Brazilian Sketches

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Five years after the baptism of this man Dr. Taylor was finally
able to make the journey to Conquista, where he found the church
well organized, with a house of worship built at its own expense
and with the pastor's home erected near by. The missionary says,
"I now understand why God never permitted me to visit Conquista
during these five years. I believe it was for the purpose of
showing me that the native Christians can and will take care of
themselves and the gospel if we will only confide in them. I
wonder how many churches in the United States have built their own
house and pastorium and sustained themselves from the start? Not a
cent from the Board has been spent on the church and the
evangelization done by Brother Queiroz."

Another example of the power of the Bible in spreading the gospel
is found in the way the gospel came to Guandu, State of Rio, and
the country round about. One night in Campos in 1894, after the
missionary had finished his sermon, a young woman approached him
and said, "My father has been teaching us out of that same book
you used. Would you not like to go out in the country to visit
him?" The missionary replied that he would, and then the girl
explained how the Bible came to this community.

One evening a colporteur approached her father's door and asked
for entertainment, saying he had been refused by several families
along the way. To the host's inquiry as to why he had been refused
entertainment for the night the colporteur said: "They declined
because I am a Protestant." The man replied. "Come in and
welcome." After the dinner Mr. Vidal (for that was the farmer's
name) asked what this Protestantism meant. The colporteur
explained and preached the gospel to the best of his ability.

When the time came to retire the colporteur said, "It is my custom
to read the Scriptures and to pray before I retire. If you have no
objection I would like to do so tonight." Mr. Vidal answered, "I
shall be glad for you to do so." The colporteur read and there in
the dining hall before the curious onlookers knelt and poured out
his heart to his Heavenly Father. He called down the blessing and
the favor of God upon the family. The tears poured down his cheeks
as he lifted his soul in this prayer. After he finished praying
Mr. Vidal said, "I have never heard prayer like that. Teach me how
to do it. I have heard Latin prayers repeated, but they did not
grip me like that." The colporteur replied by explaining that
prayer must be from the heart. He then took out a Bible and said,
"I want to make you a present of this book. You have been kind to
me. Read it, for it has in it the Word of Life." He went away the
following morning. We do not know who he was--only the record on
high will discover his person to us.

The book left behind became a great light for Mr. Vidal. He read
it and was so impressed with its teachings that he taught the Word
to his family and neighbors. His house became a house of prayer
and teaching. When Missionary Ginsburg went out there, preached
the Word and explained about Christ, he asked those who wished to
follow the Lord to stand. Practically the whole company stood.
They had been prepared, by Mr. Vidal The missionary went back a
few times and soon a church of about forty members was organized
and was called the Church of Guandu.

The Word spread up the country first amongst Mr. Vidal's relatives
and friends. At Santa Barbara the station master, Carlos Mendonca,
was converted, who is now pastor of our church at Cantagallo. He
first moved to Rio Bonito and founded a church there, the truth
spread, in other directions also and so the light which the
unknown colporteur left with this farmer has shed its rays of
blessings upon a whole county. Twenty-one years ago, a Bible which
belonged to a Catholic priest, or rather a part of a Catholic
Bible, fell into the hands of the old man, Joaquim Borges. Through
the reading of this Bible, he abandoned idolatry and other
practices of Rome and put his trust solely in the Lord Jesus for
his salvation. For sixteen years he resisted all attempts of
priests and others to turn him back to Rome, always giving a clear
and firm testimony to the truth of the gospel. During all this
time he never met with another believer. Hearing of him, E. A.
Jackson wrote him to meet him in Pilao Arcado. He came 120 miles
and waited twelve days for the arrival of the missionary. As
Jackson had through passage to Santa Rita, he asked the captain to
hold the steamer while he baptized Mr. Borges. Before
administering baptism Jackson preached to the great crowd on the
river bank and on the decks of the steamer. It was a solemn and
beautiful sight to behold this man, seventy-seven years of age,
following his Lord in baptism at his first meeting with a minister
of the gospel and before a multitude which had never witnessed
such a scene. Dripping from the river, Jackson welcomed him into
the ranks of God's children. The missionary embarked on the
steamer and Mr. Borges went back to work among his neighbors. Up
till the present time not even a native minister has visited him,
for the lack of workers and funds to send them. Eye hath not seen,
nor ear heard, nor hath it entered into the heart to conceive the
glorious things God has prepared for the man who will go to work
for Him among the neglected people of the interior of Brazil.

In the State of Sao Paulo is a boy, Ramiro by name, now about
thirteen years of age, the only son of parents who do not know a
letter of the alphabet. Indeed, he is the only one in a large
connection that has been taught to read.

The family lives about twenty miles from their market town, Mogy
das Cruzes, to which they go to sell the meager fruits of their
labors on the little farm. In this town they have some
acquaintances, among whom is a believer whose faith had come
through reading the Bible. This believer one day came into
possession of a Bible which he didn't need, and so he gave it to
Ramiro, who was then about nine or ten years of age and was
beginning to learn to read. The little fellow trudged home, twenty
miles away, carrying his priceless present, and showed it joyously
to his parents. This was the first book that ever entered their
humble home, excepting, of course, Ramiro's little school book.
Curious to know what the book contained, the father put Ramiro to
deciphering some of its pages. Guided, no doubt, by the Holy
Spirit, he fell upon the New Testament and laboriously read on and
on for months and months The neighbors--all ignorant alike--would
come and listen to Ramiro spell out sentence after sentence, he
becoming more expert as the days went by. He would read, they
would listen and discuss, the Holy Spirit, in the meantime, fixing
the sacred truth in their hearts. This persistent reading of the
Word went on for two or three years to a time when the Lord opened
to Dr. J. J. Taylor, of Sao Paulo, a door of opportunity in Mogy
das Cruzes. He found twelve people ready to follow on in the
Lord's ordinance.

Since that time even more abundant fruit has been gathered. Dr.
Taylor at first baptized three of Ramiro's cousins who hail from
the same village twenty miles away and recently he baptized the
uncle, aunt, some more cousins and Ramiro himself. Ramiro taught
the words of many hymns to his family and neighbors. Through him
and his book his aged grandparents, ninety years old and
bedridden, rejoice in the Savior.

How great must be the might of the Word of God which can convert
to salvation strong men through the faltering lips of a child And
yet, after all, is not this the combination which alone is
powerful in spreading the gospel--a simple, child-like heart,
through which the Word may speak forth? "A little child shall lead
them," because it can be artless enough to give simple utterance
to the Word of God. Oh, for more in all lands who will give
unaffected voice to the Word of God! That message has power in it
if it can get sincere expression.

We need to realize more than we do the transcendent importance of
giving wide circulation to the Bible in foreign lands. The
illustrations given here of the wonderful success of the Book
should help us to reach a better appreciation of the value of the
Word of God in mission endeavor. Certainly, there is marvelous
power in it. Its enemies fear its might; therefore, they fight
desperately to prevent the circulation of it. Would that we could
have as keen a realization of the vitality of this Book as do its
enemies. Surely then, we would do far more for the sowing of the
Scriptures beside all waters.

CHAPTER XIV.

THE METTLE OF THE NATIVE CHRISTIAN.

In 1894, Francisco da Silva, soon after his conversion in Bahia,
went to Victoria in the State of Espirito Santo to live. He went
into the interior with some surveyors, and in addition to the work
he was called upon to do, he found time to tell the story of
Jesus. Eight people were converted and he wrote Dr. Z. C. Taylor
to come and baptize them.

Dr. Taylor was not able to go immediately, and one of the men
secured his baptism in a very unique way. He asked Francisco to
baptize him Francisco replied that he could not because he was not
ordained. The man returned home and examined his Bible and came
back a few days later and demanded again that Francisco baptize
him. Francisco replied that in order to baptize, one must be
ordained. "No," said the man, "I have looked in the Bible and I do
not find it necessary for one to be ordained in order to baptize."
So catching hold of Francisco, he pulled him along to a river near
by, Francisco through it all holding back the best he could and
arguing with the man that he could not baptize him. But the man
constrained him and forced him into the river. Francisco seeing
his zeal, performed the ceremony. Some question afterward was
raised about the validity of this baptism, and the man was
baptized regularly by the same Francisco, who had in the meantime
received ordination.

When he had finished with one party of surveyors another wanted to
employ him, and they went to the first party to find out about
him. The men said: "He has fine qualifications for the position,
but there is one objection to him--he is a Protestant." "Ah, said
the second party, "can't we with a little money get that out of
him?" "No," replied the first, "it seems to be grown into him." He
was taken by the second party, the chief of which and all his
family soon became devoted Christians.

The desire to tell the story of Jesus burned in Francisco's heart
so warmly that he gave up his lucrative employment with the
surveying party, bought a mule and other necessities for his
journey and started out to proclaim the unsearchable riches of
Christ to the people of that State. He was remarkably successful
and soon gathered about him a little band of believers, who,
because of their faithfulness to Christ, were called upon to
suffer severe persecution. They were compelled to flee into the
distant mountains where Missionary Jackson afterward found them,
organized them into a church and baptized seventy-five converts.
Later they were able to return to their homes, due to the fact
that a more lenient administration was inaugurated in Victoria.
Very soon afterward our faithful missionary, L. M. Reno, was sent
to this State, and the work from this good beginning has had
remarkable prosperity. The pioneer missionary, da Silva, after
having gained the title of Apostle to the State of Espirito Santo,
was called in 1910 to his reward.

From what we have been saying, you have no doubt made many
inferences about the kind of Christians these Brazilians make. If
you had seen them face to face, you would have been, as I was,
impressed with their appearance. They were the best-looking people
I saw. Their countenances were clearer and there was a hopeful,
resourceful look upon them that was not noticeable upon the non-
believers. Sin and fear always break the spirit of men, and though
there may be a brave look assumed, yet there always hangs a cloud
over the countenance of the sin-stained and fear-driven man, be he
a religionist or atheist. This change in appearance is produced by
a change in their way of living. When they are converted they
cease drinking, gambling, Sabbath-breaking, and often the men give
up smoking and the women cease taking snuff. The fact is they
sometimes are extreme upon this subject. I heard of one church
that made the giving up of tobacco and another the laying aside of
jewelry the test of fellowship. These people coming out from under
the domination of a religion of fear into the light and liberty of
the gospel are changed from glory to glory, having upon them the
light of God's countenance.

They are liberal givers. There is a much larger proportion of
tithers among them than among the Christians in the States. Here,
too, they often go to extremes. More than one church in Brazil
makes tithing obligatory upon its members. Last year the Brazilian
Baptists gave as much per capita for foreign missions as did the
Baptists in our Southern States. They have set their aim this year
higher than the Southern Baptists have. They sustain foreign
mission work in Chili and Portugal. They engage in this foreign
mission endeavor because the leaders think that the foreign
mission principle is vital to the life and development of the
churches. This giving to foreign missions is not to the neglect of
their home enterprises. They have Home and State Mission Boards
which they support liberally. They have am Education Board to
which they gave forty cents per capita last year and all of this
giving out of such grinding poverty!

Here and there are people of larger means who are munificent in
their gifts. It was the generous offer of $5,000 by Captain Egydio
that made possible the founding of the Collegio Americano Egydio,
which school was established by the Taylors in Bahia. He paid $650
the first installment upon the furniture, but his sudden taking
off prevented the college from realizing the whole amount
promised, because the family lost so heavily by persecution after
the father had been taken away. Col Benj. Nogueira Paranagua, a
rich cattleman, built a church, school and library building at
Corrente in the State of Piauhy at his own expense and afterward
paid the salary of a teacher for the school. When the church in
San Fidelis, which was established in the face of trying
persecution, was considering how it could possibly build a meeting
house, a coffee farmer, who was not yet a member, rose and said:
"I am old and useless, but I want to do something for Jesus and
His church. I, therefore, offer to erect the church building and
the church may pay me six per cent. annually until I die, and then
the building will belong to the church as a legacy which I intend
to leave." As the work on the house progressed he signified his
desire to be the first one to be baptized in the baptistry. This
was granted gladly and his thought of charging six per cent on the
building until his death disappeared in the watery grave and he
made the church a present outright of the beautiful chapel. Not
only this chapel has been built by an individual, but others have
been built in the same way. Usually, however, the churches are
built out of the sacrificial offerings of the people. So well has
this church building movement progressed that now about one-third
of the 142 Baptist Churches organized in Brazil worship in their
own buildings, and with a few exceptions, these buildings have
been erected by the gifts of the people and not by the gifts of
the Foreign Mission Board. The Presbyterians show a better
proportion of buildings than this and the Methodists quite as
good.

The subject of self-support is a live one. There has been good
progress made in this matter, but, of course, it will require many
years to teach the churches their full duty in this regard. Many
churches have reached the point where they take care of all local
expenses. Some of the missionaries go so far as to advocate not
organizing any more churches until the congregations can be self-
supporting. The South Brazilian Mission, in its recent meeting,
adopted the rule that no church should be organized hereafter
until it could pay at last 60 per cent of its own expenses--these
expenses to include the care of the house, the salary of the
native pastor, etc.

I have already cited instances of personal work. I wish to say
more particularly that the great success which has attended the
work in Brazil must be in a large measure attributed to the fact
that those who have been led to Christ have been zealous in
witnessing personally to others of the grace which had been
bestowed upon them.

One of the greatest laymen in Brazil is our Brother Thomaz L. da
Costa. He is the Superintendent of a very considerable business
firm in Bahia. He is a deacon in the First Baptist Church, one of
the moving spirits upon the Brazilian Foreign Mission Board and
practically superintends the work of the State Mission Board of
Bahia.

Years ago he was converted in Rio through the agency of his
washerwoman. This faithful woman is a member of the First Baptist
Churoh. She decided she would attempt to lead Thomaz to Christ. So
on Saturday when she would bring his laundry she would invite him
to come to her house on the following day for dinner. I might say
by way of parenthesis, that there is not a steam laundry in
Brazil. All of the laundry work is done by hand. Sometimes there
is quite a considerable firm which employs many laundresses.
Thomaz, after declining the good woman's invitation many times,
finally one day decided he would accpt. it.

On Sunday he appeared at her house for dinner. After the dinner
was over she suggested that they, in company with several of her
children, should take a stroll through some of the parks. They
passed through the great park in the center of the city, and after
a while they found themselves in front of a building in which they
heard singing. The good woman suggested that they go upstairs into
the hall from which proceeded the sounds of the music. They went
in, Thomaz not knowing what sort of place it was. Dr. Bagby, the
first missionary of our board to Brazil, was conducting a service
and soon began a sermon which impressed Thomaz very greatly. The
sermon drew such a picture of his life that he accused the woman
of having told Dr. Bagby about him. She had not done so, she
declared, and this fact impressed Thomaz even more.

Next Saturday, when she brought his laundry, she invited him to
take dinner with her again on Sunday, but he was too shrewd for
her and declined, saying that he understood her purpose. The
message which he had heard in the sermon, however, stayed with
him. On the following Saturday the good woman again invited him to
take dinner with her on Sunday. He declined. When the third
Saturday came, before she had time to extend her usual invitation,
he said: "I am coming to dinner with you tomorrow." He went
according to promise, and after the meal had been finished, they
did not take a round-about course, but went directly to the
church, and there the man listened to the gospel again and gave
himself to Christ. He has not missed a service since unless
providentially hindered. I asked him if he was sorry of the step
he had taken and he replied: "No, indeed. It is as Paul says, 'A
salvation not to be repented of.'"

There can be but one inevitable result to such faithful witnessing
as this. One of the most hopeful signs in connection with the
work in Brazil is the fact that a large percentage of the members
of the churches endeavor to lead others to Christ in a personal
way. A large percentage of them will conduct public services
wherever the opportunity can be found. In the First Baptist Church
in Rio there are more than twenty men who will go out and conduct
public services. They are not skilled preachers. They may have
very limited education, but they can take the Book, read it,
explain its message through the light of their own individual
experiences, and by this means of witnessing to the power of the
saving grace of God in their own lives, they are able to lead many
to Jesus. Is not this after all the kind of preaching our Lord has
sent us into the world to do?

The severest persecution which these Brazilian Christians are
called upon to endure is not that which comes to them when they
are stoned, or when their property may be destroyed or when their
business may be taken away from them through boycotts or when they
may be turned into the streets through the bitter hatred of hard-
hearted priests, but the most trying persecution is that which
comes from the insinuating remark, the sneer of the supercilious
and the doubt of the envious. The taunt of hypocrisy is often
thrown into the teeth of native Christians. Their motives are
frequently impugned. I was profoundly impressed with the answer
they usually give to such persecutions. They reply by saying: "See
how we live. Note the difference between our careers now and our
careers before we became Christians." And this challenge of the
life is the one which will finally answer the ridicule and doubt
of all who assail them.

CHAPTER XV.

THE TESTING OF THE MISSIONARY.

In thinking of the missionary, most of us dwell upon the heroic
self-denial he practices and the bravery with which he faces the
gravest dangers. Certainly, the missionary in Brazil is due a good
share of such appreciation. He has been called upon to endure
shameful indignities, painful personal dangers and the enervating
perils of a hostile climate. Our own missionaries have been
beaten, stoned, thrown into streams, arrested and haled before
courts, shot at and in many instances saved only by the most
signal dispensations of Providence. Dr. Bagby, our first
missionary, in spite of stoning and arrest when he was baptizing
converts in Bahia, kept fearlessly on in his endeavor to lead the
people to Christ. Dr. Z. C. Taylor traveled through the interior
of Bahia State in perils of robbers, in perils of fanatics, in
perils of infuriated priests and in perils of bloodthirsty
persecutors without fear or shrinking. In the spring of 1910
Solomon Ginsburg was set upon by a mob at Itabopoana, which opened
fire with such perilous directness that one bullet flattened upon
the wall a few inches above his head.

This same missionary in 1894 endured bitter persecutions when he
attempted to open the work at San Fidelis in the interior of the
State of Rio de Janeiro. A mob of a thousand people threw stones,
grass, corn and a great miscellany of other objects at him and his
little band of worshipers. The howling of the mob prevented him
from preaching. The best that could be done was to sing songs.
Finally, a stone having struck a girl in the congregation, he
carried her out through the infuriated mob to a drug store across
the street, where she was resuscitated, and he returned to his
service of song.

Next morning he was called to the police headquarters and the
officer forbade him to preach. He asked what the missionary was
doing there, to which he replied, "To preach the gospel." The
missionary was then prohibited from preaching in the province. He
replied that he was sorry he could not obey, for he had superior
orders. He could not accept orders from the police, nor the
Governor, nor even from the President of the Republic. The officer
asked who this superior authority was. The missionary replied it
was God. God had told him to go preach the gospel in all the world
to every creature; some of God's creatures were in San Fidelis and
he was there to preach according to the command of his Lord. The
police officer, after plying him with insulting epithets, kept him
a prisoner of the State as a disturber of the peace. On the
following day he was sent to the State prison at Nictheroy, where
he was confined for ten days. Friends, through the solicitation of
Mrs. Ginsburg, brought pressure to bear upon the Government and
the missionary was released. He was requested then as a personal
favor not to return until after the naval revolt, which was then
in progress, should be suppressed and a degree of quiet could be
restored to the State. Being thus requested, he remained away from
San Fidelis awhile.

When the revolt was suppressed he returned to San Fidelis and
persecution arose again. He appealed to the chief officer of the
State and fifty soldiers were sent to his relief. In choosing
these fifty soldiers the officer asked for believers to volunteer.
Twenty-five responded. He asked then for sympathizers and twenty-
five more volunteered. These were put under the command of the
missionary, who instructed them not to appear armed at the church.
They came unarmed, but when the mob began to thrown stones again
and refused to respect the soldiers, they pounced upon the evil
doers and there was a rough and tumble fight. Several were bruised
considerably and a number of limbs were broken, but after this
conflict the persecution ceased.

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