Brazilian Sketches

by T. B. Ray

Of course, persecution is a painful thing for those who are called upon to endure it, but wherever I found those who had passed through afflictions they counted it all joy to suffer for the cause of Christ, and whenever I attempted to comfort them because of their hardships, I came away more comforted than they, for the reason that their joyous willingness to suffer for His sake strengthened my own faith and assured me of the ultimate triumph of the gospel through the labors of such heroic people. Persecution, while it may temporarily suspend work in a certain place, always defeats its own purpose, and instead of preventing the spread of the gospel, is one of the most helpful agencies in the growth of the truth.

A most encouraging illustration of this fact occurred in Pernambuco in 1904. There had been a bitter persecution at Cortez, a village not far from Pernambuco. The chief instigator of the trouble was the parish priest. The believers were driven out of the town and their lives threatened. The missionary went and was also driven out, but returned under the protection of some soldiers and conducted gospel services through a whole week in order to give courage to the believers and to demonstrate that the Protestants could not be driven out. A news account of this persecution was published in a daily paper in Pernambuco. A boy cut this article out and gave it to his teacher, a priest in the Silesian College. The teacher read the article and wrote a letter to Missionary Cannada and asked him to come to the college at midnight to explain the gospel. Two letters were passed before the missionary finally went at midnight to hold a conference. The priest came out and discussed the gospel with the missionary and then returned to the college, taking with him a copy of the New Testament. After a month the missionary went again at midnight to the college and the priest came away with him once for all. The priest went to the home of the missionary and for two months studied the Bible, after which time he was converted. He at once began to preach the gospel to his friends as he would meet them on the streets. He also made a public declaration of his conversion in print. The President of the college from which he had gone obtained an interview with him and offered him every inducement to return. His parents disinherited him and many other trials came to him, but through all, he stood firm. He has just graduated from the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, taking the Th. D. degree and has been appointed to teach in the Baptist College and Theological Seminary in Rio. His name is Piani. About a year after Piani's conversion he induced another priest to leave the same college. This man spent a month in the missionary's house studying the Bible, but was enticed back by the priests and hurried away to New York in order that he might escape the influence of Piani. Three months after reaching New York he was converted and joined the Fifth Avenue Baptist Church and is today a pastor of a Baptist church in Massachusetts.

In no place where our people have endured persecution, even though it may have been severe enough to cost the lives of some, has the work been abandoned, but in every place the weak, struggling congregation which faced obliteration at the fury of its enemy, has in the end increased, and today enjoys the blessing of growth in numbers and in the sympathy of the people. Persecution is a good agency in the spread of the gospel.

CHAPTER XIII.

THE BIBLE AS A MISSIONARY FACTOR.

The Bible is a mighty factor in the spread of the gospel in Brazil. In 1889 there came down to Bahia a man named Queiroz from two hundred and fifty miles in the interior. He came seeking baptism at the hands of Dr. Z. C. Taylor. It appears that some six or eight years previous to that time an agent of a Bible society had entered this man's community, preached the gospel and left behind him some copies of the Scriptures. One of these Bibles was found afterwards by Queiroz, who studied it and was impressed with its truth. He began to bring the message of the Word to the attention of his large circle of friends and kindred. Having preached in several places, he was finally asked by the district judge to come to his house where he was given opportunity to meet a number of friends. The friends of Queiroz, however, began to ask him whether it was right for him to be preaching thus before he had been baptized, whereupon he resolved to go to Bahia to seek baptism. He made the journey and was baptized. A week after he had returned he wrote to Dr. Taylor, saying he had preached at Deer Forks and had baptized eight. During the next two weeks similar letters were sent, which gave the number he had baptized. The church at Bahia was apprized of conditions, and it decided to send Queiroz an invitation to come and receive ordination. He came with great humility and joy and was ordained, but before the ordination had taken place he had already baptized fifty-five people. The church, at Bahia, after the ordination of Queiroz, legalized the baptisms.

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.