“But they have effrontery, these priests!

“What has the priesthood done in Brazil in about 400 years?  The answer is found in facts that prove the absence of all initiative of will, of strength, of energy and of activity.  Brazil has only been a field for torpid exploitation by these gain-hunting libertines.  And what of the attacks against private and public fortunes?

“Happily, for some years, the public conscience has been awakening and the people are beginning to know that a priest, even the best of them, is worthless.

“Freed from an official religion, the Brazilian people have really made progress in spite of the hopelessness of Romanism that perverts all things and resorts to ail sorts of schemes to preserve its former easy position

“We, pirates?  Ah! deceivers.  Then we, who present ourselves loyally without subterfuge, proclaiming the divine truths, speaking logically, without artifices or superstitions, 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 the country, and Spain, whose knightly race is regaining the noble attributes obliterated by the iron yoke of Romanism, is about ready to apply to you the same punishment.

“There is no doubt that the priest is losing ground every day.  All their manifestations of hate and satanic fury are easily explained.

“One easily recognizes the true value of the explosion of vicious egotism found in the official organ of the diocese of Olinda.  The priest this time 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.  Console yourselves, reverend lord priests, everything comes to an end, and the ancient period of darkness and obscurity exists no more in Brazil.”

What is the net result of such religious life as we have been portraying?  The common and more ignorant people accept without very much questioning the teachings and practices which we have explained.  The better educated people, especially the men, have lost confidence in the priesthood.  Scarcely an educated man can be found who believes in the moral uprightness of the priest.  The chief hold the Church has upon the better classes is a social and not a religious one.  Births, marriages, deaths, alike are great social events, and upon such occasions, because it is custom to have a priest, the 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