I believe I have shown that these people are bereft of the gospel, and because of their sin and idolatry are as needy as are to be found anywhere.  No, there is no excuse to be offered.  Our workers at the front need help.  We are trying their brave spirits by withholding the relief they have a right to expect, and yet we repeat they are holding on with a courage that stamps them as heroes of the finest type.  God help us to see our obligation to send out recruits in sufficiently large numbers to relieve these brave soldiers and transform them from a besieged garrison into an aggressive army of conquerors.

Let us bear in mind that what is said about indifference both on the foreign field and among the churches at home is spoken of the people in the large.  Thank God, the light is breaking in many places at home and abroad.  Many individuals and churches are today seeing the larger vision and are assuming their larger responsibility in the support of the foreign mission cause.  Many are saying:  “We will faithfully strengthen the hands of our brothers who toil so courageously at the front.”  In Brazil (and in other mission fields, too,) there is in many places a marvelous breaking away from the old attitude of indifference.  The little handful of missionaries we have on the field are straining every nerve to meet the opportunities that are pressing upon them.  They are not discouraged.  They are as busy as life trying to meet the increasing demands.  They are looking to the future with the largest hope.  They are a band of the most incurable optimists you ever saw.

CHAPTER XVI.

The urgent call.

This very breaking away in some places is piling up additional burdens and the pitifully inadequate force is called upon to meet demands that twice their number could hardly satisfy.  If we had the same distribution of Baptist ministers in our Southern country that we have in Brazil there would be only four ministers in Texas, two in Virginia, three in Georgia and other States in like proportion.  Think of E. A. Nelson, the only representative of our board in the Amazon region, trying to spread himself over four States which comprise a territory five times as large as Texas.  Passing down the coast, five days journey, we would find D. L. Hamilton and H. H. Muirhead, who have faced dangers as fearlessly as have any brave spirits who have enriched the annals of missionary history with courageous service.  They, along with Miss Voorheis, are our sole representatives in the State of Pernambuco and in the adjoining State of Alagoas.  C. F. Stapp, Solomon Ginsburg and E. A. Jackson are attempting to carry forward the work in the vast States of Piauhy, Goyaz, a part of Minas Geraes, and Bahia, which last named State has in it one city as large as New Orleans.  E. A. Jackson is located far in the interior of the State, three weeks’ journey from Bahia; all of