Brazilian Sketches

T >> T. B. Ray >> Brazilian Sketches

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We relate these incidents for the purpose of making it clear that
our missionaries have been called upon to suffer greatly for the
cause of Christ. Every missionary who has been in Brazil any
length of time has felt the weight of personal, physical
persecution, and all in the gravest dangers have conducted
themselves as became the heroic character with which they are so
splendidly endowed. And this suffering, we are sorry to say, is
not yet over. For many years to come the desperate and despotic
hand of Rome, which could in the name of religion invent the
horrible inquisition and organize the bloodthirsty order of
Jesuits, has not changed its attitude completely and will resist
desperately to the last the inevitable progress of Protestantism
in Brazil.

Let me hasten, however, to say that it is very easy to get the
wrong impression of what the heroism of the missionary consists.
It is easy for us to think it consists in his willingness to face
personal danger. If such an idea should obtain amongst us
permanently and alas, it has persisted altogether too long; it
will rob the story of missions of its true interest and hazard
appreciation of the enterprise upon the ability of the historian
to find thrilling tales of adventure to gratify the appetite of
the sensation-loving public.

The most trying thing to the missionary is not the imminence of
personal danger, but the ever-present chilling, benumbing
indifference of the people to the gospel. Even though here and
there we find large numbers of people who are ready to accept the
gospel, let us not deceive ourselves into the belief that all
Brazil is eagerly seeking to enter the Kingdom of God. The
Macedonian call to Paul did not come from a whole nation which was
ready to accept his teaching, but from one man in a nation. Most
all Macedonian calls are like that. The few, comparatively
speaking, rise to utter such calls and these few are the keys of
opportunity which may be used to unlock whole Empires. The great
body of the people in Brazil (and this is especially true of the
educated classes) are as indifferent to the gospel as people are
most anywhere else. It is the weight of this stolid indifference
which tries the endurance of the missionary. It fills the very
atmosphere he breathes and hangs a dark cloud over his horizon,
which only his faith in God and the winning of occasional converts
graciously tinge with a silver lining. It is indifference, slowly
yielding indifference that tests the temper of the missionary
character. There are times when a bit of physical persecution would
afford a positive relief to the fatigue of his exacting career.

The days of the pioneer missionary, with their personal dangers,
have in a measure passed. The yeans of the persecutor in the face
of an increasingly more enlightened civilization are numbered. The
probability of personal perils is growing steadily less. The
missionary must now fight for a hearing before a public which is
too often willing to let him alone. In many places it does not
care enough for his message to persecute him for bringing it. It
is ready to patronize him with an assumed air of liberality and
resist the message which burns in his heart and upon his lips.
They are willing for him to speak, but not willing to listen to
what he has to say. He must fight for a hearing with this
patronizing indifference. It is this that tries his spirit. It is
this that bleeds his heart of its strength. It is this that calls
out the heroic in him as never does the dart of the savage, the
weapon of the fanatic or the fury of the mob. To hold on true to
his purpose in the face of such soul-harrowing indifference is the
crowning act of heroism upon the part of our missionaries. No one
of them has ever drawn back and given up his work for fear of
death at the hands of his persecutors, but it must be said for the
sake of the truth that some have succumbed before the rigors of
blasting indifference. The saints at home ought to support
valiantly with their prayers our missionaries who at the front are
engaged in a battle even unto death with indifferent souls
unwilling to accept their message.

There is another count in this subject of indifference to which we
at home should give more prayerful consideration. It is the
failure of the churches at home to send out an adequate number of
missionaries to reinforce the workers at the front and make it
possible for them to take advantage of the opportunities that have
come to them already. What could take the spirit out of a man more
quickly than the feeling that those who had sent him out do not
care enough about him to give him support and reinforcements for
his work? It is a shame upon us that we at home add another burden
to our missionaries by failing to loyally support them. What must
be a man's thoughts after he has toiled and sacrificed on a field
for years and has unceasingly begged for a mere tithe of the
helpers he really needs and which we fail to send?

When that brave garrison of English soldiers were shut up in Lady
Smith, South Africa, during the Boer War their courage to hold out
against overwhelming odds and on insufficient rations through many
weeks was kept up by the assurance that the patriotic English
nation was doing its utmost to send relief, though the relief was
long delayed. If the thought that their home people were not
trying to send succor to them had ever taken possession of their
minds, they would have surrendered forthwith. Their line of
communication was cut, but they knew help was coming, and so they
held out with grim determination until relief came.

How is it with our missionaries in Brazil? Their lines of
communication are intact. They know their people at home are able
to supply them with the help they need and yet the help does not
come. What must be the conclusion forced upon, them and what must
be the effect upon them? Either the churches, though able, will
not give the means to send out missionaries, or the men for
reinforcement will not volunteer. It may be that both causes are
at work. What is the matter when a pulpit committee of a
prominent church can have sixty names suggested to it of men who
might become its pastor, and a good percentage (save the mark) of
these direct applications, when our small missionary force in
Brazil is pleading for only ten men to be sent out to relieve them
in their strain? Whatever explanation we may have to offer for
these things, the fact remains that our indifference to the call
of our men at the front adds an additional weight to their already
too heavy load, and yet, in spite of it all, they are standing
with unflinching heroism at their posts.

Something must be done to relieve this situation. Counting all
denominations, there are in Brazil fewer missionaries today in
proportion to the population than there are either in India or
China. Why this disparity of workers in Brazil? Is it because the
work is not successful there? The facts show that, taking into
consideration the number of workers, it is one of the most
fruitful of all mission fields. Is it because there is less need
of the gospel? I believe I have shown that these people are bereft
of the gospel, and because of their sin and idolatry are as needy
as are to be found anywhere. No, there is no excuse to be offered.
Our workers at the front need help. We are trying their brave
spirits by withholding the relief they have a right to expect, and
yet we repeat they are holding on with a courage that stamps them
as heroes of the finest type. God help us to see our obligation to
send out recruits in sufficiently large numbers to relieve these
brave soldiers and transform them from a besieged garrison into an
aggressive army of conquerors.

Let us bear in mind that what is said about indifference both on
the foreign field and among the churches at home is spoken of the
people in the large. Thank God, the light is breaking in many
places at home and abroad. Many individuals and churches are today
seeing the larger vision and are assuming their larger
responsibility in the support of the foreign mission cause. Many
are saying: "We will faithfully strengthen the hands of our
brothers who toil so courageously at the front." In Brazil (and in
other mission fields, too,) there is in many places a marvelous
breaking away from the old attitude of indifference. The little
handful of missionaries we have on the field are straining every
nerve to meet the opportunities that are pressing upon them. They
are not discouraged. They are as busy as life trying to meet the
increasing demands. They are looking to the future with the
largest hope. They are a band of the most incurable optimists you
ever saw.

CHAPTER XVI.

THE URGENT CALL.

This very breaking away in some places is piling up additional
burdens and the pitifully inadequate force is called upon to meet
demands that twice their number could hardly satisfy. If we had
the same distribution of Baptist ministers in our Southern country
that we have in Brazil there would be only four ministers in
Texas, two in Virginia, three in Georgia and other States in like
proportion. Think of E. A. Nelson, the only representative of our
board in the Amazon region, trying to spread himself over four
States which comprise a territory five times as large as Texas.
Passing down the coast, five days journey, we would find D. L.
Hamilton and H. H. Muirhead, who have faced dangers as fearlessly
as have any brave spirits who have enriched the annals of
missionary history with courageous service. They, along with Miss
Voorheis, are our sole representatives in the State of Pernambuco
and in the adjoining State of Alagoas. C. F. Stapp, Solomon
Ginsburg and E. A. Jackson are attempting to carry forward the
work in the vast States of Piauhy, Goyaz, a part of Minas Geraes,
and Bahia, which last named State has in it one city as large as
New Orleans. E. A. Jackson is located far in the interior of the
State, three weeks' journey from Bahia; all of the energies of
Stapp are consumed in caring for the school; Ginsburg is forced to
give his attention to the nurturing of the thirty-five churches
and of evangelizing as far as his strength will go. In the State
beyond them, going down the coast, stands L. M. Reno, in the State
of Espirito Santo. In the populous State of Rio, in which is
located the capital city with its 1,000,000 inhabitants, we have
Entzminger, Shepard, Langston, Maddox, Cannada, Christie, Taylor
and Crosland. Entzminger, in addition to conducting the publishing
house, must also conduct the mission operations in Nictheroy, a
city of 40,000; Shepard, Taylor and Langston have placed upon
their shoulders the tremendous responsibility of conducting the
college and seminary; Cannada must give his energies to the
Flumenense School for Boys, leaving only Maddox, Christie and
Crosland at liberty to do the wider evangelistic work and care for
the many churches which the success of their labors have thrust
upon them. Crosland has been transferred recently to Bello
Horizonte, in the great State of Minas Geraes. Farther South, in
Sao Paulo, the richest and most progressive State in the country,
are Bagby, Deter and Edwards, Misses Carroll, Thomas and Grove.
Bagby and wife and the young ladies just mentioned devote their
time to the school, leaving only two to man a field which, because
of its splendid railroad facilities, has in it scores of inviting
locations for successful work. In Paranagua in the next State to
the South, have been located recently R. E. Pettigrew and wife.
Far down to the South in Rio Grande do Sul, a State as large as
Tennessee and Kentucky combined, stands a single sentinel in the
person of A. L. Dunstan. What a battle line for twenty men to
maintain! It is more than 4,000 miles in length. If you should
place these men in line across our Southern territory, locating
the first one in Baltimore, you would travel 100 miles before you
reach the second, 100 miles before you reach the third, 100 miles
to the fourth, and in going toward the Southwest, you would reach
the twentieth man in El Paso, Tex. Whereas, if you were to draw up
the Baptist ministers enrolled in the Southern Baptist Convention
territory along the same line and pass down it to make the count,
by the time you had reached El Paso you would have passed 8,000
men, for they would have been placed just one-fourth of a mile
apart.

Why do we need 400 ministers in this country to one in Brazil? Is
it possible that we will grudgingly cling to our 8,000 ministers
and decline to give even eight to reinforce our little handful in
Brazil? Such a division of forces can neither be fair nor
faithful.

In drawing this picture I have practically stated the situation
for the other denominations. The Presbyterians occupy the same
general territory as do the Baptists with an equal number of
missionaries. The Methodists have somewhat more compactly
stationed about the same number of missionaries as each of the
other two, while the Episcopalians, the Congregationalists and the
Evangelical Mission of South America combined add a number about
equal to each of the three larger denominations. A total of less
than 100 ordained missionaries scattered over a territory larger
than the United States of North America, which allows about four
missionaries to each Brazilian State. Add to this number the wives
of the missionaries, the thirty-seven unmarried women and the 125
native workers and the entire missionary body, foreign and native,
barely totals 300. How utterly inadequate is such a force in the
presence of such vast needs! Because this situation has in it a
call so apparent and so inexpressibly urgent it is impossible to
portray it in words.

The ripeness of the State of Piauhy for evangelization will
illustrate the urgency of the opportunity all over Brazil. As far
back as 1893 Dr. Nogueira Paranagua, who was at that time National
Senator from his State, urged Dr. Z. C. Taylor to send a man into
Piauhy and promised to help pay the expenses. Two years later Col.
Benj. Nogueira, the brother of the Senator, gave a similar
invitation, making a promise that he would sustain a missionary.
It was not until 1901 that E. A. Jackson was able to reach Col.
Benjamin's home. He preached the gospel in this good man's house
and also in Corrente, the town near by. Persecution, bitter and
determined, arose. There were three attempts to take Jackson's
life in one day. Once Col. Benjamin stepped in between the
assassin and the missionary and thus saved the missionary's life.
Some months later, upon the return of the missionary, Col.
Benjamin, who had been for so many years a friend to the gospel,
gave himself to it and was baptized. In January, 1904, the new
house of worship at Corrente was dedicated. It was built by Col.
Benjamin at his own expense. He also built a school building and
library, and afterward when the missionary was able to secure a
teacher, this generous man paid all the charges.

When we reached Brazil last summer I received a message from Judge
Julio Nogueira Paranagua, a nephew of Col. Benjamin, who is one of
the Circuit Judges in the State of Piauhy and who after a short
while is to be retired upon his pension, according to the
Brazilian law. As soon as this takes place he expects to give
himself entirely to the work of evangelizing his own people. The
message ran: "The State of Piauhy is open to the gospel. There is
a fight on between the priests and the better classes. The better
educated people, disgusted with Romanism and priesthood, are
drifting into materialism and atheism, but if a competent man
could be situated at Therezina, the capital, the whole State could
easily be won to the gospel."

His uncle, who is President of our Brazilian Convention, as we
have already stated, whose family embraces in its immediate
connection over a thousand people, in a letter written me after I
left Rio, reinforces this appeal. He says:

"I come to call your attention to the State of Piauhy, the field
in Brazil at present which seems to me to be the best prepared for
evangelization. Many things have contributed to bring this about.
The Masons, on the one hand, have done the most they possibly
could against Romanism; on the other hand, the propaganda sincere
and fervent of a small church founded in the southern part of the
State, which happily is receiving the greatest blessing from
Almighty God, is greatly contributing to the reception of the
gospel throughout the State. My brother, Col. Benj. Nogueira, the
founder of that church, has passed away, but he has left sons who
are spiritual and who continue to work. With the work developed
there it will spread beneficently. In the adjoining townships
there exist many believers, and a church will be founded soon in
Paranagua, a town situated on the beautiful lake by the same name.
In the cities of Jerumenha and Floriano there are already small
churches, which united to the others in assiduous labors, will
powerfully contribute to the evangelization of the State, which is
one of the most promising of Northern Brazil. My friend, Senator
Gervazio de Britto Passo, strongly desires that a minister of the
gospel come to the section where he is most influential. This
Senator greatly sympathizes with our cause and is convinced that
his numerous and influential friends as soon as enlightened by a
pastor as to what the religion of the Baptists is, will unite with
them, becoming evangelical. The best moment to move in that State
is the present one, when so many causes concur for our evangelical
development. The population of Piauhy, which is over 500,000, will
increase considerably as well as its economic wealth.

"I hope that you will not leave this field without pastors, where
the gospel is being received as the greatest benefit to which the
people can aspire for their civilization."

It was my good fortune to meet the present Senator from the State
of Piauhy aboard the ship as he went up the coast, and he, while
not a Protestant, urged upon me the importance of our heeding the
call of this Nogueira family and personally assured me that he
would do his utmost to see that such a missionary would have the
widest opportunity to preach the gospel to the people. This must
be a Macedonian call, which we hope to soon be able to heed.

CHAPTER XVII.

THE LAST STAND OP THE LATIN RACE.

There was a time in the life of the Anglo-Saxon race When it
became necessary for at least a portion of it to go out into a new
country in order that it might achieve the larger destiny it was
to fulfill in the world. God was behind that exodus as truly as he
was behind the transplanting of Abraham into a new environment.
Here in our country, unfettered by despotic traditions and
precedents, the Anglo-Saxon achieved religious and political
liberty with a rapidity and thoroughness that could not have been
possible in the old Continent of Europe.

Likewise also did God separate the Latin race from continental
oppression that it might grow a better manhood in the freer
atmosphere of the Western World. It is true that the Latin
movement was not prompted by the same motive that impelled the
Anglo-Saxon. Instead of the love of liberty, he was led out by the
lure of gold. Nevertheless, we must believe the final result will
be the same or else disbelieve in the ultimate triumph of the
guidance of God. We should not despair of the success of this
providential movement.

In South America is to be witnessed the last stand of the Latin
race. There God has given him one last chance to achieve a
religious character which will honor his Lord. It is the duty of
his Northern brother to sympathize with him and to believe in his
ability to build up a character worthy of himself and God. If we
cannot bring ourselves to such a belief it is useless for us to
expect to be helpful, and it is unfaithful in us to expend money
upon a people when we are confident it will be wasted.

We must not forget that these people are the descendants of the
Caesars, of Seneca, Napoleon--the race that ruled the world for
fifteen centuries. They surely have not lost all of their
virility. It must be a case of wasted strength. We believe that
this race has in it the possibility of rejuvenation. Lavaleye, the
great Belgian political economist, very probably spoke the truth
when he said that the Latin race is equal to the Anglo-Saxon, the
only difference being the gospel which the Protestants preach and
live.

We shall be helpful in our effort to give him the proper sympathy
if we remember the handicaps under which he has labored. He was
satisfied with his old fossilized religion, which had taught him
to believe that despotism is a virtue. He did not, therefore, come
to America for liberty. The early settlers were the veriest
adventurers of whom the gold lust made paragons of cruelty and
crime. They brought with them the intriguing priest who would
corrupt the Kingdom of Heaven in order to maintain his power.
There was no intentional break with their old life. The light that
guided them to America was the yellow light of gold and not the
white light of righteousness. The first result was that there
developed in the untrammeled West the most unreasoning despotism,
the most unblushing robbery and the most shamelessly corrupt
priestcraft. So this whole transplanted mass of the worst
intolerance, most insatiable greed and the most corrupt priesthood
that Europe has ever produced, had to be taught from the beginning
on the new soil, the elements of the higher manhood they so
desperately needed. They had learned no first lesson in Europe,
and therefore their first lesson in America was to unlearn the
very things that constituted their central life and thought in
Europe.

What progress has this providential teaching of the Latins in the
New World made? So swiftly did they learn the lessons of liberty
that hardly had the conflict which won complete freedom for the
United States closed before the inevitable struggle for the same
priceless heritage was in full swing in all Latin-America. And be
it said to their everlasting credit that this sacred cause, in
spite of revolutions and reactions, which at times hazarded the
whole scheme, has made steady advance, all critics to the
contrary, nothwithstanding. Political liberty is potentially at
least achieved in South America. It is written in the
Constitutions of the Republics and in the purposes of the people.
While many battles will be fought to establish it in detail, yet
the principle is so well established that it will never be
uprooted, provided we give the moral and educational aid we should
render at this critical hour.

We have come upon a time when we must give to our South American
brothers unstinted support. They have attained political freedom,
but they have not yet gained religious freedom. Nothing can be
more anomolous than a State with political freedom fostering a
State religion that is desperately and unscrupulously intolerant.
No genuine Republic can support a State religion. The two will not
live together. One or the other must go, as the history of France
will abundantly substantiate. One result is inevitable--the people
will eventually repudiate the despotic religion and drift into
atheism and infidelity. Indeed, such a thing is happening in South
America today. The better educated classes are being set
hopelessly adrift religiously and the more ignorant, the common
people, are following idolatry. Neither have the gospel preached
to them. The Bible is withheld. Such a state of affairs is a loud
call to us.

If these people are left without a vital, character building
religion they will, because of their volatile natures, degenerate
into the grossest perversions of morality. In such an event the
Monroe Doctrine itself would become a menace. Unless we give these
people the gospel it will be far better to annul the Monroe
Doctrine and permit the stronger nations of Europe to enter for
the sake of good government and morality. We must either carry to
our Latin brothers the regenerating, uplifting, energizing gospel
of Jesus, or step out of the way and let England and Germany
interpose their strong arms to prevent one of the most colossal
catastrophies of all time in the moral collapse of the 70,000,000
Latin-Americans. Surely, this must be the time when we, if we ever
intend to do so, must reinforce our Latin brothers. They have done
well, they have made progress, but they have gone about as far as
they can in the struggle upon the moral resources at their
command. Their very progress in education and civilization is
widening the breach between them and their former religious
teachers. A new life must come in, even the power of the gospel.
This alone can save Latin-America from inglorious failure.

We should not deceive ourselves into believing this prevailing
religion has lost its power, even though it is losing its
religious hold upon the better classes. It still retains its
social influence over these same educated classes, who despise its
priests. This social power is a bulwark of strength that we shall
experience great difficulty in breaking. Then, too, we may be sure
these Latin lands will have reinforcement from the Spanish
priesthood, which fact assures a most astute clerical leadership.
The Spanish priest is today the most resourceful, alert and
capable priest on the earth. I believe he is to be the last strong
defender of the Roman Catholic organization. It is no accident
that Merry de Val, the Pope's prime minister, is a Spaniard. His
appointment to that office is a just recognition of the most
virile priesthood in the Roman realm. I was profoundly impressed
with the Spanish priest. He looks you in the eye. He is on the
street, "hail fellow well met" with the people. It is evident that
he is conscious of power and possesses the gift of leadership
which he is eager to use. Latin-America will feel the force of his
capable leadership.

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