The severest persecution which these Brazilian Christians are called upon to endure is not that which comes to them when they are stoned, or when their property may be destroyed or when their business may be taken away from them through boycotts or when they may be turned into the streets through the bitter hatred of hard-hearted priests, but the most trying persecution is that which comes from the insinuating remark, the sneer of the supercilious and the doubt of the envious.  The taunt of hypocrisy is often thrown into the teeth of native Christians.  Their motives are frequently impugned.  I was profoundly impressed with the answer they usually give to such persecutions.  They reply by saying:  “See how we live.  Note the difference between our careers now and our careers before we became Christians.”  And this challenge of the life is the one which will finally answer the ridicule and doubt of all who assail them.

CHAPTER XV.

The testing of the missionary.

In thinking of the missionary, most of us dwell upon the heroic self-denial he practices and the bravery with which he faces the gravest dangers.  Certainly, the missionary in Brazil is due a good share of such appreciation.  He has been called upon to endure shameful indignities, painful personal dangers and the enervating perils of a hostile climate.  Our own missionaries have been beaten, stoned, thrown into streams, arrested and haled before courts, shot at and in many instances saved only by the most signal dispensations of Providence.  Dr. Bagby, our first missionary, in spite of stoning and arrest when he was baptizing converts in Bahia, kept fearlessly on in his endeavor to lead the people to Christ.  Dr. Z. C. Taylor traveled through the interior of Bahia State in perils of robbers, in perils of fanatics, in perils of infuriated priests and in perils of bloodthirsty persecutors without fear or shrinking.  In the spring of 1910 Solomon Ginsburg was set upon by a mob at Itabopoana, which opened fire with such perilous directness that one bullet flattened upon the wall a few inches above his head.

This same missionary in 1894 endured bitter persecutions when he attempted to open the work at San Fidelis in the interior of the State of Rio de Janeiro.  A mob of a thousand people threw stones, grass, corn and a great miscellany of other objects at him and his little band of worshipers.  The howling of the mob prevented him from preaching.  The best that could be done was to sing songs.  Finally, a stone having struck a girl in the congregation, he carried her out through the infuriated mob to a drug store across the street, where she was resuscitated, and he returned to his service of song.