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.