IN the ranks of the Protestant Churches there always have been those who find a strange attraction in the meretricious wares of the Church of Rome. Neglecting to judge her by the Word of God, and utterly blind to the awful facts of her past history, and indifferent to the seas of blood and tears she caused our forefathers in this and many other lands, they seem carried off their feet by her sensuous tinsel show and scarlet adornment, and one recalls the words of Cowper:
“To hide the shocking features of her face,
Her form with dress and lotion they repair;
Then kiss their idol and pronounce her fair.”
To see Rome in her true light one must be able to examine things as they are to be found in any Roman Catholic land where she has full sway, “high throned and unashamed,”
I sent a colporteur named Adolpho Pessoa to visit a city called Pesqueira, not a hundred miles from Garanhuns. The man mentioned was a very bright-faced, good-humored, and tactful young fellow, and the city the seat of a Roman Catholic Bishopric, the bishop being a noted persecutor of the Gospel way.
The big weekly fair was in full swing, and after spreading his Bibles, Testaments, and Gospels on a ground cloth, Adolpho began to offer his books in his own attractive manner, and in a little while a crowd gathered round, listening in a friendly fashion.
Adolpho spoke of the value and necessity of reading the Word of God, and the blessing and joy that resulted, enforcing his remarks by reading extracts from a Gospel, which he was selling for the equivalent of a halfpenny. While thus engaged he was rudely interrupted by three priests, who viewed these proceedings with great alarm, and they ordered him to leave the place. Adolpho replied that he was a free Brazilian citizen, and was protected by the free constitution of his country. At this one of the priests, who was blind in one eye, mounted on one of the stalls nearby, and falsely and fiercely denounced the colporteur who, however, sought to carry on his work.
“Enough!” shouted the priest. “There is no time to lose. Beat him!” At this the now infuriated people fell on the innocent servant of God, tore his coat from him, attacked him with sticks and stones, and destroyed all his Scriptures and bag. Tearing himself free from his assailants, Adolpho tried to escape, but the whole fair seemed to rise up against him, and even shopkeepers jumped over their counters to join in a piece of “good work sanctioned by the Holy Church,” Panting and exhausted, he was about to succumb under the hands of his tormentors, when he saw a soldier in a nearby shop, and rushing in, claimed protection. The brave soldier knew his duty, and, drawing his weapon, he held up the would-be assassins, and Adolpho’s life was saved.
That criminal priest is still a free man, no justice was done or any kind of restitution made. The soldier was reprimanded, and doubtless the priest will be promoted.
While we were traveling in a neighboring state selling Bibles, a high dignitary in the Roman Church published the following against us:
“WARNING TO CATHOLICS!
“Good Catholics!
“The emissaries of the ridiculous Protestant heresy, in a horrible rage, are seeking to push in everywhere, under the name of ‘believers,’ only to catch you in their net. Many times their audacity rises to the point of offering you money and false Bibles in exchange for your true faith, especially if they are North American foreigners. “Well then!
“When any one invites you to a Protestant meeting, tempting you to deny your faith, reply in the words of our Divine Saviour: ‘What will you give Me in exchange for My soul?’ Or remember what Peter said to Simon: ‘Thy money perish with thee.’
“Remember, too, the beautiful words of S. Cypriano: ‘He who is not a son of the Catholic Church, is also not a son of God.’ Also the lovely words of Saint Ambrosio; ‘Whoever leaves the Catholic Church loses his right to a place in Paradise.’
“When they invite your children to hear their erroneous doctrines, remember the terrible curses of God pronounced against the fathers of Israel who sacrificed their children to Moloch and the pagan divinities: “Deliver these precious trusts that God has given you from the Protestant plague, for which you will have to give a rigorous account in the hour of your death.
“Live and die in the midst of the only flock of Jesus Christ, that you may have a place in the eternal mansion.
“Away! away with the Protestant heresy!
“PRAISE TO GOD AND THE VIRGIN!”
Could anything be more Jesuitical?
When we sent out nicely bound copies of the New Testament by post to the authorities in a certain city nearby, the local friar illegally abstracted them from the post office, and had them all burnt in the public square. A few days later a petrol pump exploded, and burnt off the beard of the holy friar and broke his leg. He was carried to a Recife hospital, and a few weeks later he passed to his account.
The priests in Brazil find it politic always to call us Americans or Yankies, thus playing on the petty, latent jealousy and distrust the names arouse, as also because North America is the Protestant country which sends most missionaries to Brazil; and because of this the most ridiculously malicious falsehoods are invented to stir up the people. Another reason is to be found in the fact that, owing to the very great and friendly part Great Britain played in the history of Brazil for several hundred years, and owing to the proverbial honesty and punctuality of the early English traders, there is no country in the world that is more respected in Brazil; and for the trader or missionary, one of the greatest assets today is to be able to say, “Sou Inglez” (I am an Englishman), and without doubt some measure of my success as a colporteur is due to that reason.
The fact is that the priests of Rome are very embarrassed and beset with the rapid dissemination of the Scriptures in the mother tongue. They dare not declare the truth of their own dogmas, by which both priest and people are prohibited the reading of the Bible without the special permit of their Bishop, as per the Council of Trent. Several efforts have been made to publish the Gospels with full canonical approval and they have been sold at a very profitable price, but all such attempts have brought so many to a knowledge of the truth, that these editions have soon been withdrawn, or are only obtained with great difficulty, and are quite unknown to the common people.
Quite lately a very embarrassed priest, with whom I discussed the point, exclaimed: “Well, anyhow, the Lord did not say, ‘Go ye and sell Bibles and Testaments to every creature.’” I expressed complete agreement with his remark, but added: “He did, however, say, ‘Search the Scriptures,’ and how can this be obeyed by good Catholics if you don’t supply them?”
“If you will publish the Bible at a reasonable price, with all the ecclesiastical approvals, we shall be very glad to help you sell as many as possible.”
To all this the priest had nothing to say, even though the town judge stood by with a newly purchased Bible under his arm.
Many priests consider that the best way to deal with this “plague,” as they often style the circulation of God’s Word, is to use the confessional and other subterraneous methods of Rome, to collect every copy of the Bible they can lay their hands on, by fair means or foul. Often children are used to rob their parents of the precious volume, and sometimes a house-to-house collection is made, and a very spectacular bonfire follows in due course. The people are continually told that the Bible is false and Protestant, and is a very wicked and immoral book, to touch which is a mortal sin. Unfortunately for Rome, human nature being what it is, there are always very many people on the lookout for just that type of book, and many of these buy the banned volume who otherwise would not buy a religious book of any kind.
The very ashes of the burnt volumes seem to rise in judgment against the enemies of God’s Word, and the act generally arouse a spirit of inquiry which results in the sale of more books than ever, and the Bible has now become the best read book in Brazil.
Here, then, is the true inwardness of a Church that has ever been an enemy of God’s Word, and a proof that we are on right lines in seeking to broadcast the Scriptures by all ways and means throughout this great land of Brazil.
In 1930-31, assisted by maps and directories, I carefully organized an ambitious effort by which we have been able to reach the best educated and most independent class of the community in Brazil by posting about 100,000 attractive, nicely bound and illustrated New Testaments to all the authorities and governing classes, including the Army and Navy. Not only the coastal districts were affected, but regions were also reached by means of the Government mails, which could scarcely ever have been touched by ordinary colportage. Since then there have been hundreds of requests from all quarters for more books, which seems to have been accentuated by an odd coincidence.
Convents and monasteries are going very cheap in Spain and Portugal just now, happily, and so it happened that these little books carried the address of the printers operating in an ex-Convento dos Mariannos, which has led many (who seemingly don’t understand the little prefix “ex-”) to suppose that the books were Catholico Apostolico Romano, and I have had most appreciative letters from all quarters, including priests, one being addressed to the Prior.
Of course, the most important and effective work is that done by the regular colporteur who sells his books.
Very often the sale of a Bible involves the use of much tact and persuasive power, but by the time that the desired end has been accomplished, the happy purchaser of the book has also already acquired a good deal of instruction and light, and quite a body of sound doctrine, too, maybe, all of which will make the book of far greater value and prove of tactical use when comes the inevitable encounter with the village priest, who seems to have a special scent for these books, so dangerous to his faith. The man behind the book is a very great and important element in the transaction, and few men make really good colporteurs.
It is a splendid and most effective ministry, which carries a peculiar joy and satisfaction to the right kind of workers, especially where only the Word of God is handled. There is a very serious demand for such work in Protestant lands, and indeed its importance cannot be exaggerated at such a time as this. There is great need of a College for Colporteurs; or call it a School of Arms, if you prefer it, but one of such a name and character as will attract the brightest and best of educated young Christian men and women, who shall receive a brief though a practical training in such work as I have discussed, and which has been so effective and fruitful wherever adopted in Catholic or Protestant lands. There is no greater, safer, or more glorious and happier ministry in the whole universe.
The terrible process of preparing a young man for the Romish priesthood largely consists in seeking to crush out every noble and virtuous instinct of its unfortunate victim. He is subjected to a merciless, debasing, and utterly un-Christian process by which he may be fashioned into a docile slave and tool in the hands of his superiors. By the time the youth receives his first ordination, he consequently has usually become depraved, cruel, untruthful, and conscienceless, and a past master in sophistry, evasion, and superstition.
What measure of freedom he may yet possess will generally be manifested in acts of similar cruelty and oppression, not merely against the hated heretics, but against his own “lambs.”
The religious upheaval in Spain was largely a great reaction and revulsion of the Roman Catholics themselves against the age-long tyranny, humiliation, and oppression they and their fathers have suffered at the hands of the Catholic clergy.
The Bible in Spain has shattered the power of Rome in that great land of the Holy Inquisition, and her doors are now open wide to the Good News. Who will enter in?