What is the religious status of Brazil?  Is there any call for Protestant effort?  I answer after giving serious study to this question, and after personal observation of the effects of the religious practices upon the people, that there is the same imperative call for missionary effort in Brazil that comes from China or any other heathen country, viz., the gospel is not preached to the people.

The priests hold services, to be sure, in the churches, but there are many churches in Brazil in which there has been no pretense of preaching a sermon within five years.  The priests do not preach.  They say mass, read prayers and sing songs in Latin, a language which is not understood by the people.  Occasionally, a Catholic fraternity will invite a special orator to preach a sermon upon some great feast day.  This visiting brother does not preach.  His theme upon such an occasion would either be a discussion of the special saint whose day is being celebrated, or he would speak upon some civic question which had more or less to do with the moral or political life of the people.  In the interior these special occasions occur only once every two to five years, so that even this semblance of a sermon comes rarely.  In the cities these special addresses are made on one saint’s day each year or on some special anniversary, or when some dignitary is making a visit.  Usually this dignitary will say a mass and not preach.  When one of these special days occurs the preaching is not heard very extensively for the reason that the noise and commotion about the stalls for gambling, drinking and other attractions is sufficient to drown the voice of the speaker.  These side-show attractions fill all available space about the building, giving it the appearance of a circus more than anything else.  They are run by individuals who pay a tax to the church for the privilege.  The preaching is not the feature of the day, the chief object seeming to be to furnish amusement for the people and money for the church.  It cannot be said that on such days the gospel can possibly be preached successfully.

Occasionally there is held in the church what is called a special mission.  This is conducted by visiting monks.  We would expect that on such occasions the gospel would be preached, but such is not the case.  They hear confessions in the morning.  A special premium is placed upon the celebration of marriages during the mission, because these visiting monks will make a cheaper rate than the resident priests.  For this reason the majority of the priests do not like to have these monks come in for special missions, and would not conduct them but for the fact that the bishop compels them to do so.  The addresses delivered by the monks in these special missions are not sermons.  They either upbraid the Protestants, speak against civil marriage (the only legal marriage in Brazil is that performed by a civil officer), inveigh against the Republic, discourse upon the lives of the saints, assail Luther and other reformers, or urge confession, penance and submission to the Pope.