effort creates new demands which in turn increases
trade. He listened comprehendingly for a while and then remarked:
"What you say is interesting, but what I wish to know is not
whether missions increase business--we have business enough and
have methods of increasing the volume--What I want to know is
whether the missionary is making good and whether Christianity is
making good in meeting the spiritual needs of the heathen. If ever
I should become greatly interested in missions it would be because
I should feel that Christianity could solve the spiritual problem
for the heathen better than anything else. What are the facts
about that phase of missions?"

These words made a profound impression on me, and since then I
have spent little time in setting forth the by-products of
missions, tremendously important and interesting though they are.
I place the main emphasis on how gloriously Christianity, through
the efforts of the missionary, meets the aching spiritual hunger
of the heathen heart and transforms his life into spiritual
efficiency.

Since this is my conception of what the burden of the message
concerning missions should be, it should not surprise anyone to
find the following pages filled with concrete statements of actual
gospel triumphs. I have endeavored to draw a picture of the
religious situation in Brazil by reciting facts. I have described
some of the work of others done in former years and I have
recorded some wonderful manifestations of the triumphant power of
the gospel which I was privileged to see with my own eyes. These
pages record testimony which thing, I take it, most people desire
concerning the missionary enterprise. More arguments might have
been stated and more conclusions might have been expressed, but I
have left the reader to make his own deductions from the facts I
have tried faithfully to record.

No attempt has been made to follow in detail the itinerary taken
by my wife and myself which carried us into Brazil, Argentina and
Chili in South America, and Portugal and Spain in Europe. It is
sufficient to know that we reached the places mentioned and can
vouch for the truth of the facts stated.

I have confined myself to sketches about Brazil because I did not
desire to write a book of travel, but to show how the gospel
succeeds in a Catholic field as being an example of the manner in
which it is succeeding in other similar lands where it is being
preached vigorously.

I wish to say also that I have drawn the materials from the
experiences of my own denomination more largely because I know it
better and therefore could bear more reliable testimony. It should
be borne in mind that the successes of this one denomination are
typical of the work of several other Protestant bodies now
laboring in Brazil.

The missionaries and other friends made it possible wherever we
went to observe conditions at close range and under favorable
auspices. To these dear friends who received us so cordially and
labored so untiringly for our comfort and to make our visit most
helpful we would express here our heartfelt gratitude. We record
their experiences and ours in the hope that the knowledge of them
may bring to the reader a better appreciation of the missionary
and the great cause for which the missionary labors so self-
sacrificingly.

Richmond, Va.

CHAPTER I.

THE COUNTRY.

We had sailed in a southeasternly direction from New York twelve
days when we rounded Cape St. Roque, the easternmost point of
South America. A line drawn due north from this point would pass
through the Atlantic midway between Europe and America. If we had
sailed directly south we should have touched the western instead
of the eastern coast, for the reason that practically the entire
continent of South America lies east of the parallel of longitude
which passes through New York.

After sighting land we sailed along the coast three days before we
cast anchor at Bahia, our first landing place. Two days more were
required to reach Rio de Janeiro. When we afterwards sailed from
Rio to Buenos Aires, Argentina, we spent three and one-half days
skirting along the shore of Brazil. For eight and one-half days we
sailed in sight of Brazilian territory, and had we been close
enough to shore north of Cape St. Roque, we should have added
three days more to our survey of these far-stretching shores.
Brazil lies broadside to the Atlantic Ocean with a coast line
almost as long as the Pacific and Atlantic seaboards of the United
States combined. Its ocean frontage is about 4,000 miles in
length.

This coast line, however, is not all the water front of Brazil.
She boasts of the Amazon, the mightiest river in the world. This
stream is navigable by ships of large draught for 2,700 miles from
its mouth. It has eight tributaries from 700 to 1,200 miles and
four from 1,500 to 2,000 miles in length. One of these, the
Madeira, empties as much water into the larger stream as does the
Mississippi into the Gulf. No other river system drains vaster or
richer territory. It drains one million square miles more than
does the Mississippi, and in all it has 27,000 miles of navigable
waters.

The land connections of Brazil are also extensive. All the other
countries on the continent, save Chili and Ecuador, border on
Brazil. The Guianas and Venezuela, on the north; Colombia and Peru
on the west; Bolivia, Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay on the
south--eight countries in all.

It is indeed a vast territory. The United States could be placed
within its borders and still there would be left enough Brazilian
territory to make a State as large as Texas.

Almost from the time we sighted land until we rounded the cape
near Montevideo, we could see the mountains along the shore. The
mountains extend far interior and up and down the length of the
country. The climate of the tropical Amazon Valley is, of course,
very hot, but as soon as the mountains are reached on the way
south the climate even in the tropical section is modified. The
section south of Rio, on account of the mountains and other forces
of nature, has a temperate climate, delightful for the habitation
of man. Each of these great zones, the tropical, the subtropical
and the temperate, is marked more by its distinctive leading
products than by climate. Each of these sections yields a product
in which Brazil leads the world. The largest and most
inexhaustible rubber supply in the world is found in the Amazon
Valley region. The central section raises so much cocoa that it
gives Brazil first rank in the production of this commodity. The
great temperate region produces three-fourths of all the coffee
used in the world. Of course, there is much overlapping in the
distribution of these products. Other products, such as cotton,
farinha, beans, peas, tobacco, sugar, bananas, are raised in large
quantities and could be far more extensively produced if the
people would utilize the best methods and implements of modern
agriculture. The mountains are full of ores and the forests of the
finest timber, and the great interior has riches unknown to man.
It has the most extensive unexplored region on earth. What the
future holds for this marvelously endowed country, when her
resources are revealed and brought to market, no one would dare
predict. Few countries in the world would venture a claim to such
immense riches.

CHAPTER II.

THE CAPITAL, RIO DE JANEIRO.

The city of Rio is the center of life in Brazil. We entered the
Bay of Rio after nightfall on the sixth of June. The miles and
miles of lights in the city of Rio on the one side, and of
Nietheroy on the other, gave us the impression that we were in
some gigantic fair grounds. Missionaries Entzminger, Shepard,
Maddox and Mrs. Entzminger came aboard to welcome us and bring us
ashore. We were taken to the Rio Baptist College and Seminary,
where we were entertained in good old Tennessee style by the
Shepards. This school building was built in 1849 by Dom Pedro II.
for a school which was known as the "Boarding School of Dom Pedro
II." It accommodated two hundred students. The Emperor supported
the school. In 1887 the school was moved to larger quarters. Dr.
Shepard is renting the property for our college, but our school
like Dom Pedro's has outgrown these quarters and we are compelled
to rent additional buildings some distance away to accommodate the
increasing number of students. There are about three hundred
students in all departments.

As we studied the situation at close range, we had it driven in
upon us that one of the greatest needs in Brazil is the one Dr.
Shepard and his co-laborers are trying to meet in this school.
Three-fourths of the population of Brazil cannot read. We need,
above all things now, educated leaders. What a call is there for
trained native pastors and evangelists! Some of the Seminary
students have been preaching as many as twenty-one times a month
in addition to carrying their studies in the school. Dr. Shepard
has been forced to stop them from some of this preaching because
it was preventing successful work in the class room. The need is
so great that it is very difficult to keep the students from such
work.

I must not go too far afield from the subject of this chapter, but
I must take the time to say that nothing breaks down prejudice
against the gospel more effectively than do the schools conducted
by the various mission boards. One day a Methodist colporter
entered a town in the interior of the State of Minas Geraes and
began to preach and offer his Bibles for sale in the public
square. Soon a fanatical mob was howling around him and his life
was in imminent peril. Just as the excitement was at the highest
two young men belonging to one of the best families in the place
pressed through the crowd and, ascertaining that the man was a
minister of the gospel, took charge of him and drove off the mob.
They led the colporter to their home, which was the best in the
town, and showed him generous hospitality. They invited the people
in to hear him preach, and thus through their kindness the man and
his message received a favorable hearing. It should be remembered,
too, that these young men belonged to a very devout Roman Catholic
family.

What was the secret of their actions? They had rescued,
entertained and enabled to preach a man who was endeavoring to
propagate a faith that was very much opposed to their own. The
explanation is that they had attended Granberry College, that
great Methodist school at Juiz de Fora. They had not accepted
Protestant Christianity, but the school had given them such a
vision and appreciation of the gospel that they could never again
be the intolerant bigots their fellow townsmen were. The college
had made them friends and that was a tremendous service. First we
must have friends, then followers. Nothing more surely and more
extensively makes friends for our cause than the schools, and it
must be said also that they are wonderfully effective in the work
of direct evangelization.

The First Baptist Church commissioned Deacon Theodore Teixeira and
Dr. Shepard to pilot us over the city. The church provided us with
an automobile and our splendid guides magnified their office. It
is a MAGNIFICENT city, indeed. The strip of land between the
mountains and the seashore is not wide. In some places, in fact,
the mountains come quite down to the water. The city, in the most
beautiful and picturesque way, avails itself of all possible
space, even in many places climbing high on the mountain sides and
pressing itself deep into the coves. Perhaps no city in the world
has a more picturesque combination of mountain and water with
which to make a beautiful location. It has about a million
inhabitants, and being the federal capital, is the greatest and
most influential city in Brazil.

Most of its streets are narrow and tortuous and until recently
were considered unhealthy. A few years ago the magnificent Avenida
Central was cut through the heart of the city and one of the most
beautiful avenues in the world was built. Twelve million dollars'
worth of property was condemned to make way for this splendid
street. It cuts across a peninsula through the heart of the city
from shore to shore, and is magnificent, indeed, with its
sidewalks wrought in beautiful geometrical designs, with its
ornate street lamps, with its generous width appearing broader by
contrast with other narrow streets, with its modern buildings.

There is another street, however, which is dearer to the Brazilian
than the Avenida. He takes great pride in the Avenida, but he has
peculiar affection for the Rua d'Ouvidor. Down the Ouvidor flows a
human tide such as is found nowhere else in Brazil. No one
attempts to keep on the pavement. The street is given over
entirely to pedestrians. No vehicle ever passes down it until
after midnight. In this narrow street, with its attractive shops
filled with the highest-priced goods in the world, you can soon
find anyone you wish to meet, because before long everyone who can
reach it will pass through. In this street the happy, jesting,
jostling crowd is in one continuous "festa".

In passing through the city one is greatly impressed by the number
of parks and beautiful public squares, and in particular with the
wonderful Beiramar, which is a combination of promenades,
driveways and park effects that stretches for miles along the
shore of the bay. What a thing of beauty this last-named park is!
There is nothing comparable to it anywhere. When Rio wishes to go
on a grand "passeio" (promenade) nothing but the grand Beiramar
will suffice.

One cannot help being impressed also by the prevalence of coffee-
drinking stands and stores--especially if he meets many friends.
These friends will insist upon taking him into a coffee stand and
engaging him in conversation while they sip coffee. On many
corners are little round or octagonal pagoda-like structures in
which coffee and cakes are sold. The coffee-drinking places are
everywhere and most of them are usually filled. The practice of
taking coffee with one's friends must lessen materially the amount
of strong drink consumed by the Brazilian. Nevertheless, that
amount of strong drink is, alas, altogether too great.

The greatest nuisance on the streets of Rio, or any other city of
Brazil, is the lottery ticket seller. These venders are more
numerous and more insistent than are the newsboys in the United
States. There are all sorts of superstitions about lotteries.
Certain images in one's dreams at night are said to correspond to
certain lucky numbers. Dogs, cats, horses, cows and many other
animals have certain numbers corresponding to them. For instance,
if one should dream tonight about a dog, he would try tomorrow to
find a lottery ticket to correspond in number with a dog. Say the
dog number was thirty-seven. This man would try to find a ticket
whose number ends in thirty-seven. Such a ticket would be
considered lucky. The ticket sellers often call out as they pass
along the street the last two numbers on the tickets they have to
sell, and if a man hears the number called which corresponds to
the animal he dreamed about last night, he will consider it lucky
and buy. There are also many shops where only lottery tickets are
sold. No evil has more tenaciously and universally fastened upon
the people than has the evil of gambling in lotteries. There are
310 Federal lotteries, besides many others run by the various
States. These 310 lotteries receive in premiums the enormous sum
of $19,399,200 every month--about one dollar for every individual
in Brazil. A portion of the profits amassed by the lottery
companies is devoted to charity, a portion to Roman Catholic
churches and a portion goes to the government. Even after these
amounts are taken out, there is ample left for the enrichment of
the companies' coffers to the impoverishment of many very needy
working people.

It is difficult to write temperately of Rio de Janeiro. There is
such a rare combination here of the primitive and the progressive,
of the oriental and occidental, that one is inclined to go off
into exclamation points. On the Avenida Central one sees numbers
of street venders carrying all kinds of wares on their heads and
pulling all sorts of carts, making their way in and out among the
automobiles, and handsome victorias PULLED BY MULES. We note also
all types of people. The Latin features predominate, but the negro
is in evidence, the Indian features are often recognized, and
mingled with these are seen faces representing all nations. One is
impressed with the dress of the people. Who is that handsomely-
groomed, gentleman passing? From his fine clothes you think he
must be a man of wealth and influence. Who is he? He is a barber.
That one over there is a clerk. But why these fine clothes? Ah!
thereby hangs the tale. Appearance is worshiped. Parade runs
through everything, even in the prevailing religion, which, alas,
is little more than form--parade. Don't get the idea that
everybody is finely dressed and that every handsomely-dressed man
is a barber. Many are able to afford such clothes and are cultured
gentlemen. One notices most the dress of the lower classes, the
most striking article of which is the wooden-bottom sandals into
which they thrust their toes and go flapping along in imminent
peril of losing the slippers every moment. The remainder of the
clothing worn by these beslippered people consists often of only
two thin garments. Certainly this is a place of great contrasts.
But somehow these contrasts do not impress one as being
incongruous. They are in perfect keeping with their surroundings.
Rio is really a cosmopolitan city and is a pleasant blending of
the old and the new.

There are several places from which splendid views of the city can
be had, but none of them is comparable to the panorama which
stretches out before one when he stands on the top of Mt.
Corcovado. The scene which greets one from this mountain is
indescribable. The Bay of Rio de Janeiro, with its eighty islands,
Sugar Loaf Mountain, a bare rock standing at the entrance, the
city winding its tortuous way in and out between the mountains and
spreading itself over many hills, the open sea in the distance and
the wild mountain scenery to the back of us, constitute a panorama
surpassingly beautiful.

Nictheroy lies just across the bay. We went over there one night
and spoke in the rented hall where our church worships, and spent
the night in the delightful home of the Entzmingers. The next
morning, before breakfast, Dr. Entzminger showed me over the city.
Nictheroy has forty thousand inhabitants and is the capital of the
State of Rio de Janeiro. It is a beautiful city and offers a wide
field for missionary work. Its importance is apparent.

We have a church in the populous suburb of Engenho de Dentro. We
were present there at a great celebration when the church cleared
off the remainder of its debt and burned the notes. The building
was crowded to its utmost capacity. The people stood in the aisles
from the rear to the pulpit. They filled the little rooms behind
the pulpit and occupied space about the windows. There are about
seventy members of the church. A far greater progress should be
made now that the debt as well as other encumbrances have been
removed.

There are in Rio the First, Engenho de Dentro, Governors Island
and Santa Cruz churches, and twelve preaching places, four of
which are in rented halls. Missionary Maddox utilizes many members
of the churches in providing preaching at these missions. There
are only a very few paid evangelists in this mission, but a great
many church members are glad to go to these stations and tell the
gospel story.

Besides our Baptist work, the Southern Methodists are conducting a
very prosperous mission. They have several churches and a station
for settlement work. The Presbyterians and the Congregationalists
have some excellent churches and the YMCA is one of the most
flourishing in South America.

CHAPTER III.

A VISIT TO A COUNTRY CHURCH.

That I may give you a glimpse of the country life in Brazil, and
also some impression of country mission work, I invite you to take
a trip with Missionary Maddox and myself to the little hamlet of
Parahyba do Sul, in the interior of the State of Rio.

On Monday, June 13th, we boarded a six AM train for Parahyba do
Sul, which we reached about ten o'clock. It is a charming town
situated on the river by the same name. This river reminds one of
the French Broad, though the mountains are not so high and
precipitous as the North Carolina mountains. The mountains, too,
in this section are not covered with trees, but with a tall grass,
which, being in bloom, gave a beautiful purple color to the
landscape. The railroad climbs up the mountain sides from Rio in a
very picturesque manner.

The Parahyba do Sul Church is three miles over the mountains from
the station, in the house of Mrs. Manoela Rosa Rodrigues. The
house is constructed with mud walls and a thatched roof. The
floors are the bare ground, which is packed hard and smooth. There
are two rooms, with a narrow hall between them and a sort of "lean
to" kitchen. The largest room, which is about fifteen feet square,
is devoted to the church. The most prominent piece of furniture in
the house is the pulpit, which stands in this room. This pulpit is
large out of all proportion to everything else about the place. It
was covered over with a beautifully embroidered altar piece. The
two chairs placed for Brother Maddox and myself were also entirely
covered with crocheted Brazilian lace. I hesitated to occupy such
a daintily decorated seat.

This church of forty-six members maintains three Sunday schools in
the adjoining country and six preaching stations, members of the
church doing the preaching. Every member gives to the college in
Rio 200 reis (six cents) a month, and to missions, etc., 300 reis
(nine cents) per month. This is munificent liberality when we take
into consideration their exhausting poverty.

Our coming was a great event with them. We were met at the station
by a member of the church, who mounted us on a gray pony apiece
and soon had us on our way. He walked, and with his pacing sort of
stride he easily kept up with us. His feet were innocent of shoes.
He says he does not like shoes because they interfere with his
walking. Underneath that dilapidated hat and those somewhat seedy
clothes we found a warm-hearted Christian, who serves the Lord
with passionate devotion. He often preaches, though he has very
little learning. He is mighty in the Scriptures, having committed
to memory large sections of them, and has a genuine experience of
grace to which he bears testimony with great power.

We arrived at the church about eleven o'clock. We were received
with expressions of great joy. Mrs. Manoela was so happy over our
coming that she embraced us in true Brazilian style. We were shown
into our room, where we refreshed ourselves by brushing off the
dust and bathing. How spick and span clean was everything in that
room, even to the dirt floor!

Before we had completed our ablutions, the good woman of the house
called Maddox out and asked what she could cook for me. She
thought I could not eat Brazilian dishes. He told her, to her
great relief, that I could eat anything he could. Quite right he
was, too, for we had been traveling all the morning on the
sustenance furnished by a cup of coffee which we had taken at the
Rio station a little before six o'clock. We were in possession of
an appetite by this time that would have raised very few questions
about any article of food.

Soon we were seated at the breakfast table, which was placed in
the church room with benches around it for seats. I was honored by
being placed at one end of the table. What a meal it was! Not only
had Mrs. Manoela taxed her own larder, but the other members, who
by this time had arrived in large numbers, had brought in many
good things. I cannot tell what the dishes were, for the reason
that I do not know. It is sufficient to say that every one was
good--perhaps our appetite helped out our appreciation of some of
them. There were as many as eight dishes the like of which I had
never tasted before. How do you suppose I managed it when they
served some delicious cane molasses, and, instead of bread to go
with it, they served cream cheese? I asked Maddox how I should
work this combination. He replied by cutting up his cheese into
his plate of molasses and eating the mixture. I did the same
thing, and I bear testimony that it was fine. By the time the
breakfast was concluded, I had scored a point with our good
friends, for they thought that a stranger who could render such a
good account of himself at a Brazilian breakfast must be very much
like themselves. (Let us explain about Brazilian meals: They take
coffee in the early morning. Bread and butter is served with the
coffee. Breakfast, which is a very substantial meal, is served
about eleven o'clock. Dinner, which is the chief meal of the day,
is served about five o'clock in the afternoon. At bedtime light
refreshments are served, which are often substantial enough to
make another meal).

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