The Parahyba do Sul Church is three miles over the mountains from the station, in the house of Mrs. Manoela Rosa Rodrigues.  The house is constructed with mud walls and a thatched roof.  The floors are the bare ground, which is packed hard and smooth.  There are two rooms, with a narrow hall between them and a sort of “lean to” kitchen.  The largest room, which is about fifteen feet square, is devoted to the church.  The most prominent piece of furniture in the house is the pulpit, which stands in this room.  This pulpit is large out of all proportion to everything else about the place.  It was covered over with a beautifully embroidered altar piece.  The two chairs placed for Brother Maddox and myself were also entirely covered with crocheted Brazilian lace.  I hesitated to occupy such a daintily decorated seat.

This church of forty-six members maintains three Sunday schools in the adjoining country and six preaching stations, members of the church doing the preaching.  Every member gives to the college in Rio 200 reis (six cents) a month, and to missions, etc., 300 reis (nine cents) per month.  This is munificent liberality when we take into consideration their exhausting poverty.

Our coming was a great event with them.  We were met at the station by a member of the church, who mounted us on a gray pony apiece and soon had us on our way.  He walked, and with his pacing sort of stride he easily kept up with us.  His feet were innocent of shoes.  He says he does not like shoes because they interfere with his walking.  Underneath that dilapidated hat and those somewhat seedy clothes we found a warm-hearted Christian, who serves the Lord with passionate devotion.  He often preaches, though he has very little learning.  He is mighty in the Scriptures, having committed to memory large sections of them, and has a genuine experience of grace to which he bears testimony with great power.

We arrived at the church about eleven o’clock.  We were received with expressions of great joy.  Mrs. Manoela was so happy over our coming that she embraced us in true Brazilian style.  We were shown into our room, where we refreshed ourselves by brushing off the dust and bathing.  How spick and span clean was everything in that room, even to the dirt floor!

Before we had completed our ablutions, the good woman of the house called Maddox out and asked what she could cook for me.  She thought I could not eat Brazilian dishes.  He told her, to her great relief, that I could eat anything he could.  Quite right he was, too, for we had been traveling all the morning on the sustenance furnished by a cup of coffee which we had taken at the Rio station a little before six o’clock.  We were in possession of an appetite by this time that would have raised very few questions about any article of food.