of spiritism, materialism and atheism.  An atheist in South America is just as difficult to approach as he is anywhere.  The devout Catholics are easier to reach with the gospel.  The devout Catholic has at least one element which must always be reckoned with in dealing helpfully with an immortal soul.  He has reverence, which thing many of those people who have been swung away from their faith have not.  I take no comfort in the fact that the people in large numbers are deserting the Roman Catholic church and are being set adrift without any form of religion.  One could wish that they might be held to their old beliefs until we could reach them with the virile truths of the gospel of Jesus.

We come back to it—­the gospel is not preached in Brazil except as it is preached by the Protestant missionary.  The need is just as great for gospel preaching in this country as it is in China.

One day after I had finished speaking to a congregation in Castello, back in the interior from Campos, an old English woman came up to me and expressed her great pleasure over having the privilege of hearing once more the gospel preached in English.  I had spoken in English, and the missionary had interpreted what I had to say into Portuguese.  She had heard the sermon twice.  She had been in Brazil thirty-odd years.  She and her husband had lived in the far interior.  They had recently moved down to Castello that they might be near the little church where they could have the opportunity of worshiping God.  She told me that back in the town in which they had lived they had left two sons who were engaged in business for themselves.  These two sons had been born in Brazil, and yet in all their lives they had never heard A gospel sermon.  Yes, these people are without the gospel and this is our justification for carrying to them the message of life.  For them Christ died, and to them, because they have not heard, He has sent us that we might bring His precious message of eternal salvation, for “How shall they believe in Him of whom they have not heard?  And how shall they hear without a preacher?”

CHAPTER VIII.

The gospel triumphant.

It is often claimed that the progress of the gospel is slower and more difficult in Catholic countries than in outright heathen lands.  Such statements can be answered only by an appeal to the facts in the case.  What are the facts?  The Foreign Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention has been conducting operations in Brazil for about thirty years.  It has been doing work in China for more than sixty years.  During all the time since work—­was opened in Brazil, the Board has had about three times as many missionaries in China as it had in Brazil, with the result that at the present time we have 9,939 members of our churches in Brazil, as against 9,990 members of our churches in China.  We have worked