The most trying thing to the missionary is not the imminence of personal danger, but the ever-present chilling, benumbing indifference of the people to the gospel.  Even though here and there we find large numbers of people who are ready to accept the gospel, let us not deceive ourselves into the belief that all Brazil is eagerly seeking to enter the Kingdom of God.  The Macedonian call to Paul did not come from a whole nation which was ready to accept his teaching, but from one man in a nation.  Most all Macedonian calls are like that.  The few, comparatively speaking, rise to utter such calls and these few are the keys of opportunity which may be used to unlock whole Empires.  The great body of the people in Brazil (and this is especially true of the educated classes) are as indifferent to the gospel as people are most anywhere else.  It is the weight of this stolid indifference which tries the endurance of the missionary.  It fills the very atmosphere he breathes and hangs a dark cloud over his horizon, which only his faith in God and the winning of occasional converts graciously tinge with a silver lining.  It is indifference, slowly yielding indifference that tests the temper of the missionary character.  There are times when a bit of physical persecution would afford a positive relief to the fatigue of his exacting career.

The days of the pioneer missionary, with their personal dangers, have in a measure passed.  The yeans of the persecutor in the face of an increasingly more enlightened civilization are numbered.  The probability of personal perils is growing steadily less.  The missionary must now fight for a hearing before a public which is too often willing to let him alone.  In many places it does not care enough for his message to persecute him for bringing it.  It is ready to patronize him with an assumed air of liberality and resist the message which burns in his heart and upon his lips.  They are willing for him to speak, but not willing to listen to what he has to say.  He must fight for a hearing with this patronizing indifference.  It is this that tries his spirit.  It is this that bleeds his heart of its strength.  It is this that calls out the heroic in him as never does the dart of the savage, the weapon of the fanatic or the fury of the mob.  To hold on true to his purpose in the face of such soul-harrowing indifference is the crowning act of heroism upon the part of our missionaries.  No one of them has ever drawn back and given up his work for fear of death at the hands of his persecutors, but it must be said for the sake of the truth that some have succumbed before the rigors of blasting indifference.  The saints at home ought to support valiantly with their prayers our missionaries who at the front are engaged in a battle even unto death with indifferent souls unwilling to accept their message.