VERY many years ago a godly missionary named Dr. B―, accompanied by a believing servant, visited the fanatical city of São Bento, forty miles from Garanhuns.
The priest of the place was a notorious enemy of the Gospel, and sent a ruffian to murder the man of God. The blow was aimed, but the faithful servant stepped between and received the knife in his heart.
After that terrible day darkness, seemed to settle on the city, and twenty years passed without any further attempt to evangelize the place, which seemed completely under the cruel dominion of Rome, while Spiritism also raised its hydra-head in the midst.
One of the nearby farmers was a fairly well-to-do man named “Big John.” He was greatly respected by his neighbors, and especially by the priest―his uncle―on account of his hearty, frank manner of speech and transparent honesty of character, being nicknamed “The Lion.” He was not a good Catholic, for he had little use for the Pope or the confessional, like a great majority of his countrymen, and like them also was dubious of other articles of Faith so called; but he greatly feared and distrusted the Protestants, and that covered a multitude of sins in the eyes of the priest.
John had a wife who revered him, and they both greatly loved their only daughter Marina, a lassie of fourteen years.
In lands where there is no open Bible, where superstition reigns, and where there is an absence of the covering, protective influence of Christian surroundings and testimony, the unseen powers of darkness have a far fuller action, and grave peril awaits the unconverted in every walk of life.
To the terrible dismay of John and his wife, their beloved child became possessed by evil demons. Filled with horror, the farmer took his child to the town priest, and all the idolatrous and pitiful chicanery of the Church was put into action on her behalf, with no results whatever. Then Spiritism was resorted to, and its votaries told John that the spirits were many, but promised to heal his daughter with their enchantments. Happily they failed, for benefits received from such a quarter tend to bring the receiver into hopeless bondage to the same. Marina grew worse, and John spent nearly all his money on doctors; he even carried Marina a long journey across country to seek help from a very notorious, miracle-working priest―only to return in despair, and his daughter deliberately shut herself in a dark room, refusing to communicate with anybody, as though dead to the world. This went on for nearly two years, and just about the end of that period a friend and I started out on our first long journey in a Ford car. I was driving, and noticing a newly made road through the denser forest, which looked like a short cut, I incautiously followed it. After proceeding for a mile or so with difficulty, we were pulled up with a bad puncture, and again within the next half mile we had two more. We were losing much time, and I had a very strong feeling of disgust when bang went number four. Considerably vexed, I looked around and found to my surprise that we had stopped immediately in front of a farmhouse, and that the farmer himself was coming out to greet us and to offer the usual hospitality or cup of coffee at least.
Whilst my companion was patching the tyre, I entered into intimate conversation with Big John―for it was he―and soon I was hearing the story of his unhappy child. I rather feared such cases, but sought to help the man by saying that what was impossible with man was possible with God through Jesus Christ. Then we rode on and I clean forgot the incident.
How many cases of demon-possession there are in the world today that need not be if only we had a little more of the Lord’s compassion and a little more of simple, practical faith― “Because of your unbelief.”
John had not forgotten, however, and was so impressed that he bought a Bible from a converted neighbor, and as he read the New Testament he learned of Him Who went about doing good and healing all the oppressed of the Devil, and about two years later I received a strangely-worded invitation to visit the district and recover his daughter.
This letter caused me some perturbation, and I felt a strong disinclination to deal with the case, yet I could not refuse such a call. In prayer I asked for a sign, that should I feel the natural revulsion of spirit that such cases usually produced, I was to leave the case alone, but that I should know it to be God’s will to deliver if I were given a sense of pity.
Arriving at the farm, I found a few people gathered for a meeting, and, strange to say, the young girl herself had voluntarily left her father’s house to meet me, though she at once shut herself up in a dark room. With a certain amount of hesitation and trepidation, I entered the room, and there, standing by her bedside dressed in white, with her out-turned hands by her side, I first saw Marina. Her face was like death, cold and emotionless as wax, and I was filled with a profound pity for this most unfortunate being. I spoke to her, only receiving a few words in reply, but I heard enough to strengthen my weak faith: she desired deliverance.
When I rebuked the unclean spirits Marina felt as though she had been struck, but immediately afterward she quietly followed me from the room, and to the general astonishment she took her seat among the congregation, and remained during the whole of the meeting. After returning home, from time to time we received wonderful news of a great change in Marina, but there being indications that she was not yet entirely free, we made a second visit, proceeding after the same manner, and then the spirit or spirits left her completely and she was delivered.
Another week or two passed, and reading that striking passage, Matthew 12:4343When the unclean spirit is gone out of a man, he walketh through dry places, seeking rest, and findeth none. (Matthew 12:43), a sense of fear fell on me, and I was soon hastening away on my third visit to this strange case.
I quickly made known my object and desire. The girl responded with evident comprehension and sincerity, and as we knelt together Marina let the Lord Jesus Christ come in. Then we took her to our own home for two months, and my wife mothered and built her up in the faith.
We had not seen the father, but heard he was profoundly moved by what had happened, as indeed was all the countryside. A few weeks later there was a clatter of horses’ hoofs at my door. Big John had ridden over on business, and soon we were on our knees together, and he surrendered to the claims of the Saviour and became a new man.
John also built himself a new home, and invited us to come out and hold a service of consecration, and on that occasion the wife abandoned her cherished idols and accepted Christ.
Then came a great day, April 5th, 1931, ten days before we sailed for England, when all three rode in those forty weary miles to seal their profession by baptism. There was a manifest sense of God’s blessing, and I never saw such happy, shining faces, and they sang all the way home. The change in Marina was amazing, her deathly pallor had given place to rosy cheeks with a perpetual smile on her face, the bonniest lassie in all the countryside, with a deep love for Jesus in her heart, for Whom she is a faithful witness to one and all.
Ten days later my wife and I stood on the deck of a big trans-Atlantic liner, waving farewells to our dear children left behind in Brazil, and our thoughts often turned away to Sao Bento and Marina, though little dreaming that at that very hour a messenger had arrived from the King, and John was being suddenly called Home. It was Antão who conveyed the news, and he added that what had most impressed the countryside was not so much the miracle that had taken place under their eyes, but the marvelous calm and resignation shown by those two women so suddenly bereft of husband and father, in striking contrast to the grief and gloom which always overshadows Catholic homes in the face of death. His peace― “not as the world gives” ―was in their hearts. What could you do, that the number of such homes might be increased in Brazil?