First comes the blind school in Garanhuns. Standing behind one of the pupils is seen blind Andre, the teacher, firstfruit of our blind schools in N. Brazil. He was a blind beggar, one of the unhappy swarm who beg from door to door for the miserable little vintem (tenth of a penny), which is all they usually receive. Helpless and hopeless is the sad lot of a blind beggar; but, Andre had an ambition for better things, and was the first pupil enrolled. As nearly all the textbooks and readers are Braille Scripture portions, Andre soon became deeply interested in the Gospel they conveyed to his dark mind, and he began to see. Six months later he was soundly converted and baptized.
He soon stopped his begging, and I essayed to employ him as a public Scripture reader, to which he took without fear, and soon proved a success. Week by week he takes his stand in the center of the big public marketplace of the town, drawing crowds of wondering folk about him, who look in amazement at the unheard-of thing―a blind man reading! He generally reads through his Braille John, and many hear those precious words for the first time who otherwise would never hear them at all. Now and again he rests in his reading, and, raising his voice, he very slowly and impressively gives a few words of personal testimony, which is generally of a striking and original character. At times he will hold up a John’s Gospel, and cry out, “A book to open the eyes of the blind, one penny.” Once the Bishop himself stopped to listen. A great impression was made in the marketplace, and the fame of Andre traveled far and wide. Large numbers of Scriptures were sold, many of which were carried away into the surrounding villages for twenty or thirty miles around. I am afraid he is a little proud of his accomplishments, and no wonder; he has escaped from the prison house.
Another of our blind students is Augusto Bello, once a blind beggar lad, but now a well-known evangelist and colporteur, who covers a very large area of N. Brazil on his Gospel journeys, made largely on foot.
He has sold many thousands of Bibles and Testaments, and been instrumental in the conversion of hundreds of Brazilians.
Next comes the Town Jail of Garanhuns. Every week Gospel meetings are held before the different iron-barred windows of this large prison house, with its fifty or sixty, prisoners. Most of its inmates are incarcerated for a breach of the sixth commandment. The sanitary conditions of the prison are of the worst description; no exercise is allowed, or work provided, and most of the men are herded together in one large cell. A few who yet await their trial are thrust in with those already condemned, and may have to suffer this ignominy for many months and sometimes for years before their case is dealt with. Our visits are always welcomed, and the messages of good hope and deliverance are eagerly heard by many of the miserable inmates, the lovely Gospel hymns also never failing to make their own appeal. A sympathetic handshake will often bring a rare smile into some of those most unhappy-looking faces. Once I took our sweet eighteen months old Winifred with me, and made her the preacher. She came like, a ray of sunshine. As some of those desperate, crime-hardened men gazed on her pure, innocent face, and noticed the trustful way in which she looked at them all, as she held on to her daddy, they must have thought of their own wee babies far away, and as I told them that the Gospel had power to transform their hearts and make them as pure and white as hers, I noticed some moist eyes. It seemed to them a thing so much to be desired, and yet so very impossible―so I told them the story of Naaman, the leper, whose flesh came again “as the flesh of a little child,” and explained the wondrous miracle of the New Birth.
One Sunday, as I sang “The best Friend to have is Jesus,” a husky voice cried out from behind those thick iron bars, “Ah, yes, there is no friend like Him!” I then visited the women’s cell to tell them of this “Friend indeed.” There were three of them; the youngest, a woman of less than twenty, had only been thrown into prison a few hours previously for a barbarous knife murder. She tried to hide behind an angle of the wall, but as I went on talking to the other two women she became interested enough to join her two companions and to listen attentively. I was telling them about Manasseh and his terrible reign and unspeakable crimes―crimes of the worst character; and how God caused him to fall into the hands of his enemies, who carried him away into a far country, loaded with irons and misery. Then I told them of his deep repentance behind those prison bars, and his earnest prayer to God, with the wonderful result that followed―sins forgiven, fetters riven, restoration to home—and even to his throne again! I spoke of his changed life, and how probably he earnestly sought to expiate in part those terrible lost years of sin. He could no longer influence his son, Amon, he was already too old in iniquity―but he could save his little grandson, Josiah, before he died; and I showed how the little lad became one of the best kings of Judah and a true believer― “Like unto him was there no king before him, that turned to the Lord with all his heart, and with all his soul, and with all his might.”
How eagerly those women listened, and as I applied the story to their own case and condition, and showed that the God Who saved Manasseh could do the same for them if they sought Him earnestly, doubtless a new vision and a new hope invaded those dark, tempestuous hearts.
There is no doubt but that a work of grace is being done in the hearts of many of these prisoners. All who can read are freely supplied with Gospels, New Testaments, and “Traveler’s Guides.” The many friends and relatives who come to visit these men also become interested in the Good News, and to them illustrated Gospels are given, as well as to the soldiers of the guard.
One Christmas night we paid the prisoners a surprise visit.
“Come in, Senhores!” cried the sergeant of the guard. It was a dark and windy night when we pulled up our car at the front gates of the prison, with its rather gloomy-looking exterior. Gloomier still, however, are its past traditions, and among them this: that a few years ago some eight political prisoners had been snared into this somber building, and there brutally murdered by their political opponents. Most of the victims were heads of the best families of the town.
“Come in, Senhores!” ―and in we went, with all our baggage, to the great surprise alike of soldier-guards and of the prisoners who peeped out at us from behind their strongly-barred doors.
Alas! the jailer, with all his keys, was away in a distant part of the town, keeping Christmas after his own fashion; so Gillanders and a young soldier hurried off in the Ford to capture him if possible, what time I was left explaining to all the inmates that the Chief of the Police himself had granted me special permission to hold a lantern lecture among them―and what a “lecture” it was, to be sure!
The jailer soon arrived with his bunch of keys and a very good will, and immediately the big front gates were locked and barred, while ammunition was handed round to the guard, who formed up in line, with their rifles at an alarming angle, while the inner doors of the jail were unlocked and we were admitted with all our luggage inside among the convicts. With similar precautions the prisoners from other cells were introduced, including four women, making a total of about forty-five prisoners, apart from the jailer and some of the guard who locked themselves in with us.
When all was ready there was some little hesitation about putting out the prison lights―for obvious reasons (some of the inmates were desperate characters) ―but out they went as soon as the guns were handily disposed.
Meanwhile, one of the convicts had busily pasted up the worst hole on the best wall with the aid of paper and soap, so that the lantern gave a splendid large and brilliant picture. There was a feeling of excitement in the air, nobody knowing just what was to come, but the quiet was absolute. It might have been a Sunday school instead of the band of murderers, as most of them were.
The program was extensive and very varied, both grave and gay in character.
The first item shook some of them badly, being pictures of little children, sweet and innocent, and finishing with a fine reproduction of that great picture, “A little child shall lead them,” speaking of the great time coming when there shall be no more curse, and no more prisons. Scenes from the always-welcome “Pilgrim’s Progress” were included, so impressive and so profound, and many another picture drew alternative smiles―and tears, perhaps.
It was a long meeting, yet, as I concluded with several of Dore’s pictures of the Fall, the Deluge, and finally the uplifted serpent in the desert―so full of Gospel truth―quite a sigh of regret went up, which, however, soon gave way to joy as we handed round our loaves and little sacks of sweets to each inmate, including the soldiers. The prisoners expressed to us their thanks and appreciation of a night that very few will ever forget.
The third prison house is inhabited by the Carijó Redskins, and it is, in some ways, the most terrible, in spite of its more romantic and picturesque setting. These Indians form what would be considered quite a large tribe as tribes go in Brazilian Amazonia, with its four hundred branches of this all-but-forgotten race. In the onward sweep of the invaders of four centuries ago, while many tribes were virtually exterminated, the Carijós seem to have held their ground. Perhaps it may have been due to their more pacific nature, or to their adaptability to the new conditions; but whatever the reason, it is nevertheless certain that they have proved marvelously tenacious of their old customs, language, and―alas!―of their religion, too.
The Carijó religion is of a very mysterious and disquieting character, though little positive information is available, it being so difficult to persuade an Indian to talk on the subject.
Though classified as “Catholic” in the Government statistics, they contemptuously but half-fearfully shake their heads at the term, and quietly affirm, “our devotion is different and older.” Without a doubt this is true, hut it is also a far more perilous and impregnable prison house of Satan than is Romanism. One of the outstanding features of this faith is, that every year, for about three months, the whole tribe disappears into the surrounding forest, to SOME remote part known only to themselves. No white man dare follow them, for very careful watch is kept, and the few who have attempted to do so in the past have been badly handled by the Redskin sentinels The greatest secrecy is observed as to what takes place at the Uricury, as it is called, and wild horses could not drag forth the revelation, for even the children are fearful and reticent on the subject, nor will even a converted Indian think of betraying the secret of his tribe.
I had long felt that they practiced a form of demon worship, akin to Spiritism in its nature and origin, and after I had preached to them on the words: “Believe not every spirit,” a few remarks from some of the listening Indians seemed to confirm that impression. I have often remarked to them that as the spirit keeps them so poor, and miserable, and ignorant, it is time they changed their “devotion” for a better spirit, but such suggestions have had a somewhat mixed reception. Fortunately, we have already succeeded in teaching a few of these Indians to read, and as each one now owns a New Testament, this may prove the way out of the darkness.
Among these most interesting people, Snr. Oliveira has carried on an uphill work. Meetings are held in the village, and much house-to-house visitation is being done. We certainly have the good-will of most of the tribe, and the strong friendship of a few; but ever there looms up the dark, forbidding wall of the Uricury, against which we seem to beat our efforts and arms in vain; yet, though this prison house of Satan is the most fearsome of the three― “Our God is able.”