Brazilian Sketches

The better educated classes have long ago deserted the confessional, but it still holds sway over the common people and hangs like a dark shadow over th

d instruct the people to, in penance, carry across the city the stones which had been brought from the interior. A large quantity of building material had been brought down by rail and needed to be transported across to the wharf. The monks agreed, gave instructions accordingly, and in one week the p

necks and go barefooted through the streets of the city in their pilgrimages to the church. All,

his class, admires Christianity very sincerely. When Mr. Colton, International Secretary of the Young Men's Christian Association, passed through Pernambuco in June, 1910, he was given a banquet by some of the leading men, which event offended so grievously the Catholic authorities that they published in the "Religious Tribun

UNBR

ocrisy, it precipitated itself furiously and insolently against the Y.M.C.A. It not only does not forgive, but does not fear to excommunicate t

ristianizing the clerical organ begins to call the members of the

nd which secretly and maliciously makes of a man its prey from the moment in which he sees the light of day until the moment in which he goes to rest in the bosom of the earth? To us, Who having no thirst for dominion, seek to cultivate in man all the noble attributes given by the Crea

ectly well why we cite the chronicles of the convents; they know from personal knowledge who are responsible for the

e effrontery,

nce of all initiative of will, of strength, of energy and of activity. Brazil has only been a field for torp

been awakening and the people are beginning to kno

rogress in spite of the hopelessness of Romanism that perverts all things

ions, are pirates? You noble priests are noble specimens of Christian culture, I must confess! You are such good things that France has already horsewhipped you out of t

ground every day. All their manifestations

me lost his calmness and let escape certain rude phrases as if he were yet in the good old times when he could imprison and burn at his pleasure.

e better classes of people even call in the services of the priests, in whom they have no confidence. The effect upon the beliefs of these better classes is most distressing. Spiritism, materialism and atheism are rampant, and one could well believe that these people set adrift without spiritual guides are in a worse condition than if they were still devout believers in the ancient practices of the Roman church. They are far more difficult to reach because they have imbibed the philosophies of spiritism, materialism and atheism. An atheist in South America is just as difficult to approac

s it is preached by the Protestant missionary. The need is just

hirty-odd years. She and her husband had lived in the far interior. They had recently moved down to Castello that they might be near the little church where they could have the opportunity of worshiping God. She told me that back in the town in which they had lived they had left two sons who were engaged in business for themselves. These two sons had been born in Brazil, and yet in all their lives