"The square, tastefully decorated and pompously illuminated, will afford the devotees, after their supplications to the Lord of the Universe, the following means of amusement,——-the Chinese Pavilion, etc.,——-. Evening service concluded, there will be danced in the Flora Pavilion the fandango à pandereta. In the same pavilion a comic company will act several pieces. On Sunday, upon the conclusion of the Te Deum, the comic company will perform," etc.
The spiritual darkness is appalling. If the following can be written of Pernambuco, a large city of 180,000 inhabitants, on the sea coast, the reader can, in a measure, understand the priestly thraldom of these isolated towns. A Pernambuco newspaper, in its issue of March 1st, 1903, contains an article headed, "Burning of Bibles," which says:
"As has been announced, there was realized in the square of the Church of Penha, on the 22nd ult., at nine o'clock in the morning, in the presence of more than two thousand people, the burning of two hundred and fourteen volumes of the Protestant Bible, amidst enthusiastic cheers for the Catholic religion, the immaculate Virgin Mary, and the High Priest Leo XIII.—cheers raised spontaneously by the Catholic people." [Footnote: Literal translation from the Portuguese.]
A colporteur, known to me, when engaged selling Bibles in a Brazilian town, reports that the fanatical populace got his books and carried them, fastened and burning, at the end of blazing torches, while they tramped the streets, yelling: "Away with all false books!" "Away with the religion of the devils!" A recent Papal bull reads: "Bible burnings are most Catholic demonstrations."
Is it cause for wonder that the Spanish-American Republics have been so backward?
I have seen a notice headed "SAVIOUR OF SOULS," making known the fact that at a certain address a Most Holy Reverend Father would be in attendance during certain hours, willing to save the soul of any and every applicant on payment of so much. That revelation which tells of a Saviour without money or price is denied them.
Corumbá is a strange, lawless place, where the ragged, barefooted night policeman inspires more terror in the law-abiding than the professional prowler. The former has a sharp sword, which glitters as he threatens, and the latter has often a kind heart, and only asks "mil reis" (about thirty cents).
How can a town be governed properly when its capital is three thousand miles distant, and the only open route thither is, by river and sea, a month's journey? Perhaps the day is not far distant when Cuyabá, the most central city of South America, and larger than Corumbá, lying hundreds of miles further up the river, will set up a head of its own to rule, or misrule, the province. Brazil is too big, much too big, or the Government is too little, much too little.
The large states are subdivided into districts, or parishes, each under an ecclesiastical head, as may be inferred from the peculiar names many of them bear. There are the parishes of:
"Our Lady, Mother of God of Porridge."