I want to enter a plea for these, our brothers to the South of us.  God has separated them from their old soul-dwarfing environment in Europe, and set them in this Western World that they might learn of Him.  Whether they realize it or not, they are making the last fight for salvation and character their race is ever to engage in.  They have a need of the gospel as distressing as that of the grossest heathen.  Their religion itself is leading them further and further from their saving Lord.  Their teachers, who should show them the light of life, are a beclouding hindrance.  The little band of missionaries we have sent are hopelessly inadequate to the task and plead for reinforcements with a pathos that almost breaks our hearts.  Oh, do not some of us, as we have followed the portrayal of the needs of South America, like Isaiah of old, hear the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send and who will go for us?” God grant that some of us may respond as he did, “Lord, here am I. Send me.”

The same deep longing for salvation that is in our hearts is in the Latin heart.  One day in the interior of Brazil I stood with a missionary speaking with a man who had ridden to the railroad station to talk with us a few moments while the train was stopping.  As we conversed a boy twelve years of age drew near to hear us.  He was pitifully disfigured with leprosy.  So moved was the missionary by the sight that he turned and said:  “Why do you not go somewhere and be treated.”  There flashed instantly in the boy’s eye a hope that had long since died, and he quickly inquired, “Where can I go?” The missionary could not tell him, and I watched the last ray of hope flicker for a second and then die out forever!  Ever since that day I have been hearing that pathetic question, “Where can I go?” I seem to hear all Latin-Americans ask it out of depths of sin.  And we know to whom they must go for healing and salvation.  Shall we tell them?  “Lord to whom shall we go—­thou hast the words of eternal life.”  To whom shall Latin-America go?  Only Christ has for them the word of life which blessed truth they will never know unless we carry it to them.

The end.

APPENDIX.

SUMMARY OF SOUTHERN BAPTIST WORK IN BRAZIL.

I. Missionaries—­
  1.  Foreign, 44.
    (1) Men, 21.
    (2) Women, 23.

  2.  Native, 117.

II.  Church statistics—­
  1.  Churches, 142.
  2.  Membership, 9,939.
  3.  Church Buildings, 44.
  4.  Outstations, 497.
  5.  Sunday Schools, 138.
  6.  Sunday School Scholars, 4,438.

III.  Schools—­
  1.  Primary Schools, 9.
  2.  Bagby School for Girls in Sao Paulo.
  3.  Fluminense School for Boys in Nova Friburgo.
  4.  School for Boys and Girls in Bahia.
  5.  School for Boys and Girls in Pernambuco.
  6.  Rio Baptist College and Seminary in Rio.
  7.  Total number of students, 869.
  8.  Theological Departments in connection
with Rio and Penrambuco schools.