Brazilian Sketches

by T. B. Ray

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."