school and a theological school at Pernambuco, a school for boys and girls at Bahia, a boys’ school at Nova Friburgo, a girls’ school at Sao Paulo and the crown of the school system, the Rio Baptist College and Seminary in the capital.  They have a Publication Board to produce Sunday School and other literature, a Home Mission Board to develop the missionary work in the bounds of Brazil, and a Foreign Mission Board, which conducts foreign mission operations in Chill and Portugal.  While their country is so needy, they believe in the principle of foreign missions so thoroughly that they gave last year for foreign missions as much per capita as did the churches in the bounds of the Southern Baptist Convention.  One night during the Convention, I addressed them upon the subject of foreign missions, and after I had finished speaking one of the missionaries came forward and said he had thought that in as much as he had given his life to foreign mission work, he was not under any special obligation to contribute money to this cause, but now he saw his error and proposed to give as a means of grace and in order to discharge his duty to the larger cause.

What a privilege it was to attend this Convention!  All of us took our meals at the Girls’ College and by this arrangement we had a most delightful time socially.  It is a fine body full of good cheer, hope, faith, courage, consecration.  To come to know them—­ missionaries and native Christians alike—­is to enter into fellowship with some of the choicest and most indomitable spirits that have ever adorned the Kingdom of our Lord.

CHAPTER V.

The gospel withheld.

When I went to South America I decided that I would spend little time upon the material aspects of the trip, but would, on the other hand, attempt to arrive at an understanding of the religious conditions and needs of the people.  I consider that the religious needs are the abiding and vital interests of any people.

I knew also that Brazil is counted as being a Roman Catholic country and the consideration at once arose in connection with this fact as to whether this religion affected the life and thought of the people sufficiently to satisfy their religious needs.  If it does, then let us be honest enough to recognize it, and if it does not, let us be courageous enough to assume our responsibility towards it for we must hold that the great justification for missionary effort is the evangelical and not the polemical one.  If there is no greater reason for our entering a country than for the purpose of fighting the Catholics, then I, for one, am frank to say that I do not think we ought to spend our energies in any such field.  The question for us to settle is whether there is a real call for the preaching of the gospel in a given country.  That question can be answered only by a candid consideration of the facts in the case and not by the bigoted notion that all who do not agree with us are to be driven from the face of the earth.