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.