Brazilian Sketches

by T. B. Ray

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.

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.