In the daily paper called the “Provinca,” published in Pernambuco, there was printed on August 23, 1910, the following telegram from the city of Rio, the capital of the Republic.

“The Seculo (Century) of today announces that on St. Leopold street in Andarahy (a suburb of Rio) there was discovered a fountain of water in a hollow rock, in which a plebian found an image of a saint.

“This image,” adds the Seculo, “although in water, did not present the least vestige of humidity.  The news of this curious discovery was immediately circulated, and there was a great pilgrimage, including a reporter of the Seculo, to this miraculous fountain in Andarahy.”

It is very probable that this telegram heralds the advent of a new shrine, because it is in this fashion that these so-called miracle-working shrines are brought into existence.

Not all of these shrines are canonized, but nevertheless they have power over the people.  As we were making a trip into the interior of the State of Pernambuco we passed a station called Severino.  Near the station we could see a splendid church building which had been constructed in honor of St. Severino.  This saint is not in the calendar, not recognized by the church nor the bishop, yet it is popular all over Brazil.  Many people are named after him, and to this shrine are brought many of the same sort of things as were described in connection with the shrine of the Good End.  This idol is stuffed with sugar-cane pith.  The head of it was found in the woods some time ago.  A tradition was started that an image had fallen from Heaven.  The superstitious people believed the report and soon a shrine was in full operation, which today, even though it be not canonized, is exerting a far-reaching influence.  The owner of the shrine gave up his farming and lives handsomely on the offerings the deluded bring to his private shrine.

In one of the most magnificent churches in Bahia is an image of a negro saint.  This holy being won his canonization as a reward for stealing money from his master to contribute to the church.  That is it:  Do anything you please, provided you share the spoils with the church.

Across the breast of the Virgin’s image in the church of Our Lady of Penha in Pernambuco, before which church the Bibles were burned in 1903, are written the following words:  “One hundred days’ indulgence to the person who will kiss the holy foot of the Holy Virgin.”  This pitifully expresses, perhaps, the thought behind saint worship.  It is the hope that the aching of the sinful heart may find some assuagement through the worship of these gilded, gaudy images.  It is claimed by the priests and some of the more intelligent that the image worshiped is only a concrete representation of the saint, and it contains symbolically the spirit of the saint.  To be sure!  This is exactly the reason the more intelligent fetish worshiper in Africa assigns for worshiping his hand-made god.  The etone or piece