Full text of "Protestant missions in South America"

See other formats

DEC 1.7 1910 *,

A. — .-•> — A>
•S/CAL S'ctf^V^

BV 285T Tps 1908"

Protestant missions in Sout
America

PROTESTANT MISSIONS IN
SOUTH AMERICA

rotestant Missions

South America

* DEC! 7 1910

Harlan P. Beach, F. A. G. S., Canon F. P. L. Josa,

Professor J. Taylor Hamilton, Rev. H. C.

Tucker, Rev. C. W. Drees, D. D., Rev.

I. H. La Fetra, Rev. T. B. Wood,

LL. D., and Mrs. T. S. Pond

NEW YORK

YOUNG PEOPLE'S MISSIONARY MOVEMENT

OF THE UNITED STATES AND CANADA

1908

STUDENT VOLUNTEER MOVEMENT

FOR FOREIGN MISSIONS

PREFACE

This text-book is one of a series, prepared primarily for
the use of mission study classes in colleges and other institu-
tions of higher learning, but also largely for study classes in
churches and young peoples' societies. The somewhat
peculiar typography and paragraph arrangement are ac-
counted for by the fact that an experience of six years has
proven the desirability of some such aid to the busy student
or reader. The Analytical Index at the close has likewise
been found useful in the class-room, as well as to the
reader who desires to learn at a glance the scope of the
volume. In class work it is desirable that some of the addi-
tional readings, referred to in Appendix A., be made use of.
The map and its index of mission stations will also be help-
ful to the reader and student.

The great need of a comprehensive sketch of Protestant
effort in South America is perfectly obvious to any one at
all conversant with missionary literature. So far as we are
aware, this text-book, brief though it is, contains the most
complete account of Protestant missions in that continent
that has yet appeared. Every effort has been made to se-
cure as trustworthy information ?s is possible. The several
writers were secured because of their intimate knowledge of
the lands and work which they have described. It is
earnestly hoped that their efforts will result in a great quick-
ening of interest in this '* Neglected Continent," on the part,
not only of students, but also in the hearts of all Christians.

CONTENTS

CHAP. PAGE

I. Geographical and General. By Harlan P. Beach,

Fellow of the American Geographical Society . . i

II. British Guiana. By Rev. Canon F. P. L. Josa . . 29

III. Dutch Guiana, or Surinam. By Prof. J. Taylor

Hamilton 43

IV. Brazil. By Rev. H. C. Tucker 57

V. Republics of the Plata River. By Rev. C. W.

Drees, D. D 89

VI. Chile. By Rev. I. H. La Fetra 117

VII. The Land of the Incas. By Rev. T. B. Wood, LL. D. 141

VIII. Colombia. By Mrs. T. S. Pond . . • . . 161
IX. Venezuela. By Mrs. T. S. Pond . . . .175
X. South America as a Mission Field. By Rev. T. B.

Wood, LL. D. 195

Appendix A. — Bibliography 216

Appendix B. — General Statistics concerning South

American Countries 224

Appendix C. — South American Missionary Statistics

for 1900 225

Analytical Index 228

Map Index 238

Missionary Map of South America

GEOGRAPHICAL AND GENERAL

By Harlan P. Beach
Fellow of the American Geographical Society.

South America is so extensive that it is impossible tC
present in a brief text-book anything more than a compre^
hensive view of the various parts, with a summarized sketch
of the work of Protestant Missions in its several countries.
In selecting material for the opening chapter, choice has
been made of those facts which most affect its varied races
and especially those features which make clear the environ-
ment of foreigners living and laboring on the continent.
Full details concerning its lands, peoples and missions must
be looked for in more extended works, a few of which are
referred to in the Bibliography, found in Appendix A.

I. Panoramic View of South America. — If this
continent, containing some 7,000,000 square miles, — nearly
one-seventh of the land surface of the globe — could pass
northward beneath the eye of a beholder poised hypothetic-
ally in mid-air above its central meridian, a most varied and
remarkable scene would greet his delighted vision. First he
would see, as he looked southward toward the vast pear-
shaped mass, the low-lying, verdure-clad shores skirting the
Caribbean Sea and Atlantic. The well-wooded expanse of
the Guianas would fade out into the llanos of Venezuela
and Colombia and the northern slopes of the Andes. Next
would appear the Guiana highlands succeeded by the selvas,

PROTESTANT MISSIONS IN SOUTH AMERICA

— exuberant expanses of tropical vegetation filling the basin of
South America's ''liquid equator," the largest river in the
world in respect to volume and extent of drainage area.
Meanwhile the backbone of the continent has raised itself
aloft in the Andes of Ecuador where twelve peaks tower
three miles or more above the adjacent ocean. As regions
further south appear the continent narrows. The Brazilian
highlands on the east are less densely wooded, while the
western mountain ridges make Peru an American Tibet.
On its southeastern border, mainly in Bolivia, lies Titicaca,
the continent's one large lake, rivalling our own Ontario in
size. Passing these, one sees the Gran Chaco wilderness
and the famous pampas beyond. To the eastward are the
hills of Uruguay, and on the west the Andes retreat far
enough from the coast to form the fertile plain of Chile.
There now remain on the south only the comparatively
barren wastes of so-called Patagonia, and the Scandinavian
fiords cutting into the mountains of southern Chile and
tapering off into the bleak and stormy archipelago of which
" The Land of Fire " is the largest. During this survey the
aerial beholder has noted the regularity of the coast and the
fact that no extensive bays have indented the land, nor any
large islands fringed the continent, save in the extreme
southwest, if the more remote Falklands and South Georgia
are neglected.

II. River Systems. — Returning now to examine more
in detail South America's characteristic features, one is
struck at the outset with its remarkable river systems to
which the continent owes so much, and which when im-
proved will provide it with a ramifying network of deep
waterways, thus from a commercial and missionary point of
view increasing greatly its accessibility. Only three of these
systems will be described.

GEOGRAPHICAL AND GENERAL

1. The Oi'inoco. — This river, third in size on the
continent, takes its rise far up on the mountain slopes of
southeastern Venezuela. Early in its course it sends off the
Cassiquiare, which strangely enough is the connecting link
between it and the Rio Negro, a tributary of its powerful
rival, the Amazon. Descending between the mountains and
impenetrable forests of Venezuela and the Colombian llanos,
it dashes over the famous cataracts of Maipures and Atures,
the latter nearly five miles wide and six miles long. Below
its confluence with the Apure, it traverses the llanos with a
width of four miles and later rolls its milk-white flood into
the Atlantic through a delta, 125 miles long. Of its 1,550
miles, more than 1,400 are navigable in two stretches. Most
of its larger affluents are likewise navigable ; so that the
Bogota missionary, if he so desired, could ascend it and the
Meta to within sixty miles of his destination. Despite the
extensive overflows of the rainy season, this river is of ex-
ceeding importance to the country's future.

2. The Afnazouj or Amazons. — The disputed etymologies
of this name were once its striking characteristics : one
theory held that it was given because early voyagers saw
female warriors or Amazons on its banks ; the other ety-
mology is traced to the name given by the Indians to its de-
structive tidal bore which they called Amassona — ''boat-
destroyer." To modern economists and merchants it stands
preeminent among the streams of the world because of the
vast extent of its navigable waters — some 50,000 miles with
its tributaries, one-half of which is by steamers, — and the
commercial possibilities of its enormous basin which is
estimated to include more than two-thirds as many square
miles as all Europe contains. Though some unsuccessful at-
tempts at colonization have been tried along its lower
reaches, practically nothing has been accomplished by

PROTESTANT MISSIONS IN SOUTH AMERICA

Western enterprise. Thus one notes the paradox *'that this
forest, the largest and densest in the world, imports from
North America much of its building timber, and some of the
steamers on the river have found it cheaper to consume
English coal than to burn the wood which grows so
abundantly on every side." From the Atlantic to the heart
of Peru and Ecuador a navigable highway stands ready for
the missionary, not to speak of the great tributaries which
will in the future carry him to remote tribes and districts
one day to be opened up by modern exploitation.

3. The Rio de la Plata y or River of Silver, is more
properly an estuary into which flow the waters of the
Uruguay, Paraguay and Parana. Unitedly they pour
into the ocean a volume of water second only to the outflow
of the Amazon and Congo. Though the Paraguay traverses
the great marsh of Xarayes, elsewhere it passes through
fertile districts abounding in excellent timber. Missionaries
on board Brazilian steamers cg,n journey up this river and
its affluents to Cuyaba, 2,360 miles above Buenos Aires.
Fortunately, too, they are open to the commerce of every
nation. The Paraguay empties into the Para7id, which de-
serves its name, meaning *' kinsman of the sea." Rising
about a hundred miles northwest of Rio de Janeiro, it
boasts of one of the most remarkable rapids in the world,
ending near the mouth of the Iguassu. For a hundred miles
up the river it extends ''between ranges of frowning cliff's
which confine the stream to a narrow, rocky bed, little more
than 100 yards wide. Through this gorge the water pours
in tumultuous fury." Like the Parana, the Uruguay is ob-
structed by rapids ; yet it is navigable by sea-going steamers
to a point 373 miles from the sea, while coasting vessels can
reach Salto, and other vessels above the rapids may pro-
ceed beyond Uruguay's northern boundary.

GEOGRAPHICAL AND GENERAL

4. From the above it will be seen that South America is
remarkably accessible. According to Rohrbach the mean
distance from the sea of any average district is 343 miles,
this continent being surpassed in this respect only by Europe
and North America.

III. Highlands and Mountains, — i. The Highlands
of Guiana and Brazil^ though separated by parts of the
Amazon valley, present similar characteristics, and may be
regarded as one area. They vary in height from 1,000 to
4,000 feet, on an average, with occasional elevations of
8,500 feet. Here may be the future sanitaria of the mis-
sionaries, though the bulk of their work will be in the more
populous coastlands. Trees in the hilly region are less lofty
and numerous than in the selvas, to be later described. In
compensation for the charming luxuriance of those regions,
one here has flowers in far greater abundance, with a vast
variety of exquisite ferns, and on the higher elevations the
Brazilian pine lends a new beauty to the rolling woodland.
In the Guiana section the lofty mountains are bare, rugged
and often grotesque. Most of these ranges are flat-topped,
"appearing as though planed down by some titanic instru-
ment."

2. The great mountains of South America, stretching
along its entire western border, are most interesting.
Characterizing them generally. Dr. Greene says: "The
awful canons and chasms of the Andes, the sublime height
of their peaks, the difficult and dangerous character of the
passes, the rich and varied vegetable life of the eastern
slope, and the steep descent of the generally barren Pacific
slope, all give elements of great interest to this range." In
formation "three main sections are clearly to be dis-
tinguished : The solitary chain of the Southern Andes ;
the double chain of the Central Andes, with their elevated

PROTESTANT MISSIONS IN SOUTH AMERICA

upland valleys, groups of connected hills and mountain
lakes ; lastly, the diverging Northern Andes, with their lov/-
iying valleys and detached elevations." With its declivities
and plateaux this chain occupies nearly a sixth part of the
continent.

Andean scenery is naturally varied. The southernmost
section is marked by luxuriant and extensive forests, steep
ravines and picturesque fiords, all crowned by one of ** the
most imposing peaks of the whole Andean range, Mount
Sarmiento, which rears its spotless cone of snow to a height
of 6,910 feet. . . . The beauty of this peak is en-
hanced by the numerous blue-colored glaciers which descend
from the snowy cap through the dusky woods of the moun-
tain's base to the sea, looking, as Darwin expresses it, like
so many frozen Niagaras."

Perhaps the most striking features of the Chilian range
are the fantastic shapes assumed by the weather-worn soft
rock, resembling the spires and turrets of ruined churches
and castles, and the variety of coloring of the different soils.
With the sparse vegetation of this region, the mountain
slopes are strikingly beautiful, the blues, reds, yellows and
whites producing wonderfully fascinating effects.

The Bolivian Andes enclose *'the navel of South
America," a plateau as large as Ireland, having an ele-
vation of some 13,000 feet, and being mainly arid in
character. The Bolivian missionary leaves the palms and
banana groves of the lowlands and passes upward through
forests of cactus and trees to the zones of pines, junipers and
beds of resinous moss a foot deep. Above 15,000 feet rise
the ever snowy crests of the Cordilleras, with scarcely a
vestige of life, save the aspiring condor.

The Peruvian ranges on their western slopes, which rise
abruptly from the Pacific, are practically rainless ; though from

GEOGRAPHICAL AND GENERAL

June to October they are refreshed by thick mists. In the
interior its Tibetan characteristics appear, and here, also, is
found the grandest scenery of the Andes. The Punas,
wretched, wind-swept meadows affording scanty nourishment
to llamas and alpacas; **the cold, cheerless and unin-
habitable Despoblados ; " the closed valleys with climate
and products of the temperate zone, and redolent with mem-
ories of a marvellous Inca civilization ; the thousand streams
which, ''forcing their way over roaring cataracts and
through the dark clefts of the Andes," gladden Brazilian
plains with the matchless Amazon ; the many silver spires
that one sees in the snow-clad peaks piercing the azure ;
the eastern, lower slopes of the Montana, <'a tropical,
wooded upland where the old and decayed vegetation decks
itself with bright twining and parasitic plants before its
thundering crash breaks the death-like stillness of the
primeval forest ; " — these are some of the elements that will
fascinate the Peruvian missionary, especially if he goes
beyond beaten routes.

The Ecuadorian Andes furnish the mountain climber his
paradise. One journeying southward from Quito to Rio-
bamba over the narrow plain would pass, according to
Bates, "fifty peaks on an average as high as Mount Etna,
three of them emitting volumes of smoke, and all of them
crowded into a space not much greater than the distance
between London and Dover." Imagine a railroad journey
of equal length in America — for example, from New York
to Philadelphia, or Trenton, more correctly — between such
heaven-piercing giants. One of them is the "silver bell"
of Chimborazo, nearly four miles high; while another,
"turned out as if with the lathe," is Cotopaxi, "in absolute
elevation without a rival amongst the active burning moun-
tains of the Old World." Though slumbering now, it is,

PROTESTANT MISSIONS IN SOUTH AMERICA

in Titus Coan's phrase, "in a state of solemn and thought-
ful suspense " ; and when aroused it belches forth fire from a
point nearly three miles higher than the Vesuvian crater,
with a roar said to be audible 600 miles away.

In Colombia the chain rapidly descends toward the
Caribbean Sea. Its parallel ranges are here intersected with
cross-ridges '' like the rungs of a ladder." Though nearing
the end of their course, the Andes still have power to
interest. Tequendama Falls, one of the most celebrated
cataracts of the New World, the romantic course of the
Bogota, the increasing luxuriance of the tropical verdure as
the traveller descends to the northern valleys, are Andean
features not soon forgotten.

Some of the practical bearings of the Andean system on
missionary geography and activities may be alluded to.
With this volcanic ridge come not only the risk of eruptions,
but the more disturbing one of frequent earthquakes, which
occur along the entire western border of the continent.
Moreover, sapping as the mountains do the moisture from
the Atlantic winds, the Pacific slope will always remain dry
and probably not be as fully peopled as the eastern republics.
However, in the present undeveloped condition of llanos,
selvas and pampas, the western republics are almost as
favorable fields as any on the continent. It may be that
future prospectors will render this mountain region a throng-
ing abode of men, if new Potosis are discovered, and if it is
made as accessible everywhere as the splendid triumphs of
civil engineering have made it in a few sections.

IV. Habitable Plains. — i. Llanos of the Orinoco. — As
the Spanish name indicates, these are *' plains," and they
occupy a region in Colombia and Venezuela almost as large
as the New England and Middle States plus Ohio. While
they slope downward from a height of 800 feet, and are in

GEOGRAPHICAL AND GENERAL

part forest, they are generally very level and sparsely
wooded or else wholly devoid of trees.

Reclus vividly describes an average llano scene, though
for a more graphic picture the reader is referred to the ac-
count by a native, Don Ramon Paez. Reclus writes : *' In
the central parts of the llanos where the surface seems per-
fectly level, where the line of the horizon is broken by no
eminence, the firmament unfolds its azure dome above a
silent sea of herbaceous growth, yellowish and scorched
during the prevalence of the dry trade-winds, dense and
verdant from the first appearance of the winter rains. Al-
though extremely rich in different species, the boundless
prairie seems to merge all its plants in the same uniform
element. Except a few objects close at hand, a drooping
flower by the wayside, some startled beast or insect seeking
the cover of the herbage, nothing stands out distinctly in the
vast circuit lit up by the solar rays. Nature reposes in its
strength and majesty, inspiring with a sense of awe and sad-
ness the solitary wayfarer lost in the wilderness. Wherever
the eye sweeps the horizon, the details of the landscape are
the same, though its physiognomy as a whole changes slowly
with the hours, the shifting hues and shadows."

2. Selvas of the Amazon. — These vast "woodlands," ex-
ceeding in extent the great Congo forest zone and almost
equalling in area all the United States east of the Rocky
Mountains, occupy the northern part of Brazil and extend
slightly into the adjacent colonies and republics. The
Matto Grosso — ** great woods " — are a southeastern extension
of the selvas. They are not wholly forest, however ; for, be-
sides extensive grassy spaces toward the Atlantic, these selvas
are traversed by the Amazon which should be regarded, by
reason of its labyrinth of streams, not so much as a single river,
but rather as *'an inland freshwater sea filled with islands."

PROTESTANT MISSIONS IN SOUTH AMERICA

As seen by the Amazon traveller there is little visible ex-
cept a "compact wall of forest trees interlaced with lianas,
overtopped by a continuous mass of verdure, the stems
rising on both banks like a line of palisades straight as reeds,
enveloped in gloom at their base, expanding overhead to the
light of the sun." Bates, the Amazon naturalist, describes
an interior view of the selvas : *'With the exception of a
few miles of road in the vicinity of the large towns, with
difficulty kept free from the encroachment of young vegeta-
tion, this forest is without path and impenetrable. Singular
especially is the tendency both of plants and animals in this
world of trees, to assume the character of creepers and
climbers. . . . The flowers and fruits of the forest
trees are all to be sought for in the leafy domes far
above, where the crowns of the trees, locked together,
are exposed to the light and heat. All below is dark,
musty and cavernlike, and neither flowers nor green
herbage variegate the damp ground." Some of the trees
are colossal, as a ceaba described by Wallis covering a
space of six acres where 25,000 persons might be accom-
modated. Another striking feature "of Amazonian ar-
borescence consists in the great development of the outer
walls sustaining, but detached from the stem, leaving an
intervening space wide enough to aflbrd refuge to several
persons. ' '

3. The Gran Chaco. — This region, occupying the west-
ern part of Paraguay, northeastern Argentina and the
southern border of Bolivia, is about the size of Maine and
California combined. It is the "great hunt" where mul-
titudes of wild beasts attract the Indians who here are safe
from white oppression. While these plains are mainly arid,
during the rainy season when the country is inundated they
resemble a vast lake interspersed with verdant islands.

GEOGRAPHICAL AND GENERAL

Near the rivers, however, rich forests are found and vegeta-
tion is luxuriant.

A night scene on the Gran Chaco has been thus depicted :
** If the day with all its glories is so unspeakably attractive
to the lover of nature, the marvellous nights of these re-
gions still reserve fresh and unanticipated charms for him.
There is nothing to compare with the impression of serene
repose inspired by the sight of the starry heavens, especially
in the more open meadow lands. Our thoughts revert un-
wittingly to those indescribable nights on the silent deep,
when the vessel is borne along as by an unseen power on the
unruffled surface of the waters, beneath the vault of a
tropical sky. The charm is heightened by the countless
swarms of fireflies whose phosphorescent lamps flash out and
suddenly disappear in the gloom."

4. The Pampas. — This name is given to extensive level
districts in Peru covered with the primeval forests ; but it is
more commonly applied to the immense grassy, treeless
plains of Argentine Republic which rise in a series of ter-
races from the seaboard to the base of the Andes. They are
in one place covered with grass and absolutely level, at an-
other brackish swamps appear, while toward the south and
west salt steppes or salinas occur. Portions of the pampas
are very fertile, but stock raising is the industry that en-
gages most of the region.

In *'The Great Silver River," Rumbold writes thus of a
summer inorning on the pampas : "The young sun floods
the low and perfectly level horizon with a flush of pink and
yellow light. The fiery disc emerges out of what seems a
sea of verdure, all burned and brown though everything be
in reality, and in its slanting rays the tip of each blade of
grass, the giant thistles with their rose-purple crowns, the
graceful floss-like panicles of the pampa grass, just touched

PROTESTANT MISSIONS IN SOUTH AMERICA

by the breeze and all glittering with dew, undulate before
the eye like the successive sparkling lines that mark the lazy
roll of the deep in the dawn of a tropical calm. In the west
the vapors of night have not entirely rolled away, while
down in the deep depressions of the ground and over the
reed-fenced lagunas a thin blue mist still lingers and mingles
deliciously with the various subdued tints of brown and
green around. This tender tonality lasts but a very short
time, the sun shooting upward with a speed and force that
at once completely transforms the picture; the scorching
agencies of light revealing it in its true parched colors and
reducing it to a burning arch above, and a scorching and
featureless flat below. The fresh, rippling ocean turns into
a weary wilderness, staring up at a breathless, pitiless sky."

The moral effect of such an environment on foreigners,
and on some, at least, of the Gauchos, is most striking.
One of them thus writes: ''In the presence of such an
awe-inspiring soUtude, one's thoughts are unconsciously
drawn to dwell upon eternity ; a deep and yet a pleasant
sadness takes possession of the thoughtful mind, a feeling
intensified at the going down of the sun ; and in the dark-
ness of the night merging in an overpowering sense of help-
lessness and terror. . . . Men are known who for years
have toiled in the vain endeavor to hearken to the whisper-
ings of reason alone, and who have smiled compassionately
on those that spoke of a better future, and who yet at a
sunset on the pampas become so unnerved that they are
nearer to tears than to scoffs ; nay, will listen with devotion
to the evening chimes announcing the Ave Maria." It is
said that this strange fascination of environment often com-
pels Europeans, who have returned home with a fortune, to
go back again to the hardships of the old pampa life.

V. Wastes and Deserts. — i. Patagonian Desert. —

GEOGRAPHICAL AND GENERAL

Much of the territory above described, though not in-
habited, is yet capable of sustaining a great population when
the advantage or necessity for its occupation arises. Other
sections, however, can hardly become populous. Most of
this area lies in that portion of the Argentine Republic com-
monly, though not justifiably, known as Patagonia. This
expanse is usually called the Shingle Desert. In favored
sections coarse grass and stunted bushes and herbs are
found ; but in general it deserves the Indian name of one
portion of it, ''the Devil's Country," since the ground is
strewn with rolled pebbles, huge boulders, and is intersected
with ridges of bare, sharp-edged rock. Charles Darwin
calculated that these covered a territory 200 miles broad
and 600 miles in length.

The impression made by this desert upon the mind of the
great scientist, he thus describes : *' These plains are pro-
nounced by all to be most wretched and useless. They are
characterized only by negative possessions ; without habita-
tions, without water, without trees, without mountains, they
support only a few dwarfed plants. Why then— and the
case is not peculiar to myself— have these arid wastes taken so
firm possession of my mind ? Why have not the still more
level, the greener and more fertile pampas, which are
serviceable to mankind, produced an equal impression ? I
can scarcely analyze these feelings, but it must be partly
owing to the free scope given to the imagination. The
plains of Patagonia are boundless, for they are scarcely
passable and hence unknown. They bear the stamp of
having lasted for ages, and there appears no limit to their
duration through future time." This impression is even
more strongly emphasized by a later writer in ''Idle Days
in Patagonia."

2. The Atacama Desert.— This is the principal western
15

PROTESTANT MISSIONS IN SOUTH AMERICA

waste of South America, though at various points west of the
Andes, especially in Peru, there are barren reaches. Lying
in Chile's northwestern section, it rises in rocky plateaux
from the steep shore and is broken by precipitous mountains.
The soil is rocky rather than sandy, and to-day has little
vegetation except the hardiest desert plants. By reason of
its saltpeter works and silver, however, its solitudes are
sparsely peopled.

3. Marshes. — Some of these are saline, notably one near
the centre of Argentine Republic. The largest of the fresh-
water marshes is in southwestern Brazil, that of Xarayes. In
the rainy season this is more properly a lagoon or lake, and
covers a district as large as Maine. Above this temporary sea,
stretching beyond the horizon, rise thickets of tall herbs and
shrubs, and some artificial mounds, formerly used as Babel
towers by the Indians who thus escaped the flood. The
reader must again be reminded that many districts along the
Amazon and Orinoco are little better than marshes, especially
during the floods.

VI. South American Productions. — i. Minerals and
metals^ so essential to the development of new countries,
exist in considerable variety and abundance. If the El
Dorado of early voyagers was a myth, the gold of the
Guianas is not, nor the gold and diamonds of Brazil, the
iron, copper, lead, bismuth and other metals of various
sections. As mentioned later, the nitre of Chile is a national
source of wealth; while the Andes are rich in precious
metals, the mines of Potosi alone having furnished the world
over ^1,500,000,000 worth of silver since the Spanish first
took possession of them. Coal, though not abundant, nor
of high quality, is nevertheless a valuable asset.

2. The products of the forest are a limitless source of
future wealth, and a present cause of prosperity. Beautiful

GEOGRAPHICAL AND GENERAL

woods used by cabinetmakers are found in almost inexhaust-
ible supply ; a variety of gums and wax, and the extensive
tracts where india-rubber trees flourish, furnish a large part
of the exports ; modern medicine could hardly exist with-
out South America's coca, which yields cocaine, and above
all Peruvian bark, which Sir Clements R. Markham, in 1861,
so shrewdly and laboriously stole from Peruvian forests for
the benefit of fever-smitten humanity.

3. Nor do X\iQ field prodtuts fall short in the inventory
of the continent's wealth. Reclus is authority for the state-
ment that South America has given to the world during the
past four centuries more plants useful for alimentary pur-
poses than any other division of the globe. Witness the
potato, now the staple food of so many millions ; manioc
and yams, more indispensable to certain negro and West
Indian populations of Latin America than the potato can
ever be to the Germans and Irish; the tomato, peanut,
pineapple, guava, mate or Paraguay tea, tobacco, etc. Other
productions not indigenous to the continent, like the banana,
which was carried there from without ; wheat, the produc-
tion of which is fast approaching that of the States ; and
above all coffee, are exceedingly valuable factors in southern
life and commerce. Brazil already supplies more than one-
half of the world's coffee supply.

4. Important as these productions now are, the continent
is almost wholly virgin soil awaiting the time of her develop-
ment. It is not surprising, therefore, that writers on world-
politics like Professor Reinsch, and practical men desiring
to better their condition by emigration, are looking to South
America as the theatre of much of the twentieth century's
development.

VII. South American Races.— Without pausing to
speak of the animal life of the continent, the most charac-

PROTESTANT MISSIONS IN SOUTH AMERICA

teristic features of which are its many edentates, its gigantic
reptiles, and its billions of birds of every variety of color,
attention is called to a few general facts concerning the men
found in its various sections. Further particulars may be
seen under the various countries.

1. Dr. Herbertson' s Summary. — '^ South America has,
at a rough estimate, thirty-seven and a half million inhabi-
tants, giving a mean density of population of fifty-three
per square mile. The coastal lands, the river valleys, espe-
cially the alluvial plains of the Plata basin, are the most
densely peopled. The inhabitants of the interior of the
forest regions and in Patagonia consist mainly of aborigines
of many races, differing in language more than in racial
characteristics. The natives of the warmer regions are yel-
lower than the brown inhabitants of the mountains, but all
possess the same dark, lank hair, and scantiness of beard.
The Caribs of the lower, the Nu-Aruak of the upper Ama-
zon, the Tupi between the Amazon and Plata, and the
Guaykuru of the Paraguay, the Ges of eastern Brazil, and
the Patagonians and Fuegians of the south are among the
most important of their races east of the Andes. The Arau-
canians of Chile, the old civilized Quichua, who formed the
Inca State overthrown by the Spaniards, and the Chibcha
of Colombia are among the Andean tribes. The name
Andes was itself derived from the Antis. The inhabitants
of the more densely peopled areas are of European and
African origin, as well as American. Pure whites, negroes
and yellow men exist, but the majority are of mixed race ;
so that here, as Reclus has pointed out, men containing the
greatest number of characteristics of all races can be found,
the most typical average specimens of humanity."

2. Their Social Co7idition. — Neglecting the six million
Indians, a study of the history of the continent for the past

GEOGRAPHICAL AND GENERAL

seventy years reveals great progress, not only in wealth and
population, but in education and general advancement. In
these respects South America has probably surpassed many
European countries. This progression has led some writers
to ask whether the Spanish tongue even may not one day
rival the English in its world-wide predominance. Car-
rasco, in the " Boletin de la Sociedad de Geografia de Mad-
rid, 1 89 1," presents strong reasons for believing that with
the present rate of increase, the Spanish and Portuguese,
which are mere varieties of the same language, will be
spoken by 180,000,000 in 1920. In many centres of influ-
ence South Americans are awakening to the consciousness
of their high destiny ; and with increasing immigration and
the growing desire to emulate North American and Euro-
pean ideals there is hope for a great future, especially if im-
purity, which is working ruin in more than one of the re-
pubHcs, can be conquered by the Christian view of marriage
and of the sanctity of the body.

3. Immigration. — The rapidly increasing stream of Euro-
pean life is bringing to the continent new hopes and some
problems as well. Thus far newcomers are mainly attracted
to the Atlantic seaboard, especially to the colonies and to
those countries south of the tropics. With the exception of
Chile, the Pacific republics are not securing a great number,
though the mines may one day allure considerable popula-
tions. So, too, the vast interior regions, now so largely path-
less, will attract multitudes when communication is made
easy by development of railroads and a better steamer service.
Five factors must be considered of special importance in
thinking of South America as a field for extensive immigration.

(i) Habitable area is the first of these. In this respect
the southern half of our hemisphere is vastly superior to the
northern, as it has practically no frozen region, while about

'9 .

PROTESTANT MISSIONS IN SOUTH AMERICA

one-third of North America is covered with snow and ice
wastes, or with tundras of moss and lichen. Probably the
part now unoccupied but ultimately capable of sustaining
large populations will be found greater in South America
than in any other continent save Africa possibly.

(2) Material resources are as essential for national de-
velopment as mere habitable area. Enough has been said
to show that these abound already, or can be readily devel-
oped ; so that Professor Reinsch places South America be-
side China — though for different reasons — as likely to en-
gage the attention of economists, capitalists and immigrants
in the century just dawning.

(3) Accessibility, as already stated, is decidedly in South
America's favor, so far as natural features are concerned.
Yet at present one must circumnavigate a good part of the
continent to get to Rio from Lima or Quito, for instance,
when developed Amazonian navigation would greatly reduce
the time and present expense. Railways of the near future
will supply other important lacks now existing. Moreover,
if the proposed railroad lines running from the Mediterra-
nean to African points like St. Louis or Monrovia materialize,
and good trans-oceanic connections be established, it will be
possible to reach Buenos Aires from Paris in eleven days, or
a third of the time now required. This would greatly stimu-
late South American immigration and intercommunication.

(4) But can European and North American immigrants
and capitalists thrive in South American climates? This
question is an important one for the missionary also. While
it is true that '* South America is distinguished from other
continents by not having a marked continental climate," it
should be remembered that, unlike the United States, Canada
and Europe, which are almost wholly in the temperate zone,
less than a fourth of South America lies in that zone best

GEOGRAPHICAL AND GENERAL

adapted to the development and prosperity of the white races.
Measured on Berghmann's map there are in North America
4,000,000 square miles between the isothermals of 46° and
68° Fahrenheit to South America's 2,000,000 square miles.

As for prevalent diseases encountered by missionaries
and other foreigners, they are not especially serious for a
country so largely tropical. Malaria is the commonest foe
along the coast, though the Amazon is not as unhealthful as
one would suppose. Both that region and the northern
seaboard suffer less severely from malarious diseases than
the Congo and coastal regions of Africa. The highlands
of the western coast are practically free from such maladies.
Yellow fever along the coast, except in the far south, and
dysentery are quite common, but missionaries rarely suffer
from elephantiasis, leprosy, goitre and many other illnesses
peculiar to the continent.

(5) Another factor influencing the flow of immigration is
the degree of stability of government^ safeguarding or
jeopardizing life and property. Though a continent of
republics, South America cannot boast of great stability of
law and order. Revolutions are frequent in some republics,
though in lands naturally most attractive to foreigners society
is more self-restrained. If, as a distinguished orator and
author asserts, the indispensable factors in an ideal republic
are three, — fundamentally the Christian, formatively the
scholar, and conservingly the patriot, — most of these re-
publics possess only the latter element of ideality. Even
their patriots are somewhat fickle and lacking in the strength
of conviction begotten by a biblical faith and a cosmopolitan
and universal scheme of education. When these two ele-
ments are made more prominent, there will be a disappear-
ance of the common charge against southern republics,
viz., that they are such in form while in reality they are

PROTESTANT MISSIONS IN SOUTH AMERICA

oligarchies or veiled despotisms. Constant improvement is
observable in most of them, and labor and capital are feel-
ing more safe on the continent in consequence.

Vin. Characteristic Features of Different Coun-
tries.— A few facts concerning each of these countries are
given below, the order being alphabetical for convenience of
reference. All of them, except French Guiana, are treated
more at length in later chapters. General facts capable of
tabulation may be found in Appendix B.

1. Argentine Republic, including Patagonia. — Here in
more than twenty times the area of the New England States
is a population of less than three per square mile. With a
superb climate and great possibilities of development, — only
one per cent, of its cultivatible area is now occupied, — it
promises to become scarcely second to Brazil. It already
surpasses it in railway mileage. Immigrants generally find
this country best adapted to their needs. The Welsh agri-
cultural colony in Eastern Patagonia is a movement toward
the reclamation of that section.

2. Bolivia equals in extent the continental state of Texas
twice over, with Maine, New Hampshire and almost a Con-
necticut besides. It is the highest region of its size in the
world, averaging more than two-and-a-half miles above the
sea level. Lake Titicaca also has the world's record as the
highest large body of water. *' Its lonely waters have no
outlet to the sea, but are guarded on their southern shores
by gigantic ruins of a pre-historic empire — palaces, temples
and fortresses — silent, mysterious monuments of a long-lost
golden age." Bolivia is probably richer than any other
South American country in minerals. Its present inaccess-
ibility will be partially remedied by the railway from Anto-
fagasta on the Pacific to La Paz, and by other lines under
contemplation, especially the international route to the Ar-

GEOGRAPHICAL AND GENERAL

gentine Republic, now being surveyed. The branches of
the Madeira, however, offer the most promising outlet for
the future commerce of Bolivia. At present it is probably
the least developed of South American republics, and that
despite the fact that an island in Titicaca was the home of
the founders of the Inca Empire and hence the seat of the
continent's highest indigenous civilization.

3. Brazil must be thought of as covering a region almost
as large as the United States with Texas repeated a second
time; or as being "larger than European Russia, Germany,
Austria- Hungary and France combined, and its natural re-
sources are commensurate with its extent." Ocean steamers
can ascend the Amazon and its tributaries to the boundaries
of Peru, and smaller ones can go much farther. Hitherto
it has mainly attracted immigrants belonging to the Latin
races rather than to those of Northern Europe. With the
excellent climate and soil of its southern portion, and perhaps
the most delightful climate in the world on the great plateau,
Brazil will attract multitudes. Her unparalleled possibilities
for river transportation, and the 8,718 miles of railway in
operation, not to speak of a still larger mileage constructing
or under survey, may make this republic our formidable rival
during the coming century.

4. Chile would be little more than covered were Montana
and the two Dakotas torn into strips from seventy to 250
miles wide and stretched from north to south for a distance
as great as from Portland, Me., to San Francisco, which is
the approximate length of this republic. An unbroken
mountain wall, varying from 6,000 feet in average height in
the south to 15,000 feet in the north, shuts off this prosper-
ous and wealthy country from easy communication with the
interior. However, less than fifty miles of the Trans- Andine
railway are now lacking, and hence this limitation will soon

PROTESTANT MISSIONS IN SOUTH AMERICA

be removed. At present the journey over the Andes from
Santiago to Buenos Aires requires only three days and a
half. Its inhabitants of the upper classes have kept them-
selves more purely Spanish than in any South American
country. Immigration is not very marked; yet with the
good financial standing of the country, its cool climate and
its spirit of progress in various directions, it presents great
attractions to the immigrant.

5. Colombia — almost equaling Texas, Wyoming and Mon-
tana combined — in proportion to its area has more forest
land than any other South American republic. Its emerald
mines are the richest yet discovered and furnish nearly all
of the world's supply. While the coast and river valleys
are hot and tropical in their products, the more populous
part of the country is elevated with a climate like perpetual
spring and with the environment of temperate regions. Un-
fortunately the lack of railways, — there were less than 400
miles in 1898, — the practical absence of roads, the neglect
of education and the frequency of civil wars have greatly
retarded the country's development.

6. Ecuador is about as large as Germany, or the New-
England States plus New York and New Jersey. Professor
Orton says of this country, " Nowhere on the face of the
earth is there such a grand assemblage of mountains.
Twenty-two summits are covered with perpetual snow, and
fifty are over 10,000 feet high." Here, too, is South Amer-
ica's centre of volcanic activity. " To the antiquary it is a
region very interesting from the remains of a past indigenous
civilization. Rich in all the varied products of the temper-
ate and tropical zones, it is a country of magnificent future
possibiHties, but needing population for its development."
At present conditions are not very favorable for immigration,
though they are improving very rapidly.

GEOGRAPHICAL AND GENERAL

7. The Falklands aftd South Georgia. — The Falklandsy
belonging to Great Britain and lying 340 miles east of Ma-
gellan Strait, are nearly the size of New Jersey with a popu-
lation of slightly more than 2,000. It is a region of fogs
and mists in spring and autumn, but it is favorable for
sheep-raising, the leading industry. Penguins are numerous
enough to give the governor the sobriquet of "King of the
Penguins.'* So violent at times are the winds that they
"uproot and scatter like straw the very cabbages grown in
the kitchen gardens of the settlers." South Georgia^ 800
miles farther eastward, is uninhabited and only occasionally
visited by sailors and fishermen.

8. The three Guianas are the only European colonies
on the continent and are almost as large as Wyoming and
Colorado combined. The Atlantic coast lands are low and
in some parts high tides would flood the country for ten
miles or more inland, were they not held back by artificial
sea-walls, built to make available this richest of soils. It is
"a region of dense forests, heavy rains and intense heat,"
and while unhealthful, it is not peculiarly so except in French
Guiana. The latter, commonly called Cayenne, is unlike
the other two colonies in that it has elevated lands along the
shore and several rocky islands off the coast. Though it
has gained a bad name from its being used as a penal set-
tlement, "it has all the capabilities of the other Guianas
and could be developed with advantage." It is the only
country in South America untouched by Protestant missions,
a fact not so vital since its total population was estimated in
1895 as only 35,065. Dutch Guiana, it may be remem-
bered, was the purchase price paid by the English to the
Dutch in 1667 for New York City, then New Amsterdam.

9. Paraguay is larger than Rhode Island, Connecticut,
New York and Pennsylvania combined. This is the home

PROTESTANT MISSIONS IN SOUTH AMERICA

of the mat6, or Paraguay tea, which is in general use
throughout most of South America. It is also the scene of
the memorable experiment of the Jesuits, to whom in the
seventeenth century was entrusted the civil and ecclesiastical
administration of the country. Their interesting plans were
practically overthrown upon their expulsion in 1768. "The
country is so highly favored by nature and its innate re-
sources are so great that when for some twenty-six years it
remained under the remarkable tyranny of the dictator, Dr.
Francia, and was prohibited from holding intercourse with
other nations, it was not only self-supporting, but actually
accumulated wealth." The two dominations above named
have attracted world-wide attention.

10. PerUy roughly speaking, could nearly cover the states
lying west of the Rocky Mountains. Its mineral wealth is
proverbial, though in output it is surpassed by Bolivia and
Chile. Peru's once famous guano deposits are now nearly
exhausted. Its history, made attractive by Prescott and
others, constitutes one of the most interesting records of the
New World. It is estimated that fifty -seven per cent, of
Peru's present population consists of the descendants of
this marvellous Inca race.

11. Uruguay is South America's smallest republic, being
no larger than the New England States and Maryland.
Stock raising is its principal industry, and for that the land
is especially adapted. In general it offers to immigrants the
same inducements as Argentina. Extensive national and
departmental roads, more than a thousand miles of railway,
an active commerce and a delightful climate are doing much
for Uruguay's development, which, however, is somewhat
retarded by its government, described as "a sham constitu-
tionalism."

12. Venezuela is larger than France and Germany taken

GEOGRAPHICAL AND GENERAL

together, and about equals our Gulf States, plus Kentucky,
Arkansas and Tennessee. It contains the largest lake — so-
called — in the northern part of the continent. Its basin
and the coasts are among the hottest regions of South Amer-
ica. Venezuela's vast tracts of unutilized lands, and the
prevalence of the cattle-breeding industry, remind one of
Colombia.

IX. Method of Treatment. — i. Relation of Parts. —
The foregoing sections have given in a general way a view
of the land, the people and the possibilities of the various
portions of South America. A final chapter will recapitu-
late some of these facts and add many others with a view to
bringing before the reader the manifold appeal of this greatly
*' neglected continent." The intervening chapters contain
more particularized statements, by authorities who know
intimately the lands concerning which they write, relat-
ing to the peoples of the various countries and the work of
Protestant missions among these peoples.

2. The order of presentation will be that of a supposed
traveller circumnavigating the continent and viewing for
himself these lands and missions. It so happens that this is
approximately the chronological order in which mission
work was undertaken in various South American countries.
With so many different missionary societies in the field and
such a variety of writers, it inevitably happens that entire
justice may not be done to some societies, while undue
emphasis may possibly be placed on others. In some cases
this is due to lack of information concerning these societies.
The statistics in Appendix C. are especially subject to this
lack. While this survey reveals the fact that mission work
is largely confined to the coast regions, it is equally true that
this is the region of largest populations, few except scattered
tribes of Indians being found in the far interior.

BRITISH GUIANA, OR DEMERARA

By Rev. Canon F. P. Luigi Josa
Georgetown, British Guiana.

Author of " The Apostle of the Indians of Guiana," " The Life of
St. Francis d' Assisi," etc.

I. Settlement of British Guiana. — The Eldorado of Sir
Walter Raleigh is a country still very sparsely populated. It
was colonized so long ago as 1580 by the Dutch, and although
various attempts were made by British adventurers to settle
on the land, it was only in 1663 that Lord Willoughby suc-
ceeded in establishing an English settlement. The country
has been held in turn by Holland, France and England ;
but it was finally ceded to Great Britain in 18 14. In 183 1
the three counties — named respectively after the three large
rivers that traverse them, Demerara, Essequibo, and Berbice
— were united into one colony, British Guiana.

II. Its Population. — i. Number and Races. — The popu-
lation, which according to the census of 1898, was 286,222,
does not now exceed 300,000, more than one-sixth of whom
dwell in Georgetown, the capital of Demerara. The coast
lands, composed of rich alluvial soil, are the only settled
parts of the country. In the interior there are to be found
here and there small settlements of gold diggers, mostly
negroes or colored people, who with very rude and primi-
tive implements are extracting gold from the surface of the
earth. During the last few years 100,000 ounces per annum

PROTESTANT MISSIONS IN SOUTH AMERICA

have been so extracted. Gold-mining is in its infancy.
The interior, however, is peopled by Indians of various
tribes ; but owing to their nomadic habits, it is impossible
to say how numerous they are. Estimates of the number
vary from 7,000 to 30,000. The best known tribes are
those dwelling nearer the coast, or settled lands, viz., Ara-
waks, Acawaios, Caribs and Waraus. Further inland are
to be found Patamunas or Paramanas, Macusis, Arecunas,
Wahpisianas or Wapianas.

2. Negroes and Effect of their Enfranchisement. — The
coast lands are inhabited by negroes or the descendants of the
slaves, — who were imported into British Guiana and the
West Indies during the time of the slave-trade, — and people
of mixed blood. These form the majority of the popula-
tion. In 1836 slavery was abolished and the natural result
was that the freed slaves worked only when it suited them,
or when compelled to do so by pangs of hunger. The
country was nearly ruined \ plantation after plantation was
abandoned, and it seemed as if this '^ magnificent province "
would soon become a howling wilderness.

3. Immigration. — Some of the bolder and more venture-
some planters started a system of immigration /r<7»^ India
and Chinay and by 1864 some 4,000 immigrants had arrived
from the East. Thirty years later the number of Asiatics
imported — including 13,000 Chinese — was 130,000; but as
these people were under contract to remain only for a period
of ten years, many of them have returned to their native
countries. About 100,000 of these Asiatics are here and
the wisdom of the Government has at last made provision to
induce "coolies," as the East Indians are called, to settle
on the land, plots of which are offered them in lieu of return
passage. In addition to these people, there are a few immi-
grants//-i^/w Africa^ chiefly Congos, and from the neighbor-

BRITISH GUIANA, OR DEMERARA

ing islands, together with some 10,000 Po7'tuguese from
Madeira, and a few Europeans.

4. Difficulties of Evangelizing Immigrants. — The diffi-
culties in the way of evangelizing all these different people,
belonging to various races and speaking difficult languages,
may easily be imagined. The languages or dialects spoken
by different Indian tribes had never been reduced to a sys-
tem or even written before the missionaries undertook to
preach the gospel. The Indian immigrants speak Hindis
Urdu, Tamil, Telugu, Nepalese, and even Pashtu — these
being from Afghanistan, besides various other dialects.

III. Summary of the Work of Different
Churches. — i. Early Attempts. — At the beginning of the
eighteenth century there were but two ??iinisters of religion
in the whole colony, — the chaplain of the British forces and
the minister of the Dutch Reformed Church. Neither of
these seemed to have had the time or the inclination to look
after either negroes or aborigines. Records show that the
Moravian Brethren did some useful work among the In-
dians in Berbice Colony. Their labors began in 1735 and
were zealously carried on till the end of the century, when
their mission was entirely abandoned, though they are now
represented at three stations. The Church of England,
through the Church Missioiiary Society, began its work in
1829 and the efforts of Bernaud and Youd were very suc-
cessful among the Indians of the Essequibo and Potaro
rivers. The work of the Church Missionary Society was
given up in the year 1856.

2. Initial Efforts of the S. P. 6^.— In 1835 the Society
for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts began to
look after the negroes, and we find that between this year
and 1850 the Society spent ;£33,6o9 on negro evangeliza-
tion. Statements were received by the Society in the

PROTESTANT MISSIONS IN SOUTH AMERICA

autumn of 1834 showing *Hhat an increased desire for re-
ligious instruction had been manifested by the emancipated
negroes ; that additional facilities for satisfying that desire
were loudly called for ; that the spiritual interests of the
people were already pressing heavily upon the means which
the clergy had at their command ; and that those means
were utterly insufficient to enable them to take advantage of
the disposition which existed both among the proprietors
and the working people to receive from them the benefit of
a Christian education for their children." Under these
circumstances special efforts were made for the erection of
churches and schools and for the maintenance of various
agencies for the propagation of the gospel among the
negroes.

3. Original Attitude of the Government. — The Govern-
ment also began to take a deep interest and voted money
liberally for the erection of churches and schools and the
support of clergy and schoolmasters. The whole colony
was divided into parishes, and owing to the presence of a
large number of Scotch Presbyterians, the parishes alternated
between the Anglicans and the Presbyterians ; and since it
happened that in several parishes there were English plant-
ers, chaplaincies or curacies of the Church of England were
established also.

4. Bishop Austin^ s Labors. — In 1842 Guiana, which had
hitherto been a part of the Diocese of Barbados, was made
into a separate see, "■ the Diocese of Guiana," and its first
bishop was the Right Rev. William Piercy Austin, who was
a member of an old West Indian family and whose father
and brother had great interests in the plantations of Guiana.
Bishop Austin continued his work for fifty years and died at
his post, having seen a practically heathen colony become
changed into a Christian colony, so far as the negroes were

BRITISH GUIANA, OR DEMERARA

concerned. During his first visitation, he confirmed 3,325
persons and writes thus at the conclusion: "If we look
back twenty years and ask the question, what has the Society
done ? the answer is, Before that time we had two clergymen
and a solitary place of worship here and there : now our
number is twenty-eight; nor can the traveler proceed many
miles through the cultivated districts without seeing the
modest spire or hearing the inviting notes of the tolling
bell." It is estimated that there are now over 20,000 com-
municants and about 150,000 adherents of the Church of
England.

5. Other societies have also labored in British Guiana
with varying success. The Presbyterian Church has nu-
merous adherents ; the London Missionary Society did nota-
ble work in propagating the gospel previous to their with-
drawal in 1867 ; the Wesleyan Society has started missions
all over the country, and its latest records show over 4,000
communicants. The Roman CathoHcs care chiefly for the
Portuguese who have migrated from Madeira; while the
Salvation Army, which has lately arrived in British Guiana,
is meeting with success among the lowest classes of
society.

6. Gradual Withdrawal of Government Aid. — It should
be stated that the Government has hitherto granted concur-
rent endowments; and every Church, be it Anglican or
Roman, Wesleyan or any other body, can apply for a grant,
which is apportioned by the Government to each denomina-
tion in proportion to the number of its adherents. On
principle, nearly all the Congregationalists have refused
Government aid for the support of their churches ; but even
they do not hesitate to receive a grant-in-aid for their
schools. The Government now has concluded to withdraw
help gradually from the churches and has made a beginning

PROTESTANT MISSIONS IN SOUTH AMERICA

by deducting one-twentieth each year. Probably in a few
years no aid whatever will be given from Government sources
to the churches. In the opinion of most the step is consid-
ered fatal to the existence of churches in country places
where the people are mainly very poor. Some of them
are already beginning lo establish a central fund to provide
for present and future needs.

7. Extent of Missionary Success in Guiana. — We are
now to consider the question whether the efforts put forth by
the various churches have met with commensurate success.
At the outset, as has been already stated, all the negroes
and others of mixed blood are nominal Christians. Euro-
peans and others of Western origin frequently measure such
efforts with prejudiced minds. They forget that it was only
in 1836 that the people were made free, and that before that
time, with exceptions here and there, a negro was considered
as a mere chattel having a body to nourish ; but as for the
soul, some even doubted whether he possessed any. After
2,000 years of effort, Christianity has hardly succeeded in
placing a thin veneer of the religion of Jesus on the hearts of
Western races. Surely much ought not to be expected in
Guiana after only a little more than half a century of effort.
It may be said that the negroes are religious, impressionable
and easily swayed by pulpit oratory. They attend to their
religious duties with more or less assiduity and partake
regularly of the Holy Communion. The great visible blot
in these Christian lives is the number of illegitimate children
brought to the font every year. About fifty per cent, of
their offspring are of illegitimate parentage ; yet at the same
time it should be stated that as a rule these couples are
faithful to each other. One chief reason why they are not
joined together in holy matrimony is their fondness for
show, and they think nothing of spending one or two hun-

BRITISH GtrrANA, OR DEMERARA

dred dollars, the saving of years, for a wedding feast.
There is, however, noticeable improvement in this par-
ticular.

8. Future of the Guiana Negro. — The negroes have shown
great capabilities. Several of them are members of the
legislative body, and there are many who have entered the
learned professions, becoming ministers, lawyers and doc-
tors. There is unfortunately a foolish notion that manual
labor, especially in the fields, is degrading ; and when the
people have learned the nobility of labor and that Mother
Earth is one of our best friends if we only woo her, then,
and then only, the greatness of our people will be fully de-
veloped. Meanwhile serious inroads are being made by a
phthisis which is decimating our people, the mortality
among them being very great. Were it not for immigra-
tion from neighboring islands, there would be fewer of the
descendants of the African slaves now than there were
twenty years ago.

IV. Work for the Aboriginal Races. — i. Societies
Engaged. — The most important work has been that of the
evangelization of the aborigines of the country, and the
Church of England has the honor of having accomplished
most of this. In fact, the Roman Church and the Presby-
terian communion have but one mission each among the
aborigines. All the others were started and are carried on
by the Church of England. The S. P. G. is the main ex-
ternal help in this movement ; indeed, if it were not for this
great Society, the work could not have been adequately car-
ried on among these interesting people. The Church has
now established a complete mission, extending from the
Corentyne on one side right up to the Barima, the last mis-
sion being established in 1890. There is one of these on
all the important rivers, having several stations connected

PROTESTANT MISSIONS IN SOUTH AMERICA

with each. If money and men could be obtained now, the
whole country would be occupied.

2. Description of One Mission, — The work has been
eminently blessed and to show this, a description of one
mission must suffice to give an idea of it. In 1840 W. H.
Brett, a young Englishman, was sent to do what he could
toward establishing a mission in the Pomeroon. The state
of the Indians at that time may best be described by one
who at first did not encourage missionary effort. The civil
magistrate in the Pomeroon thus writes : "A more disor-
derly people than the Arawaks could not be found in any
part of Guiana ; murders and violent cases of assault were
of frequent occurrence." Among these people Mr. Brett
set to work. At first he met with no success ; but at last
after patient toil and in spite of the threats of the sorcerers
that any one who went to listen to the word of God would
become sick and die, a sorcerer named Sacibarra (Beautiful
hair), came forward and after instruction he and his family
were admitted into the church, he receiving the Christian
name of Cornelius. After this conversion the work became
comparatively easy. Mr. Brett systematized four different
languages — Arawak, Acawaio, Caribi, and Warau — and
made a grammar and vocabulary for each of these. He
translated the four Gospels, the Acts of the Apostles, some
questions on the Old Testament, and catechisms in all the
languages, thus preparing the way for future missionaries to
continue the work.

At the present moment over 5,000 in this district alone
have been brought into the Church through baptism. The
above named magistrate will again be cited to give his
opinion of the effect of missionary tuork. <<Now the case
is reversed ; no outrages of any description ever happen.
They attend regularly Divine service, their children are edu-

BRITISH GUIANA, OR DEMERARA

cated, they themselves dress neatly, are lawfully married,
and as a body there are no people in point of general good
conduct to surpass them. This change, which has caused
peace and contentment to prevail, was brought about solely
by missionary labor."

Let us examine the mission station just described. It is
called Cabacaburi and is situated on the river Pomeroon.
At the foot of the hill there is to be seen a mound which
was excavated and found to contain the bones of animals
and human beings. On further examination it was noted
that the skulls had been cracked open and the larger bones
split through, evidently to get at the brains and marrow.
This was a kitchen midden, an evidence that at one time,
after those terrible invasions by the Indians of the Carib-
bean Sea, the prisoners taken in battle were slaughtered and
devoured. On this very spot we now see a church beauti-
fully built and attended day after day by the descendants of
those very people. The writer has frequently worshipped
in this building and has been privileged to administer the
sacrament of love to all these tribes. The progress that the
gospel has made is to be seen in the devotion of the people.

3. Characteristics and Future Prospects of the Indians. —
These children of the forests, however, have never taken to
civilized habits and they compel their women to till the
ground, reserving for themselves the more exhilarating work
of hunting. They are children still ; they live for to-day,
leaving to-morrow to care for itself. A humble benab made
of a few posts with a roof of palm leaves, a few cooking
utensils, and the weapons needed for the chase make up the
sum total of their requirements. Many of them have been
tempted to serious sin under the influence of intemperance,
and the sight of Indians intoxicated by liquor furnished
them by European Christians makes one weep. In the

39 .

PROTESTANT MISSIONS IN SOUTH AMERICA

opinion of many, the Indians are doomed. Civilization
seems to be the enemy of the native tribes and the recent
discovery of gold will prove fatal to the aborigines. Chris-
tianity is doing all it can ; but so long as Christians are
greedy of filthy lucre, we shall see the sad spectacle of one
Christian offering the gospel to save the native's soul and
another offering rum to destroy his body.

V. Mission Work for Asiatic Immigrants. — The
efforts of the Church must now be chiefly directed toward
the Asiatic nations who have migrated to British Guiana.
This work may be divided into two sections, first, that among
the Chinese, and, second, that among the East Indians.

I. The Chinese have nearly all been converted to Chris-
tianity and again the honor of their conversion is due
mainly to the efforts of the Church of England, though the
Baptists have one or two stations. The writer is able to
bear witness to the power of the gospel among this people.
At one time in our history they were very troublesome ;
since their conversion they are the very best Christians in
the colony. The work is being done chiefly through their
own efforts. They build their churches and adorn them to
the best of their ability ; they support their own catechists
and are well thought of by everybody. Even the press,
which is singularly adverse to missionary effort, speaks well
of them and the effect of our work is far-reaching. Thus
one of the clergy of Hongkong writes that one of the best
catechists there is a Chinese Christian who had been taught
in Guiana and he added : <* I am hoping that as time goes
on and others return to China, we may find more such
faithful workers as are resulting from your work in Deme-
rara." Not many of our Chinese are now field laborers.
Many have become prominent merchants and others have
established themselves as shopkeepers throughout the country.

BRITISH GUIANA, OR DEMERARA

2. The Indians have not so readily embraced Christianity.
It should be here stated that about eighty per cent, of these
Asiatics are adherents of Hinduism, while the remainder are
Mohammedans. The Mohammedans glory in their religion
and are doing what they can to propagate their own faith.

In evangelizing the East Indians all denominations are
cooperating. The Roman Church seems to have attracted
southern Indians, although no special organization is set in
motion by them. The Presbyterians have an ordained mis-
sionary and several catechists in the work. The Wesleyans
have had two ordained missionaries, but one of these has
left the field and the other has died. They still have some
native catechists at work. Several of the clergy belonging
to the Church of England are able to speak at least one dia-
lect and there is a native deacon besides a large number of
catechists under the parochial clergy ; but notwithstanding
all these efforts and the large amount of money spent both
by the legislature and the churches, the work has not met
with any great success. Possibly the number of Christians
is not two per cent, of the East Indian population. These
people, however, would become Christians or anything else
for a consideration ; for their besetting sin is that of covet-
ousness. The few Christians that we have are not liberal
contributors to their church, while the heathen support their
religion with some liberality.

Hence it is to the new generation now growing up that
the Church must attend, since it despises the religion of the
fathers and it knows but little of Christianity. These young
people are anxious to be married '' English fashion." Many
of them would readily enough submit to baptism if it did
not require certain duties. The coolies are now likely to
settle in the colony, as they make excellent laborers and
hence are good colonists. They are very happy and very

PROTESTANT MISSIONS IN SOUTH AMERICA

industrious, and are protected in every way by the law. As
long as they remain indentured on the estates they are pro-
vided with a room or cottage, with free medicine and free
attendants. The planters are legally bound to give them
work enough to enable them to earn twenty-four cents a
day, and the immigration agents must see that the work
given is fair. They are thus more prosperous and happy
than when in their own country. It can readily be under-
stood that in a land where the laws of caste are disregarded
and where they are removed from home influences, the work
of evangelizing the East Indians should be easier, compara-
tively speaking. The present work must tell, and if we all
labor in faith, it will be our privilege to see these British
Guiana peoples gathered into the fold of Christ.

DUTCH GUIANA, OR SURINAM

Ill

DUTCH GUIANA, OR SURINAM

By Prof. J. Taylor Hamilton
Bethlehem, Pa.

Vice-President of the Society for Propagating the Gospel (Moravian
Mission Board).

1. Races of Surinam. — i. Enumeration. — The Mora-
vian Church enjoys the distinction of serving as the sole
representative of evangelical missions in Surinam, and here
seeks to evangelize Indians, negroes, and coolies from India
and from China. The first are the feeble remnants of Carib
and Arawak tribes of practically no significance to-day,
having been supplanted by the more vigorous Africans.
The third and fourth have entered into the life of Surinam
only since the emancipation of the slaves in 1863, being
imported as laborers on the plantations.

The number of Indians is quite uncertain. There may
be upwards of 50,000 persons of negro blood in the city of
Paramaribo and on the plantations. A recent estimate
placed the number of coolies in the city alone at 20,000.
These last have brought in their contribution of oriental
superstitions to be grafted upon the fetishism of the Afri-
cans.

2. The African Populations. — Two distinct divisions
must be recognized among the Africans, those living in
the city of Paramaribo and on the plantations on the one

PROTESTANT MISSIONS IN SOUTH AMERICA

hand, and the more than half savage blacks of the wilder-
ness, the ''Bush Negroes," on the other hand. Already in
the middle of the seventeenth century runaway slaves found
freedom in the dense swamps of the interior. Safe from
pursuit in these pestilential recesses, their numbers increased
until war was successfully maintained against the colonial
forces, each tribe ranged under its own chief. Between the
years 1760 and 1770 they finally gained the recognition of
their liberty and entered into treaties with Holland. In the
meantime they mercilessly repressed the aboriginal peoples,
who were less capable of organization. While the barbarism
and idolatry of Africa were restored, they have long since
ceased to be a menace to the colonial Government, wise in
its pohcy of " Divide and conquer." Although the chief
of each tribe inherits his position in accordance with peculiar
negro ideas — the son of the eldest sister being the heir — and
though he enjoys the power of life and death over his sub-
jects, to whom his will is law, yet he requires the formal
recognition of the colonial authorities prior to entrance upon
his prerogatives. The Aukas or Djukas along the Marowyne,
numbering about 4,000, constitute the most powerful of
these "Bush Negro " tribes. The Saramaccas are scarcely
less numerous, scattered in their camps along the upper
Surinam. The Matuaris and the Koffymakas, along the
Saramacca and the Koppename are estimated at 600 and
400 respectively. Some have placed the total number of
Bush Negroes at 17,000.

3. To clearly depict the religious conceptions of the ^'^ Bush
Negroes " is not easy. Converts have furnished only
fragmentary, and partly self-contradictory data. Belief in
magic and witchcraft and an emphasizing of the mysteri-
ous in nature are inseparable from their cultus. On the one
hand, there are traces of ancestral worship, — reverence for

DUTCH GUIANA, OR SURINAM

a tribal mother who came from Africa and, at the time of the
flight into the forest swamps, planted a sacred tree, the seed
of which she brought from Africa. These trees are to be
found in the distant forests. About them mysterious mag-
ical powers float. Sacred objects are buried at their roots.
From their branches, as from an oracle, the tribal mother
prophesies. On the other hand there exists some notion of
a creator, Gran-gado {i. <?., the great God). But he has
withdrawn from the visible world and has delegated power to
mighty spirits. One spirit has power over the forests, an-
other over the rivers, another over beasts, etc. These spirits
are represented by larger and smaller idols, revered by single
families or by whole villages — tutelary deities in some cases.
But there are also other evil spirits, called Bakru, inhabit-
ing animate and inanimate objects. They are hostile to
men, and their ban can be broken only by sorcery. This
opens up a sphere for the sorcerers or medicine-men.
Among the negroes of the town and of the plantations
similar superstitions exist, though in a less gross form, the
power of the evil eye, obeahism and witchcraft which enter
into all sorts of relations to the life of those yet heathen.
Immorality is the special weakness and curse of the African
blood — here as elsewhere.

II. Moravian Indian Missions. — i. The work began
in September, 1738, when John Giittner, and Christopher
Dahne landed at New Amsterdam, at the mouth of the
river Berbice, in what was then a part of the Dutch, now
of the English, colony. He proceeded about seventy miles
inland and commenced to labor among the Arawaks. A
couple of years later a tract of forty-two acres was purchased
and the mission station Pilgerhut was established. By the
year 1748 forty-one Indians had been baptized. Then
came Theophilus Solomon Schumann, who has been worthily

PROTESTANT MISSIONS IN SOUTH AMERICA

named "the apostle of the Arawaks," an ex-student of
Halle, and an ex-professor in the Moravian seminary at
Marienborn. A gifted linguist, in half a year he so mas-
tered the Arawak tongue as to preach fluently. Transla-
tions of the Scriptures and of hymns, and the compilation
of a dictionary and of a grammar of the Arawak language
were the fruits of his literary activity. By the end of the
year 1752 he baptized 266 Indians who settled at Pilgerhut.
Many others came to hear him, from as far as the Corentyne
to the east and the Essequibo and Orinoco to the west.
Being a practical man of affairs, he also taught the nomads
industry, and set them an example by cultivating the soil.

2. In the year 1757 ^ second Indian mission was founded
at Sharon on the Saramacca, and in three years numbered
200 souls. Furthermore Louis Christopher Dahne pro-
ceeded to the Corentyne, the boundary between Berbice and
Surinam. For a time he labored in solitude, and subject to
serious attacks of fever. Once as he lay in his hammock,
a huge snake glided down from the rafters of his hut, bit
him and then twined about his body with such force that
he thought his end had come. Lest the Indians should be
charged with his death, he wrote with chalk, ** A snake has
killed me." But then the promise, Mark xvi. 18, came
into his mind. In the strength of faith he tore the serpent
from him and flung it out. The bite was followed by no
evil effects. At another time a troop of hostile Caribs came,
weapons in hand, meditating evil. But his trustful, open
countenance so disarmed them, that instead they presented
him with provisions. Here the station Ephraim was founded.

But during the absence of Schumann in Europe, 1758
to 1760, retrogression set in. An infectious disease carried
off many converts. Schumann himself died of fever,
October 6, 1760, soon after his return. Then in 1763 the

DUTCH GUIANA, OR SURINAM

revolt of the ''Bush Negroes" assumed formidable propor-
tions, developing into a war. The blacks were especially-
inimical to the Indians. Pilgerhut was burnt by them, and
never rebuilt. Ephraim had to be abandoned. In 1761
Sharon had been burnt by the negroes, but was reoccupied,
to be abandoned in 1779. In place of Ephraim, Hope was
founded in 1765. Gradually it reached a population of 200,
but was burnt by an incendiary in 1808, and efforts to re-
establish the mission in the vicinity proved futile. The
nomadic tendencies of the Indians were ineradicable. Since
then only individual converts have been won, but no Indian
mission has been established.

III. Negro Slave Mission. — i. This work was now
growing in importance. As early as 1735, missionary ex-
plorers had been sent by the Moravian Church, but the
actual inception of operations in Paramaribo dates from the
year 1754. The earliest missionaries supported themselves
by conducting a bakery and a tailor shop ; and from that time
to the present the policy of maifttaining the work of evan-
gelization by the prosecution of trades and industries has
been steadily employed. At present the men in charge of
these undertakings are distinctly called to serve in this
capacity, quite separate from those charged with the work
of heralding and with the cure and care of souls.

2. For many years the early missionaries had to encounter
the active hostility of the slaveholders, in the city and of
the planters. The first baptism took place in the year 1776.
Held as chattels and not permitted to leave the estate to
which they belonged, the blacks could be reached only by
means of itinerations rendered difficult by climatic and
topographical conditions. The rivers and canals formed the
highways, the " coryal " — a canoe-like boat made out of
the hollowed trunk of a tree — being the usual conveyance.

PROTESTANT MISSIONS IN SOUTH AMERICA

When converts were won, the obstacles placed by slavery
in the way of true marriage and Christian family life pre-
sented problems of immense difficulty. With the abohtion
of slavery these did not at once disappear, for the require-
ments of the '< civil marriage " entailed costs too burden-
some for the blacks and those of mixed blood. What was
called the '' Verhond^' was devised, in order to secure if
possible conjugal fidelity and to add sanctity to a relation-
ship which should practically amount to marriage even
though certain legal requirements had been avoided. But
the unhappy effects of slavery have continued, and the
''Verbond," though a solemn betrothal, has not been at-
tended with results altogether happy. Nevertheless the en-
deavor to maintain a high ideal of Church discipline, in the
administration of which the converts themselves participate,
has been steadily kept in view.

3. ''Negro-English," a mongrel dialect, formed the /(^«-
guage of these people for years. Into it the Scriptures and
the hymnal of the Church and various devotional and re-
ligious works have been translated. But in recent decades
the colonial Government has been insisting upon the employ-
ment of Dutch in all schools, and in ever increasing num-
bers the blacks and colored are coming to enjoy the ad-
vantage of a cultured tongue. With it the literature of a
nation opens up to them, and with their own advance in
culture their development of a native ministry and educa-
tional force becomes more of a possibility.

4. About 28,000 of these people are now members of the
Moravian Church, and here as elsewhere the policy of erect-
ing a self-dependent native church is the goal in view,
though as yet somewhat distant. A normal school has long
been maintained by the mission in connection with its
educational activities, and at present several efficient native

DUTCH GUIANA, OR SURINAM

evangelists are serving in the interior of the colony. The
securing of a native ministry is the more imperative on ac-
count of the unhealthy climate of Surinam. The interior in
particular has proven the graveyard of missionaries. In
certain years epidemics of yellow fever have carried them
off in appalling numbers. With great reason, therefore, the
hope is entertained that men of African blood trained in the
Moravian Theological Seminary at Buxton Grove in St.
John's, on the island of Antigua, may gradually replace the
white agents in Surinam.

IV. Missonary Work among Bush Negroes. —
I. Soon after the middle of the eighteenth century, mis-
sionary efforts were put forth by the Moravian Church
among the ''Bush Negroes" of Surinam. These are
hunters and fishermen by occupation, superstitious in the
extreme, but remarkably cleanly in person — bathing fre-
quently and scouring their household utensils with most
scrupulous care. Treacherous in the luxuriant loveliness
of their vegetation, the forests verified their right to the
name given them by the Africans themselves, who spoke of
the interior as ^^ the land of deaths To cut through the
dark, deep water in the narrow ''coryal," accompanying
the dip of the paddle with hymns of faith and hope, and to
gaze upon the glory and wealth of tropical verdure, might
be entrancing. Wonderfully formed, immense, brilliant
blossoms might hang upon creepers, and flaming orchids
blaze out of the thick network of growth along the banks.
The gigantic arms of the monarchs of the forests might be
flung aloft, to arch overhead and shade the entire stream.
And at night to gather tHe wondering tribe around the
camp-fire on the bank and proclaim the love of the Saviour
from sin, must prove a stimulating joy. But oh ! the peril
of it. Miasma lurks everywhere.

5«

PROTESTANT MISSIONS IN SOUTH AMERICA

2. Work in the Liter ior. — In December, 1765, StoU,
Jonas and Dahne left Paramaribo for the interior, and en-
joyed a friendly reception at the hands of Abini, chief of
the Saramaccas, near where the Senthea empties into the
Surinam. Within two months fever claimed Jonas as its
prey. Abini fell in war next year, but his son Arabi took
his place as the missionaries' protector. Then Dahne, a
veteran of thirty years' service, returned to Europe. His
successor speedily sickened. But Stoll maintained his post,
following Arabi' s peoples in their wanderings until addi-
tional help arrived. At length, notwithstanding scorn and
hostihty, the first baptism took place on January 6, 1771,
Arabi himself being the first-fruits and receiving the name
of John. Gradually the Christian village of Bambey arose
in the tangled jungle along the upper Surinam, while Stoll
made provision for its permanence by translating the gospels.
At length, on April 15, 1777, his strength slowly sapped by
fever, this indefatigable herald was called home. But his
memory still survives in the primeval wilderness, where men
yet speak with reverence of ''Brother Rudolf," or of "the
holy Rudolf." Again and again reinforcements strove to
hold Bambey, but fever's fatal clutch strangled efforts
which the " Winti-men " — /. <?., sorcerers — could not
thwart. By the year 1818 no less than nine missionaries
and six wives of missionaries had perished. One hundred
and fifty-three Bush Negroes had been baptized. Sadly the
Mission Board yielded to the inevitable, and directed the
concentration of efforts within the comparatively healthier
zone of the city and the plantations.

Yet a number of faithful converts — especially John Arabi,
who died in 1821, Christian Grego, Simon Adoeka and a
crippled leper named Frederick — maintained Christian
fellowship and devotions. Repeatedly they sent peti-

DUTCH GUIANA, OR SURINAM

tions to the city, and at last, after occasional visits on the
part of missionaries, the 7nission was reviewed by Rasmus
Schmidt in 1840 — not at either Old or New Bambey, but at
Gingee, or Aurora, on the right bank of the Surinam.
Blessed with marked success, his labors were cut short in
April, 1845. For ten months his lonely widow heroically
maintained the post alone, teaching the school and conduct-
ing public services. Fever again cut short the career of
Schmidt's successor, Meissner, and this led to a transfer of
the site of the mission to Gansee, nearer the city. But the
same sad experiences followed here. Missionary after mis-
sionary sickened and died, or had to withdraw.

One heroic effort, however, can never be forgotten in the
Bush country of Surinam. Mary Hartmann came to this
colony in 1826, and served with her husband in Paramaribo
and elsewhere till his death in 1844. In 1848 she volun-
teered to go alone to Bergendal, on the upper Surinam,
where a small mission had been established, but whence the
workers had been unavoidably withdrawn. Here she min-
istered like a prophetess. Occasionally she ventured into
the land of the Bush Negroes, and after the people of Bambey
were left without a missionary, removed thither, voluntarily
cutting herself off from intercourse with whites. Only once,
for one single day, during the ensuing four years, did she
visit her fellow-workers in the city, restricting her visit in
this manner lest by reason of attachment to them she might
become unwilling to return to the wilderness. With the
patience of a saint she kept alive the spark of religious life
among the blacks, and maintained Bambey as a Christian
village amid the wilderness of heathendom. Industries were
promoted, — the manufacture of earthenware and of cotton
goods, — and a quiet and peaceable life was led. But on
December 30, 1853, this heroine, too, was overcome by the

PROTESTANT MISSIONS IN SOUTH AMERICA

hardships of her situation, having been brought to Paramaribo
just in time to bid her former associates farewell. Latterly
elephantiasis had been her cross.

3. At prese7it the Moravian Church maintains missions
among the Bush Negroes along the Coppename, the
Saramacca, the Surinam, and the Marowyne rivers. In
the wider extension of this work a remarkable man of the
Matuari tribe, John King, awakened by dreams about the
year i860, and savingly converted after his removal to the
city, proved especially instrumental. For more than thirty-
five years his apostolic labors among various tribes of his
fellow-countrymen were a marked feature of missionary
activity in Surinam. He died in the autumn of 1899.

V. Work for Coolies and Lepers. — i. The mission
among the coolies in the city of Paramaribo and on the
neighboring plantations is of comparatively recent origin.
Large numbers cannot yet be reported. Specially efficient
service is being rendered by one of these converts, Abra-
ham Lincoln by name, as an evangelist among his fellow
Asiatics.

2. Recently, moreover, a special phase of philanthropic
labor is the maintenance of a hospital for lepers at Groot
Chatillon, manned by Moravian trained nurses and minis-
tered to by a Moravian chaplain. A chapel and missionary's
home have been erected adjacent to the buildings where the
lepers are housed.

VL Statistics. — The latest are as follows : mission sta-
tions, 20; out-stations, 18; European missionaries, male
and female, 90 ; native assistants who conduct services and
preach, 46; day-schools, 23; teachers, 84; scholars, 2,737;
communicants in good standing, 8,301 ; baptized adults not
yet admitted to full membership, 8,833; ^^^"^ membership,
including children, 29,381 ; total cost, ^63,850.

DUTCH GUIANA, OR SURINAM

VII. Difficulties. — i. Surinam presents an open door
to missionary endeavor. But hindrances are not wanting,
apart from the deadly character of the chmate, particularly
in the interior. Among the hindrances the proselytism of
the Roman Catholic Church is to be placed in the forefront.
The pomp of its ritual appeals to the barbaric taste of the
African and of the Indian still more. Its easy methods in
regard to baptism and the superficial demands it makes in
the sphere of practical morals, allure. It understands how
to impose its demands upon the colonial Government, in
spite of the fact that it can claim only a fourth of the
Christian population of the colony.

2. A second hindrance in the way of the thorough Chris-
tianization of the land from the evangelical standpoint, is
the reluctance of the negro to submit to the requirements
of strictly monogamous and permanent marriage ties, doubt-
less a sad inheritance from the days of slavery. Church
discipline is rendered peculiarly difficult thereby. Never-
theless fidelity to the truth requires the glad testimony
that the religious consciousness of the negro population of
Surinam in this and other respects is steadily advancing and
deepening.

The Lord, whose is the work, can and will make a way
through all obstacles. To Him be the glory !

BRAZIL

BRAZIL
By Rev. H. C. Tucker

Rio de Janeiro.
For Fourteen Years a Missionary in Brazil.

Occupying as it does nearly half the area of South
America and possessing about thirty-eight per cent, of its
population, Brazil will naturally be discussed at greater
length than other South American countries.

I. Discovery and Subsequent History. — i. Period
of Discovery and Settletnent {1500-1646). — Discovered 400
years ago by Pinzon, the Spanish companion of Columbus,
and later in the same year, 1500, by Cabral, a Portuguese nav-
igator, Brazil, ''The Land of the True Cross," was for three
centuries Portugal's largest possession. Expeditions for dis-
covery, colonization by means of deported criminals and
Jews under the charge of heads of ''captaincies," and wars
with French, Dutch and Spanish intruders, are the leading
secular characteristics of the first 140 years of European oc-
cupation. The coming of the Jesuits, who befriended and
trained the oppressed aborigines, and who laid the founda-
tions of the stronger Brazilian character in their once
famous Sao Paulo College, is the leading religious element
of this period. Compliant and grateful natives readily ac-
cepted the thin but gorgeous veneer of Roman Christianity
from ecclesiastics of various orders, and Portuguese inter-
marriage with their women gave rise to the present sub-

PROTESTANT MISSIONS IN SOUTH AMERICA

stratum of Brazilian society, a hybrid both in religion and
race.

2. Period of Development {1640-1822). — Seizure of
Portugal's possessions by Philip XL, of Spain, and Dutch
reprisals in Brazil, due to Philip's hostility, had for years
seriously interfered with Brazilian growth. When in 1640,
Portugal regained her independence, accelerated progress
was begun. In 1680 the Jesuit defenders of the Indians
saw the end of Indian slavery, decreed by the Pope forty
years before, though its abolition was largely due to the fact
that negro slaves from Africa were more efficient. The cul-
tivation of cotton, tobacco and sugar cane, and the intro-
duction of coffee proved the justification of this first South
American agricultural colony. The discovery of gold and
diamonds still further stimulated the country's growth.

As an offset to this prosperity, Lamoureux mentions some
obstacles to progress : " The colonial system of Portugal
was one of selfish exclusion and greedy extortion. The
colony was rigidly closed to foreigners; industry was
burdened by restrictions and monopolies; the taxes were
farmed out ; the authorities were arbitrary and grasping ;
the administration of justice was slow and corrupt ; print-
ing was forbidden ; the people were grossly ignorant,
turbulent and immoral; and internal communication was
slow and difficult. ' '

The Jesuits and their sworn enemy, Pombal, by whom
they were expelled from the country in 1760, were the lead-
ing spirits during this time. The educated youth, who had
been inspired by the heroes of the new republic in North
America to unite in the conspiracy of Minas in 1789 were
the heralds of the empire and of the present republic.

At the close of this period came the unique spectacle of a
colony becoming the seat of government of the mother

BRAZIL

country. This was due to Napoleon's conquest of Portugal,
which necessitated the flight of the Court to Rio de Janeiro,
which they reached in 1808. From that moment the de-
structive restrictions named above disappeared and the new
regime began.

3. The Empire {i822-i88g). — Upon the return of the
court to Portugal in 1821 the government was left in the
hands of the prince-regent, who a year later declared
Brazilian independence, and was crov/ned emperor as Dom
Pedro I. Nine stormy years followed, during which re-
publican sentiments kept the emperor perpetually on the
anxious seat, while the prohibition of the slave-trade brought
his reign much honor. Succumbing in 1831, his son suc-
ceeded him as the second and last Emperor of Brazil.

The liberal and progressive reig7t of Dom Pearo II. was
marked by social reforms, increasing commercial and
diplomatic intercourse with other nations, the introduction
of large German colonies and other foreigners, the abolition
of slavery, and the aggressive work of Protestant missions.
This latter element had already modified one of the greatest
hindrances to the social and intellectual progress of the
nation, the obnoxious system of priestcraft, which held in
its boa grasp the whole political and social body of the
Empire.

4. The United States of Brazil {i88g —).— Largely
as a result of the loathing felt for corrupt Catholicism and
of the growing spirit of liberty, Positivism was welcomed
and rapidly grew in strength. Leaders in army and navy
were infected with Comte's ideas. A leading Positivist,
Benjamin Constant, honored as ** Founder of the Republic,"
and his friends, brought the old order to an end in 1889,
and proclaimed the southern United States under a con-
stitution almost identical with that of its northern namesake.

PROTESTANT MISSIONS IN SOUTH AMERICA

Naturally positivistic ideas are prominent in the present
system of laws. Some early enactments wrought havoc to
the national financial system, while others were of the
utmost benefit. Thus the absolute separation of Church
and State, the secularization of cemeteries, the institution of
civil marriage, larger freedom of worship, and others of
similar import are of this number. That the State could
deal thus with the Church, her sacraments and institutions,
was a revelation that astounded many and disturbed the
whole social and religious sentiment of the people. Thou-
sands began to realize that the Church, which they had
always bowed before as a great mystery and obeyed as being
absolute in authority and power, could not in reality be the
thing they had been taught to believe she was. These
advanced measures gave a wider scope to personal and
religious liberty and worship. Investigation and inquiry
were awakened. A wider door was opened for Bible distri-
bution, and for all Protestant evangelistic efforts and enter-
prises.

Under Dr. Campos SaleSy who assumed the presidency
in 1898, the financial condition of the country has begun to
improve. The Administration seems to be making economies
and is trying to meet foreign obligations, and on the whole the
outlook is more favorable for a stable government. Much
has been done during the last ten years to develop national
industries and enterprises.

II. The Peoples of Brazil. — Intermarriage and con-
stant association of the Brazilian races make it impossible
to do more than broadly indicate some prevailing character-
istics of the people.

I. General Statements. — A Brazilian authority, J.
Batalha-Reis, estimates that after four centuries of contact
this mixture of races exists in the following relative propor-

BRAZIL

tions : Europeans, more or less pure, thirty-eight per cent. ;
negroes, twenty per cent. ; pure Americans (Caboclos), four
per cent. ; mixed Americans (Pardos), thirty-eight per cent.

He further writes : " Many Indian tribes, still living in
a state of native savagery, have never entered the Brazilian
statistics, and are not taken account 'of. Towards the end
of the sixteenth century the population of Brazil was esti-
mated at some 60,000. In 18 19 the first census showed
4,000,000 inhabitants, while in 1890 the population num-
bered about 15,000,000, having thus apparently quadrupled
in seventy years. In the last ten years the population has
remained almost stationary in the north and centre, but has
doubled in the south.

" The iinmigrantSy who form a great part of this increase,
were principally Portuguese and Spanish. Italians have
predominated during recent years, and have especially
settled in the temperate southern states, Sao Paulo and
Rio de Janeiro. In the south also some German agricul-
tural and pastoral colonies have been established.

" These settlers continue to a certain extent to use their
own languages ; but the official language of the country is
Portuguese, although considerably modified." To this
should be added a statement of Rev. J. B. Howell : ** As
French is considered a necessary part of a liberal education,
and is very similar to the Portuguese, all the professional
men read it, and generally more than half the books on their
shelves are in that language, while French novels of all sorts
form the staple literary diet of all the ladies of the wealthier
classes."

2. The Whites. — The earliest colonists, as we have seen,
were adventurers, criminals taken from the dungeon and put
on board ship in irons, and Jews exiled by the Inquisition.
These men were for the most part of the viler class of

PROTESTANT MISSIONS IN SOUTH AMERICA

Europeans, and intermarriage with the aborigines did not
improve their quaUty. After the coming of the Portuguese
Court to Rio, in 1808, a multitude of Portugal's best citizens
emigrated to Brazil, and from that time a better element has
continued to come hither. Recent immigrants have still
further improved the character of the population. Of the
52,536 immigrants of 1898, about ninety-nine per cent,
were Roman Catholics, so that Catholicism is thus being
yearly added to.

Rev. Mr. Howell has thus characterized them: "The
Brazilian people are in general hospitable, generous, char-
itable, gay, courteous, communicative, quick at learning,
rather fond of show, somewhat ceremonious and proud,
rather inclined to look down on labor and laborers, but with
a remarkable suavity and a native politeness which is as
general in the lowest as in the highest classes. Though not
as excitable as the Spanish, there is still a strong element of
jealousy in their disposition, and a tendency to vindictive-
ness.

^^ Physically the typical Brazilian is small of stature,
with . . . nervous and bilious temperament, bloodless
and sallow complexion, and a generally emaciated and worn-
out look. . . . The general loose ideas in regard to
the marriage relation, together with the universally immoral
lives even of the priests . . . have undermined the
physical health of the people, while sowing the seeds of dis-
ease which more and more incapacitate them for the work
yet to be done in developing the immense resources of this
magnificent country.

*' Intellectually, even among the better educated, there is an
apathy which is manifest in science, politics and religion.
Rome has persistently repressed speculation and independence
of thought till now the people are intellectual sluggards.

BRAZIL

Because of this apathy there is the utmost indifference in
most men concerning national interests and poHcies.

'*Lack of conscientiousness is said to be the leading
moral defect of the Brazilians, while reverence for ecclesias-
tical tradition is an equal obstacle. This latter characteristic
not only stands in the way of their accepting a new and true
view of life, but is equally unfortunate in its economical
effect, since it prevents the use of new methods, machines,
etc."

3. The Blacks. — Negro importation was early begun, a
slave being offered for a hatchet as early as 15 16. Sixty
years ago they were so numerous and inexpensive that "it
was considered cheaper to use up a slave in five or seven
years and purchase another than to take care of him." A
Brazilian writer has said that the negroes form the most
robust race of Brazil, and that a larger proportion of them
preserve themselves pure from intermarriage than any of the
other races. Previous to their emancipation they were
mainly in the cotton, sugar and coffee districts ; since then
they have scattered over the entire country and are especially
numerous in villages and towns. The features differentiat-
ing them from the negroes of the United States are mainly
due to the vast differences in the social, intellectual and
religious influences surrounding them.

The Roniaii religion has accommodated itself to the
pagan superstitions and practices and to the idolatrous ten-
dencies of the negroes. The teaching of rewards and pun-
ishments, which has had such a wholesome effect upon the
North American negroes, has been lacking in this country.
There are certain privileges and harmless enjoyments con-
nected with the superstitions of the Catholic Church which
have been readily entered into by the negroes, but which
have not had any specially enlightening or elevating effect

PROTESTANT MISSIONS IN SOUTH AMERICA

upon them. Our Lady of the Rosary is the peculiar patron
saint of the blacks; she is sometimes painted as a
negress. While it is true that the mass of the blacks have
become nominally Roman Catholics, or rather baptized
pagans, yet many still follow the superstitions and fetishism
of their African ancestors.

4. Aboriginal Races. — Nine principal groups are found
in Brazil, their main habitat being in the northern prov-
inces. They are for the most part of a copper color, of
medium height, rather heavy set, with thick chests, and are
very muscular. They are generally apathetic and unde-
monstrative. The tribes are not specially settled, and yet are
not habitually and widely nomadic. The country, well
watered, abounds in the plantain, banana, yam, mandioca
root, a great variety of vegetable palms, etc., as well as in
great quantities of game and fish ; hence these tribes have
never felt the necessity of that mental effort and the exertion
for existence which tends to civilization. A prominent
Brazilian who has given much time to travel and study
among the wild tribes in recent years finds, as he thinks,
traces of a cross with the white race even more remote than
that found in the Incas of Peru.

When we consider the social and moral characteristics
of these savages, we find some evidences of the existence of
the family idea, marriage customs, etc. Many of them have
been very warlike, ferocious, vengeful and bloodthirsty.
Some of them were known to be cannibals and ate their
enemies with great ceremony ; some even made war for the
purpose of obtaining human food, while others are said to
have eaten their relatives and friends as a mark of honor
and distinguished consideration. The most generally pre*
vailing religious belief among them is that there are three
great or chief gods, the sun, god of the animal kingdom, the

BRAZIL

moon, god of the vegetable kingdom, and Ruda, tlie god of
love, or of all reproduction. Besides these they seem to
have a multitude of subordinate and inferior gods for vari-
ous purposes. Their burial custom of depositing at the
grave the bow and arrow and vessels in which they prepare
food would indicate that they have some idea of immortal-
ity, or of a future state of existence. A curious custom ob-
served in some tribes bears evidence of this belief among
them ; when a person dies a certain number of his friends
and relatives, as nearly as may be of his own age, are
hanged that he may have suitable company in the next
world.

III. Conditions Bearing on Protestant Missions. —
I . Social Conditions. — The amalgamation of the three races
above referred to has been going on in Brazil for four hun-
dred years under circumstances which have given rise to a
variety of social conditions. As we are writing for those
whose desire it is to come into personal contact with each
individual of this mass for the purpose of delivering a mes-
sage from God, we may call attention to such customs and
characteristics as bear directly upon this mission.

The last census y taken in 1890, gave the following :
whites, 6,302,198; blacks, 2,097,426; Indians, 1,295, 796;
and mixed races, 4,638,495. It is generally believed that
thousands of quadroons, octoroons and other degrees of
mixed bloods were classified as whites. Doubtless a strictly
correct report would greatly reduce the figures in the white
column and very materially increase that of the mixed. If
we estimate the population in the year 1900 at 17,000,000,
which many think fairly correct and reasonable, I suppose a
correct division or classification would be : whites, 6,000,-
000; blacks, 2,200,000; Indians, 1,300,000; and mixed
races, 7,500,000. Of the Indians it may be estimated that

PROTESTANT MISSIONS IN SOUTH AMERICA

about 500,000 are at least partly civilized, while about 800,-
000 are still in the wild state. Many think there are not
more than 3,000,000 persons of purely white race in the
country.

In a general way there is free intercourse and marriage
between the whites, blacks, domesticated Indians and the
mixed population, and they mingle together freely and are
at peace with each other. Such being the case, the race or
color Ime is not one that need specially affect the work of
the Protestant missionary. In the latter days of the Empire
the prime minister was of this mixed race, and the intimate
friend and music teacher of the princess was a mulatto.
The descendants of this amalgamation are to be seen in all
positions in society. State and Church. There exists with
some a strong race prejudice, or a conviction that it is better
for humanity that the races exist separate and distinct from
each other. As yet this has not been found a serious prob-
lem to disturb the missionary; still, he may find here a
fruitful field for observation and study as he tries to develop
a higher state of moral and religious life.

In society generally the influences of priestcraft, the con-
vent, slavery and other conditions have tended to give much
seclusion to the female portion of the family. Some think,
and perhaps it is true in a measure, that this seclusion is
traceable to the Moorish manners of the remote ancestors
of the whites, relics of which manners existed in Portugal as
well as in her colonies. In many places, especially in the
country, the wife and daughters never appear at the table if
a stranger or other than very near relatives are present. A
writer has said: ''Habits of such hateful and dissocializing
jealousy presuppose a strong inclination to licentiousness,
and certainly tend to excite it. ' ' But it must not be inferred
from this that the married women are generally dissolute.

BRAZIL

With many it has been considered meritorious in the hus-
band to murder his wife for unfaithfulness. History states
that in one year in the city of Bahia there were reported
thirty-five such murders. The case is not so with the hus-
band. He may prove unfaithful every day to his marriage
vows and yet he is none the less respectable in society, and
the poor woman who may be so unfortunate as to be his
wife, or rather his slave, dares not open her mouth. The
official statistics show that in the year 1890 there were living
2,603,489 persons, or more than one-sixth of the entire
population of the country, who were born out of wedlock.
Certain Catholic hospitals have an opening in the wall next
to the street with a kind of wheel arrangement where these
illegitimate and abandoned babes may be deposited under
the cover of night, taken in and cared for. The census re-
ferred to shows that 12,265 then living had been deposited
in these wheels and so brought up. Prostitution is glaring
and wide-spread, especially in the towns and cities. The
priests have been so unfaithful to their vows of celibacy and
so immoral, and the men generally so profligate as to fill
society with infidelity and suspicion.

Of course with the entrance of light and learning this
state of things is being somewhat modified, and there has
always been an element of purer and higher moral worth in
society. These conditions make apparent the great need of
the gospel of Jesus Christ among the people, and they make
apparent also the great need and the great opportunity for
women missionaries and their school work. It is very
noticeable that missionaries and their work have had a very
considerable influence in bettering the state of society where
they have come in close contact with the people for several
years. To-day there is greater freedom in the family and
easier access to the family circle, while women and girls are

PROTESTANT MISSIONS IN SOUTH AMERICA

seen more frequently on the streets. The street-car, rail-
roads and other modern inventions and influences of Chris-
tian civilization are also greatly effecting Brazilian life.

There are noble elements of Brazilian character notwith-
standing the many defects. They are generally hospitable,
friendly, generous, and show great respect and deference to
the stranger who comes into their midst, especially if he is
a traveller. If he locates for the purpose of developing some
industry or starting some new enterprise they may often be-
come jealous and suspicious. These noble elements of
hospitality and generosity under gospel influences become
prominent and powerful factors in the development of
Christian character.

2. Political Conditions. — Perfect religious liberty and
freedom of worship are guaranteed by the constitution, and
no man is debarred from any office in the Republic because
of his religious belief. There are at present no great politi-
cal complications to materially effect the work and develop-
ment of Protestant missions in the country. Disturbances
are usually of short duration, though they may be frequent.
At such times missions, like all the institutions and interests
of the country, may suffer temporary suspension or inter-
ruption ; but there is not likely to be anything like political
interference with the missionaries and their enterprises. At
present there is a general feehng that the Republic has
made progress recently in the better management of its
finances, and there is hope for greater stability. The nat-
ural resources and wealth of the country are guarantees
against any permanent backset from disturbances caused by
extravagance and dishonesty. From a missionary's stand-
point there is not much hope for a better Government until
better men are made to administer it.

3 . Intellectual Life of Brazil. — In the sketch of the races

BRAZIL

now mingling together in Brazilian society, the student has
had occasion to note some of the intellectual elements enter-
ing into the composition of this people.

l^YiQ first College in Brazil vfd^s estabHshed in 1583 by
Nobrega, the chief of the Jesuits, on the plains of Piratin-
inga, in what is now the state of Sao Paulo. As the first
mass was celebrated on the feast of the conversion of St.
Paul, they gave the college his name. The spot has be-
come famous in Brazilian history, and both the city and the
state have the name of Sao Paulo. One of the first teachers
was the famous Anchieta, who thus describes this early be-
ginning: **Here we are, sometimes more than twenty of
us, in a little hut of wicker work and mud, roofed wdth
straw, fourteen paces long and ten wide. This is the school,
this is the infirmary, dormitory, refectory, kitchen, store-
room." It is stated that they had many scholars, both
Creoles and Mamalucas. Anchieta taught these savages
Latin, and learned from them their language. There were
no books, and he wrote for each one his lesson on a sepa-
rate sheet. He composed a vocabulary and a grammar of
the dialect of these natives, parodied into hymns in Portu-
guiese many of their profane songs, and devised terms for
teaching them the principles of the Catholic faith. He
especially emphasized the frantic folly of Catholicism that
self-torture is a Christian virtue, and made the scholars flog
themselves every Friday. Had the basal principles of this
remarkable and heroic teacher been those of the pure gospel
of Jesus Christ, the intellectual, moral and religious condi-
tion of Brazil to-day would doubtless be vastly better than
it is. There can be no doubt, however, that this early
movement has exercised a most beneficial influence over the
whole social system of Brazil. It is a suggestive fact that
the city of Sao Paulo to-day is the centre of the most ad-

PROTESTANT MISSIONS IN SOUTH AMERICA

vanced system of education to be found in the whole country.
And we note in passing that the Presbyterian mission has
built its largest plant and is putting forth its strongest edu-
cational effort in this city, while their native church has
established here also its Theological Seminary. From Sao
Paulo knowledge and civilization have been diffused through-
out the country ; and from this centre have come many of
Brazil's leading scholars, statesmen, and hardiest, manliest
citizens.

As we have not space to follow the entire history of edu-
cation in Brazil, we may bring the present state of things
to the student's mind by giving the latest official statistics
and by stating a few facts. The census of 1890 showed
that only about fifteen per cent, of the entire population
could read and write. There are at present some 400,000
foreigners in Brazil, of whom sixty per cent, are educated.
This reduces the rate for Brazilians to about fourteen per
cent. If we take the Brazilians by sexes, eighteen per cent,
of the men are educated, while only about ten per cent, of
the women can read and write. If we make the most
liberal estimate that there are at present 3,000,000 persons
in Brazil who can read and write, we still have 14,000,000
who have no knowledge of letters. Of this number a little
more than 6,000,000 are men and boys, and nearly 8,000,000
are women and girls. While deploring the sad intellectual
status, we must bear in mind that the population has scat-
tered over an immense territory, which has made the prog-
ress of instruction very difficult.

There is a system of public primary instruction in each
of the several states, and efforts are being made to extend
these privileges to every community. The methods are
often defective and antiquated, but progress is being made.
There are several normal schools for the purpose of training

*92

BRAZIL

young teachers, and these are well attended. For second-
ary instruction there is a system of higher schools or col-
leges under government supervision ; these are located in
different sections of the country. For superior, or technical
instruction, there are two law schools, two medical schools,
a school of pharmacy and one of mineralogy. There is in
the Federal Capital a Pedagogical Institute, an Academy
of Fine Arts, a National Institute of Music, an institute for
the blind and one for the deaf and dumb. There are also
a number of private schools in some of the towns and
cities.

Brazil has produced some men of renown in epic poetry,
dramatic literature, history, music, art, medicine and other
departments of knowledge. Many young Brazilians have
been sent abroad to be educated and some of them have
distinguished themselves in European schools. There are
aspiring individuals who aim at the learned professions and
state positions, and who are much devoted to intellectual
pursuits and culture. But on the whole it must be admitted,
that while they may have accomplished great things in the
way of discovery and conquest, the Portuguese have never
been distinguished for letters and learning.

In all of the cities and in many towns there are daily
papers, and these find their way far into the agricultural dis-
tricts and country places. Book stores are to be found in
all the larger places, but they are filled pretty generally with
French novels and other French works. Many of the text-
books used in the technical schools are in the French lan-
guage.

The educational work of Protestant missions has given a
stimulus to education, and especially to female education,
that is spreading throughout the country. There is a great
field for Christian activity and philanthropy in school work

PROTESTANT MISSIONS IN SOUTH AMERICA

in Brazil, and in creating a wholesome, moral and religious
literature in the expressive and musical language of Camoes.

IV. Protestant Missions in Brazil. — i. Early Pio-
neers under Villegagnon. — The French frequented the coast
of Brazil from its earliest discovery. A knight, Nicholas
Durand de Villegagnon, who was a bold adventurer, skillful
seaman and a man of some learning, having made a voyage
to the coast of Brazil and having established intercourse
with the natives, selected the bay of Rio de Janeiro, where
he planned to establish a colony. He persuaded Henry II.
that he would establish an asylum for the persecuted Hugue-
nots and at the same time open the commerce of America
to Europe, if only he might be enabled to carry out his
plans. An expedition was fitted out and very soon arrived
at the chosen places, where a colony was located on a small
island in the great bay. Though suffering some hardships,
it prospered for a time. As this project offered asylum for
the Protestants, it was most natural that Calvin and the
Genevan clergy should be interested in the enterprise. They
consequently sent out with the second expedition, which
consisted of more than three hundred souls, two ministers
and fourteen students. This is one of the earliest Protestant
missionary parties ever sent out.

They were cordially received by Villegagnon, who imme-
diately had a room prepared for divine service. These
missionaries returned thanks to God for safe arrival after a
long and perilous voyage and at once entered upon their
work. The chief of the colony seemed zealous, and was
gifted in prayer. He maintained, however, that the sacra-
mental wine ought to be mingled with water, and that salt
and oil ought to be used with the water in baptism. On
these points he contended with the missionaries and gave
them no little trouble. Very soon his real character was

BRAZIL

manifested in acts of great cruelty and barbarity toward the
savages and in a measure toward the colonists. He quar-
relled with the ministers, threw off the mask, and sided with
Catholic tyranny and intolerance to such an extent that
these Huguenots found their condition worse than it had
been in France. He denounced them as heretics worthy of
the stake and had three of the most zealous of them put to
death. Others fled, some to the shore and some to the
French vessels anchored near by. Those who fled to the
Portuguese were compelled to profess the Catholic faith.
Had it not been for the treachery of this villain, the enter-
prise would doubtless have been permanent ; for the Portu-
guese had permitted this colony to remain four years undis-
turbed. During this time the missionaries had done a work
which required several years of most bloody and cruel effort
to extinguish. Ten thousand Frenchmen were ready to
join the colony at the earliest opportunity. The Jesuits
were well aware of the movement and what it meant, and
taking advantage of the treachery of Villegagnon they de-
vised plans for the cruel work of extinction. A Portuguese
fleet was sent out, captured the French forts and took pos-
session of the island. Southey remarks : '' Never was a
war in which so little exertion had been made, and so little
force employed on either side, attended by consequences so
important. The French Court was too busy in burning and
massacring Huguenots to think of Brazil." Many of the
Indian converts likewise suffered greatly at the hands of
these persecutors.

The failure of these Protestants with their open Bible to
get a permanent foothold in this part of the New World
determined the religious destiny of Brazil for at least three
centuries. If they had succeeded, instead of the very sad
spectacle of the intellectual, social and moral condition of

PROTESTANT MISSIONS IN SOUTH AMERICA

the country to-day, we would doubtless be gazing upon the
marvellous wealth and prosperity of a highly cultured, godly
and upright nation.

2. Dutch Atte77ipts at Evangelization. — The attention of
the Dutch was directed to America and the West Indian
Company was formed early in the seventeenth century.
When it was decided to invade Brazil one motive pleaded
was, that a pure religion would thus be introduced into
America. Their fleets arrived on the coast of Brazil, made
their attack and captured the city of Bahia in the beginning
of 1624. When the men first landed they found many
silver images, among which were thirteen of greater size
and value of the Virgin Mary and the Twelve Apostles.
Proclamations were made, one of which was to the effect of
securing the ^'free enjoyment of religion to all who would
submit." This invasion extended north, and Pernambuco
by and by became the stronghold of the Dutch. Many
Jews, negroes and others became Christians under the in-
fluence and through the efforts of the chaplains who had
accompanied the expeditions. Liberal measures were en-
acted in many ways, and the condition of the slaves and
the savages was greatly improved for a time. *' Dutch mis-
sionaries labored to teach them a Calvin istic instead of a
Popish creed."

Some of the Protestant ministers learned the Tupi dialect,
and labored with great success a?nong the I?idians, civilizing
and converting them. It is said that many of the natives
could read and understand the laws as well as the Portu-
guese themselves. Many improvements in agricultural and
industrial pursuits were introduced. While this is true of
the eff'orts of the clergy and many of the nobler hearted of
the Dutch, yet it is abundantly evident that a deep deprav-
ity characterized the conduct of many in their relations to-

BRAZIL

ward the negroes and the Indians, as well as toward their
enemies, the Portuguese. It seems true that from the be-
ginning of this invasion Christianity was perverted to serve
the purpose of avarice and ambition ; hence we are not
surprised that after a struggle of thirty years, Brazil fell
again into the hands of the Portuguese in 1654. Thus
once more were the efforts of Protestantism to get a foot-
hold in the country frustrated.

3. Early Efforts of the Northern Methodists. — The Rev.
Fountain E. Pitts of the Methodist Episcopal Church went
to South America in the year 1835 for the purpose of in-
vestigating the condition of the people. One result of this
visit was the opening of work at Rio de Janeiro by Rev. D.
P. Kidder, who was sent out the following year. The
American Bible Society made consignments of Scriptures to
him for distribution, of which work he gives a most inter-
esting account. He opened a mission home, preached,
visited and conversed with the people as opportunity af-
forded. His work aroused the priests, one of whom wrote
a curious book entitled, "O Catholicoe, O Methodista," in
which he violently attacked Dr. Kidder and most villain-
ously misrepresented the Methodists and their designs in the
work. Mrs. Kidder dying in 1842, he returned to New
York with his infant child, and the work was suspended.

The Rev. Justus H. Nelson has been for a number of
years carrying on a Methodist mission in Para and the
Amazon valley on the self-supporting basis, which has been
fruitful of good results. There are perhaps at present 100
communicants besides a number of probationers in that
section. He publishes a weekly paper. He has from time
to time had others with him in the work, and is at present
aided by a brother missionary. His heroic wife has done
valuable service in the mission.

PROTESTANT MISSIONS IN SOUTH AMERICA

4. '* Help for Brazil:'— Dr. Robert R. Kalley of Scot-
land, who had been driven from the island of Madeira by
persecution, was attracted to Rio de Janeiro, where he ar-
rived in May, 1855. Here he met some of his converts
who like himself had fled from Madeira. He at once be-
gan missionary operations. His noble wife, who still sur-
vives him, had some means, and so they were not depend-
ent on any board. He was of the Free Church of Scot-
land, but worked independently and organized his work on
rather original Hues. He preached for some time in private
houses as he had opportunity and in a rented hall. His
presence and work in the city soon began to attract some
attention, and were attended with opposition and persecu-
tion ; but with tact and prudence he was enabled to over-
come, or at least to endure, this opposition, and carried on
his work successfully. He organized an Independent Con-
gregational church in Rio in the year 1858. He made a
number of visits to other parts of the country, and preached
for the first time in a number of places. He continued his
labors in this way until 1876, when on account of advanc-
ing age and feeble health, he retired to Scotland. He con-
tinued to interest himself in the building of a church for
his congregation in Rio and in planning to send out other
laborers. He died at Edinburgh in 1888.

The Rio congregation now has a substantial church
building, for which they are indebted principally to Dr. and
Mrs. Kalley and a wealthy member of the congregation.
The pastor reports that 587 members have been enrolled.
The work has extended to other points in the city, to the
neighboring city, Nictheroy, where a church numbering fifty
members has been organized, to Passa Tres, where there
are 100 members, and to other places in the country. A
branch of this movement was inaugurated in the city of

BRAZIL

Pernambuco, and has spread to a number of places in the
country round about. In the Rio district there are three
ordained native preachers and other workers, and there are
several native workers in Pernambuco.

One result of Dr. Kalley's work was the organization of
a nondenominational committee in Scotland, entitled,
^* Help for Brazil^ This committee sustains five or six
male missionaries and their wives and four single women :
these are working in the city and state of Rio de Janeiro, in
Pernambuco, Minas Geraes, and they are just now about to
open work in Espirito Santo.

5. The next regular missionary movement in Brazil was
inaugurated by the Board of the Northern Presbyterian
Church in the United States. Their first missionary, Rev.
A. G. Simonton, arrived in August, 1859. He opened a
preaching hall and began regular work in May, 1861, He
followed somewhat the same methods that were pursued by
Dr. Kalley, preaching in private houses wherever he found
an open door, and visiting and conversing with the people
as far as opportunity was afforded. He was abundantly suc-
cessful, and his name and his work still live in the mem-
ories and hearts of many.

The first Presbyterian church was organized in January,
1862. The work grew, and the committee soon sent out
other laborers. A Presbytery was organized with their
foreign missionaries in December, 1865, Their work has
spread through at least seven states, and there are at present
on the field ten ordained missionaries, most of whom have
families, five single women and one layman, besides a large
number of native preachers and workers who are sustained
almost entirely by the native church.

McKenzie College, with a charter from the University of
New York, and its adjunct, the American College of Sao

PROTESTANT MISSIONS IN SOUTH AMERICA

Paulo, is a very interesting and prominent feature of the
Presbyterian work. They have about 500 students in at-
tendance. They also have prosperous school work in the
States of Parana, Bahia and Sergipe.

The Presbyterians have from time to time sustained a
paper, printed tracts and some small books. The natives
now support their own papers.

6. This movement was soon followed by the committee
of the Southern Presbyterian Church of America. They
began work in Campinas in the province of Sao Paulo.
Their first missionaries. Revs. E. Lane and G. N. Morton,
arrived in 1869, The former devoted his efforts to preach-
ing and general evangelistic work, while the latter launched
a school enterprise. This school did well for a time, but
after a series of misfortunes came to grief; it was afterward
opened in another place where it still prospers. Their work
has spread into some ten States. They have prosperous
school work at several points, and there are now in the field
eleven ordained married missionaries, six single women,
and a number of efficient native preachers and workers.

The forces of these two Presbyterian bodies were united
into one Sy?iod of Brazil in September, 1888. At the
recent session of the Synod the territory now occupied by
them was divided into seven Presbyteries. Their forces are
strongest in the State of Sao Paulo, but they have regular
work in thirteen other States and in the Federal Capital.
The statistics have not yet been published, but it is estimated
that they have about eighty organized churches with per-
haps 7,000 communicants ; there are several pastoral resi-
dences, one Theological Seminary with about twelve
students, and a number of valuable church buildings.
There are three weekly Presbyterian papers, all of which
have a fairly good circulation.

BRAZIL

7. The Board of the Methodist Episcopal Church
(South), sent out their first missionary, Rev. J. J. Ransom,
who arrived at Rio de Janeiro on February 2, 1876. He
began work in the city some months later. A local preacher
in a colony of Americans, located in the State of Sao
Paulo, had been working among his fellow countrymen for
several years. He was of help to Mr. Ransom, and was
instrumental in starting work in Piracicaba, which has since
become an important station. Reinforcements were sent out
in 1 88 1. In 1886 Bishop Granbery made the first Episcopal
visit to this mission, and at the time organized it into an
Annual Conference. Other workers have been added from
time to time, and work has been established in the Federal
Capital and three States. The most recent statistics give
twelve ordained missionaries, ten of whom are married,
twelve single women, eleven ordained and four unordained
native preachers, besides other local workers. There are
twenty-eight pastoral charges and missions, twelve church
buildings and three pastoral residences, with 2,785 com-
municants. They have three boarding-schools for girls, one
for boys, and several day-schools for both sexes. In con-
nection with the boys' boarding-school at Juiz de Fora in
Minas Geraes they have a Theological Seminary with a
class of some ten young men studying for the ministry.
They publish a weekly paper and Sunday-school literature
at Rio de Janeiro. Two of the single women give their
entire time to visiting from house to house, while the others
put forth most of their efforts in school work.

The Methodist Episcopal Church (North) has for several
years been working in the State of Rio Grande do Sul, but
have recently transferred to the Church (South) their work in
that province. Their central station has been Porto Alegre,
but there are two other circuits and one mission ; there are

PROTESTANT MISSIONS IN SOUTH AMERICA

one ordained married missionary, one single woman, two
unordained native preachers and several other workers.
They report about 150 communicants and about 250 pro-
bationers. There are a day-school, two church buildings
and some other property.

8. The mission of the Southern Baptist Convention was
begun by the Rev. W. B. Bagby and wife who arrived in
Brazil in 1882, though a temporary work was attempted
twelve years before. They were soon joined by others and
opened work in the city of Bahia. They have from time
to time had reinforcements, and their work has extended
into the Federal Capital and seven States, with tentative
enterprises in four others. They report eight ordained
missionaries, most of whom are married, three single women,
ten ordained and six unordained native preachers. They
have some church property, a membership estimated at
about 2,000, thirty-two organized societies, some school work,
publish two weekly papers and a number of tracts. Four
foreign Baptist churches exist in Southern Brazil and plans
are on foot soon to begin work in connection with them.

9. The Protestant Episcopal Church of America began
their work in 1889, the organization being called the Amer-
ican Church Missionary Society. Two young men, Rev. L.
L. Kinsolving and Rev. W. Morris were sent out, who after
learning the language sufficiently, opened work in the State
of Rio Grande do Sul. The Presbyterians turned over to
them a small enterprise which they had been carrying on
for some time in the city of Rio Grande. They opened
work in the city of Porto Alegre, and as soon as reinforce-
ments were sent out entered other important points. At
the recent session of their convocation, their forces consisted
of one missionary Bishop, three ordained missionaries, all
of whom are married, one unordained missionary, three

BRAZIL

single women, three ordained and one unordained native
preachers and several other workers. They have projected
already several church buildings, and have about 400 com-
municants with a number of candidates under instruction.
Several young men are studying for the ministry. They
publish a weekly paper and are doing something in the way
of creating a literature for their church.

10. The British and Foreign Bible Society early made
small consignments of Scriptures to Christian merchants
and the first missionaries for distribution in Brazil. For
many years they have had a central depositary in Rio de
Janeiro, and have carried on a regular system of colportage
work throughout the country. The Rev. J. M. G. dos
Santos, pastor of the church founded by Dr. Kalley, has
been the agent since 1878. It may be safely estimated that
through this Society there have been put into circulation in
Brazil 400,000 copies of the Holy Scriptures. Mr. Santos
has been aided in the work by a missionary sent out by the
Society nearly two years ago. They generally employ about
twelve colporteurs, and are extending the work into every
section of the country.

II. The American Bible Society previous to 1836 had
sent a few copies of the Scriptures to foreign merchants
residing on the coast of Brazil. Reference has already
been made to the consignments sent to the Methodist mis-
sionaries in 1836-42. Shortly after the American missiona-
ries began their work this Society was induced to establish
a regular agency. Rev. A. L. Blackford, of the Presby-
terian mission, was in charge for a while ; he was succeeded
by Rev. Wm. Brown, who remained in charge until 1887.
He was followed by Rev. H. C. Tucker, the present in-
cumbent. There is a central depot in Rio. and a varying
number of colporteurs are employed from time to time, and

PROTESTANT MISSIONS IN SOUTH AMERICA

much work is done in connection with the missionaries,
native preachers and other workers. From the beginning
to the present time this Society has put into circulation in
Brazil no less then 325,000 copies of the Scriptures.

A very reasonable estimate would give a circulation of
850,000 or 900,000 copies of the Scriptures in Brazil since
the organization of the British and Foreign and the
American Bible Societies to the close of the nineteenth
century.

12. Mr. Myron A. Clark was sent to Brazil by thQ Lifer-
national Committee of the Young Men' s Christian Associa-
tion in 1889, and after some time spent in the study of the
language he came to Rio de Janeiro and took steps to or-
ganize an Association. It was from the beginning pop-
ular among the native churches and was heartily supported
by the missionaries. For a time the work was carried on in
a rented building, but by and by two men of means secured
a building which they deeded to the Association, taking a
mortgage on the same. The work has grown, and is recog-
nized by all as a valuable adjunct to the efforts that are being
made by the churches to evangelize the city and to develop
the native young men. The Catholic community have been
provoked to organize a young men's society in imitation of
this one. It is the purpose of those interested to extend the
work into other cities as soon as possible ; indeed work has
already been started in a modest way in several other
places.

13. There are a number of smaller and independent
movements which have been started by the Christian and
Missionary Alliance, Seventh-Day Adventists, Plymouth
Brethren and others, which are scattered about in different
sections. These all combined number perhaps a dozen
foreign and native workers, and have 400 or 500 members.

BRAZIL

In Pernambuco, Bahia, Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo
there are stationed clergymen of the Church of England^
whose ministry is confined exclusively to English speaking
people in these cities and other neighboring places. These
churches do not attempt any missionary work among the
Brazilians.

There are various Lutheran churches among the numerous
German colonists located especially in the southern section
of the country. There are perhaps as many as fifty of these
German pastors, whose efforts are confined almost entirely
to work among their own countrymen. These can scarcely
be counted among the aggressive missionary forces of the
country ; but their influence is being felt, and they are des-
tined to play an important part in the future of Brazil.

14. Successful Features of these Societies. — It may be said
that in a general way all these Boards have followed very
much the same methods — preaching in rented halls, in
houses of worship as soon as able to secure them, and in
private houses ; visiting from house to house, and convers-
ing with the people ; opening boarding and day-schools ;
and scattering tracts and weekly papers, with such other re-
ligious literature as may be at hand. There are several men
who have medical diplomas, and have used their profession
to some advantage; but Brazil being well supplied with
native physicians who are jealous of the foreigners, it may
be seen at once that this is not a needy field for medical
missions. The preaching of the Gospel and schools seem
to be the principal features of the work.

What has seemed to many a most important and imme-
diately successful branch of the work is the distribution and
the reading of the Word of God. The last annual report
of the American Bible Society says : *' Perhaps there is no
country in the world from which there comes such a wealth

PROTESTANT MISSIONS IN SOUTH AMERICA

of testimony to the power of the printed Bible circulated in
advance of the preacher of the gospel."

One of the successful features especially of the Presby-
terian and Methodist missions is the rapidity with which
they have developed self-supporting churches. The element
of liberality and generosity in the Brazilian character comes
quickly into use under gospel influences. It is reasonable to
hope for rapid developments in Christian life and character
among a warm and generous-hearted people where the ac-
ceptance of the preached Word is coupled with the reading
and study of the Bible.

15. Distribution of Missionary and other Forces. — For
lack of exact statistics we can only give what we know to
be a fairly correct estimate of the evangelical forces now at
work in Brazil. Of all Boards, including the independents,
there are about fifty married missionaries and their wives,
ten unmarried men, and thirty single women ; and there are
about eighty native ordained preachers and other workers
actively engaged in evangelistic operations, making in all
some 220.

If we take the country by districts^ we have the following
estimate of population and distribution of forces : the States
of Amazonas and Para, population 1,050,000, seven mis-
sionaries and two native workers; Maranhao, Piauhy,
Ceara, Rio Grande do Norte and Parahyba, population
2,600,000, thirteen missionaries and four native workers ;
Pernambuco and Alagoas, population 1,750,000, ten mis-
sionaries and six native workers ; Sergipe and Bahia, popu-
lation 2,380,000, fifteen missionaries and seven native
workers; Espirito Santo, Rio de Janeiro and Federal
Capital, population 2,180,000, twenty-three missionaries
and fifteen native workers; Sao Paulo, Parana and Santa
Catharina, population 2,260,000, thirty-five missionaries

BRAZIL

and thirty native workers ; Rio Grande do Sul and Matto
Grosso, population 1,120,000, fifteen missionaries and six
native workers; Minas Geraes and Goyaz, population 3,660,-
000, twenty-two missionaries and ten native workers. If
taken by separate states the distribution would be very dif-
ferent : for instance, Matto Grosso, Piauhy, Espirito Santo
and other states have no missionary residing in their bounds,
and these three do not have even resident native workers,
though colporteurs and others visit them from time to time.
The state of Sao Paulo is the most favored of all, having the
largest number of missionaries and native workers, and be-
ing the centre of most of the educational work done up to the
present. The two adjoining states of Bahia and Minas Geraes,
have the largest rural population, which is nearly one-third
of the whole, and they have only about one-fifth of the
entire evangelical force ; while Sao Paulo with only about one-
tenth of the entire population has about one-fifth of the
entire number of workers. There are a number of teachers,
colporteurs and other native local workers not included in
these figures.

16. Work for the Aborigines. — Until recently the
Protestant missionary forces have made no especially direct
efforts to extend their work among the wild tribes of the
country. Two parties have lately made trips of exploration
and investigation with a view to beginning work among
them, and plans are on foot for giving permanency to these
projects. A missionary has been commissioned by the North-
ern Presbyterian Board to make a careful study of this
problem and to devise plans for definite and aggressive
work among the Indians. He is now in the Amazon valley
making explorations and gathering information.

There is unquestionably an important field for this kind
of missionary work among the estimated 800,000 savages

PROTESTANT MISSIONS IN SOUTH AMERICA

who are still in their native wild state through the great in-
terior of Brazil. There is much to be done also among the
half-civilized and mixed races so numerous in the interior of
nearly all of the states. These latter are of course more
easily accessible.

REPUBLICS OF THE PLATA RIVER

By Rev. Charles W. Drees, D. D.
For Twenty-five Years a Missionary in the Plata Countries.

Paraguay, Uruguay and Argentina, naming them in as-
cending order of importance, constitute a group of nations
closely related by their geographical situation and their past
history, and are destined to a common development in the
future. If Brazil may properly claim the designation '' Re-
public of the Southern Cross," these three nations may well
be described as the Republics of the Plata River, in view of
their relation to the great river system which pours its tide
into the ocean in a volume unsurpassed save by the mighty
Amazon and the Congo.

I. The River Plata and Adjacent Countries.— i . The
river is formed by the union of the Parana and Uruguay,
the largest rivers in the world whose general direction is
away from the equator. These drain a vast area of the in-
terior of the South American continent and offer highways
of communication into extensive regions hardly explored
and not yet brought under tribute to civilization. It is esti-
mated that the Plata system offers not less than 10,000
miles of navigable waters. From the Atlantic to remote
Guayaba in the state of Matto Grosso, "Great Forest,"
Brazil, is a distance of nearly 2,400 miles, half of which is
open to the keels of vessels drawing nine feet. Binding to-
gether the tropics and the temperate zone, the Plata and its

PROTESTANT MISSIONS IN SOUTH AMERICA

tributaries constitute a highway by which the products of
both zones, in inconceivable volume, may reach the lines of
ocean traffic and thus be borne to every quarter of the
globe.

2. Physical Characteristics of the Countries. — The
basin drained by these waters offers a vast territory capable
of producing the most varied fruits of the earth. Great
forests still retain their treasures of precious woods. By
the Brazilian coast range, by the interior elevation of which
the Cordova mountains form a part, and by the vast eleva-
tion of the Cordillera of the Andes, the territory of these re-
publics is diversified and the character of their products de-
termined. Near the Atlantic coast in Argentina and
Uruguay are to be found rich pastures. The more elevated
interior also offers pasturage to the vast herds of sheep and
cattle which so long constituted the chief source of Argentine
wealth. The broad pampas of the Argentine and the fields
stretching northward to the wooded regions of the Chaco
have been found susceptible of producing the richest
harvests of our great cereals. From the wheat fields of
Argentina the golden grain may find its way with a
minimum of cost in transportation into the holds of ocean-
going vessels tied up to the river banks within a stone's
throw of the fields where stood the waving grain. The ap-
parently arid slopes of the eastern ranges of the Andes,
bursting into bloom and fruitage wherever the hand of man
directs the streams flowing from the melting snows, offer a
fruit-pro duci7ig area similar to that of California. Grapes,
apricots, peaches and other fruits are grown in quantities far
exceeding the demands of local consumption, and every
season Argentine grapes find their way to European markets
and increase the volume of the French vintage. The ex-
istence of vast mineral resources in the heart of tbes©

REPUBLICS OF THE PLATA RIVER

South American mountains is well established, but mining
operations have as yet been conducted only upon the most
limited scale.

3. Not less striking than the physical characteristics of
these three republics are the features common to the peoples
inhabiting the three countries. Of all the nations which
have grown up in Latin America, these have as a whole
preserved in greatest purity the racial characteristics of the
Spanish people. The aboriginal races which dwelt upon
the banks of the Plata and its tributaries proved refractory
to the influences of civilization or were destroyed by the
f ruel oppression of their conquerors. As a consequence the
blood of the red man has mingled scarcely at all with that
of the Castilian. Nevertheless some tincture of Indian
blood is to be found among these peoples and presents itself
in almost insensible gradations as one proceeds from the
entrance to the River Plata toward the far interior. Thus
the typical Uruguayan, whether of the seaport and capital
city of Montevideo, or of the rolling plains of the interior,
presents no visible trace of Indian ancestry. The Argen-
tinian shows a somewhat greater intermingling of Indian
blood, and yet its presence is scarcely noticeable in the pre-
vailing types one meets in the great city of Buenos Aires.
In fact, the crossing of the races, in so far as it took place
at all, occurred at so remote a period and so soon ceased
that the Castilian type has scarcely suffered any appreciable
modification. In Paraguay, however, save in the few
families whose chief pride it is that they have preserved
without taint their Spanish blood, the presence of the Indian
strain is more manifest.

The differences between the people of these three
countries are more largely due to the various currents of
immigration which have poured into their respective terri-

PROTESTANT MISSIONS IN SOUTH AMERICA

tories. Montevideo and its back-lying country seem to
have been more attractive to immigrants coming from the
Iberian Peninsula ; while Buenos Aires, Rosario and other
river towns of Argentina, as well as the agricultural regions
tributary to them, have become the homes of great numbers
of Italians. There exist, likewise, in the interior of
Argentina many colonies established by Italians, who have
entered upon agricultural pursuits and built up their homes
in the new country whose broad plains invite the plowshare
of the agriculturist. Paraguay has been less largely affected
by immigration, a sudden check having been given to the
progress of this country by the financial crisis of 1889.

Only in the forests of the interior of Paraguay and in the
region known as the Great Chaco to the westward of the
Parana and Paraguay rivers are there to be found any con-
siderable numbers of uncivilized Indians. There are, how-
ever, some thousands roaming these regions divided into
numerous tribes, speaking diverse languages, having received
scarcely any of the influences of civilization and not being
Christianized even in the Roman sense.

A broad generalization y based upon the movements of
population in this great region, might take the form of a
statement to the effect, that, as in North America there is
growing up a new type of the Anglo-Saxon race formed by
the fusion of many elements, not all of which are of Teutonic
origin, so in the temperate zone of South America there is
growing up a composite type whose constituent elements are
not all of Latin race. It would seem that as the Anglo-
Saxon race found in North America a new and vast field for
its development, so in South America the Latin peoples of
Southern Europe are to work out their grandest future.

4. As to their moral conditions, these republics offer the
general features resulting from the prevalence of a type of

REPUBLICS OF THE PLATA RIVER

Christianity which was transplanted from Southern Europe in
an age of darkness and incorporated into the social and
ecclesiastical organism, the native portion of which came
under the influence of the conqueror with only the most
superficial instruction and without any moral or spiritual
power.

At the period of the acquisition of its vast domain in the
Western world Spain had but recently been brought under
entire subjection to the authority of the Roman pontiff.
Only a few years before Isabella of Castile had sold her
jewels to defray the expenses of the voyage of discovery
undertaken by Christopher Columbus, and had, under the
influence of her ecclesiastical advisers and in obedience to
the statecraft of her husband, Ferdinand of Aragon, signed
away the ancient liberties and independence of the Spanish
Church, subjecting its ecclesiastical organization to the
hated control of the Roman Inquisition. That was the
death warrant of Spain, and its consequences have only
been fully reaped within most recent years in the final loss
of all her colonial possessions.

Many individuals had shown a ready response to the
spiritual movement known as the Reformation of the six-
teenth century. There were many who drank at the pure
fountain of Divine truth, the Word of God; many who
found the power of a new life in the simple faith of the gos-
pel ; many who in the time of trial sealed their confession
with their blood. Spain knew not the day of her visitation
and in consequence of a conspiracy of statecraft and priest-
craft rejected the truth. T^it, light of faith was quenched
in the fires kindled in the public squares of Salamanca,
Seville and Valladolid, by the hand of the civil power
subservient to the behests of the Inquisition. Uniformity
of religious confession was secured at the sacrifice of liberty

PROTESTANT MISSIONS IN SOUTH AMERICA

of conscience. Hence it came to pass that the type of
Christianity transplanted to the New World under the ban-
ners of the Spanish monarchy was the Christianity of Roman
Catholicism crystallized as to its dogma by the Council of
Trent and enforced at the point of the sword.

The Roman Catholic religion, or its representatives, must
be held responsible for the conditions which have grown up
under its tutelage during a period of nearly 400 years. The
Christianity of South America is of the Roman type. It
was brought into this continent by priest and friar supported
by every advantage arising from the subserviency of the
civil power to the dictates of the ecclesiastical authorities.
That its influence has been unfavorable to the diffusion of
the blessings of civilization, of general intelligence and of
high moral ideals would be evident upon a most superficial
survey of the facts. From the standpoint of the missionary
enterprise much might be said as to the facts manifest upon
the surface of social, civil and religious life in South
America. The large percentage of illiteracy, the rude
conditions of life, the prevalence of low ideals as to personal
morality and conjugal fidelity, the character of the priest-
hood and the widespread conviction among all classes that
vows of celibacy afford no guarantee of personal purity, —
all this and much more might be dwelt upon in fullest de-
tails in support of the declaration that Roman Catholicism
has, in all Latin America, been tried and found wanting.
But all such argument, even when drawn out in fullest de-
tail, would but touch the surface of the question at issue.
There are enough blemishes upon our Christian civilization,
even where Protestantism has commanded a controlling in'
fluence, to give at least the appearance of cogent rejoinder.
Not all Protestant ministers are true to their vows. Educa-
tion and enlightenment do not reach as they ought the

REPUBLICS OF THE PLATA RIVER

lowest masses of our city populations. We have much to
deplore and much to remedy before we can rely upon such
comparison to give conclusive answer to the doubter or the
opponent.

Back of all questions as to the comparative fruits of the
two systems, each of which claims to be the genuine ex-
ponent of the religion of Christ, there lies the question of
fundajneiital truth. Fundamental to all this controversy
and to the question of duty as to the enterprise for the evan-
gelization of South America is the question as to the vital
principles of these two systems.

It is the fundamental principle of Protestantism and, as
we believe, of New Testament Christianity, that the human
mind and conscience are to be brought into direct relation-
ship with God through Christ as the great revealer and the
one and only Saviour. Protestantism interposes no human
ministry nor any material ordinance between the human
soul and its Creator. Hence the completest sense of indi-
vidual responsibility and the highest conception of personal
privilege. Every man stands before his God and to Him
alone must answer for his obedience to Divine truth and his
acceptance of the provisions of Divine grace. With this
sense of individual responsibility there comes the deepest
conviction of personal dignity and liberty. No man's con-
science is bound at the feet of priest or pontiff. No man is
bound to accept any dogma or teaching save upon the testi-
mony of his reason held obedient to Divine light alone. No
man is dependent for his access to the treasures of Divine
grace upon the will and intention of a human priest. Grace
comes to the human heart out of the riches of infinite love
testified by the Spirit of God Himself.

On the other hand, Romanism commands obedience not
only to that which is clearly of Divine authority as wit-

97-

* PROTESTANT MISSIONS IN SOUTH AMERICA

nessed by the Scriptures, but also to those definitions of
truth and rules of conduct which may be prescribed by a
so-called infallible ''doctor" and ''teacher" seated upon
the throne of pretended apostolic authority. It supplements
and finally displaces in the common thought of the people
the one and only mediation of Jesus Christ. It converts
human duty into a means of propitiating Divine favor and
compensating for violation of the Divine law. It interposes
between the soul and its Creator and Redeemer innumerable
mediators in saint and angel and the Blessed Mother of our
Lord. It puts into the hand of a priest, fallible and erring,
the tremendous ministry of an indispensable medium through
which by the sacraments, valid in his hand alone, saving
grace may come to the sinful heart. It binds the operation
of the Divine Spirit to outward material ordinance. At the
altar and in the confessional it subjects the believer to the
authority and command of the human priest in whose hand
the believer is taught to see the key to the treasures of sal-
vation and to the Kingdom of Heaven. The Roman system
in consequence of its very nature, makes it impossible for
the Christian believer to be assured of his acceptance with
God. In harmony with this statement the Council of Trent
declared that, "while no one ought to doubt of the mercy
of God, it is impossible that any shall have complete assur-
ance that he has secured that mercy."

JV/iaf Christian life and experience may be under the
Roman system, the testimony of those most faithful to its
commands may best determine. And here it would be seen
that the joy of conscious salvation and the highest concep-
tion of Christian privilege are to be found only in those
who have learned, as have some souls all through the ages, to
go beyond priest and sacrament and find the joy of pardon
and assured hope of eternal life in humble dependence upon

REPUBLICS OF THE PLATA RIVER

the promises of God in Jesus Christ. To Martin Luther,
while yet seeking as the humble monk faithful to all the
commands of his order yet despairing of his salvation, there
came from a brother monk, whose name is not known, but
who had found despite traditional teaching the direct way
of access to the throne of grace, the message, "Brother
Martin, hast thou not read that 'the just shall live by
faith ' ? " Even the Superior General of his order reminded
him in his despair that in the creed he must daily say, " I
believe in the forgiveness of sins." It is the universal testi-
mony that it is only in the acceptance of the simple truths
of the gospel, and by the way of personal faith in Christ
that a human soul may enter into the conscious possession
of salvation.

Here, then, is the supreme ?notzve to missionary work
among Romanists. It is found, not in any necessity to
teach them fundamental truths which they hold in common
with ourselves ; nor is it solely for the purpose of social re-
form, though that will undoubtedly be a final result. It is
to bear testimony to what we believe to be the highest priv-
ileges of the Christian believer, to those who claim, as do
we, the Christian name. We would bear to them the joy
we ourselves have found in the message of salvation through
faith in Christ alone. Hence Protestant missions in Roman
Catholic countries are not destructive, but constructive, in
their motive and end.

II. Missions in Paraguay.— I. The history of Par a-
gtiay offers a succession of events of the most striking char-
acter. Its capital city, Asuncion, was the first permanent
settlement of the Spaniard in eastern South America. An
earlier enterprise which sought to establish a colony upon the
present site of the city of Buenos Aires had been over-
whelmed in disaster.- Asuncion became, and for many

PROTESTANT MISSIONS IN SOUTH AMERICA

years remained, the centre of Spanish influence, although
situated a thousand miles from tide water. After the Co-
lonial period followed the independent national life. But the
Republic was such only in name, and after a period of an-
archy the famous Dr. Francia succeeded in establishing him-
self in a dictatorship which lasted nearly thirty years. Upon
his decease his authority was transmitted to the Lopez fam-
ily. The comparatively mild and beneficent authority of
the elder Lopez became in the hands of his son and suc-
cessor the most odious of tyrannies. This man precipitated
his country into a contest, single-handed, with the three na-
tions of Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay, and for five years
sustained his authority and maintained his position against
the allies by resorting to most cruel expedients. His peo-
ple were compelled to military service, without regard to age
and almost to sex. Every breath of protest was suffocated
by the halter or suppressed by inquisitorial means. In the
Five Years* War it is estimated that seven-eighths of the
population perished and the country was left in the extreme
depths of poverty. After it was over it was found that there
was scarcely one man to six women left alive.

2. This period of anguish led, notwithstanding, to the
opening of the doors, and among the earliest movements of
the period of peace was one looking to the establishment of
a Protestant mission in that country. The initiative was
taken by Paraguayans themselves, who were convinced that
the future welfare of their country could not have much to
expect from an ecclesiastical organization whose prominent
representatives had been the blind instruments of the tyranny
of Lopez. An invitation was sent to the authorities of the
Mission of the Methodist Episcopal Church in Buenos Aires
offering the use of a valuable property in the centre of the
capital city, provided church and schools should be at once

lOO

REPUBLICS OF THE PLATA RIVER

established. This was early in the seventies. It was not
until 1886, however, that mission work was formally estab-
lished. In that year Dr. Thomas B. Wood, accompanied
by Rev. John Villanueva reached Asuncion. The work
thus inaugurated has continued without interruption and the
friend of missions would find in this closing year of the
century an organized church in the capital of the Republic,
with others associated with it in five or six interior villages.
Two schools, for boys and girls respectively, offer facilities
for the Christian education of youth and are attended re-
spectively by 150 and 130 pupils.

3. In connection with this mission there took place a
memorable conflict for the vindication of the civil status of
Protestantisin. Although there had been for many years a
not inconsiderable foreign population of Protestant origin
there was no provision for the legal recognition of marriages
solemnized by others than priests of the Roman Catholic
Church. Through many months of incessant toil and watch-
fulness Dr. Wood conducted a campaign which resulted in
liberalizing the legislative provisions of the country ; so that
without sacrifice of their religious conviction, Protestants
might secure the sanction of the civil law for the foundation
of their families and homes. As a result many of those who
had been living in virtual wedlock without such sanction
imm.ediately set themselves right before the community.
Testimony has been abundant as to the power of the moral
impulse given by Protestantism. In a field so full of inter-
est the Methodist Episcopal Church has been the only or-
ganized missionary agency for the prosecution of evangelis-
tic work among the Paraguayan people.

4. South American Missionary Society. — The work of the
South American Missionary Society of England, has re-
sulted in a remarkable triumph in connection with the mis-

lOI

PROTESTANT MISSIONS IN SOUTH AMERICA

sion to the Chaco Indians. The Society's heroic founder,
Captain Allen Gardiner, wrote a most touching address to
one Chaco tribe as he lay dying at Banner Cove. Yet
thirty-seven years elapsed before the first party departed for
the Chaco. When in 1888 they reached the field, they
found that the way had been prepared by an age-old tradi-
tion that some day men, not Indians but like them, should
come speaking their language and teaching them about the
spirit world. To these messengers, great respect must be
paid.

These people were usually so lawless and bloodthirsty that
the Paraguayan Cabinet desired to furnish the missionaries
with a military escort ; and judging from their record and
their cruel customs, such as burying live children with a
dead parent, selling children of slain enemies, etc., their ap-
prehensions were well-founded. The party went unattended,
however, and while its gallant leader, Mr. W. B. Grubb,
had years later a thrilling escape from an apparent friend,
life has been graciously spared.

The work has been most wearisome, but whether suffer-
ing from the fierce sun, or wading for miles waist-deep in
water, these gallant Englishmen have not murmured. Their
first convert was baptized in 1899, and many others are un-
dergoing preparation. Two stations, the central one with
the brief name of Waikthlatingmangyalwa, are manned and
the prospects are bright. Travelers and the Paraguayan
press testify to the great results already achieved — protection
afforded the tribes against dishonest traders who deal in
deadly intoxicants, the saving from death of doomed infants,
and winning the confidence of the tribes in many ways, so
that one finds in the columns of " La Democracia " this
statement : '' The pagans have no laws. But yesterday they
would have exulted in the death of a white man ; to-day the

REPUBLICS OF THE PLATA RIVER

same people rise up spontaneously and unbidden, like one
man, to do justly and punish crime."

IIL Missions in Uruguay. — i. Historical — As though
in consequence of the savage courage with which the origi-
nal inhabitants of the northern shores of the Plata repelled
the first entrance of the white man upon their territory,
there remain no traces of the original dwellers in that beau-
tiful region. The history of Uruguay is closely interwoven
with that of Argentina and Brazil. It stands as ^ *' Buffer
State " between these two competitors for the first place in
the list of South American nations, and for control of the
great water-way through which access must be had to the in-
terior of the continent. Although the decree of Pope Alex-
ander VI., adjudging to Portugal all regions discovered and
colonized to the eastward of a given meridian and to Spain
all territory to the westward, was intended to preserve peace
between the competing crowns, it proved a source of con-
tinual conflict. Under that decree Uruguay would have
fallen to Portugal and Portugal claimed it. Spain, how-
ever, saw that her control of her own possessions on the
continent required the command of the Plata River.
Hence her resistance to Portugal's claim. Brazil and Ar-
gentina inherited the contention which had led to armed
conflict between their mother countries. The population of
Uruguay was Spanish, but Brazil established and long
maintained' a fortified post on the banks of the great river
near the junction of its main tributaries. When independ-
ence was established, the Uruguayans conceived the desire
to maintain themselves in separate national existence. Her
Immortal Thirty Three vindicated the claim and, aided by
the mutual jealousies of her powerful neighbors, Uruguay,
otherwise called The Oriental Republic of Uruguay, came
to be one of the family of South American nations. Her

103

PROTESTANT MISSIONS IN SOUTH AMERICA

independence is guaranteed, not so much by her own in-
ternal resources, nor by the courage of her sons proven on
many a battlefield, as by the fact that the peace of South
America demands that neither Brazil nor Argentina shall
have control of the Plata River. Hence the existence of
Uruguay as a '^ Buffer State."

2. With her 840,000 inhabitants enjoying the abundant
wealth of her natural resources, Uruguay is one of the most
prosperous and progressive of South American countries.
Her capital city, Montevideo y with over 250,000 inhabi-
tants, is one of the handsomest cities in all America, North
or South. Situated near the mouth of the great river, with
dozens of steamship lines maintaining connection with dis-
tant Europe and North America, this city receives and re-
flects all that is most progressive in the material civilization
of our age. She has also responded to the movements of
thought which have made her one of the most intelligent and
liberal communities in South America. As is Montevideo,
so are the beautiful towns which stud Uruguay's interior,
united to the capital by the steel of her railways.

3. Let us rapidly review the present status of Protestant-
ism in Uruguay. Pursuing this investigation, we land first
in the capital city to find close by the sea-wall, overlooking
the broad expanse of river and ocean, a substantial edifice
which represents the existence of the Church of England^
ministering to the large number of English-speaking residents
of that communion. Its Lafone Hall, an assembly room
attached to the church proper, perpetuates the name and
the faith of an English gentleman who recognized the re-
sponsibility of a Christian man to perpetuate the faith in
which he himself had been reared. In the earliest period
of the history of Protestantism in South America, Mr.
Lafone devoted his wealth and his personal influence to the

104

REPUBLICS OF THE PLATA RIVER

movement which he believed indispensable to the highest
welfare of his adopted country. At Fray Bentos, the site
of the famous factories whence comes the world-known
Liebig's Extract, and in El Salto, there exist other commu-
nities of the Church of England.

In the midst of the fruitful wheat region of southern
Uruguay flourishing colonies from northern Italy maintain
the organized existence of the Waldensian Churchy that
church which maintained through all the centuries of the
Dark Ages the fires of evangelical faith in the Alpine val-
leys of northern Italy. The work of the Waldensian
Church comprises a central pastorate in the Waldensian
colony with some six congregations organized in places to
which offshoots from this community have gone.

In Montevideo, Paysandu and El Salto the Salvation
Army has unfurled its standard. Among some of the Ger-
man and Swiss colonies are to be found organized congre-
gations of the Reformed Faith and these recognize as their
representative in the capital the Luthern Churchy which
holds its worship in the language of Luther and uses Luther's
Bible.

Most widely extended of all the organized movements of
Protestantism in Uruguay is the Methodist Episcopal Churchy
distinguished by the fact that its largest work, both in church
and school, is conducted in the vernacular, the Spanish
language. Its central church in Montevideo, founded by
the Rev. J. F. Thomson, D. D., in 1868, stands as the cen-
tre of a group of churches, or congregations, situated in
different portions of the same city, six in number. The
weekly attendance upon services may be stated at 800. In
its Sunday-schools are not less than 600 children and youth.
Its Boys* High School wins patronage from many influential
families; its Girls* College is attended by 150 pupils. The

105

PROTESTANT MISSIONS IN SOUTH AMERICA

interior stations of this mission are to be found in the im-
portant departmental towns of Durazno, Trinidad and El
Salto. From these centres lines of itinerant service reach
many smaller villages and the central establishments of large
estates devoted to the cattle industry. The history of this
mission with the testimony of many of those who have
found the impulse and power of a new life attests both the
need and the success of the work.

IV. Argentina. — i. Natural Advantages. — The Argen-
tine Republic, by its geographical position, its vast extent,
its situation in the temperate zone, the variety and rich-
ness of its natural products seems destined to be the radial
point of civilization in the Southern Hemisphere. In all
the particulars suggested, its position bears closest analogy
to that of the United States in the Northern Hemisphere.
Its territory extends from the Tropic of Capricorn to within
ten degrees of the Antarctic Circle. Its extensive seaboard
on the Atlantic assures its ready communication with all the
centres of modern civilization. Its river system, including
the Plata, the Parana, the Rio Negro, the Rio Colorado,
and the Santa Cruz provides the water ways for internal
commerce. Its climate is most favorable to the strongest
development, physical and intellectual, of its inhabitants.

The invitation that Argentina offers to immigration be-
cause of the above facts may be estimated by the fact that
European immigrants to its territory greatly exceed in num-
bers those who come to the United States, in proportion to
the respective populations. In a single year nearly 300,000
immigrants, chiefly from Southern Europe, entered this
country, and this movement of population has not ceased at
any time during the periods of financial depression which
have succeeded one another in that region.

2. In its history Argentina h^s given indications of the
106

REPUBLICS OF THE PLATA RIVER

leading position it is destined to hold among the Latin popu-
lations of the new world. First of Spanish Colonies in
South America to vindicate its independence, Argentina
became the leader and liberator of neighboring peoples.
Her sons, organized into an army of liberty, carried her
triumphs over Spanish dominion far into the regions of the
Upper Andes in Bolivia. Under the leadership of General
San Martin, they passed the summits of the Andes in a
march comparable with that of Hannibal in crossing the
Alps, and gave independence to Chile. Borne upon the
waters of the Pacific these men carried their arms into Peru
and, in the final battle of Ayacucho, gave victory to the
cause of independence.

3. Closely bound to Europe by the highways of com-
merce, Argentina was the first to receive the ideas of
progress and religious freedom. Her institutions are the
most liberal and her policy the most progressive of any
country of Spanish America. The Reverend John F.
Thomson for forty-five years a resident of that country,
summarizes its characteristics in the following paragraphs :
"Argentina is the land of plenty ; plenty of room and
plenty of food. If the actual population were divided into
families of ten persons, each would have a farm of eight
square miles, with ten horses, fifty-four cows and 186 sheep,
and after they had eaten their fill of bread they would have
half a ton of wheat and corn to sell or send to the hungry
nations. There is for all an abundance of peaches, oranges,
grapes and figs. Where there is one such family now, forty,
if they will cultivate the eight miles, may live opulently in
the future.

" The climate is incomparable, that of Los Angeles not ex-
cepted. For 250 days in the year there is nothing to be
seen in the sky but the white and blue of the Argentine flag

107

PROTESTANT MISSIONS IN SOUTH AMERICA

— no dark clouds nor angry storms. The winters are mild,
snow falling only in the extreme south or in the higher spurs
of the Andes. The summer heat, which in most of the
country is no greater than that of Washington, is never
charged with humidity, and is, therefore, helpful and not
harmful to life. Would that I could tell the following fact
to the thousands of my fellow creatures who, though pos-
sessed of ample means, are wasting under the cruel blight
of pulmonary consumption. In the hills of Cordeba, thirty
hours' journey from the port of Buenos Aires, we have a
heaven-made sanitarium. If those in whose lungs tuber-
culosis has already made considerable progress, would throw
drugs to the dogs and go into those hills and only breathe,
every breath would bring them life and respite from pain.

^' The United States, Russia, and India must reckon with
Argentina as a wheat producer. With a population of less
than 5,000,000 she already exports 100,000 tons of that
grain in a year. It is a delight often met with there to look
on a field of twenty square miles, with the golden ears stand-
ing even and close together, and not a weed nor a stump of a
tree nor a stone as big as a man's fist to be seen or found in
the whole area."

The significance of its position in the co?nmercial world
he states as follows : *' The United States is far from being
awake to her commercial interests in South America. Let
me give you some facts : You ought to make hats as good
and cheap as anybody. Argentina buys 4,000 dozen every
year from England and only 260 dozen from you. Of
boots and shoes in whose manufacture you lead the world,
6,534 dozen pairs are annually imported from France, Italy
and England, and only 137 dozen from this country.
Argentina produces the finest clothing wool to be found in
the world. The United States ought to, and some day

108

REPUBLICS OF THE PLATA RIVER

will, seek to buy every ounce of that wool, work it into
cloth and sell it to the people in all this western continent.
This is one of the greatest manufactures and business enter-
prises that yet lie invitingly but undeveloped before you."

Her status as the liberator of the continent and the leader
in all movements of progress is thus summarized :
"Argentina stands in South America, not only as the first
free nation, but as the liberator and founder of other nations
that to-day are free, and well may the lovers of freedom in
the whole Latin race be proud of her. But she is also the
first in educational advantages. Her public schools, her
colleges and universities are the best in the Spanish-speak-
ing world. About thirty years ago when General Sarmiento
was in Washington as Argentina minister, he was elected
President by his fellow-citizens. He took up the exalted
duties of his office full of the inspirations he had received in
this country and one of the first things he did was to give
Dr. William Goodfellow, an American missionary returning
to the United States, a commission to send out a number of
educated women to establish normal schools in Argentina,
which they did, and were royally rewarded for their labor.
That the deserving poor might not be deterred from the
privileges of that kind of training, numerous scholarships
were established, the holders of which received ^300 a year
from the government and all the books they needed in a
five years' course of study. As the result of the good work
going on for the third of a century there are more highly
educated young women in that republic than in any other
country in South America. Similar institutions exist for
young men, and the government is exceedingly generous in
the encouragement of talent in every useful department of
study."

In view of the facts thus brought forward, it is not too
109

PROTESTANT MISSIONS IN SOUTH AMERICA

much to say that Argentina offers the most inviting field for
missionary effort to-day.

4. Beginnings. — The history of Protestant missions in
Argentina many be divided into three periods : First, move-
ments in preparation, from 1820 to 1867 ; second, the
inception of work in the Spanish language, from 1867 to
1870 ; third, the period of rapid development, beginning
with the year 1870.

During the first of these periods no evangelistic work
could be undertaken in the Spanish tongue. The decrees
of the dictator, Rosas, forbade all propagandism and the
circulation of the Scriptures in the popular language.
Hence the only representative of Protestantism during this
period were churches organized for worship in the English
language, with here and there similar churches in the
Protestant colonies of German and Swiss origin. Such
work began about the year 1820 under the leadership
of English residents of the city of Buenos Aires. The
first Protestant mission in that city was of the Presbyterian
Church. The large English population led early to the
establishment of chaplaincies and later of regularly organ-
ized parishes under the auspices of the Church of England
and of the Scotch Presbyterian Church.

Some of the earliest movements of Protestantism were
under the auspices of the American and the British and
Foreign Bible Societies. Their agents and colporteurs car-
ried the Word of God far and wide and prepared the way
for the larger movements that were destined to take place in
the later years. The first recorded expression of a desire
for the preaching of the gospel in the Spanish language
dates from 1864, when the Reverend Mr. Milne, agent of
the American Bible Society, received such an expression on
the part of one to whom he had offered the Scriptures.

REPUBLICS OF THE PLATA RIVER

In the city of Buenos Aires, in response to this and other
requests, was begun the evangelistic movement under the
auspices of the Methodist Episcopal Church. Under the
ministry of the Reverend William Goodfellow there had
been brought into the Church John F. Thomson, from
childhood a resident of Argentina, whose education in a
college of the United States had fitted him for the employ-
ment of his eminent abilities in the service of his adopted
country. The larger development of the work began about
the year 1870, under the leadership of Reverend Drs. H.
G. Jackson, Thomas B. Wood and John F. Thomson.

5. Let us pass in review t\\Q prese?it status of Protest-
antism in this vast territory. And here must be placed first
the work of the Bible Societies. The attention accorded to the
Word of God may be estimated from the fact that the
Scriptures have been circulated and eagerly received through-
out the territory of Argentina. The spirit of tolerance, the
result of the progressive spirit of the people and their
liberality, is shown by the almost entire absence of fanatical
hostility or violence during the whole history of missions in
Argentina.

It must be remembered that the scope of mission work is
determined by the fact that, together with the large numbers
of immigrants from Southern Europe, chiefly of Latin race,
are to be found in considerable numbers people of Anglo-
Saxon and Teutonic origin. From the early decades of this
century many English merchants, bankers, artisans, and
Scotch and Irish sheep farmers sought a home in this
hospitable region. In recent years the number of English
residents has largely increased ; so that it may be said that
in Buenos Aires, and the country immediately tributary to
that city, there are not less than 20,000 English-speaking
people. Many colonies in the interior, as well as com-

iix

PROTESTANT MISSIONS IN SOUTH AMERICA

mercial circles in the large cities, include many Germans
and Swiss.

Hence the work of Protestantism in Argentina is two-
fold. It must take care of its own, establishing churches
and schools for the religious and intellectual culture of
English-speaking people and those of other nationalities
whose religious faith is that of Protestantism. It must also
respond to the eager welcome held out by large numbers in
the native communities to the gospel message. Its action
in this latter phase is therefore of the nature of religious
propaganda.

Of this second department of Christian work it should be
said that it would be tmtrue to the facts to regard Protest-
ant missions as priinarily of proselytizing tendency. The
truth is that in Argentina, as in all other communities of
Spanish America, there is a very widespread estrangement
on the part of the people from the traditional faith. It can
no longer be said that these countries are strictly, much less
exclusively, Roman Catholic. The revolt of intelligent and
well-educated men against Rome is very general, and has
led multitudes into the position of unbelievers or of those
entirely indifferent to religious teaching and duty. Among
the masses of the population there is little knowledge of, and
widespread indifference to, Christian truth. Rome has lost
her hold upon large numbers of these communicants, and
this is not the work of Protestant propaganda, but the re-
action produced by Roman dogma and practice. The
enterprise which undertakes the proclamation of Christian
truth and the establishment of the institutions of a pure
Christianity in Argentina is not destructive, but rather con-
structive in its nature. The gospel is to be preached to
those who know it not, or who have been carried away by
infidelity and indifferentism.

112

REPUBLICS OF THE PLATA RIVER

It would also be a misrepresentation of the nature of the
Protestant movement to hold it as an intrusion, unsought
and undesired, into the territory of another form of Chris-
tian belief. Every important movement of Protestantism in
these countries has had its origin in the response to a call
coming from these countries themselves and from the native
people. Everywhere are to be found those who long for
better things and who have sent out their cry into the
Christian world until at last it has been heard and heeded.

6. The natural centre and radial point for all intellectual
and moral movements in the River Plata countries is the
great city of Buenos Aires. As the commercial emporium,
the political capital and the social centre, it holds a preeminent
position and exerts a widespread influence. Sooner or later
everybody gets to Buenos Aires. Any movement, there-
fore, which makes itself heard in the capital will send out
its echoes to the farthest borders of the republic. This city
of more than 750,000 inhabitants, with its vast trade and
commerce, its culture and its social prestige, offers an in-
viting field. Conditions are the more favorable in con-
sequence of the presence of large numbers of newcomers.
Here are to be found not less than 300,000 Italians, 100,000
Spaniards from the Peninsula, with many others of various na-
tionalities. The population is in a constant state of change.
Humanity in vast masses is here in motion. Multitudes
have been transplanted from the homes of their childhood
and the traditional influences which there surrounded them
into a new atmosphere, where there is much to stimulate
thought, to arouse inquiry and to inspire with the purpose
of a new life. It is, therefore, possible to secure for
the gospel a wide hearing under most favorable circum-
stances. It consequently comes to pass that in this great
city, besides its churches for English and German Protestant

PROTESTANT MISSIONS IN SOUTH AMERICA

residents, there are to be found in Spanish-speaking congre-
gations enough converted Spaniards to make a large church
in Madrid, enough ItaHans to form a body of Christian wit-
nesses for Rome herself, while others of many nationalities
have heard and received the message.

The Church of England has here its original congrega-
tion, St. John's, from which they have gone out to the im-
mediate suburbs in Barracas, Quilmes, Flores, Belgrano and
San Martin. All these minister to English-speaking people.
But the mother Church of the English Reformation is not
wholly unmindful of her origin and her mission. Under
the direction of the Rev. William C. Morris and the pat-
ronage of the South American Missionary Society, of Lon-
don, there has been established in the Palermo district a
numerous congregation with schools frequented by almost
I, GOO children.

The Church of Luther has also its exponent in this cos-
mopolitan city, while the gospel is preached in the French
language by a minister who came forth from the Reformed
Church of France.

The recent tendency to isolated individual enterprise in
connection with Christian missions has manifested itself in
the presence of several Christian gentlemen who, while sup-
porting themselves, have embarked in Christian work. In-
fluences going forth from Harley House, London, and the
Keswick Movement are here bearing valuable fruit. Con-
gregations, Sunday-schools and the Quilmes Orphanage
represent this movement. The standard of the Salvation
Army has also been unfurled in this, the second metropolis of
the Latin race. Mission halls, and rescue work, with all
the characteristic features of that religious movement, are
here to be found.

Of all the organized agencies of Protestantism that which
114

REPUBLICS OF THE PLATA RIVER

has most widely extended its influence among the Spanish-
speaking people of this city, is the missw?i of the Methodist
Episcopal Board. Its mother church, established in 1836,
continues its work with unabated zeal. It has its offshoots
in Enghsh work in what is called '' The Boca" or maritime
section of the city, and in Lomas de Zamora. Its larger
activities date from the year 1887 and have resulted in the
establishment of some six Spanish-speaking congregations,
grouped around the central church which occupies the
handsome building erected by the missionary board. The
Women's Foreign Missionary Society has here established a
Girls' Boarding and Day School, supported by the Christian
women of the United States.

7. Proceeding along the great highways afforded by the
development of railway construction and by the gift of na-
ture in the great river, missionary work has reached almost
every province in the Republic. In Rosarioy the new
Chicago of the South, are to be found the Church of Eng-
land, the Methodist Episcopal Church and the Salvation
Army, each prosecuting its work in both English and Span-
ish. Proceeding up the river Parana, on its right bank at
the City of Parana, capital of the Argentine Mesopotamia,
is another centre of mission work established by the Metho-
dist Church, whose lines of influence have extended to other
places in this wealthy province, such as La Paz, Tala, Colon,
and Concordia. Westward from Buenos Aires the lines of
influence have reached the far distant mountain walls of the
Andes. In the cities of Mendoza, and San Juan, — capitals
of provinces of the same names, — as well as in the city
San Luis, are Methodist churches. The traditional centre
of learning and church influence in Cordova has opened its
doors to the messengers of peace ; while far to the north-
ward, Tucuman and other places have not been forgotten.

PROTESTANT MISSIONS IN SOUTH AMERICA

The great province of Buenos Aires in its capital city, La
Plata, and in its department towns, Mercedes, Chivicoy,
Dolores, Balcarce and Bahia Blanca, are centres of Prot-
estant influence. Far to the southward in the valley of the
Chiihtct river are to be found the homes of numerous Welsh
farmers, whose pioneers entered into conflict with the wilder-
ness and have made it to blossom like the rose. These
faithful Christians have carried with them their Bibles and
their faith.

8. Still farther to the southward almost where the storms
beat forever over the bold headland of Cape Horn, in the
wild regions of Fuegia, are the missions which have grown
out of the heroic sacrifice of Captain Allen Gardiner. Dar-
win himself confessed that the success of this mission was a
complete answer to his skepticism as to the possibilities of
the race which inhabited that desolate region. To the South
A77ie7'ica7t Missio7iary Society belongs the honor of having
maintained this lighthouse at the extreme south of the con-
tinent amidst a pagan darkness.

9. Thus Protestantism has responded to the call ; has set
in motion the influences growing out of the proclamation of
the gospel of Christ ; and has achieved in eastern South
America the only valid demonstration of the Divine author-
ity and power of the religion of Christ — its fruits in the
heart and life of those who have received it.

116

CHILE

CHILE
By Rev. Ira H. La Fetra

Santiago, Chile
For Twenty -two years a Missionary in South America

I. Name.— The origin of the name Chile, is uncertain.
At the time of the conquest of Peru, all the region lying
to the south of the land of the Incas was known to them
and to the other aboriginal peoples inhabiting the highlands
of Bolivia by this name. The word chile in the Quechua,
the language of the early inhabitants of a great part of
Bolivia and Peru, means frost or cold, and was probably
given to the regions of the far south on account of their
colder climate and vast snow-covered mountain ranges.

n. Geography.— I. Z^r^//^?z.— Chile is the most south-
erly of the republics of South America. It occupies the
narrow strip of territory lying between the Andes and the
Pacific. It extends from the Sama river on the north to
Cape Horn, and includes all the straits of Magellan and the
greater part of the island of Tierra del Fuego. It is nearly
2,700 miles long, but its average breadth is less than 200
miles.

2. The northern zone, reaching 800 miles to the Huasco
river, is a rainless desert with no vegetation except in the
small valleys lying at the foot of the Andes, where streams
make fertile a few square miles. The weather is mild and
equable during the whole of the year. There are points on

119

PROTESTANT MISSIONS IN SOUTH AMERICA

the coast where the temperature does not vary more than
fifteen degrees during the year.

3. The central zone, stretching 800 miles farther south to
the Nueva Imperial river, is largely agricultural ; but over a
large part the rainfall is not sufficient for the crops. Irri-
gation on an extensive scale is employed. In the mountain
valleys the winters are cold enough for frosts but on the
coast this temperature is not reached.

4. The southern zone has abundant rainfall ; much of it
is well wooded and affords excellent grazing and wheat lands
when cleared. Large sections of it are occupied by the
aboriginal race of Indians, who still live as they have
lived from prehistoric times. At the far south the winter is
severe.

III. Mineral Products, — i. The three northern prov-
inces contain the wonderfully rich deposits of nitrate of soda^
or Chile saltpetre, which have yielded so many fortunes and
are still a chief source of revenue for the Chilean govern-
ment. These deposits lie on the eastern slope of the Coast
Range and were undoubtedly left by the evaporation of an
inland sea, formed when the Andes, which are of newer
geological formation than the Coast Range, were lifted from
the depths of the Atlantic.

The nitrate, which is one of the best of known fertilizers,
resembles common salt in appearance ; the deposits are from
one to five metres thick and are covered with the drifted
sand and dirt from the hills. In 1899 some 3,000,000 tons
were exported, and it is calculated that this amount can be
taken out annually for the next fifty years. Why nitrate
should have been deposited from an evaporating inland sea
is yet a mystery. The most probable theory is that the
common salt then deposited, has, by some chemical proc-
ess in that desert region, given up its chlorine and taken

120

CHILE

oxygen and nitrogen from the air under electric or other
influence.

2. Other Mining Products. — Copper is found in great
abundance throughout nearly the whole extent of the two
northern zones. Many rich mines are worked and numer-
ous others of low grade ore are awaiting foreign enterprise
and better methods of extracting. Silver mines of great
value are worked in the northern zone, and others with al-
most millions in sight lie idle for lack of capital. Gold,
lead, mercury, manganese and other metals are found.
Borax is a source of wealth. Marble of beautiful grade is
quarried. In the southern central zone are extensive de-
posits of coal.

IV. Agriculture.— Wheat of excellent quality is grown
in large quantities in the central zone and as an article of
export is second only to the minerals. There are vast areas
devoted to grape culture, and wine is an important article
of export. Barley, oats, corn, rye, alfalfa, flax and hemp
are grown for domestic use. All the semi-tropical fruits ^
oranges, lemons, figs, cherimoyas, lucumas and other native
fruits, as well as apples, peaches, pears, apricots, nectarines
and melons are extensively raised.

Wool and hides are shipped out of the country, and in
the far south much timber is cut.

V. Industries. — i. Comparatively little manufacturing
is done in the country, although various raw materials are
at hand. Until recently no attempt was made to foster
national industries by protective duties. Since the adop-
tion of a protective system numerous small and some large
factories are growing up.

2. Present Manufactures. — Mining machinery, agricul-
tural implements, railway locomotives, street, passenger and
freight .cars, carriages and wagons, sawmills and flouring

PROTESTANT MISSIONS IN SOUTH AMERICA

mills, woolen goods, wrapping papers, cardboard, envelopes,
paper sacks, shoes, etc., are now manufactured, some of them
in quantities sufficient to supply the whole country.

VI. Commerce. — i. Character and Location. — The
commerce of a country is very largely determined by the
nature of its products. The greater part of the Chile com-
merce is devoted to export and import trade, although there
is a large amount of business done between the ports along
the desert mining region and those farther south in the
agricultural districts.

2. Ports. — Valparaiso is the chief distributing centre,
although Concepcion nine miles from its port, Talcahuano,
and Iqidque, import largely, the former being the centre of
the wheat interests, and the latter of the nitrate industry.
Other ports are Coquimbo, Caldera, Huasco, Chanaral,
Lota, Coronel, Valdivia and Puerto Montt.

3. The imports include nearly everything used in the fam-
ily and the industries except agricultural products, and raw
materials. The wholesale business is chiefly in the hands
of the English and German merchants and retail business
in the hands of the French, Italian and Spanish tradesmen.

VII. Population. — i. Principal Cities. — The Republic
has about 3,000,000 inhabitants, a large part of them
gathered in the cities and towns, the urban population be-
ing unusually large for a country doing so little manufactur-
ing. Santiago, the capital, has 256,000 people; Valparaiso,
122,000; Concepcion, 39,900; Iquique, 33,000; Talca,
33,000; Chilian, 28,000; Serena, 15,000; Antofagasta,
i3j5ooj Curico, 12,500. There are many smaller cities
with from 5,000 to 10,000 people.

2. Races. — The dominant race is of Spanish origin while
the greater part of the laboring class is largely of Indian
blood, mingled with the Spanish. These laborers, ox peoneSf

122

CHILE

are a hardy, industrious race, intensely patriotic, but unfor-
tunately addicted to intemperance. The seaport towns have
a goodly number ol foreigners. During the last two dec-
ades the government has made considerable effort to pro-
mote immigration, and German, French, English and Scotch
colonies have been begun in the far south. Some of these
colonists have prospered ; but largely for lack of protection
against marauders, who steal their cattle and rob them of
their money, many of them seek the cities for protection.

VIII. Government. — i. Its Character. — Chile is nomi-
nally a republic, but it might be more accurately designated
an oligarchy. A hundred families with their branches hold
nearly all the responsible positions of the government. It is
a unitarian system rather than a federation ; as the twenty-
three provinces into which the country is divided, are not
so many states with individual legislatures.

2. Congress. — All laws are made by congress, which is
composed of a senate with thirty-four members, half elected
every third year, and a chamber of deputies of ninety-four
members, elected once in three years. Both houses are
elected directly by the people. The members do not need
to be residents of the provinces or departments from which
they are elected, and as they do not receive salaries, only
those who live in or near Santiago, or are men of wealth
and leisure, can afford to be congressmen.

3. The right of suffrage is limited to men who can read
and write and who have either property or a regular income
from their labor. The number of electors is small. The
senators and deputies to be elected are formed into groups
and a system of cumulative votes is used. This gives to
the minority a representation. The ballot is a secret one
similar to the Australian system, though the votes are not
of the "blanket" form.

123

PROTESTANT MISSIONS IN SOUTH AMERICA

4. The parliamentary system is employed in congress.
The ministers who are at the heads of the various depart-
ments must be chosen from men who have been members
of congress at some time, and who at the time of their
selection, may be retaining their right of vote. They have
a voice in all discussions and introduce most of the bills.
They must be chosen to represent the majority in congress,
and when any measure of the government is defeated a new
ministry must be formed.

5. The president, who is elected for five years and can-
not succeed himself, but may be reelected after an interven-
ing term, has for advisers, in addition to his ministers, a
Council of State composed of eleven members, five ap-
pointed by himself and six by congress. All laws must be
approved by this council before they can be promulgated.

6. The Judiciary with lower courts, courts of appeals
and supreme court, is entirely independent of the legisla-
tive and executive departments except that the judges are
appointed by the president with the consent of the senate,
and under certain circumstances can be dismissed by him.
Congress itself is the interpreter of the constitutionality of
its own laws, while the courts accept the laws as passed
and never act upon their constitutionality. The jury sys-
tem is not used, and nearly all pleading is done by means
of briefs. The laws are codified, the Napoleonic code be-
ing the basis of most of them.

7. The provincial ijitendants, as well as the governors of
the departments, are appointed by the president, and the
larger cities have municipalities elected locally with a cer-
tain degree of autonomy.

8. Centralization. — The government is one of the most
centralized in the world, as all appointments of judges, army
officers, provincial and department chiefs, school-teachers,

124

CHILE

postmasters, telegraph operators, railroad officials, and cus-
toms officers, have their appointment from the capital.
This throws all governmental patronage into the hands of
the party in power, and it is often used to reward party
workers.

9. Most of the telegraph lines and railways in the Re-
public belong to the government and are fairly well man-
aged, though not very profitably. Could politics be kept
out of them they would be more efficient.

10. The 7iavy of the Republic is the most powerful of all
in Southern America, having several ironclads, monitors,
first-class cruisers and a number of torpedo boats and tor-
pedo boat destroyers, as well as transports and vessels
for coast defense. Valparaiso and Talcahuano are well
fortified ports. The standing army is very small and can-
not be encamped nearer to the capitol than fifteen kilometers
without the consent of congress.

11. Since the discovery of nitrate and the enormous in-
crease in the revenue of the general government from duty
charged on its exportation, the civil list has greatly increased
and there is a strong tendency on the part of young men to
seek government employment and neglect business and
financial enterprises, which as a result are falling rapidly
into the hands of foreigners.

IX. Education. — i. Schools and University, — The
government has a system of free public schools y beginning
with the primary grades. Above these are the high schools
{liceos), leading to the National University, which is the
only institution privileged to confer degrees or titles. Nor-
mal schools are maintained for the training of teachers, the
German system and German teachers being employed.
The University offers instruction in the professional courses
only, there being no provision for what is understood as a

PROTESTANT MISSIONS IN SOUTH AMERICA

course of Liberal Arts. The courses in law and medicine
are six years each ; those in dentistry, engineering and art
are shorter.

2. Several special schools are also maintained at govern-
ment expense, as the Conservatory of Music, the Agricul-
tural College, industrial schools for boys and for girls,
School of Art and Engraving, and School of Mining and
Engineering. In addition to the schools supported by the
government, there are many private and mission schools of
almost every grade, as well as convent and monastery
schools under the control of the nuns and friars ; yet the
percentage of illiteracy must be high.

X. Societies and Institutes.— The government does
much to foster and encourage the arts and professions by
means of subsidies or grants to various societies, as the
Engineers' Institute, the Society of Agriculture and the
Medical Society, and maintains a fine Astronomical Observa-
tory, Museum of Natural History, Antiquities and Botany,
an Art Gallery and Botanical Gardens.

XI. Eleemosynary Institutions. — i. Enumerated. —
Excellent hospitals for both men and women, with wards
for the poor, as well as rooms for those who wish private
accommodations, are supported by the government. They
have able staffs of physicians and surgeons, and in every
important town offices for free vaccination are kept open all
the year. There are also public asylums for the insane and
for orphans and the aged.

2. Effect on Private Benevolence. — The government is
largely paternal and private benevolence is not encouraged
to any great extent. Recourse is had to congress and to
the public funds for the founding and support of organiza-
tions which in other countries are due to private initiative
and philanthropy.

126

CHILE

XII. The Pearl of the Andes. — i. Santiago' s Setting.
— The capital of Chile has as fine a location as could be
chosen for a city. It lies in the interior valley between the
Coast Range and the lofty Andes, on the gentle slope of
the Cordilleras. The valley stretches away to the westward
and to the south, winding between the curves of the ranges
and the spurs that break off to the eastward and to the west,
giving it the appearance of a vast amphitheatre. In sum-
mer the whole Andes range, which here rises to the height
of from sixteen to twenty-three thousand feet, wears a glit-
tering mantle of perpetual whiteness, and in winter all the
hills and mountains completing the circle are also crowned
with snow, seeming to encircle the entire valley. Seven
peaks, lying within the short space of 140 miles, constitute
one of the most remarkable groups of mountains to be found
anywhere in the world. The lowest of them is nearly two
thousand feet higher than the highest peak in the United
States, and the loftiest is the most elevated peak in the
western hemisphere.

2. Nearer Views. — The Mapocha, a rapid mountain
stream comes in from behind a range of hills rising to the
northward and making a sudden turn to the right, flows
westerly through the city. Cerro Sa?ita Lucia, a rocky
basaltic peak, rises abruptly from the plain a few squares
from the central plaza and well within the city limits. It
has been adorned with towers and battlements, bridges and
winding paths and planted with trees and flowers until it
looks like a great medieval castle. The beautiful Alameda
traverses the city almost parallel to the river and is orna-
mented with statues and monuments. Water courses, bor-
dered with rows of elms and oaks, acacias and poplars, run
at the sides of the broad central promenade. The National
University and many of the finest private residences front

127

PROTESTANT MISSIONS IN SOUTH AMERICA

on this avenue. Some of these palaces of milUonaires are
magnificent.

3. Elevation and Water Supply. — Santiago has a mean
elevation of 1,800 feet above sea level and is connected
with Valparaiso, from which port it is distant 114 miles, and
with the south, by railways equipped almost wholly with
American rolling stock. Its abundant water supply is
brought twenty miles from the Maipo river, a large moun-
tain stream which comes down from the snows on the moun-
tain ranges.

4. Santiago is not only the political capital but the social
centre of the Republic as well. It is the home of nearly all
the wealthy landed proprietors, mine operators, capitalists
and bankers, as well as government officials, congressmen
and army officers. Not to have a home in Santiago is to be
without recognition in the aristocracy and high social circles
of the country. It is a great city of residences with little
commerce other than that necessary for its own local needs.

5. Its History. — While buildings, even central ones, are
still standing, which tell of the antiquity of the city, its
architecture is principally modern, a close imitation of the
French. When the Pilgrim Fathers landed at Plymouth
Rock, Santiago was already nearly eighty years old. On
the 1 2th of February, 15 41, less than fifty years after the
discovery of America, Pedro Valdivia, the second of the
conquistadores to make his way from Peru to Chile, stand-
ing on Santa Lucia Hill, selected this site and founded the
city. His intrepid followers, while fighting off the hostile
Indians and living on the wild onions and roots they could
gather, built the first adobe houses which marked the future
metropolis.

XIII. History of Chile. — i. Diego Almagro, the com-
panion of Francisco Pizarro, the cruel conqueror of the

128

CHILE

Empire of the Incas and the murderer of Atahualpa, — the
last of that marvelous dynasty of the Children of the Sun,
— was the first of those heroic Iberian adventurers to lead a
band of followers along the rugged slopes of the Andes and
descend into the fertile valley of the Aconcagua. Not find-
ing the abundance of gold which he expected, he soon
turned his face northward returning by the desert.

2. Pedro Valdivia followed soon after and permanent
settlements were made at Santiago, Concepcion, Serena and
Nueva Imperial.

3. Colonists a7id the Aratica7iia7is . — Chile remained a
Spanish colony until the early years of the century. Nearly
every foot of progress from the Aconcagua southward was
nobly and heroically contested by the native sons of the
soil. The sturdy Araucanians, who were the aborigines of
the country, did not recede before the march of Spanish
conquest except after centuries of fighting. The names of
Caupolican and Lautaro deserve a place with the heroes of
all ages.

4. Freedom's Foregieams. — The flashes of the guns of
the minutemen of Concord and Lexington which set the
American colonies on fire with unquenchable zeal for po-
litical independence, lit up the peaks of the Andes as well,
and the echoes of the fusilade at Bunker Hill and Saratoga,
Valley Forge and Yorktown reverberated among the moun-
tain peaks, and along the rocky valleys of this far-off south
land. The social and political upheavals of France at the
close of the last century also had a powerful influence on
the Spanish colonies in South America.

5. Freedom Won.— On September i8th, 1810, the patriot
sons of Chile formed the first governing body and took up
the struggle for freedom and national independence. When
in 181 7 their almost superhuman efforts and heroic sacrifices

129

PROTESTANT MISSIONS IN SOUTH AMERICA

were about to prove futile, San Martin of the Argentine,
who had already taught the Spanish armies to fear his sword,
came over the Maipo pass with a band of brave men, many
of them refugees from Chile, and fell upon the Spanish
forces at Chacabuco and again at Maipo the following year.
He defeated them so overwhelmingly that the struggle was
virtually at an end, though Spain did not acknowledge the
independence of the Republic until 1846.

The names of O'Higgins, Mackenna and Cochrane,
prominent men in the annals of the war for independence,
bear eloquent testimony to the aid the patriots received from
Irish and Scotch leaders.

6. But the building of the nation, the framing of its con-
stitution and the organization of its government and admin-
istration, the establishing of its laws and the development
of its political system, are due to native statesmen who are
worthy to rank with the fathers of any republic. Guaran-
tees of personal liberty, security of life and property, in-
violability of the home, are fundamental principles secured
to the people by the constitution and the laws.

XIV. Social Life. — i. Winter Occupations. — Far as
the country is separated from the centres of intellectual ac-
tivity, it is only natural that society should find its chief life
in the rounds of frivolous enjoyments. In the winter season
the opera holds the first place. The municipality, which
owns the beautiful theatre, endeavors to secure able troupes
for each season and the boxes are sold at auction, often
bringing very high prices. Fancy and dress balls are fre-
quent. Among the political leaders banquets are of almost
daily occurrence during the sessions of congress. The men
are occupied in their professions or in politics, and the
ladies devote no small amount of time to social calls and
society gossip. Several literary societies, social, political

CHILE

clubs and professional associations claim a goodly share of
the time of the young men, the ladies seldom attending
these. Horse races which draw immense crowds of the
elite are held on Sunday afternoons, in the spring and early
summer, the only races being those of the horse and rider
at full gallop.

2. In summer the courts close, congress is in recess,
the president and his cabinet go down to the seaside and
transact business there, and the families retire to their
country estates, or to the coast towns, giving the city a
deserted appearance.

XV. Literature and Art. — i. Periodicals. — Daily
papers, edited in the interests of one or another of the po-
litical parties or factions, are numerous. Santiago alone
has no less than nine of them. The various associations
and institutes have their regular publications and one or two
more purely literary periodicals are issued ; but these last
are usually short-lived, seldom doing anything more than
paying the mere cost of publishing, while the editorial work
must all be done gratis.

2. Every year a few volumes of poetry or fiction make
their appearance, but the circulation is exceedingly limited.
Works of a more serious character, such as histories or
technical treatises, can only be issued by aid of government
funds.

3. Art, — The government seeks to encourage art by
maintaining a gallery, in which are found many of the best
works by native artists as well as some rare pictures of the
old masters. Several paintings by women artists hold con-
spicuous places, while some productions in marble are
worthy of a place in any collection. Some of the private
galleries are really rivals of the National Gallery, large for-
tunes being invested in them. The public plazas and ave-

131

PROTESTANT MISSIONS IN SOUTH AMERICA

nues are adorned with statues and monuments, mostly the
work of native talent.

XVI. Politics. — I. Spaniards Lacking in Combination.
— The Spanish race has wonderful fondness for politics.
Large numbers of the men seem to find their chief, if not
their only employment in working for party. But unfortu-
nately the Spanish race has little faculty for combination.
This is shown by the fact that the continent is divided up
into ten republics, instead of three or four, as the natural
division of the territory would suggest. And in these re-
publics parties are numerous.

2. The Clerical Party. — In Chile about the only ques-
tion that ever enters into the issues of the campaign, is that
of the relation of Church and State. The conservative, or
clerical party, endeavors to make the state wholly subser-
vient to the interests of the Church. Ever increased ap-
propriations of public funds for the benefit of the priest-
hood, erection of churches and convents, and support of
church schools and institutions, are sought. They hold
that the Pope should be supreme in temporal matters and
seek to make the hierarchy of the National Church, which
represents the Holy See, supreme in national affairs.

3. The liberal party ^ divided into many factions, seeks
in varying degrees to limit and curb the grasping, domineer-
ing spirit of the clergy. Frequently the parties gather
around some able leader and are personal in character
rather than the advocates of any very pronounced doctrine
of national policy.

4. Spanish Theory of Government. — All through Spanish
America the prevailing idea of the purpose of government
is that it is instituted and exists chiefly for the benefit and
welfare of those who govern. The conception of a gov-
ernment of the people, by the people and for the people is

133

CHILE

unknown. It seems almost impossible to mold the medieval
idea of the state into the form of a republic ; yet this has
been the operation attempted in Spanish America. To this
conception of the office of government is largely due the
innumerable revolutions which work such disaster to pros-
perity and progress.

5. Chile, of all the South American nations, is the one
republic which has been singularly free from political
upheavals. The revolutions of 185 1, 1857 and 1891 are
the only ones in which armies have been used to overthrow
the constituted authority of the nation.

6. Evils Arisifig fro7n the Clerical Party, — No greater
calamity can overtake a republic than for the clerical party
to obtain control of the government. Education is strangled ;
policies of public advancement and social improvement
are dwarfed ; and revenues are diverted from the fostering
of institutions and enterprises for the progress of the country
and the improvement of the people, to the support of idle
and vicious friars and societies of nuns devoted to church
work.

XVII. Religion and Morals. — i. Early Character of
South American Religion. — The religion which was intro-
duced into the western South American colonies was that
of medieval Spain, which had grown up beside the blood-
thirsty and cruel religion of the Moors and absorbed much
of its spirit and character, — the religion of the worst in-
quisition that the world ever saw, of the stake and the
fagot, the dungeon and the rack. The trio that planned
the conquest of that coast was composed of the miser, the
priest and the soldier, who were actuated by a greed for
gold, for priestly power and for blood. Hand in hand they
went forth to rob, to convert and to conquer. If the poor,
defenceless aborigines gave up their treasures and submitted

133

PROTESTANT MISSIONS IN SOUTH AMERICA

to baptism, they were only reduced to vassals and slaves ;
but woe to those who refused to do either — the soldier made
short work of them. Treachery, deceit and cruelty
wrought their dreadful work and multitudes were ** con-
verted." A brother of Ignacio Loyola, founder of the
Jesuits, was viceroy over these territories of the crown and
exhibited much of the zeal for the Church that the en-
thusiastic San Ignacio did.

2. Leading Tenets. — It could hardly be expected that a
religion with such early home training and such methods of
propagandism would be characterized by piety, or show any
great spirituality. Only accept the two tenets that the end
justifies the means and that baptism insures eternal salva-
tion, although purgatorial fires may be necessary first, and
there is need of nothing more to destroy spirituality and
morality as well. Add to these the belief that the Church
should be the supreme temporal power in the world and
that all those who oppose the Church are regarded as
enemies to be dealt with in the most summary manner.

3. Romanism' s Fruitage. — After more than three and a
half centuries of almost undisputed control of the spiritual
interests of the people, Romanism has brought forth the
fruitage of her errors, and a fearful harvest it yields.

(i) To the Protestant the idea of religion without morals
is inconceivable ; but South American Romanism divorces
morals and religion. It is quite possible to break every
command of the Decalogue and yet be a devoted, faithful
Romanist. If Romanism, in the fields where she has been
allowed to work out the full measure of her influence un-
checked and uninfluenced by Protestantism, be tested in any
or all those great essential virtues which lie at the very
foundation of the holy religion of Jesus, she will be found
sadly wanting.

134

CHILE

(2) Other Fruits. — Take away the Word of God, mak-
ing the Bible a baleful book, and substituting tradition, and
superstition is sure to flourish. Remove heaven so far away
that none may ever reach its joys except after ages of purga-
torial fires or vast sums paid for masses to shorten the pains,
and the greatest source of wealth a Church ever had is
ready at hand. Make the Father in Heaven so indifferent
to the needs of His creatures here below that He will not
listen to their prayers except as presented by some saint,
and the consciousness of the divine indwelling in the soul
is impossible. Make Jesus a perpetual child, subject and
obedient to His mother's will as much as when He lived
under the parental roof at Nazareth, and Mariolatry becomes
lower than Chinese ancestral worship. Make the saying of
Pater Nosters and Ave Marias a substitute for righteous-
ness, and an indulgence for sins past or future, and who
needs to think seriously of his moral conduct? Make
truth a mere matter of convenience and it will soon be un-
distinguishable from a lie.

(3) Romanism can only flourish in the soil of ignorance.
Its silly superstitions are revolting to a mind which can rea-
son. Enlightenment is its seal of death ; hence education
in any true sense is never fostered by the Papacy. There
are countries in South America where not over five out of a
hundred of the inhabitants can read and write, and in those
in which the percentage of illiteracy is lower, the State, and
not the Church, has control of the schools.

(4) Formerly in Chile the registration of births and
deaths and celebration of marriages was entirely in the
hands of the clergy. The marriage-fees were so high that
many of the poor could never get together money enough
to pay them. There grew up through the centuries, among
the lower classes, a feeling of indifference to the sacredness

»35

PROTESTANT MISSIONS IN SOUTH AMERICA

of the marriage tie and the number of children born out of
wedlock was enormously large, as it is still in some of the
South and Central American republics. In 1884 the refor7n
laws were enacted and a system of free civil registration
and marriage and the complete secularization of the ceme-
teries were established. Since then the percentage of
illegitimate births has gradually declined ; but in the latest
statistics pubHshed by the government, the average for the
country is given as thirty-three per cent., and the highest in
any department a little over sixty-six per cent. This is a
fearful showing for the morals of a country ; yet it is prob-
ably the best in all Catholic America, Mexico alone excepted.

4. The hierarchy of the State Church consists of an
archbishop, three bishops and a capitular vicar. Nearly
every order of nuns and friars is represented in the numer-
ous convents and monasteries. The wealth of these re-
ligious communities is enormous. Besides the properties
used for religious purposes, many of the most valuable
business blocks and residences belong to the orders and
some of the great estates are also in their possession. The
state makes appropriations from the public funds for the
support of the parish clergy, and of church schools and
for the erection of churches.

XVIII. Missionary Work. — i. The Two Leading So-
cieties.— The missionary societies of the American Presby-
terian Church (North), and of the Methodist Episcopal
Church (North), are the only societies doing organized mis-
sion work among the natives.

(i) The Presbyterians have central stations at Toco-
pilla, Copiapo, Valparaiso, Santiago, Talca, Chilian and
Concepcion, with a number of outlying stations, and a large
boarding-school at Santiago and day-schools at several other
points.

136

CHILE

(2) The Methodists have central mission stations at
Arica, Iquique, Antofagasta, Coquimbo, Serena, Valparaiso,
Santiago, San Fernando, Concepcion, Los Anjeles, Angol,
Victoria, Temuco and Nueva Imperial, with numerous out-
lying points where services are held regularly. They have
a large boarding-school for both boys and girls at Iquique,
important colleges for young ladies at Santiago and Con-
cepcion, and a large boarding-school for boys at the latter
place, besides a school for both boys and girls at Temuco.
In addition, they have a number of day-schools in connec-
tion with their churches.

(3) Both missions publish religious periodicals and num-
erous tracts, and a large amount of other religious literature.
The Methodists have an extensive printing plant at the cap-
ital. The Presbyterian mission employs about fifteen
American missionaries and as many native helpers j and
the Methodist mission has over forty American missionaries
and some twenty-five native helpers.

(4) The Methodist mission, which was begun in 1878,
has been conducted on the plan of self-support from the
beginning, the missionaries getting their entire support on
the field, and it is one of the most prosperous missions on
the continent. Both the Presbyterian and Methodist mis-
sions have had a large measure of success. Full protection
is given by the laws to non-Catholic religious work, and a
considerable part of the people are desirous of a purer re-
ligion.

2. Other Societies. — A few missionaries sent out by the
Christian and Missionary Alliance are still at work, but
independently. A Swiss society has had missionaries
among the colonies who also did work among the native
people. The South American Missionary Society of the
Church of England has sent out a number of chaplains to

137

PROTESTANT MISSIONS IN SOUTH AMERICA

the British colonies at the most important points on the
coast, as has a German society to the larger German
colonies. The local Valparaiso Bible Society ^ aided by the
British and Foreign Bible Society, and the American Bible
Society, is doing much to circulate the Scriptures in Spanish.
Much Protestant religious literature is also going into circu-
lation year by year.

3. Through the influence of the Protestant missionaries
and Protestant residents temperance work has been started
in many places, and a number of Chilean gentlemen of in-
fluence and position, who have no special interest in religion,
have become identified with the movement and are doing
much to counteract the evils of intemperance.

4. Work for the Araucanians. — (i) The descendants of
the aboriginal Indian races ^ to the number of about fifty
thousand, still occupy a considerable part of the southern
part of Chile, reaching from the Cautin river to Lake
Llanquihue. They dwell in huts thatched with long grass
and keep up their ancient customs and dress. There is
little game they can obtain. They cultivate wheat and
potatoes, and many of them have large herds of cattle and
sheep. The Catholic missionaries have had little success in
converting them.

(2) The only Protestant mission work that has been
done among them has been that of the missionaries of the
South American Missionary Society. Two stations, at
Cholchol and Quepe, are now occupied by its missionaries.
They have schools, medical work and preaching services.
One of their missionaries has recently translated the book of
John into the Araucanian. This will be the first part of the
Bible to be published in that language.

Canada's part in this enterprise should be noted, as the
Canadian Church Missionary Association has furnished the

138

CHILE

society some of their best workers, notably Mr. Sadleir.
The striking feature of the Quepe station, where he is
located, is the industrial school. Though opened in 1898,
it already has outgrown its accommodations, thus proving
that Indians desire to learn farming, carpentering, etc. Mr.
Sadleir's translational work is, however, even more impor-
tant from the strictly missionary point of view. Experiments
already made prove that work for the aborigines is most
needful and rewarding.

«39

THE LAND OF THE INCAS

VII

THE LAND OF THE INCAS
By Rev. Thomas B. Wood, LL. D.

Lima, Peru
For Thirty-one years a Missionary in South America.

1. A Bit of Inca History.*— i. Its Extent— BdoxQ

Columbus discovered the New World there flourished in
South America a great empire, — embracing what is to-day
Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, Chile and part of Colombia and
Argentina, — the Empire of the Incas. Peru was the centre,
the chief city being Cuzco, which is said to have had a
population of over two hundred thousand inhabitants when
the sixteenth century dawned.

2. The empire had two capitals, Cuzco and Quito, which
though hundreds of miles apart, were connected by wonder-
ful roads running through the high mountain region and
only equalled by the famous Roman highways.

3. The court of the Incas rivaled that of Rome, Jerusalem,
or any of the old Oriental countries, in riches and show, the
palaces being decorated with a great profusion of gold,
silver, fine cloth and precious stones.

4. The early history of the empire is shrouded in mystery;
but there is little doubt that at the beginning of the eleventh
century the country was inhabited by various tribes, scat-

* This first section has been furnished by Miss Elsie Wood, for nine
years a missionary in Lima, Peru.

143

PROTESTANT MISSIONS IN SOUTH AMERICA

tered over the territory, having different customs, religions
and government and speaking different languages.

The Inca and Aymara were the two tribes which eventu-
ally combined to form the great nation which spread the
rule of the Inca sovereigns over a territory extending for
nearly fifty degrees along the western coast, and across the
high table-lands, the rich valleys, and plains reaching east-
ward from the Andes. These two peoples resemble each
other in essential points. Both Inca and Aymara Indians
are admirable pedestrians and are possessed of extraordinary
endurance. The bulk of the population to-day in Ecuador,
Peru and Bolivia, is composed of the aboriginal Indians, —
the natives who, when America was discovered, had been
there from time immemorial.

The chief tribe was the Inca race of conquerors, whose
chiefs, while they taught the people peaceful occupations and
arts and strove to subjugate the tribes around them by offer-
ing them bribes and presents, yet were above everything a
warlike race of conquerors.

5. Inca Religion. — They believed in a Supreme Being, the
Creator of the Universe, whom they worshiped under the
names of Pachacamac and Huiracocha ; they had some
ideas concerning the creation and the universal flood, and
believed in the future life, in the final resurrection and in an
evil spirit, man's enemy, called Supay. They worshiped
the sun, the moon, the earth, the sea, the mountains, ani-
mals, plants and stones. The rainbow was the device upon
the Imperial standard. Pachacamac — the creator of the
world — was worshiped on the coast, and Huiracocha — the
beginning of all good — in the mountains. To these gods
they dedicated magnificent temples, ruins of which may be
seen to-day in many places. One of the largest of these
ruins is the temple of Pachacamac near Lima.

144

THE LAND OF THE INCAS

The Sun was the chief divinity, the light of the world,
soul of the empire and father of the first ruler, Manco-
Capac. Each town and family had special gods or penates,
made of gold, silver or stone. Manco-Capac built an image
of the sun, representing a human face engraved upon an
enormous plate of gold, surrounded with precious stones.
His successors considered it their duty to erect temples of the
sun in all the conquered provinces.

6. The First Inca and His Successors. — According to
the fables, Manco-Capac was the first Inca, said to have
been sent with his wife from the sun with a bar of gold with
which he was to strike the earth, and then build his capital
upon the spot where the bar should sink into its bosom. The
city which he built was the present Cuzco, believed to have
been founded in the eleventh century. Each Inca is sup-
posed to have enlarged the capital and extended the domin-
ion. Lloque Yupanqui caused beautiful temples and pal-
aces to be erected. Maita-Capac built a hanging bridge
over the Apurimac. Pachacutec built numerous aqueducts.
Tupac Yupanqui erected a stupendous fortress in Cuzco.
The rulers were considered as gods. When Huaina Capac
died, more than a thousand people were sacrificed to serve
him in the other life. His heart was deposited in Quito,
and his body embalmed and carried to Cuzco, where it was
buried in the Temple of the Sun.

7. Inca Civilization. — The history of the empire was
kept on knotted strings of different colors and lengths, called
Quipos. They cultivated many of the arts and had some
knowledge of astronomy. They understood mining and the
working of metals, excelled as masons, weavers, dyers, pot-
ters, and were good farmers. Knives and agricultural im-
plements in bronze, lances or javelins and war clubs in metal,
and pottery of many forms and shapes have been found

145

PROTESTANT MISSIONS IN SOUTH AMERICA

in the old mounds and graves. All the conquered tribes
were compelled to learn the language of the ruler, the
Quechua.

8. Three centuries of oppression have made the Inca
Indian a sadder and less enterprising being and have de-
teriorated his character ; but with the light of the gospel,
what will hinder him from rising far above his former place ?
"It is not possible now to obtain an approximate estimate
of the population of the empire before the Spanish conquest.
We are told by contemporary writers that it was very dense,
and their statement is confirmed by the fact that in many
now uninhabited parts there are remains of cultivation in
terraces rising up the sides of the mountains — sometimes
thirty and forty." As it does not rain on the coast, these
terraces along the western slopes of the Andes were all wa-
tered by irrigation. ''Dams were constructed at different
elevations in the streams for drawing off the water, with
channels to carry it along the higher slopes of the valleys.
Vast reservoirs were built for the storage of water. One of
these, in the valley of the Nepeiia, is 1,300 yards long by
900 broad, and is formed by a massive dam of stone, eighty
feet thick at the base, which is carried across a gorge be-
tween two rocky hills. It was supplied by two canals, and
brought from a distance of fourteen miles up the valley."

It is to descendants of such heroes that Protestant mis-
sions will one day minister. At present, however, the work
is mainly directed toward their Spanish conquerors. And
what is the character of that work ?

II. The Peculiar Difficulties. — The darkest part of the
American hemisphere is found in the republics of Bolivia,
Peru and Ecuador, — the old empire of the Incas. Its dis-
tinguishing features are the following, which are more fully
developed in the general treatment of Chapter X. :

146

THE LAND OF THE INCAS

1. Roman Catholic priestcraft is there more dominant
than in any other part of America.

2. The sw order aft characteristic of South America has
there made worse havoc than in any other part of the con-
tinent.

3. The demoralization, inseparable from these evils, is
there more profound and more hopeless than anywhere else.

4. Incaism. — Underlying this demoralization is found
another, peculiar to that territory, derived from the religion
of the Incas. More than half of the population is of pure
aboriginal blood and retains the superstitions of the aborigi-
nal sun-worship, after three and a half centuries of Roman
Catholic domination.

5. Fre-Inca?i Idolatry. — Underlying all is a still older pa-
ganism, which the Incas tried to suppress in all the tribes
they conquered, and succeeded but partially. Romanism
has been still less successful. This ancient idolatry is still
found among the savages of the wildernesses. The change
from sun-worship to saint-worship was a facile relapse to
idolatry for the masses of the Inca Empire. Under the
change, parts of the population relapsed into savagery.

Thus three strata of perverted ethics are found to-day
throughout the Inca lands, namely, those of Jesuitism, In-
caism, and pre-Incan idolatry.

6. Depopulation. — Under the Incas the country was
densely inhabited. The Spaniards introduced a system of
tyranny that resulted in gradual extermination. The repub-
lics have improved on the viceroyalty in that regard, but
have suffered far worse from waste of blood and treasure
by wars ; so that the territory has scarcely begun to recover
from the awful losses of the past. Thousands of square
miles, once under tillage and teeming with inhabitants, are
now desert, or wilderness. Multitudes of ruined towns are

147

PROTESTANT MISSIONS IN SOUTH AMERICA

scattered through highlands and lowlands, A peculiar sort
of demoralization has grown out of the discouragement bred
into the people for ages by this state of things.

7. Scant l77imigration. — The European immigration to
all parts of South America is at a minimum in those three
republics, owing to the moral drawbacks, not to physical
conditions or position.

8. Legal Restrictions. — The constitutions and laws have
put more restrictions on religious liberty in those countries
than anywhere else in all America. The Inquisition was not
finally aboHshed till 182 1. As late as 1836 the penalty was
death for holding any worship other than the Roman Cath-
ohc in Bolivia and Peru. As late as 1896 the constitution
of Ecuador excluded all other worship. To this day in the
three republics Protestants are subject to exceptional legal
privations.

9. Schoolcraft. — The oldest university in all America is
that of Lima, Peru, a queen mother among the family of
universities existing in those countries. It was making
bachelors and doctors up to the European standards of their
times, before the first colonists landed in Virginia or Massa-
chusetts. It stood in one corner of the Plaza of the Inqui-
sition, so called from the presence of the headquarters of
the ** Holy Office" for all South America. The educa-
tional power centered there for centuries has been far reach-
ing and baneful. The republicans of Peru have taken the
Inquisition office for their Senate chamber and the chief
university building for their House of Deputies, trying in
vain to change the name Plaza of the Inquisition, and
equally in vain to modernize the medieval scholasticism that
helps perpetuate the tendencies of the Inquisition in the edu-
cational, judicial, administrative, social and domestic sys-
tems of those countries. This drawback characterizes the

14S

THE LAND OF THE INCAS

Inca lands to a degree not found elsewhere in all that conti-
nent.

lo. Scant Evangelization. — While gospel work was start-
ing and developing in other parts of South America, the
agencies backing it regarded those three republics as a moral
wilderness, impenetrable and untenable. To this day the
work of evangelizing the masses has been taken up by only
one of the great Protestant denominations, — the Methodist
Episcopal Church, — and it has but one Presiding Elder for
the three republics, and possesses no real estate. The An-
glicans and the Lutherans have work among foreigners in
English and German, but do nothing for the natives. Other
workers, representing smaller denominations or no denomi-
nation, are making a start in the language of the people, but
are without real estate or vigorous backing. Thus the most
neglected part of *' The Neglected Continent " is the Land
of the Incas.

III. Successful Beginnings. — Any results whatever, in
such a field, would be a matter of rejoicing. A good start
on winning lines should be hailed with hallelujahs. The
following statements partially indicate what has been accom-
plished.

I . The Impenetrable Regions have All been Penetrated.
— A colporteur in Argentina, named Jose Mongiardino,
after good success in the northern provinces of that republic,
could not rest when they told him that he must not cross
the frontier into Bolivia. At last he did cross it with a small
quantity of books, penetrating as far as the then capital,
Sucre, where the stock was sold out quickly, and he started
back to Argentina for more. But a high ecclesiastical func-
tionary, the vicario foraneo of Cotagaita — one of the cities
that he canvassed — had declared that Mongiardino would
not get out of Bolivia alive. And so it proved. In a

149

PROTESTANT MISSIONS IN SOUTH AMERICA

lonely place on the road he was beset by two emissaries of
the priesthood and murdered. The body was taken back
to Cotagaita for burial by the civil authorities. The ec-
clesiastical authorities refused it admission to the cemetery.
It was buried outside the wall, between the graves of a
murderer and a suicide.

Thus the Andine highlands remained impenetrable. But
they had now been baptized in the blood of a martyr.
Heroes were not lacking to follow in his footsteps, though
the difficulties seemed insurmountable. One reached the
frontier and was providentially turned back. Two others
reached Sucre by a rapid rush, and there turned back.

At last, however, a band of three from the east coast
pushed a steady canvass clear through Bolivia and on
through Peru, returning to Montevideo by sea to report that
the Land of the Incas was penetrable. They were assured
at every stage of their progress that they would lose their
lives, if they proceeded any further. These warnings came
from persons who sympathized with them, from civil
authorities who lamented inability to protect them and from
a priest who told them that if they did not turn back it
would happen to them as to Mongiardino. They visited
Mongiardino's grave, uncovered their heads and consecrated
their lives anew to the service in which he fell. One of
these was Andrew M. Milne, the veteran agent of the
American Bible Society, who deserves to be called the
Livingstone of South America. Another was Francisco
Penzotti, a humble Italian carpenter, converted in Monte-
video and developed into a colporteur, a preacher, an
apostle and a hero.

That expedition took place in 1883. The next year an-
other was made with still larger success on the same ground
by Penzotti and a colporteur. In 1885-6 Milne and

150

THE LAND OF THE INCAS

Penzotti circumnavigated the continent with Bibles, giving
much attention to Peru, though rejected from Ecuador. In
the later eighties, Bibles were repeatedly sold in Ecuador,
though in small quantities, and religious services were held
and books sold in the early nineties. Finally the great
opening in that republic came with change of the constitu-
tion in 1896-7, — and the Land of the Incas was every-
where penetrable.

2. The Untenable Strategic Points have been Occupied
and Held. — (i) Peru. — The most important centre of in-
fluence in all the Andine countries is the city of Lima, for
centuries the seat of Spanish dominion over all those regions.
Close to it is its seaport, Callao, practically a part of it.
These cities were entered by Protestantism many years ago,
by the organization of a union church among the English-
speaking residents there. A chapel and schoolhouse were
erected, and are there to this day ; though they have long
been without a pastor or regular church services. A similar
organization, started subsequently in Lima, has a rector of
the Church of England ; but it avowedly holds to total
abstinence from evangelizing the masses as essential to its
existence under the influences dominant in Peru. Thus has
that important centre been untenable for direct evangeliza-
tion, even with a considerable force of resident Protestants
on the ground. Various other attempts to gain a foothold
there have been made in more recent years by able, heroic
and faithful men and women ; but one after another all have
failed. Other points were tried and likewise failed, and as
late as 1888 there was not a single aggressive evangelical
worker in all Peru, Bolivia and Ecuador.

But those failures developed the true lines of success, and
now the city of Lima is the headquarters for a gospel work
which has successful lines extending over all the Land of the

PROTESTANT MISSIONS IN SOUTH AMERICA

Incas, and has sent its pioneers northward over the whole
of Central America to the Mexican frontiers. First a native
congregation was started in Callao. It lived through
tremendous hostility, suffering mob violence and the im-
prisonment of its pastor, Penzotti, lasting over eight months.
Later another was gathered in Lima under assurances from
both friends and foes that it could not be maintained, — that
blood would flow as a consequence of attempting it. But it
has been thriving for eight years with no bloodshed. These
belong to the Methodist Episcopal Church, which has the
beginnings of similar congregations at many places through-
out those lands.

The school work of the Methodists in Callao and Lima
deserves a chapter by itself to set forth the struggles over its
legal status, the importance it has attained, the excellent
work done and the outlook for such effort in those lands. It
is under the able leadership of Miss Elsie Wood and Rev.
M. J. Pusey and wife, and is a splendid success, despite
hostility from priesthood and Schoolcraft combined to crush
it. If it had adequate buildings, it would acquire in-
calculable power. Educational work, in a field where
preaching is under legal restrictions, becomes important in a
way that is out of all comparison with other fields. Mis-
sions everywhere require education, but in the Land of the
Incas education is destined to open the way for the gospel
as nowhere else. No other form of effort approaches it in
effectiveness for stopping the mouths of enemies, breaking
down prejudices, gaining popular sympathy and tightening
grip on the public mind. The Bible work opens more
doors, but the school work opens more hearts than anything
else in that field.

A strategic centre of importance is Cuzco in southern
Peru, the old Inca capital. In 1895 two young men from

152

THE LAND OF THE INCAS

the East London Mission Institute, J. L. Jarrett and F. J.
Peters, went there. They were promptly banished from the
city. This was so illegal that it gave them ground for
claiming indemnity as British subjects. Their legation took
up the case and a moderate indemnity in cash was paid to
them by the national government. Peters took his share
and went to North America and England to encourage
friends. Jarrett married a wife, who just then arrived from
England to join him, and returned to Cuzco, where he com-
menced a very encouraging work. But the priesthood
managed to make the ground untenable and he withdrew.
In 1898, however, he returned with Mr. and Mrs. Peters
and Mr. and Mrs. Newell. They are all there yet with
large plans for the future, and thus the ancient headquarters
of Incaism proves tenable for the gospel. The East London
Institute workers also have a good beginning of native work
in Trujillo, on the coast of Peru.

In Lima there is a native of Chile, Sr. Escubar, who
represents the Seventh Day, Second Advent Baptists of
Battle Creek, Michigan, and circulates considerable quanti-
ties of their literature.

There is also in Lima an independent worker from Eng-
land, Mr. C. H. Bright, who represents no regular agency.
He is a Second Advent immersionist, but holds to the Sun-
day. He derives support from private sources, has two
young men from England as helpers and works in Spanish
in Lima and Huacho.

The American Bible Society stands far above all other
agencies in the importance and scope of work done for evan-
gelizing the Land of the Incas. Its operations are expand-
ing more and more of late and give greater and greater
encouragement.

Last but not least must be mentioned the Woman's For-
153

PROTESTANT MISSIONS IN SOUTH AMERICA

eign Missionary Society of the Methodist Episcopal Churchy
whose cooperation in Calla.o and Lima has been signally
blessed of God. Women's work for women includes also
the activities of the wives of the men above referred to.
The wife of the Methodist Presiding Elder often has to
carry the full responsibilities of a superintendent at head-
quarters while he is on his long journeys.

The Methodist work and the Bible work have their head-
quarters on the Plaza of the Inquisition, Lima, exactly in
front of the old Inquisition building. Thus, then, the Land
of the Incas has been proven tenable.

(2) Ecuador. — The republic of Ecuador in 1896-7 made
a new constitution establishing religious liberty, and thus
sprung at once from the most backward to the most ad-
vanced position among the three Incas countries. The
laws are not yet fully harmonized with this change, but
they are coming to it with every session of congress. This
wonderful opening was promptly entered by the Methodists
with native preachers and colporteurs, and also by workers
from North America sent out by the Gospel Union of
Kansas City, Mo., and by the Christian and Missionary
Alliance of New York City. Most encouraging work has
been done in both coasts and highlands. In 1899 the gov-
ernment engaged the Methodist Presiding Elder to organize
a system of national normal schools, with foreign Protestants
as the chief teachers. This remarkable new departure is
just going into effect.

(3) In Bolivia the new capital. La Paz, was occupied for
some time by Methodist colporteurs, and is now occupied
by Canadian Baptist workers, who also have made a good
start in the important city of Oruro.

3. The Work Produces Converts Regenerated in Heart
and Life. — Much might be said on this vital point. Suffice

154

THE LAND OF THE INCAS

it to state that various bishops of the Methodist Episcopal
Church, with world-wide observation of missions, have ex-
pressed special satisfaction with the type of spirituality which
they have found in that field.

4. // Produces Workers for its Unlimited Expaiision.
— Nearly all the pioneering in Bolivia, Peru and Ecuador
has been done by men converted in South America. The
preaching was carried on in Callao, during Penzotti's long
imprisonment, by one of his Peruvian converts, Jose Q.
Illescas. All kinds of church work are now carried on by
such men. The school work has developed a strong staff
of local teachers.

5. The Work is Tending toward Sweeping Revivals. —
The beginnings of such a revival were felt in Callao in 1897,
during a visit of Dr. Harry Grattan Guinness to reorganize
the work of the men from his institute in that field. He
assembled them all in Callao, where the Methodist forces,
led by Rev. J. M. Spangler, joined with him, and the whole
English-speaking community was convulsed by a revival
movement, the like of which had never been known in those
parts of the world.

It was limited to English, but the Spa7iish- speaking masses
showed signs of the impressibility that promises in the future
tremendous movements of that kind among them. The far-
flung pioneering is preparing for such movements on a vast
scale. And when those movements come, the Inca lands
will give them a singular scope and power, due to excep-
tional degrees of homogeneity and kinship among the peoples
of those three republics, uniting them more closely than any
other three nations on the continent, while each one of the
three furnishes peculiar strategic advantages for reacting on
the other two.

6. Legal Difficulties are Disappearing. — Penzotti's long

155

PROTESTANT MISSIONS IN SOUTH AMERICA

imprisonment, resulting in his release unconderaned by de-
cision of the supreme court of Peru, gave a vantage ground
of supreme importance in Peru, and of telling effect in
Bolivia and Ecuador also. The death of a child of a mis-
sionary, at whose interment the missionary himself had to
officiate, gave him the occasion to use the natural right of
solemnizing the burial of his dead according to his own
conscience, under circumstances which placed that right
beyond question in Peru. The agitation was carried into
the adjacent republics and resulted lately in a law seculariz-
ing all the cemeteries in Ecuador. This will help secure
the same measure in Peru and Bolivia. The marriage of
the daughter of a missionary gave occasion for him to insist
upon the legal recognition of that marriage, till he secured
it after four and a half years of fighting for it, m which
were secured acts of congress establishing civil marriage in
Peru. The same measure is now pending in the parliaments
of both Ecuador and Bolivia. Constitutional reform with
religious liberty has been secured in Ecuador, which fact
has a powerful influence in Peru and Bolivia, where the
same change is now agitated. This shows immense prog-
ress since 1890, when Penzotti was in prison, and a motion
made in the Peruvian congress looking toward religious lib-
erty was promptly rejected, causing the mover to be burned
in effigy. Now one of the political parties in Peru has de-
clared for disestablishment of the official church and full
religious liberty. Thus at last the day draws nigh when
freedom to worship God will be realized throughout the
Land of the Incas.

7. The whole outlook is glorious , in the light of results
attained in other parts of both Americas. When the legal
drawbacks are further removed and the moral drawbacks
are somewhat counteracted, immigration will pour into those

156

THE LAND OF THE INCAS

countries through the river traffic on the east and the ocean
traffic on the west. The territory is nearly as large as all
India, and can hold a population as dense as India with the
advantage of a better climate. It is more Europeanized
now than that empire, and welcomes Europeans and them
only. That territory was once the home of a civilization
that amazed Europe. It was then the culmination of hu-
manity in the torrid zone, with smaller areas analogous to it
in Mexico and India. It has fallen from its high position
by one cause, — Romanism. When that cause is counter-
acted by the gospel, the Land of the Incas will rise again,
and display a new culmination of human welfare, lofty,
grand and glorious.

IV. An Appeal to Women.— The Land of the Incas is
peculiarly interesting for intelligent Christian women.

1. Its history is a thrilling romance. It begins with a
civilization whose origin is lost in mystery, whose records
were kept on knotted strings and whose remains are to-day
a marvel to the traveler. It progresses with the story of
European discovery and conquest, the heroism of Iberian
knights-errant, their triumph over the men and their sur-
render to the women of the Incan blood royal — the gen-
erous sons and lovely daughters that sprung from the two
races— to pursue the ideals of two civilizations, but to pur-
sue them in vain. It ends with a doleful record of civil
wars, financial ruin and moral decline, as found in the re-
publics of Bolivia, Peru and Ecuador.

2. While the Spanish cavaliers were conquering the men,
Spanish priests were subjugating the women of the empire
of the Incas. And when the conquerors surrendered their
chivalrous hearts and swords to the native women, they sur-
rendered their all to the priests who dominated those women,
and who thenceforth through them dominated the men, the

157

PROTESTANT MISSIONS IN SOUTH AMERICA

swords, the estates, the viceroyalties and the republics.
From that day to this, priestcraft has blasted every good
thing and made impossible adequate reform in those lands.

3. Protestantism was never near to protest against it.
The fires of the Inquisition blazed in Lima as in Madrid, with
the Reformation on the other side of the globe, and made
terriffic the idea of opposing it. To this day the laws of
Peru and Bolivia exclude all public worship except the
Roman Catholic, and the influence of priests and monks
and nuns is more dominant there than anywhere else.
Ecuador has changed its laws recently to admit freedom of
worship, but still more recently has had an old-fashioned
auto da fe in its capital, Quito, burning Bibles in the chief
plaza. A woman was formally burned to death by priests
in Peru only a few years ago, and two others were subse-
quently threatened with the same fate, — all for disobedience
to ecclesiastical authority.

4. But worse than exclusive laws, or inquisition fires, is a
mysterious spell that binds the women to the confessional.
The men are largely free from this. Indeed, if it were not
for the influence of the women over the men they could not
be held to the confessional at all. Most men feel by instinct
that a man, like themselves, cannot forgive sins ; but the
women do not seem to feel that. Here is a mystery of
woman's nature. Thoughtful men all over South America
have been for two centuries seeking a way to break the
power of monasticism and the confessional ; but the women
still continue bowing down to it, and training their children
to bow also. "Father, forgive them, they know not what
they do," for they have no gospel.

5. That unnatural spell of the priests over woman, to-
gether with the natural power of woman over childhood and
manhood, renders the condition of those countries hopeless,

158

THE LAND OF THE INCAS

The Mohammedan harem or the Hindu zenana is not more
hopeless or more blasting than the South American confes-
sion box, in those parts of the continent where Protestant-
ism has not yet modified its power. To break that spell
where its power is less modified to-day than in any other
part of the world, — to emancipate enslaved womanhood in
the Land of the Incas, God is calling the womanhood of
happier lands to move to the rescue.

6. Women surpass men as workers in that field. A
singular feature of the situation is that public preaching is
under ban of law, while teaching enjoys larger liberty, and
female teachers especially exercise extraordinary influence.
In the same city, Callao, where preachers have suffered from
mobs and imprisonment while founding an evangelical
church. Miss Elsie Wood has founded a system of evan-
gelical schools, with welcome from the general public and
approval from the authorities. In Lima, where the Metho-
dist Presiding Elder has been stopped by the authorities in
the midst of a sermon and marched off to prison, she has
been for years a conspicuous teacher of high caste native
young ladies, with special applause from the provincial in-
spector of schools.

7. No other mission field seems likely to have its evan-
gelization so largely in the hands of women as the Land of
the Incas, where woman's work for women occupies the strong-
est attainable vantage ground, — the vantage ground best
adapted for breaking the power of priestcraft over the pres-
ent and the coming generations, — for turning those nations
from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto
God.

«S9

COLOMBIA

VIII

COLOMBIA

By Mrs. T. S. Pond
Formerly a Missionary in Barranquilla, Colombia.

1. The Aborigines. — i. The Arhuacos and Catholic
Effort. — Between Colombia and Venezuela, extending north-
ward from the general coast line, is the Peninsula of Goajira
(Gwahira) inhabited by Indians called Arhuacos (Ar-wah-
kuz), who, to judge from their dialect and their customs,
are related to the tribes of Mexico. Their first chieftains,
still renowned in song and story, Kaimara and Tusares,
were once vassals of the Grand Montezuma. It is now
many years since this people saw their land entered by Ro-
man Catholic missionaries. Little has been accomplished
by them. They have not given the Indians the word of
God ; they have taught them to worship images of the Vir-
gin and saints, which, in their minds, is only another form
of idolatry. Very few Roman Catholic missionaries have
penetrated into the interior. The work among the Indians
has been committed to the care of the Capuchin Fathers in
Barranquilla, who have installed themselves in Riohacha.
They do little for the Indians but make them slaves and
fanatics. This is the statement of Rev. Gabriel A. Tavel,
now ex-priest, who visited these Indians in 1898 as a Ro-
man Catholic missionary. He found them kind and hos-
pitable, although their temperament is warlike.

2. How to Reach Them. — In his opinion they can be
readily reached by schools and especially through song, as

163

PROTESTANT MISSIONS IN SOUTH AMERICA

music has a fascination for these people. Since the people
are to-day in many respects more or less civilized and de-
sirous of exchanging with foreigners the natural products of
the interior, it would seem to be a good time to send out
evangelists who would carry to these benighted tribes the
light of the gospel. The Indian is naturally distrustful. It
therefore needs much tact and prudence to attract him ; but
after an acquaintance of days and months and when he be-
gins to see that only his own real good is sought, he makes
a faithful friend to the missionary and a true companion
who will do anything to show his gratitude.

3. The customs of these Indians ^ though not entirely
those of savages, are yet not greatly removed from bar-
barism. One of these is the abandoning of children soon
after birth. They are placed in huts made for the purpose
and concealed in the mountains, where the children grow
up wholly separated from father and mother until the age of
fourteen years. Certain persons of the tribe are selected to
look after the bodily wants of the children, who are simply
supplied with food, consisting principally of bananas. Men
and women in the villages occupy separate huts, and there
is no family life whatever. Boys begin to hunt and farm
for themselves when fourteen years old. Girls at an earlier
age are brought to the chief of the tribe when an old woman
instructs them in the few things that an Indian housekeeper
must know. Sickness, they believe, is caused by evil spir-
its, and every effort is made to charm them away. If there
is no improvement and no hope of recovery, the patient is
often strangled. The burial customs are peculiar, as the
bodies are buried in a sitting posture, and into the grave all
their valuables and ornaments are cast. No Protestant
work has as yet been done among these heathen Indians.

II. The Pioneers and the Founding of Protestant
164

COLOMBIA

Work. — The early settlers of Colombia were Roman
Catholics from Spain. The Roman Catholic religion is es-
tablished bylaw, though other religions are tolerated, "if
not contrary to Christian morals or the law." The first
Protestant missionary to the republic of Colombia — then
called New Granada — was the Rev. Horace B. Pratt sent in
1856 by the Presbyterian Church (North) to Bogota, the
capital. Two years later he was followed by Rev. Samuel
M. Sharpe and wife. In that year the first Protestant serv-
ices in Spanish were held, and these called out bitter op-
position on the part of the priests. The missionaries were
protected by the civil authorities, but the terrible threats of
excommunication prevented many from attending the serv-
ices. A Sunday-school, night-school and Bible class were
opened in that year. In i860 Mr. Pratt returned to the
United States and Mr. Sharpe died. In 1861 the first
Church was organized with six members.

For twenty years there were frequent changes in the mis-
sion force. There were never more than two families on the
ground at once, often only one, and when in 1880 Mr. and
Mrs. Caldwell and Mrs. Margaret Ramsey arrived, they found
Miss Kate McFarren, who had opened a girls' school in
1869, there alone. The small force of missionaries had
prevented the work from making great progress until this
time, when new interest seemed to be awakened, and the
work has gone steadily forward in spite of the unsettled
state of the country and frequent revolutions.

III. Recent Efforts. — i. Presbyterians in Bogota. — In
1886 Mr. Caldwell was able to make his first evangelistic
tour, reaching over fifty cities and towns. In 1889 Mr. and
Mrs. Caldwell, returning from a visit to the United States,
brought with them two young missionaries of great promise,
Professor Findlay who was to have charge of a boys' school

165

PROTESTANT MISSIONS IN SOUTH AMERICA

in Bogota and Miss Addie C. Ramsey, to join her sister Mrs.
Candor in Barranquilla. Much was hoped and expected
from the coming of these new missionaries, but they had
been exposed to yellow fever on the journey and four days
after her arrival in Barranquilla Miss Ramsey died. Pro-
fessor Findlay had already started up the river when he, too,
fell a victim to the same disease and was buried at the Port
of Sogamoso.

Bogota is a city in the clouds, nearly 9,000 feet above
sea-level; the population is somewhat above 100,000. This
station is now well manned. In 1897 the reported Church
membership was 112, and at each communion season ad-
ditions are received, in 1898 seventeen being added to the
Church, while upwards of 300 attend the services. There
is manifest bigotry and also much ignorance and indifference
in Bogota. Thus people go to mass on Sunday mornings
and attend bull fights in the afternoon, while the priests
threaten all who have anything to do with Protestants ; yet
in spite of all opposition the work grows.

2. Southern Presbyterians. — Barranquilla, at the
mouth of the Magdalena river, is one of the most important
cities of Colombia. There is less bigotry than in Bogota,
this city of some 40,000 inhabitants having only three
Roman Catholic churches, but there is also much greater
license, immorality and superstition. It was first perma-
nently occupied as a mission station of the Presbyterian
Board (North) in 1888 by Mr. and Mrs. Candor who had
had six years' experience in Bogota. Some twenty years be-
fore that, however, the station had been occupied for a short
time by three Southern Presbyterian missionaries. While
these missionaries did not remain long, they prepared the
way for later efforts.

Here mention must be made of a layman, Mr. Adam
166

COLOMBIA

Erwtft, who laid foundations in Barranquilla by giving
Christian education, teaching the Bible, and being himself
a living epistle. He went to Barranquilla with Mr. Pratt as
a teacher for his children. When the Southern Presby-
terians withdrew he remained. He used to say, <' God
opened the way for me to come, but He has never opened
it for me to go away." He stayed alone unsupported by
any Board, dwarfed and bent and crippled in body, yet
with a fine, intelligent face, a brave spirit and a heart full of
love for souls. He gathered young people about him and
taught them in his home. Rev. Mr. Norwood of the
A. B. S. says : "In canvassing Barranquilla, in every corner
I found pupils of Mr. Erwin with Bibles — out among the
villages in almost every town I found the same — God's
Word scattered far and wide by a man who could not cross
his doorstone." When Mr. Erwin died in 1897, over
seventy years of age, crowds of both rich and poor and of
all sects and colors attended the funeral. Several hun-
dreds followed the good old man to his last resting-place
where appropriate services were held. One of the priests
of the city said : '' Mr. Erwin was truly a good man ; the
only wrong thing about him was his religion."

3. Northern Presbyterian Work. — Mr. Erwin left his
little home, purchased with his own earnings, to the Presby-
terian Mission. It is used, as he would wish — for a school
for poor children, — and is taught by one who was herself
brought to Jesus through his teaching and prayers. Mr.
and Mrs. Candor, therefore, found the field ready for them,
and in Mr. Erwin a true helper. A church was organized,
without the usual long waiting time necessary in a new field,
a Sunday-school was established, and a day-school opened.
In 1 89 1 Rev. Theodore S. Pond joined the Barranquilla
station, followed by Mrs. Pond a year later. A boys' board-

167

PROTESTANT MISSIONS IN SOUTH AMERICA

ing-school was maintained by them for two years with most
encouraging results. A home was found for three of these
boys in the States, where they have continued their educa-
tion. In 1898 it was again opened with boarding depart-
ment. It was self-supporting from the first and the pupils
numbered over one hundred. The breaking out of the
Revolution compelled the closing of this school and reduced
the number of girls in the girls' school from seventy to forty.
The free school for poor children remained open. All forms
of missionary work are crippled by the war. When peace
is again established, there is every reason to expect greater
success than ever in Barranquilla. The congregation is
constantly growing in numbers and interest, and new mem-
bers are being added to the church.

4. Medellin, the second city in size in Colombia, —
population about 40,000, — was first occupied in 1889 by
Mr. and Mrs. Touzeau, who carried on the work alone until
1899 when they were joined by Miss Riley. Touring, dis-
tributing Scriptures and tracts, publishing a small paper,
preaching and school work have all been carried on, and a
church has been organized. The school numbers 120
pupils, and concerning it the Mission writes : " We give
only simple instruction in common branches, but teach the
children to think for themselves. Religious instruction is
made prominent." At one time rich ladies and gentlemen
were appointed by the priest to go to the homes of the chil-
dren who attended the Protestant school and offer them
books, food, clothing and tuition free, if they would sign a
paper promising to take their children out of the Protestant
school and send them to a Roman Catholic school. Many
of the people are so poor, that some accepted the offer,
though* none of the best pupils were lost. Although Medel-
lin is a very fanatical city, the labors of these devoted mis-

168

COLOMBIA

sionaries have already done much to break down prejudice ;
and when after a visit to the United States they returned to
their field, they were enthusiastically welcomed even by
some of the Roman Catholics.

5. Bible Work in Biicaraiiianga. — Rev. Joseph Norwood
of the American Bible Society, who has done much for
gospel work in Venezuela and throughout Colombia, is now
making his headquarters in Bucaramanga. There he has a
printing press, and is also engaged in selling and distributing
Bibles, portions of Scripture and religious works.

6. While the Methodist Episcopal Church North has no
organized local work in Colombia, the West coast towns
have been repeatedly canvassed by its colporteurs, acting
under the direction of their missionaries at Lima, Peru.

IV. Most Effective forms of Effort. — i. School work
in Roman Catholic countries is most important, not only
because of the Protestant principles that may be instilled
into the minds of the young, but because of the influence
of the children in their homes. Many parents have first
heard the Word of Life from their children's lips. "A
little ch^ld shall lead them " has been true in many instances.
Parents appreciate the benefits of education, though they
may careXnothing for religion. The teachers are mission-
aries and tlie aim of all their teaching is to win souls to
Christ. The Bible is a daily text-book; psalms and
chapters are cominitted to memory ; hymns are learned and
sung ; and daily the children bow their heads in prayer to
God in the name of Jesus. It is therefore a cause for re-
joicing that the Bogota boys' school, the boarding-school for
girls and young women, and the free school for poor children
were progressing most satisfactorily up to the time of the
breaking out of the Revolution in 1899. It is in the hoard-
ing-schools that best results are obtained; for there the

169

PROTESTANT MISSIONS IN SOUTH AMERICA

pupils are taken entirely away from home influences and are
constantly under the care of their teachers.

2. Very much is accomplished by evangelistic touring.
Bibles and portions of Scripture and evangelical literature
are sold and distributed ; tracts and leaflets are given away ;
public services are held ; classes for Bible study are organ-
ized and much private conversation on religious subjects
with the people is possible. A magic lantern, Bible pictures,
a baby organ, and singing are great attractions and draw
the people. Sometimes the touring missionary remains
several weeks in one place, thus creating a more permanent
impression.

The following is one instance of seed sown on a mis-
sionary tour which brought forth fruit after many years.
In 1877 an intelligent lawyer, living some three hundred
miles north of Bogota, met and talked with Rev. H. B.
Pratt. Much impressed by the truth as it was presented to
him, he obtained and read a Bible; but it was not until
twenty years after meeting Mr. Pratt that he had an oppor-
tunity of attending Protestant worship, or hearing more
of their doctrines. Then he made application to the Bogota
church and was received to its membership, having given
satisfactory evidence of conversion, and of a true under-
standing, of Bible truths. God's Word shall not return
unto Him void.

V. Some Colombian Converts. — Brief sketches of
a few of those whose lives have been transformed by the
. gospel will show the kind of Christians produced by mis-
sionary eflbrt and what may be done for the people.

I. Many years ago an intelligent man, Heraclio Osoona,
came under the influence of Protestant missionaries in
Bogota. He with his wife united with the church, and
later he was made an elder. Their children were from

170

COLOMBIA

time to time presented for baptism and as these grew older
they also united with the church. Sixteen years ago the
family removed to Venezuela and Dr. Osoona is now an
elder in the Presbyterian Church of Caracas, while his
daughters have charge of the Protestant school in connec-
tion with the Presbyterian Mission.

2. Juan Cortez, one of the oldest Protestants in Barran-
quilla, was converted under Mr. Pratt's influence. For
many years he stood almost alone, yet he remained firm in
the faith. When a church was finally organized there,
Mr. Cortez was made an elder and continues to be a faith-
ful helper, an earnest, consistent Christian, who brings
up his children in the right way and constantly witnesses
for Christ.

3. Rev. Manuel Ferrando, formerly Father Superior of a
monastery in Spain, later Roman Catholic missionary to South
America, but now an earnest Protestant missionary in Puerto
Rico, will ever remember Barranquilla as the scene of his
final conflict with Rome. From the missionary there he
received counsel and advice which encouraged him to
break forever from the bondage of Romanism. Four years
later Rev. Gabriel A. Tavel, a French Catholic missionary
who, like Mr. Ferrando, had long been searching the
Scriptures, and who was influenced by his example, left
Barranquilla for Caracas where he took off his priest's robes,
was baptized and united with the church. He is now an as-
sistant in the Presbyterian mission there.

4. An instance of the influence of a daughter's life upon
a mother is that of Esteer Garcia who for some years now
has been a teacher in the school for poor children in Barran-
quilla. Her consistent life and patience under much per-
secution and provocation was the means used by the Spirit
to convert, not only her mother but her grandmother, a

171

PROTESTANT MISSIONS IN SOUTH AMERICA

woman over sixty years of age. Both these women had
been bad characters of ungovernable tempers, and for a
long time they made Esteer's life bitter by their treatment
of her. When they were converted their very tempers were
transformed. In 1896 they were received into the church,
after baptism and confession of faith, and became a help
in the gospel work. The grandmother, now partly para-
lyzed and nearly blind, is waiting the Master's call. Death
is not the terror to her that it once was ; for she knows that
she has not to pass through the horrors of purgatory, but
that her sins, though many, have all been blotted out in the
blood of Jesus.

5. General Statement. — Not all Colombian Protestants
are all that they should be, nor do all of those who seem
to have been converted remain firm in the faith ; but con-
sidering their early surroundings and teachings and the
influences still brought to bear upon them, they compare
well with converts in any mission field. Of a young
man who united with the church in Barranquilla in 1898
his employer said: "I have never seen a more remarkable
change. His influence over the other young men in the
establishment is wonderful. He is instant in season and out
of season."

VI. Principal Results Accomplished by Missions
in Colombia. — These are the breaking down of prejudice
and opposition, the general enlightenment of the people,
and their gradual emancipation from the superstition and
bondage of Romanism. As yet there has not been much
eflected toward raising up a native, self-supporting ministry,
though there are some efficient lay helpers, trained by the
mission. Christian education is appreciated and demanded.
The best results have been in the schools and of late years
many of the converts have been drawn from them. The

172

COLOMBIA

people are learning to give toward the support of the gospel
and for the poor of the congregations, and these contribu-
tions are not small when one considers the financial condi-
tion of most of the Protestants. Missionary workers in
Colombia have laid a good foundation, but there is yet
much to be done. Those who have watched the progress
during the past ten years are convinced that there is great
hope for the future.

173

VENEZUELA

By Mrs. T. S. Pond,

Caracas, Venezuela.

For ten years a missionary in South America,

1. Area and Population. — Venezuela has been called
"the door to South America." It has an area of 593,943
square miles, nearly all fertile land, rich in natural products
and in mines. It has a population of less than two and a half
millions, including some 326,000 Indians. Forty times as
many people might be sustained were there a good and
stable government, and if the natural resources of the coun-
try were properly developed. This, however, would require
foreign enterprise, talent and capital.

II. Discovery and Subsequent History. — i. The east
coast of Venezuela was discovered in 1498 by Columbus.
The following year, Ojeda and Vespucci on entering Lake
Maracaibo found an Indian village built on piles to obviate the
evils of inundation. They called this Venezuela, or ''little
Venice," the name afterward given to the whole country.

2. History. — The first Spanish settlement was in Cu-
mana in 1520. In 181 3 Venezuela revolting from Spain,
formed with New Granada and Ecuador the Republic of
Colombia which was declared independent in 18 19. In
1 83 1 the States separated and since that time Venezuela has
been an independent republic, but has been in an al-
most continual state of civil war. One revolution fol-

177

PROTESTANT MISSIONS IN SOUTH AMERICA

lowed another, and between the years 1861 and 187 1 over
60,000 persons were killed in the civil wars. Then followed
a short period of peace and prosperity under Guzman
Blanco. Within the past two years there have been three
separate revolutions, but on July 24, 1900, peace was de-
clared. The country has been impoverished by this con-
stant fighting, and poverty and distress are universal,
especially in those country districts which have been the
seat of war.

III. Cosmopolitan Character of Population. — i. The
Aborigines. — The Indians are quite different from the In-
dians of North America, more nearly resembling the Chinese
in appearance, being short and stout and of a light brown
color. The members of one tribe, however, are tall and
have European features, with straight, black hair which the
men wear uncut. These Indians are docile, but superficial.
They have little enterprise and are easily led by superior
minds.

2. The descendants of the original settlers of the country,
the Spaniards.

3. Full-blooded negroes from the West Indies.

4. Foreigners from North America, Great Britain, Ger-
many, France, Switzerland, Scandinavia, Italy, some Chinese
and many Syrians.

5. The so-called Venezuelans are a mixture of all nation-
alities, and seem to inherit the worst characteristics of each
nation. Their vices rather than their virtues are per-
petuated. Every shade of color is seen, and every language is
heard, although Spanish is the universal language of the
country. While there are many interesting and attractive
Venezuelans they are as a rule avaricious, indolent, thriftless
and improvident, childish and irresponsible, fond of show
and gaiety, and thinking more of appearance than of com-

178

VENEZUELA

fort. They spend when they have work without thought for
the future, and are very often dishonest and untruthful. It
is difficult for the energetic and thrifty North American or
European to understand characters so different from their
own.

IV. Venezuelan Homes. — i. Caracas.— From Lsl
Guaira, the port of the capital, a wonderful railway, built
by an English company, climbs the mountains, winding in
and out over their spurs. The views of sea and plain and
mountain from this road are beautiful beyond description.
In some places the train winds about so that one can look
across a chasm from the engine into the windows of the last
car. Up into the clouds and mist one goes some 5,000
feet above sea-level ; then down, until at a height of 3,000
feet Caracas is reached. This city is built on the bed of a
submerged lake and is surrounded by mountains, the highest
being 9,000 feet. It has about 80,000 inhabitants, and is
evenly laid out in squares, though it is by no means level,
some of the streets being very steep. By moonlight or from
a distance it is a beautiful city ; but near at hand one sees
that the public buildings,— which, as well as the houses,
are built of stuccoed adobe,— are shabby in appearance,
while the pavements and streets are broken and neglected.
The Cathedral stands on a corner of the principal plaza,
which has a fine statue of Bolivar in its centre. The Roman
Catholic churches are many. There is a Pantheon with
monuments for the heroes of the revolutions ; a fine, large
theatre or opera house; a university, capitol and other
public buildings. In the distance one sees the gardens and
coffee plantations that lie about Caracas at the foot of the
mountains, and the four rivers that cross the city, looking
like streaks of silver amid the deep green of fields of cane
and corn.

179

PROTESTANT MISSIONS IN SOUTH AMERICA

2. Resideiices, both in city and country, are very gay in
appearance, being painted or washed yellow, red, blue,
green, — sometimes a combination of colors, — and having red
tile roofs. There is no attempt at architectural effects ; the
houses are similar in appearance, being usually one story in
height for greater safety in time of earthquakes. The win-
dows have iron bars and wooden shutters, and very few have
glass. From the outside it is often difficult to judge
whether the home is one of wealth or poverty. The rooms
are built around an open court, which is often a marvel of
beauty with its mosaic floor, frescoed walls, playing foun-
tains, and tropical luxuriance of plants, flowers and foliage.
There are residences in Caracas that, despite difl'erences in
elegance and richness of furnishing, are equal to many in
New York or London. Poor country people have houses
made of reeds and mud, with thatched roofs. In the city
they seldom occupy a whole house, but rent rooms, a family
and sometimes two families, living in one small room, the
high price of rents making this necessary.

3. Interiors. — Large rooms are divided by screens, or
low partitions covered with canvas and paper ; so that there
is little privacy. The canvas cot beds are often folded and
put out of the way during the daytime, while boxes serve
for seats and tables. The floors are of soft red brick or
sometimes only the hardened earth. Dirt is everywhere and
over everything. Cooking is done over charcoal pots or
braziers. The food of the poor consists of black beans,
lard, cornmeal, coffee and bananas. The climate of Caracas
is a perpetual spring, never very hot and never too cool for
comfort ; hence the fruits and vegetables of every climate are
to be found there.

4. Surroundings. — Saloons and rumshops which are very
numerous, have over them such signs as, ** The Fountain of

180

VENEZUELA

Gladness," "Hope in God," "The Grace of God," etc.
On street corners are shrines, crosses and images. The in-
fant Jesus is seen in a glass case in front of churches and
in other places ; and before it rest offerings of flowers, while
a contribution box is usually near at hand. There are always
many kneeling worshippers before the shrine of San Antonio,
in full view of the street. Over the front doors of houses
are pictures of the Virgin or of saints. Every house, how-
ever humble, has its shrine, holy water receptacles, images,
and cheap pictures of the Virgin, of Christ on the Cross
and of various saints. The images, carried like dolls, are
taken to the churches to be blessed by the priests.

5. A northern traveller visiting Venezuela said, "God
has done everything for this country but give it good in-
habitants." With all that nature has done and with all its
civilization, there is yet much to sadden and depress the
Christian. Missionary work is as much needed as in truly
heathen lands. Yet there are many lovely people who seem
to lack only the one thing needful. For nearly 400 years
Roman Catholics have practically possessed the land ; but
they have done little to elevate, educate and instruct the
people, — scarcely anything for the heathen Indians.

V. Beginnings of Protestant Efforts. — i. The /rj/
Protestant work in Venezuela, as in many parts of South
America, was done by the American Bible Society's agents.
In 1876 the Rev. J. de Palma was sent there to survey the
ground and he arranged to have Bibles kept on sale per-
manently. In 1886 Mr. Milne and Mr. Penzotti visited
Venezuela, canvassing thirteen cities and towns, and dis-
posing of 2,660 volumes of the Scriptures. In 1888 Rev.
W. M. Patterson was appointed agent, but he died of yel-
low fever the following year. Rev. J. Norwood then came
to Caracas and made it his headquarters for some years.

181

PROTESTANT MISSIONS IN SOUTH AMERICA

A Methodist Episcopal Church, (South), was organized, but
was not of long continuance. Many volumes of Scripture
have been circulated throughout Venezuela, although not all
have been allowed to remain in the hands of the purchasers,
owing to the efforts of the priests who have gathered up and
destroyed them.

2. Etnilio Silva Bryant. — No account of the beginnings
of Protestant work in Venezuela would be complete that did
not speak of the part this young man shared in it. A poor
orphan boy in Spain, when thirteen years old Emilio was
adopted by an Englishman, Mr. Bryant, who was connected
with a railroad in that country. When not more than ten
years old Emilio gave his heart to the Lord, converted
through reading a Bible history given him by a Scotch lady.
He joined a little company of evangelical Christians and
no threats or suffering or loss could shake his faith. In
1884, Mr. Bryant came to Caracas, bringing Emilio, then
eighteen years of age. As a Protestant and a Christian he
stood alone in that great city ; for his adopted mother, a sin-
cere Christian, had not yet arrived from England. He was
surrounded by sin and worldliness; the Spanish people
whom he met were Roman Catholics or indifferent to reli-
gion ; there was nothing to call his attention to God and
salvation, and there was every temptation to live as those
about him. What could that young man, feeble in body,
without means, with little time at his disposal — for his days
were given to manual labor — do for Christ? He took a
firm stand for the right ; he let his light shine ; he sought
opportunities to tell others of his Savior, and God made
him an instrument in His hands for the salvation of souls.
He gathered a little company together, and with closed
doors read and prayed and sang with them. When his
mother came, she joined him in this work. Friends in

182

VENEZUELA

England and the United States supplied them with evangel-
ical literature, which was scattered throughout the city.
There was no ordained minister to baptize and receive to
the communion those who accepted the truth, but there
were conversions. Some still living in Caracas are witnesses
to the success of this one young layman, who had no au-
thority to back him, no commission but the Lord's com-
mand, no education save in the Bible, but whose heart
was filled with love to Christ and love for souls. Others
have joined Emilio in the heavenly mansion ; for he spent
only a few years in Caracas. Consumption claimed him as
a victim, and he went to England, dying there in 1890.
Surely he should be honored as one of the founders of
Protestantism in Venezuela.

VI. Present Operations. — i. Presbyterian Work. —
Rev. Manuel Ferra?idOy after leaving the Romish Church,
went from Colombia to the United States, where he united
with the Presbyterian Church. After two years he came to
Caracas as an Evangelical missionary under the care of
Rev. D. M. Stearns' Bible classes, and was associated with
Rev. T. S. Pond, who had been transferred from the Pres-
byterian Mission of Colombia and arrived in Caracas, Feb-
ruary, 1897. Mr. Ferrando remained in Venezuela until
the fall of 1898 when he began mission work in Puerto
Rico, but during his short residence in Caracas he helped
to establish the Presbyterian work. His eloquent preaching
attracted many to the services, and his able pen was em-
ployed in editing a religious and a literary review, both of
which contained articles calculated to enlighten the people
in regard to Protestantism, and to expose the evils of the
Romish system.

In March, 1897, preaching services were begun by Rev.
T. S. Pond and Rev. M. Ferrando in their private house ;

183

PROTESTANT MISSIONS IN SOUTH AMERICA

in October, a separate hall for the purpose was secured ;
and in February, 1900, three years after the occupancy of
Caracas by the Presbyterian Board, a church of seventeen
members was organized, to which seven have since been
added. A Sunday-school, society of Christian Endeavor
and weekly meetings are maintained, as well as house to
house visiting, distribution of tracts and periodicals. A
Protestant day-school for girls and small boys is also con-
ducted by the Misses Osoona in connection with the mis-
sion. Mr, and Mrs. Pond are assisted by Rev. G. A. Tavel,
once a Roman Catholic missionary, but who now teaches
truth where once he taught error. Mr. Pond and Mr.
Tavel have night classes for young men and boys, teaching
them EngUsh, French, bookkeeping, etc., the object being
to attract and benefit them. Not a few are thus drawn into
the meetings, and opportunity is often afforded for religious
instruction to these students.

2. Christian and Missionary Alliance. — In February,
1897, Rev. and Mrs. G. A. Bailley arrived in Caracas, and
a few months later opened a hall for evangelistic services.
Two young ladies of the Alliance, Miss E. M. White and
Miss B. Lanman, had done much to prepare the way by
their visiting, distribution of tracts, cottage meetings and
general missionary work among the people. Miss White
and Miss Lanman returned to the United States in the fall
of 1897 after some two years of service, and in 1900, barely
three years after Mr. Bailley's arrival in Caracas, his im-
paired health obliged him to go with his family to the States
on furlough. The work of the Alliance is kept up by a na-
tive helper under the supervision of two devoted missionary
ladies. Miss A. C. Wood and Miss A. L. Stone. They
teach in Sunday-school, visit in the homes of the people, and
hold meetings in the Lepers' Home, where they are eagerly

184

VENEZUELA

welcomed. Their helper has preached occasionally in the
city barracks, getting permission so to do from the officers
in charge; he also distributes Christian literature among
the soldiers.

A branch work is carried on in La Guaira, where there
have been a number of conversions. One Roman Catholic
family greatly desired to possess a Bible, and one was given
them. The priest, hearing of it, visited them and demanded
that it be delivered to him. Very reluctantly it was placed
in his hands ; he took it out in front of the house, applied a
match to the leaves and held it till all were partly consumed,
when the charred leaves were scattered to the winds. This
is not the only instance of priests burning the Word of God
in Venezuela.

3. Work of the Brethren. — Rev. John Mitchell, an Irish-
man, came from the Barbados to Venezuela in 1895. He
has worked in Valencia and other places, and has preached
in the halls of the Presbyterian Mission and of the Alliance.
In March, 1900, he opened a hall in a part of Caracas,
where little work had been done, so that it is practically a
new centre. Mr. Mitchell has made several evangelistic
tours through the interior of the Repubhc. He has usually
found the people kind and friendly and ready to receive his
books and tracts and to enter into conversation on religious
subjects. In speaking of a visit to Maracaibo, he says:
*'I gave away 1,000 tracts, some Testaments and portions
of Scripture. The inspector called me to know what I was
giving. I told him I would gladly give him samples,
which I did. He said it ' was all right if they were not
against religion.' I told him they might be against the
religion of the Church of Rome. He said, ^ Well, if they
are not against God, it is all right.' "

Mr. Mitchell was surprised at not finding the people in
185

PROTESTANT MISSIONS IN SOUTH AMERICA

the Cordilleras more robust and healthy. The numerous
cases of goitre among the poorer class, and especially the
women, were grievous. In Merida fully thirty per cent, of
the latter suffered from it. Idiocy is also very prevalent,
several cases to be seen in every village. '' Poor dwarfed
creatures, they move one to compassion." Of a tour in
1898, Mr. Mitchell says: •'! was away nearly three
months, during which I travelled over 600 miles and dis-
tributed thirty- two Bibles, thirty-six Testaments, 540 Gospels,
some Psalms and Proverbs, 400 small books, and over 5,000
tracts. . . . Once a few stones were thrown at me,
but it was only what rude boys would do to any stranger.
A young fellow called out after me, *I renounce you,
Satan,' but as that is not my name, I did not look back."

In Valencia the brethren have conducted operations
since the fall of 1897. It is a very fanatical place, and as
yet few have opened their homes to the missionaries. Rev.
E. A. Thomas, lately returning to England on account of
his own and his wife's health, says of Valencia; "We are
obliged to leave here after two and a-half years of sowing
and little reaping. Most of the time we have had Don
Enrique Inurrigarro and his devoted wife with us [Spanish
missionaries now in Puerto Rico]. Five have confessed
Christ — one is asleep, the other four have been baptized and
received to fellowship. We have distributed many Bibles,
Testaments and portions of Scripture, sold some at a low
price and given away thousands of tracts in all parts of the
city, besides in some of the villages and places near here."
The work in this city is now carried on by Rev. J. R.
Brown, a Scotchman, who has a hall for preaching services.
He has begun his work with an energy which has aroused
considerable persecution and therefore interest. The out-
look is now more hopeful than it was.

186

VENEZUELA

4. South American Evangelical Mission. — Going from
Caracas to Valencia, a distance of 100 miles, over a
German railroad, which is a marvel of engineering, one
crosses 218 bridges and passes through eighty-one tmmels,
going up to the very mountain-tops and then down to the
hot and dusty plain. A stop is made at La Victoria, one
of the twenty-five stations on the road. Here is a mission
station of the South American Evangelical Mission, Toronto,
Mr. David E. Firstrom and Mr. and Mrs. F. S. Wemiger being
the workers now there. The missionaries have been gaining
the confidence of the people, attracting them by music, dis-
tribution of tracts, etc. It is only within a few months that
pubhc services have been maintained. During the recent
revolution there was much fighting in the neighborhood of
La Victoria, and the missionaries had a very interesting
work among the soldiers. In Ciiidad Bolivar is another
station of this mission. Four or five missionaries are on
this field.

5. Indepe7ident Work.— In El Valle, a village not far
from Caracas, resides Miss Grace B. Tarbox, an inde-
pendent missionary worker, who visits and teaches the
people. Although physically a great sufferer, she has been
instrumental in the conversion of some of those about her.

6. Character of Protestant Work, especially in Caracas.
— The work is almost entirely among the lower classes, the
respectable poor people. Services are usually unmolested,
unless it may be by children or drunken men. A police-
man will always attend and keep order at the door if re-
quested to do so. The congregations, as far as the little
companies of Protestants are concerned, are orderly, quiet
and attentive; but there are always many coming and
going and standing about the open doors and windows. It
is impossible to estimate the number of those who thus hear

187

PROTESTANT MISSIONS IN SOUTH AMERICA

the Word of Life. Some stand wholly outside at first, then
the head is put in the door, and at last they venture inside,
but are ready to run if spoken to or invited to be seated.
Some become interested, return again and again, and finally
take their places with the congregation; but the outside
crowd is always a changing one. At the close of every
service, eager hands are stretched out for papers and tracts
and thousands are thus given away. Homes are open to the
workers, and many who will not or cannot attend services
will yet welcome the missionaries and listen to the message
they bring. The work is therefore largely evangelistic in
character.

VII. Elements in the Future Contest Between
Protestantism and Romanism. — i. Day of Small
Things, — It will be seen by comparing missionary work in
Venezuela with that of other lands that it is still in its
infancy. It was long before evangelical Christians awoke
to its needs and their responsibility to give to its people the
pure gospel which had been withheld from them by the
Romish Church. A young man in the University of
Caracas confessed that he never had read the New Testa-
ment and never would read it, because he knew it was
against the Church of Rome.

2. Needs. — As yet there are no medical missionaries, no
hospitals under Protestant care, no dispensaries, no mission
press, and only a beginning in school work. Very little
itinerating has been done, although the simple peons might
the most easily be reached by the gospel message. The
evangelical forces on this field are too weak to emanate
from the powerful churches of the North, too weak to rouse
aught but the contempt of the twin foes, Romanism and
Indifferentism. For some time to come foreign teachers
and missionaries, equipped with every appliance which God

i88

VENEZUELA

and nature and reason have put into their hands, should be
sent to break down the inveterate prejudices against
Protestantism. The press, the school, the hospital, the
orphanage, with all their real and imposing and palpable
benefits should be multiplied on this field, just as they are
employed in the slums of cities of the North and of
Europe.

3. One of the greatest hindrances to successful missionary
work in Venezuela is the immorality of the people. More
than one-half of the children are illegitimate. Protestant
marriage is not legal, and marriage in general is made so
expensive and so difficult that in some cases it seems almost
impossible. Many men and women, convinced of the truth,
yet kept from confessing it because they are living in sin,
will not or cannot change their way of life.

Another hindrance is the poverty of most of the people.
The struggle for existence seems to take all their thought,
and it is hard for one who is hungry to give heed to his
soul's need. Industrial work would be most useful. Mis-
sionaries should give some temporal assistance, and yet with
the greatest wisdom and discretion, so that they may not
pauperize the people. They will thus help them to help
themselves, and their teachings will be more readily ac-
ceptable.

A third hindrance is iki^ foreigners ^ — Protestants from
Protestant lands who bring no religion with them to Vene-
zuela. Even church members sometimes conform to the
customs of the country. These people might be a power
for good, were they willing bravely to show their colors ;
but — the aristocracy are Roman Catholics and to join them-
selves to the humble Protestant congregations would per-
haps affect their business prospects. Some come desiring
freedom from all restraint. A young German said to a mis-

189

PROTESTANT MISSIONS IN SOUTH AMERICA

Oh, yes, at home I go to church, but here money
making is my only thought. ' ' What opportunities of wit-
nessing for Christ these people are losing ! Surely God will
call them to account !

4. The hope for Venezuela's future is an open Bible, a
living, risen Christ, where now they have only the image of
the child Jesus, or a dead Christ hanging on the cross. The
only remedy for the political disturbances in the Republic,
and for the revolutions which paralyze all commercial inter-
ests and bring such misery to the homes of the people, is the
gospel in the hearts and lives of Venezuela's leaders and
people.

VIII. Points Common to the Republics of Colom-
bia and Venezuela — i. Suminary Statements. — Colombia
and Venezuela have much in common. The climate, the
character of the people, the language and religion are very
similar in both countries, and freedom of worship is sanc-
tioned in both republics. In both there is a great number
of lepers, greater in proportion to the population than in
any land, not excepting India. Colombia alone is said to
have 28,000 lepers. There is also a large number of
maimed and diseased beggars. Saturday is beggars' day
and the streets of cities are filled with the lame, the palsied,
the paralytic and the blind. Ophthalmia is also common and
there are many dwarfs and hunchbacks. Other points of
resemblance are the immorality of the people, the marriage
laws, the political conditions, and the frequent revolutions.

2. Importance and Methods of their Conversion. — The
conversion of these two republics near to North America
is of the utmost importance to it — of greater importance,
perhaps, than that of countries at a distance. Business men
— young men — are going to them, and there is constant
communication between the sister continents. If the people

190

VENEZUELA

of North America do not help to uplift these republics and
give them the pure gospel of Jesus Christ, they will them-
selves be drawn down and contaminated by their influence.
A Roman Catholic lady said to a missionary : "I cannot
think that you Protestants are in earnest, that you really be-
lieve what you profess to. If you did, surely you would
build churches in these South American cities and open
schools. [The Roman Catholics understand that the secret
of success is in getting hold of the children.] Where one
missionary is sent, hundreds would come." If these lands
are to be conquered for Christ, there must be an awakening
in North America. Men and women must be sent, — not by
twos and threes, but in such numbers as to make a profound
impression upon the people.

3. Kind of Candidates Needed; Qualifications. — They
must be the best that the Protestant churches can offer. It
is sometimes thought that any one who has the love of God
in his heart and is willing to go "will do " for a missionary.
Not so ', Colombia and Venezuela call for cultivated, intel-
ligent men and women, such as would grace the very best
society and win respect in the highest circles of foreign resi-
dents. Where people from all nations are gathered, an ac-
quaintance with other languages besides English and Spanish
is most useful. German in particular is needed, while a
missionary in these countries has many opportunities for
using Italian and Arabic. A knowledge of music is im-
portant, at least ability to sing. Spanish speaking people
are all fond of music and singing, so that it proves a help
and attracts the people. Domestic science, particularly a
practical knowledge of cooking, is of great importance. In
short, no experience in dealing with men, or in Christian
work, no knowledge of the most practical kind, no bit of
wisdom will come amiss in these fields. Practical, adaptable

191

PROTESTANT MISSIONS IN SOUTH AMERICA

people with tact are needed ; persons with good health and
strong courage, with an intimate knowledge of the Bible, and
a ready use of Scripture. Above all, they must be conse-
crated, filled with a desire for the salvation of souls, with a
love that can stoop to the very lowest and not shrink from
contact with the most repulsive forms of bodily suffering and
heinous sin ; — men and women who live very near the Mas-
ter and who show forth His love in their daily lives. Chris-
tian lives, more than sermons and teaching, will influence
these people. Those who are expecting to be missionaries to
these republics would do well to make a special study of
Romanism, so as to know what they will have to combat.
The system cannot be judged by what one sees of it in
Protestant lands where Roman Catholics are surrounded by
Protestant influences. It is very different where Romanism
has control of Government as well as Church, and where it
is seen in its purity and in its home. Candidates should
also remember that while there is freedom of worship, mis-
sionaries will be annoyed in many ways and must expect
persecution for the gospel's sake. They will have not only
Romanism and Indifference to confront, but Atheism, Spir-
itualism and Theosophy as well.

4. Home Life of the Missionaries. — It is scarcely possible
to overestimate the influence of the home life of the mis-
sionaries in these countries where there are comparatively
few real homes. Among the lower classes many houses are
occupied by women and children only. The Christian
home is like a light in a dark place, and the lives of its
inmates are an example to all who enter it. Lessons are
taught through home life that can be taught in no other way,
and the missionary home is ever open to the people. There
they come with their trials and troubles sure of patient lis-
teners and loving sympathy and help. They see the diifer-

192

VENEZUELA

ence between the missionary homes and their own, and learn
that that difference is caused by the open Bible and faithful-
ness to Christ. The missionary wife and mother, although
sometimes unable to do her part of the outside work, has yet
a sphere of usefulness in the home, and the children — even
the babies — do their part. The young daughter of a mis-
sionary in Barranquilla made such a place for herself in the
hearts of the people, that when the news came to them that
God had called her from her happy, busy life in a northern
boarding-school, many wept. One old woman said : "Ah
the dear child, she was good to me ! She never passed my
door without a kind word ; she had a noble heart." Many
spoke of the way in which her sweet life had influenced
them, and others told of her asking them to read the Bible
and pray daily, and to promise now to do so.

5, A Macedonia7i Cry. — The missionary with wife and
children, the young woman, the young man free from home
cares and better able to itinerate, — each and all are needed.
Each has a special field of work, each can be used of the
Lord in turning the people of these lands from slavery,
darkness and superstition to liberty, light and life. Let the
churches of the United States, Canada and Great Britain
send their very best candidates to Colombia and Venezuela,
and let them not forget that money is needed to carry on
mission enterprises, and that Venezuela is one of the most
expensive places in the world to live in, while parts of
Colombia are almost as expensive. Let them not be satis-
fied with sending men and women and money, but let them
hold up the hands of the missionaries by their prayers and
love and sympathy, thus sharing the work with them and
feeling that it is their own. Let them send missionaries
who will devote themselves especially to work among the
neglected aborigines of the republics, the 150,000 Indians

193

PROTESTANT MISSIONS IN SOUTH AMERICA

in Colombia and 326,000 in Venezuela. Let them remem-
ber that the women of these lands can best be reached by
Christian women. House-to-house visiting, taking the Word
of God to those who will not seek it, nursing the sick, com-
forting the sorrowing, teaching in the schools where many
influences may be exerted, holding women's meetings, — all
these and other forms of work can be carried on by women,
married or single. The women of these republics appeal
to their sisters in more favored lands. Shall that appeal be
unheeded ? *^ Freely ye have received; freely give,"

J94

SOUTH AMERICA AS A MISSION FIELD

SOUTH AMERICA AS A MISSION FIELD
By Rev. Thomas B. Wood, LL. D.

Lima, Peru
For Thirty-one Years a Missionary in South America

I. South America's Physical Development. — South
America surpasses all other continents in the following re-
spects :

1. Proportion of Surface Available for Dense Popula-
tion.— It has no great tracts under perpetual snow, like
North America, Europe and Asia ; nor any great deserts,
like those of Africa, Asia and Australia. Some day, there-
fore, its average density of population must be greater than
that of any other grand division of the globe.

2. Extent of Surface ^ now Sparsely Populated ^ Avail-
able for Immigration. — South America has about seven
million square miles. At least six million are suitable for
immigrants, — double the available territory of the United
States. It has in all about half as many inhabitants as the
United States. Thus it is one-fourth as densely populated
as this country, — about what this country was two genera-
tions ago. No other tract of good land exists that is so
large and so unoccupied as South America.

3. Accessibility to Immigration. — Its coasts are all com-
passed by steam navigation, already well developed and
second only to that of Europe and the United States in their
most densely populated districts.

. 197 <

PROTESTANT MISSIONS IN SOUTH AMERICA

The interior is nearly all accessible through rivers, the
greatest on earth, with navigation established for thousands
of miles — the beginning of the greatest river-traffic possible
anywhere.

Its railway systems, connecting the water ways with every
part of the territory, are well under way. The pampas are
being covered by a network like that of the United States.
The Andes have been crossed at three points, — the highest
railway passes in the world, — one of them having an eleva-
tion of 15,665 feet. Many lines will cross the Andes in the
near future, opening up vast and rich territories situated
near the sea, but shut off from it hitherto by mountain
walls. That barrier vanquished by modern railway progress.
South America stands as the most accessible of all continents.
The Isthmian canal and the intercontinental railway will
augment this preeminence.

4. Welcome Accorded to European Ho7?ie-seekers. — The
time was when the United States could boast of this above
all other countries, and being nearer than South America to
the sources of European emigration it absorbed the streams
as fast as they could come, and almost monopolized them.
Now, however, its population has become so dense as to
offer resistance to the incoming tide. That resistance tends
to offset the difference in distance, and to throw the balance
of advantages in favor of South America.

There, ten young republics are absorbing the emigration
as fast as it can arrive, and are vying with each other to at-
tract it. The United States never offered such inducements
to foreign settlers as those countries are now offering. No
other part of the world is bidding so high as South America
for Europe's surplus millions.

5. Kinskip with the United States in Physical Conditions
and Resources, — The two Americas are twin continents,

198

SOUTH AMERICA AS A MISSION FIELD

The Andes and the Rockies are parts of one grand chain of
[lighlands. The Alleghanies and the Brazilian ranges are
detached portions of one system. The intervening table-
lands in the two continents correspond exactly.

South America has the advantage of a climate that makes
all parts of it available and all its coasts accessible. Its low-
latitudes are offset by its great altitudes, giving it, over most
of its area, a temperate zone character that is wholesome
and inviting for Europeans.

Their mineral and agricultural resou7'ces^ — all their
facilities for developing human welfare, — are practically
identical.

6. Hence the Following Restilts. — (i) The streams of
emigration from Europe are now turning from North
America to South America. The first drift in that direction
dates from about fifty years ago, a generation after the liber-
ation of those countries from European rule. A steady flow
dates from about thirty years ago, and for the last twenty
years it has been a swelling inundation reaching every part
of the continent in greater or less degree.

(2) That continent, in the near future, will be the home
of teeming millions from the densest parts of Europe, who
will assimilate one with another and with the elements already
there, and will develop a new and mighty people, precisely
as has happened in the United States. This process is al-
ready advancing in the southeastern countries, where the im-
migration is most voluminous, in a way that demonstrates
the certainty of bringing the whole continent under its
sweep.

(3) This movement will progress more rapidly there than
it has elsewhere, and on a scale unknown in history. The
European influx into the United States never reached two
per cent, of the population, in any year, and never averaged

199

PROTESTANT MISSIONS IN SOUTH AMERICA

even one per cent, through any decade. It has averaged
two per cent, per annum for the last twenty-five years in the
southeastern countries of South America. Steam and elec-
tricity have shortened distances. Europe is more populous
than ever. South America is nearly twice as large as
Europe, and invites the immigrants not only to its eastern
shores, but everywhere. The twentieth century will witness
there a movement of migrant humanity of which the nine-
teenth century movement to North America will prove to
have been but the beginning.

(4) // will stand in history as the youngest ^ the vastest
and the densest of all the transplantings of European
humanity to virgin soil. After the two Americas and
Australia are developed, there will be no territory left to re-
peat the operation. European elements may engraft them-
selves on other stocks in many lands, but to develop them
from their own roots on new ground over a vast area will
never be possible again, unless another continent should
arise out of the sea. [What of Africa ?]

To evangelize this new development of the highest types
of mankind is the work of missions in South America.

II. South America's Moral Development. — South
America excels every other grand division of the globe in
the following particulars :

I. Moral Homogeneity in All Its Parts. — It has two
dominant languages, but they are so closely related that they
seem merely dialects of one. It has ten nations ; but their
frontiers are crossed by currents of thought and feeling, and by
movements of immigration as freely as by the rivers and the
winds. The uprising for independence swept the entire length
of the continent in the space of a few weeks. Important move-
ments in any part agitate the whole. Everywhere the Latin
civilization and culture are dominant, as are the Roman

200

SOUTH AMERICA AS A MISSION FIELD

Catholic religion and North American republican govern-
ment and free institutions. No other territory so vast has
such uniformity of moral conditions.

2. Feeling of Close Ki?iship among All Its Nations. —
They all have the same historic traditions, the same political
and social aspirations, the same peculiar tendencies, and,
withal, a consciousness that they form a family of nations
whose interests are common and whose destiny is one. No
other portion of the world presents this peculiarity on so vast
a scale.

And this has come to pass, not as in the United States,
where a single dominant sovereignty has molded many new
states on the model of a few old ones, all in gradual succes-
sion, but rather despite segregation, disunion and conflict,
among many sovereignties springing into existence all over
the continent at about the same time, with no bond to
unite them. It is the result of a mysterious providential
tendency, innate in those peoples, binding them together for
good.

3. An All-prevailing Aspiration to Imitate the United
States. — Those ten nations have copied our constitutions,
our laws, our political methods ; they have introduced our
school systems, and imported teachers from here to work
them; they have made a study of our whole '^ mode of ex-
istence," as they call it, on purpose to seek to reproduce it
among themselves. This is without parallel elsewhere ; and
when we take into account the barriers of language, religion
and race prejudice that separate them from us, their inclina-
tion to imitate the United States — profound and all-prevail
ing as it is — stands unmatched in history.

Alas, that unlike the United States, they have neither the
gospel, nor the moral power that goes with it. As a result
of this, their efforts to imitate our *'mode of existence"

201

PROTESTANT MISSIONS IN SOUTH AMERICA

have thus far failed, — everywhere and always failed, — with
not a single success in any nation or province to stand as a
happy exception. But despite the discouragement of such
universal failure to reach our moral results, their mysterious
aspiration to do so continues undiminished. It seems like a
divine inspiration working in the minds of those peoples,
preparing them to receive from us the one thing needful,
and then through it to enter into our inheritance of moral
blessings.

4. Freedom from Old World Domination. — In North
America Canada is under European sovereignty ; so, too, is
Australia. But South America is almost wholly free. Only the
Guianas, — three small colonies, — and the Falkland Islands
remain subject to foreign powers. Nowhere else has the
New World aspiration for independence so widely prevailed.
South America is the freest of all the grand divisions of the
globe.

Unfortunately her freedom is vitiated by the lack of
moral power among the masses of the people ; so that they
find adequate self-government impracticable, and their inde-
pendence often seems to be a curse rather than a blessing.
But despite this, the love of freedom is all-pervading, ex-
actly as in the United States.

5. Hence: (i) South America is the largest field in the
world for sweeping moral movements in the near future.
Examples of such movements in the past are the uprising
for independence, the predominance of republicanism, the
abolition of slavery, the spread of free schools, the growth
of the power of the press, and the extension of Masonry,
Odd Fellowship, and the like. In the future will come re-
ligious revivals, sweeping the whole continent and changing
the moral character of the people.

The multiplicity of free sovereignties facilitates the start-

SOUTH AMERICA AS A MISSION FIELD

ing of a new movement which may find the ground unten-
able at some points, but easy to hold at others. The homo-
geneity of the mass facilitates extending a movement when
once started on good vantage ground. The kinship of the
several peoples aids a well advanced movement to become
universal. The vastness of the field uniting these conditions
makes it stand without a parallel.

(2) // is, perhaps, the grandest jfie Id for expanding the
moral developments peculiar to the United States. The
founding of the United States was followed by an outburst
of republicanism in Europe, but in only one country,
France. It was followed in South America by the founding
of ten republics, thirty times larger than France. North
American influences everywhere else meet resistance in
tendencies from which South America is free. And in its
freedom South America is eager to accept those influences
as conducive to its highest aspirations. Alas, for the great
moral drawbacks that interfere as yet, and will continue to
interfere till overcome by the moral power that accompanies
the gospel !

(3) // must one day stand as the largest half of God's
New World of human welfare. All the world is now watch-
ing with interest the development of this country and peo-
ple, in ways and degrees impossible for the Old World and
peculiar to the New. They will one day admire yet more
this same development grown vastly wider and more glorious
by its extension over all America.

To make this result possible and hasten its consummation
is the work of missions in South America.

III. South America's Moral Drawbacks.— South
America suffers, beyond all other lands, from the following
drawbacks to moral improvement :

I, rriestcraft.— This was forced upon U at the point of
203

PROTESTANT MISSIONS IN SOUTH AMERICA

the sword and maintained by the fires of the Inquisition, with
no Protestantism to protest against it nearer than the other
side of the world. In recent years a woman was burned
alive by a priest in the republic of Peru, and two others
have since been threatened with the same fate by another
priest. Only a few years ago a missionary, Rev. Justus H.
Nelson, completed a term of imprisonment in Brazil for
writing against sacerdotal abuses. On the west coast the
gospel workers have suffered many arrests, one of which kept
Rev. Francisco Penzotti in prison over eight months, while
a false accusation against him was dragged through all
grades of tribunals, including the national supreme court.
The present consul-general of Ecuador in New York, Sefior
Felicisimo Lopez, was formerly a member of the senate of
his country, and was expelled from that body by a reso-
lution based on the ground that he had been excommuni-
cated by a bishop. Prelates and priests, monks and nuns
exert an influence that is all-pervading. The ethics of
Jesuitism dominate and vitiate every sphere of human
activity in South America. Abominations of every sort are
sanctified in the name of Christ.

The priesthood as a class is like the old Jewish priesthood
in holding the Truth of God '^in unrighteousness," and in
making the Divine Word "of none effect" by human tra-
ditions. It deserves all the curses that Christ heaped upon
the priestcraft of His time, with new chapters still more
scathing for the new abominations of the confession box,
pretended infallibility, enforced celibacy, the prohibition of
the Word of God, and the ancient abomination of image-
worship, from all of which the scribes and Pharisees were
free. Were it not for this drawback, reformatory move-
ments in church and state and all society would be swift and
sweeping, regenerating the South American peoples. With

204

SOUTH AMERICA AS A MISSION FIELD

this drawback, such movements are impossible, save as they
are forced in from without.

^ Lest the above statements may appear bigoted, the words
of an Encyclical Letter of Pope Leo to the clergy of Chile,
issued in 1897, are adduced : '*In every diocese ecclesias-
tics break all bounds and deliver themselves up to manifold
forms of sensuality, and no voice is lifted up to imperiously
summon pastors to their duties. The clerical press casts
aside all sense of decency and loyalty in its attacks on those
who differ, and lacks controlling authority to bring it to its
proper use. There is assassination and calumny, the civil
laws are defied, bread is denied to the enemies of the Church,
and there is no one to interpose. . . . It is sad to re-
flect that prelates, priests and other clergy are never to be
found doing service among the poor ; they are never in the
hospital or lazar house ; never in the orphan asylum or hos-
pice, in the dwellings of the afflicted or distressed, or en-
gaged in works of beneficence, aiding primary instruction,
or found in refuges or prisons. ... As a rule they are
ever absent where human misery exists, unless paid as chap-
lains or a fee is given. On the other hand, you (the clergy)
are always to be found in the houses of the rich, or wher-
ever gluttony may be indulged in, wherever the choicest
wines may be freely obtained."

2. Swordcraft, — Armed revolutions are inseparable from
the politics of those republics. All ten of them have been
torn with civil war in the last ten years, — some of them more
than once. Taking the continent at large, it is never free
from such wars, often having two or three going on at the same
time. They began amid the struggles for independence
from European domination, and have never ceased, — and
never will cease till the masses of the people are evangelized.
» This paragraph is inserted by the Editor.

PROTESTANT MISSIONS IN SOUTH AMERICA

International wars have been few, but destructive and
baneful. Occurring between peoples who are so closely akin,
they have partaken of the character of civil wars.

Priestcraft has a hand in all the armed strife, often
directly fomenting it, and almost always managing to
profit by it. A far-reaching motive impels to this, in that
whatever weakens the civil sovereignty strengthens relatively
the ecclesiastical predominancy.

South America is the most colossal example that ever was
of religious unity, and the most striking example of bloody
discord. Military conspiracies and ecclesiastical conspira-
cies combine to keep politics in confusion and make im-
possible the progress after which those peoples aspire.

3 . Peculiar Forms of Demoralization . — Inseparable from
these two evils, and making a combination of moral drawbacks
elsewhere unknown, are the following : Civil wars fill
society with feuds, rancor and aspirations for revenge. They
foment tendencies to violence and outrage, which run on
through times of peace, and make appeals to might instead
of right, seem normal in every sphere of life.

Patriotism is perverted and paralyzed by them. It is
further vitiated by Jesuitism, which puts virtue into false-
hood and blasts moral consistency, even in noble characters.
Private conscience, atrophied by an infaUible priesthood,
and by alienation from God, loses its power to guide the
will, and public conscience made up of such private con-
sciences is powerless to control public affairs.

Peace, without patriotism or public conscience, develops
despotistn or lapses into anarchy. Anarchy has no remedy but
usurpation and despotism. Despotism provokes revolution
and justifies violence and disorder. Peace supervenes through
weariness of disorder, but without reviving patriotism or pub-
lic conscience. Thus the dreary round repeats itself.

2Q6

SOUTH AMERICA AS A MISSION FIELD

The dominant priestcraft submerges in servility those
who submit to it and drives to unbelief those who revolt
against it. Servility and unbelief alike tend to moral weak-
ness, and thereby facilitate the dominancy of the priestcraft,
which thus perpetuates its control over believers and un-
believers alike. Each new generation is gripped by heredity
and environment, and compelled to repeat the experiences
of its predecessors. Thus another dreary circuit closes.

4. Failure of Supposed Re7nedies for the Moral Draw-
backs.— The hopelessness of this situation is appalling.
Noble efforts to remedy it have been made by the best
minds and hearts of those countries, but in vain.

Good constitutions have failed. Those of Brazil and
the Argentine Republic are second to none in the world,
being improvements on the federal constitution of the United
States. That of Peru, modeled on our state constitutions,
merited the praise of Gladstone. But these cannot stop the
waste of blood and treasure, much less the general demorali-
zation, the prostitution of patriotism, or the insidious domi-
nancy of priestcraft.

Good laws have failed. They cannot impart the moral
power which is lacking to carry them out. Good schools
have failed. They cannot make their scholars able to do
as well as they know. Railroads, steamboats, telegraphs,
telephones, electric lights, and other inventioiis have all
failed. Not a soul has been regenerated by them. They
happen to abound most where wars have raged worst in the
last decade.

Immigration has failed. The children of the immigrants
grow up as natives in the atmosphere that makes the natives
what they are, and their condition remains hopeless.

All these good things will help in the grand transformation
that is to come with the evangelizing of the masses. They

207

PROTESTANT MISSIONS IN SOUTH AMERICA

are helping already wherever the gospel is being strongly
pushed in. But without the one thing needful they have
no uplifting power. They present in South America a
combination of failures so unique, and on so vast a scale, as
to stand without a parallel.

5. Exclusion of the One Thing Need/ id. — South America
is a pagan field, properly speaking. Its image -worship is
idolatry ; its invocation of saints is practical polytheism.
And these abominations are grosser and more universal
there than among Roman Catholics in Europe and the
United States, where Protestantism has greatly modified
Catholicism. The religion of the masses all over the con-
tinent alienates them from God exactly as in ancient and
modern heathenism.

But it is worse off than any other great pagan field, in
that it is dominated by a single mighty hierarchy, — the
mightiest known in history, — which augments its might by
monopolizing the gospel, not in order to evangelize the
masses, but to dominate them, and to make their evangeli-
zation impossible. For centuries priestcraft has had every-
thing its own way all over the continent, and is now at last
yielding to outside pressure, but with desperate resistance.

Withal there is a mysterious slowness in evangelical
Christendom to bring pressure on South America. It has
come to be called "The Neglected Continent," among
British missionary writers. While needing the most ener-
getic activities of Protestant missionary enterprise, it has
been strangely deprived of them. This seems due to lack
of knowledge of its moral conditions. Thus her cries for
help meet with antipathy where they ought to find sym-
pathy, and the one thing needful is kept from her.

K the dominant priesthood could be reformed from within,
then a mighty reformation would follow, and South America

20S

SOUTH AMERICA AS A MISSION FIELD

would evangelize herself ; but that is hopeless under present
conditions. Since the days of Wyclif, Luther, and Calvin,
the discipline of Romanism has been so modified as to make
impossible a repetition of movements like theirs. Priests
have been converted in South America, and have done their
best to exert a reformatory influence, but with insignificant
effect. A talented English priest. Father Kenelm Vaughan,
went through all those countries repeatedly some years ago,
and awakened an enthusiasm for a reform in and through
the clergy, having printed for that purpose a special edition
of the New Testament in Spanish ; but it all came to noth-
ing, save to show how irreformable the whole system has
become.

6. Hence: (i) The regeneration of South America can-
not arise fro7n within, hit ?nust be introduced by propaganda
from without, and it calls for the most energetic action
known to modern missionary enterprise.

(2) South America lies to-day at the bottom of the scale
of nominal Christe?idom, with her gaze fixed wistfully on
the top of that scale, lamenting her vain attempts to reach
these heights sublime, all wearied and bruised and bleeding
with her struggles to find the way of progress, and calling
on all Christendom to give her a guiding and uplifting hand.

(3) The moral scale of Christendom, as seen to-day, with
Catholic South America at the bottom and Protestant North
America far aloft, — the one incapable of rising even by
imitation of the other, ever stumbling and slipping and fall-
ing back in the attempt, while the other is ever mounting
higher by an uplifting and guiding power from within, — dis-
plays to the world in the two continents a most significant
object lesson, showing the tendencies of Romanism and
Protestantism, and their effects on human well-being.

(4) The greatest of all battlefields between Romanism

209

PROTESTANT MISSIONS IN SOUTH AMERICA

and Evangelism will probably be in South America, and the

Great Reformation will achieve there far-reaching triumphs.

IV. North America to the Rescue. — South America

stands in the following peculiar relations to Protestant lands :

1. It is situated nearest to North America of all great
mission fields, but is more remote from Europe than are
many others. The two Americas, isolated from the rest of
the world, and joined one to another, have a manifest respon-
sibility each for the other. The people of the United States
have not yet awakened to this great fact. South America is
less to them than is almost any other country. This ought
not so to be. Oh, for another Columbus to rediscover
South America, and reveal her to the North American people
in her providential relations to them !

2. // welcomes influences from the United States as from
no other field, while it is freer from European influences
than almost any other, especially those where European
sovereignty is extending. This fact is remarkable when we
remember that Europeans abound in South America, while
North Americans are few and far between. It is one of the
signs of the times that superhuman power is working on those
masses of humanity, preparing them for their moral regen-
eration in kinship with the United States.

3. North American churches have commenced operations
at strategic points, tending to evangelize the whole conti-
nent. European churches are largely leaving that continent
alone. The latter scarcely look after their own members
that are emigrating thither, and do almost nothing for the
priest-ridden masses. They find enough to do in their own
hemisphere, and are leaving America to Americans. Oh,
that the American churches would open their eyes to the
singular duty and opportunity that God has reserved for
them in their own hemisphere !

210

SOUTH AMERICA AS A MISSION FIELD

4. Gospel work in South America is a success, singularly
encouraging, destined to do in the future for those ten re-
publics what progressive evangelization has done and is doing
for the United States. The operations include every form
of activity usual in this country. They present there the
peculiarity of requiring powerful outside help for getting
them started, in order to overcome the resistance of the
singular drawbacks which characterize that field, unknown
here, or anywhere else. But, once well begun, the work
develops there a tendency to self-support and self-extension
which is not approached by any other field outside Protest-
ant lands.

The pioneering has been done, all over the continent,
mainly by the American Bible Society, whose work in the
two Americas makes it the first and noblest of societies.

The signs of the times point to the coming of great
sweeping revivals. All the work thus far is providentially
preparatory to them. And when they once get started
among those impulsive peoples, the mighty changes that
will follow fast and far, throughout that immense homoge-
neous territory, promise to surpass anything of the kind
hitherto known.

5. Hence .• (i) South America offers a most excellent op-
portunity for North American evangelism to extend its
domain without competition, and work out results on the
widest possible scale. South America calls on North
American Christians, as a most imperative Macedonian,
" Come over and help us."

(2) To preempt this largest half of our own hemisphere
in the name of God and human welfare ; to transform this
wilderness of priestcraft and swordcraft, and bring it to the
glorious possibilities of Christian development ; to give the
saving truth to the millions already there and to the multi-

2x1

PROTESTANT MISSIONS IN SOUTH AMERICA

plied millions that are coming : — such is the mission now
before the churches in our great southern twin-continent.

V. Reflex Influences from South America. — i. On
Catholic Europe. — The streams of immigration from Eu-
rope to South America are conductors of reflex influence
promising great things for the future. The following con-
densed statements throw light on this most interesting mat-
ter.

(i) Roman Catholic immigrants in South America are
less subject to the priestcraft there than are the native
Catholic masses.

(2) All immigrants are less involved in politics ^ and in the
swordcraft inseparable from politics there, than are the na-
tives. Thus the great moral drawbacks peculiar to that
continent have their minimum eff"ect on foreigners.

(3) The gospel work there among the incoming European
Catholics and their children is peculiarly encouraging. Of
the gospel workers raised up there, some of the most pre-
cious are of this class.

(4) The work among them is peculiarly urgent, as the
descendants of foreigners become like the natives and lose
their advantage. Sad but common it is to find the children
of English parents unable to use the English language, des-
titute of English love of truth and fair play, ignorant of the
Scriptures, bereft of moral consistency, having lost in one
generation the advantages of the centuries of moral progress
of their ancestors.

(5) Immigrants converted in South America often trans-
mit the new leaven to their old homes. Whole communi-
ties in Spain and Italy have been stirred up with gospel in-
fluence from these, in this way, — a form of reflex action
that must go on with ever increasing volume.

(6) Catholic immigrants in South America are easier to

212

SOUTH AMERICA AS A MISSION FIELD

evangelize there than they would have been in their Euro-
pean homes. The indirect influence of their conversion
often helps make easier the evangelization of their old
neighbors even where no direct action takes place.

Thus missions in South America are destined to facilitate
more and more the evangelization of Catholic Europe, and
to be facilitated in turn by it.

2. On the Latin Race. — Evangelism all over Europe has
been energized by reflex action from the United States-
The analogous action from South America in future involves
certain special relationships that deserve special study.

(i) The influence from Saxon America has shown itself
chiefly in Saxon Europe. That of Latin America will be
most notable in Latin Europe.

(2) The gx^dX future of Latin humanity is to be in Latin
America, — many times larger than Latin Europe, — nearly
twice as large as all Europe — equal to Europe and the
United States together, — or to twice India and China proper.

(3) The work of evangelizi?ig that whole type of man-
kind, in both Europe and America, is one great enterprise,
whose reflex influences both inwardly among its various ele-
ments, and outwardly toward all Christendom, will be of
ever augmenting importance.

(4) The Latin race, at the time of the Reformation, re-
jected the gospel. Then God rejected it from its former
preeminence among the kindreds of men, and raised up to
take its place a lineage descended from northern barbarians,
whom He first evangelized, and then energized and multi-
plied, and blessed above all other lineages, arming them with
steel and steam and lightning, and setting them forth to
be the vanguard of all mankind. But God is now giving to
the Latin race a new opportunity to accept the gospel, and
to recover its birthright.

21^

PROTESTANT MISSIONS IN SOUTH AMERICA

(5) Once regenerated by the gospel, the Latm peoples
will rise speedily to the level of those that are now highest
above them. This regenerated Latin race, with the largest
half of the New World for its patrimony, besides its ancient
home in Europe, is destined to have a great and noble share
in future history.

(6) With the progressive evangelization of both Amer-
icas, there will be developed a reflex action between the
two. The Saxon type will excel in some things and the
Latin in others, while each will derive from the other new
impulses to go on unto perfection.

(7) The most influential of Pan-American institutions are
to be the churches. These, already enlisted in the work of
universal evangelization^ will one day place the two Amer-
icas side by side in the march of moral progress in the
whole world.

3. On the Americo- European Family. — Certain ethnic
features of the Americas deserve further attention.

(i) The Asiatic population in South America is insignifi-
cant in numbers, and shows no tendency to increase. Ex-
clusion laws against it are in force in some of the republics.

(2) The African population in South America is far less
than in North America, — less in actual numbers and less in
proportion to the whole, — and shows still less increase, with
no outside influx. There are exclusion laws against this in
some places.

(3) The vast unoccupied parts of the continent are filling
up with Europeans, and with them only. South America
has now, and is destined to have in the future, a population
averaging more purely European than any other continent
except Europe itself. This deserves special attention.

(4) The two Americas and Europe are the three homes of
European humanity , with the Atlantic to facilitate quick and

214

SOUTH AMERICA AS A MISSION FIELD

cheap transit between them. Already the European traffic
of South America exceeds that of the United States of two
decades ago, and far exceeds the present traffic between the
two Americas, though the latter is rapidly gaining.

(5) The play of moral influeiices between these three
homes of the highest types of humanity, grouped con-
veniently about the smaller of the two great oceans, will
develop a unity and homogeneity embracing them all, thus
augmenting their power over the rest of mankind.

(6) The enterprise of zipliftitig all mankiiid, carried on
from that triune vantage ground, with that triune power,
will bring to a consummation the Americo-European mis-
sionary movement, and prove a crowning mission of Amer-
ico-European humanity.

215

APPENDIX A

BIBLIOGRAPHY

The following volumes will prove helpful for auxiliary
reading, since in so brief a text-book only the leading facts
can be given. If class work is to be successful, some fresh
material must be introduced at each session. The lists be-
low suggest such material, arranged under the various
chapters of the book.

Those in the list of General Works are in most cases
available for all of the chapters. The material desired can
usually be found under the name of the country treated, in
its proper alphabetical order if in an encyclopaedia; other-
wise consult tables of contents or indexes.

GENERAL WORKS OF REFERENCE.

Bates, H. W. : Central America, the West Indies and South America

(i88s).
Bliss, E. M., editor, Encyclopaedia of Missions (1891).
Brown, R. : Races of Mankind. 4 vols. Vol. I.
Bureau of American Republics. See their handbooks on the various

republics.
Chisholm, G. G., editor. The Times Gazeteer of the World (1899).
Chisholm, G. G.: The World as it is (1884). 2 vols.
Curtis, W. E.: Capitals of Spanish America (1888).
Encyclopaedias (general), especially " Chambers' Encyclopaedia," new

edition, and Meyer's " Konbersations- Lexicon."
Indexes to periodical literature. See the various countries in Poole's,

and «« Review of Reviews " Index to Periodicals, and the " Annual

Literary Index."

ti6

APPENDIX A

Keltie, J. S. and I. P. A. Renwick. Statesman's Year-book.

Mill, H. R., editor, The International Geography (1900).

Reclus, E. : The Earth and Its Inhabitants — South America
(1894-95). 2 vols.

RiDPATH, J. C. : Great Races of Mankind (1893). 4 vols. Vol. IV. ^
Bk. xxviii.

Saint-Martin, V. de: Nouveau Dictionnaire de Geographic Uni-
verselle (1879- 1900).

Scobel, a. : Geographisches Handbuch zu Andrees Handatlas (1899).

Sievers, W. : Amerika (1894).

Spencer, H., and others. Descriptive Sociology, volumes on " An-
cient Mexicans, Central Americans, Chibchas and Ancient Peru-
vians," and on " North and South American Races."

ADDITIONAL READINGS FOR CHAPTER I,

BoRDiER, A.: La Geographic Medicale (1884), pp. 402-410, 455,
482-487, 515-521, 627-641.

Brown, R. : Races of Mankind. 4 vols. Vol. II., pp. I-12.

Davidson, A.: Geographical Pathology (1892). 2 vols. Vol. I., In-
troduction ; Vol. 11, , pp. 926-988.

Keane, a. H.: Ethnology (1896), ch. xiii.

Olsson, E. : The Dark Continent at Our Doors (1899).

Ratzel, F. : History of Mankind (1897). 3 vols. Vol. II., pp. 48-78.

Stuart, V. : Adventures Amidst Equatorial Forests and Rivers of
South America (189 1), ch. iv.

Taylor, W. : Our South American Cousins (1878), ch. ii.

ADDITIONAL READINGS FOR CHAPTER IL

Brktt, W. H. : Mission Work among the Indian Tribes in the For-
ests of Guiana. Especially chs. i.-iii., xiii., xiv.
Brown, W. : History of the Propagation of Christianity among the

Heathen (1854). 3 vols. Vol. II., ch. ix., sect. vi.
Burkhardt, G. E. and R, Grundemann : Kleine Missions-Bibli

othek (1876). Vol. I., Pt. II., pp. 231-250. Pt. III., pp. 200-209,
Gundert, H. : Die Evangelische Mission (1894), pp. 504-509.
Hodder, E. : Conquests of the Cross. 3 vols. Vol. II., pp. 419-428

Vol. HI., pp. 112-114.
Holmes, J. : Historical Sketches of the Missions of the United Breth

ren for Propagating the Gospel among the Heathen. Ch. iv.

sects. i.~iii.
Horne, C. S. : The Story of the London Missionary Society (1895)

pp. 146-170.

217

APPENDIX A

VON Humboldt, A. : Travels to the Equinoctial Regions of America,
1799-1804 (1852). 3 vols. Vol. III., pp. 19-23, 50-62.

JosA, F. P. L.: The Apostle of the Indians of Guiana (1888), espe-
cially chs. ii., iv., vii,, xi., xiii.

LovETT, R. : The History of the London Missionary Society (1895),
2 vols., pp. 319-375-

Missionary Review of the IVorld (1S96), pp. 519-523-

RODWAY, J. : In the Guiana Forest (1897), PP- i7-6i-

RoDWAY, J. and J. Stark : Guide-book and History of British Guiana,
pp. 58-120.

ScHOMBURGK, R. H. : Description of British Guiana (1840), pp. 17-28.

Smith, T. and J. O. Choules : The Origin and History of Missions
(1832), pp. 108-121,533-552.

Stuart, V. : Adventures amidst Equatorial Forests and Rivers of
South America (1891), ch. v.

Stuart, V.: Equatorial Forests and Rivers of South America (1891),
ch. v.

Thompson, A. C.: Moravian Missions (1895). Lecture IV.

Veness, W. T. : Ten Years of Mission Life in British Guiana, through-
out.

VOGEL, C: Le Monde Terrestre (1884). Vol. III., ch. vii.

Waterton, C. : Wanderings in South America (1885), PP- 87-147-

ADDITIONAL READINGS FOR CHAPTER III.

Brown, W. : History of the Propagation of Christianity among the
Heathen (1854). 3 vols. Vol. I., pp. 352-367-

BuRKHARDT, G. E. and R. Grundemann : Kleine Missions-Bibli-
othek (1876). Vol. I., Pt. III., pp. 176-200.

Gundert, H. : Die Evangelische Mission (1894), pp. 501-504.

HoDDER, E. : Conquests of the Cross. 3 vols. Vol. III., pp. 1 14-1 18.

Holmes, J. : Historical Sketches of the Missions of the United Breth-
ren. Ch, iv., sects, iv.-vi.

Leonard, D. L. : A Hundred Years of Missions (1895), pp. 370-372.

Missionary Review of the World ^1897), PP- 809-816.

Palgrave, W. G.: Dutch Guiana (1876), pp. 32-70, I39-I73-

Smith, T. and J. O. Choules : The Origin and History of Missions
(1832), pp. 108-121.

Stuart, V. : Adventures amidst Equatorial Forests and Rivers of
South America (1891), chs. i.-iii.

Stuart, V.: Equatorial Forests and Rivers of South America (1891),
chs. ii., iii.

Thompson, A. C. : Moravian Missions (1895). Lecture IV.

VoGEL, C: Le Monde Terrestre (1884). Vol. III., ch. vii.

218

APPENDIX A

ADDITIONAL READINGS FOR CHAPTER IV.
AgASSIZ, L. : A Journey in Brazil (1868), pp. 54-58, 173-180,495-517.
Andrews, C. C. : Brazil, Its Condition and Prospects (1891), chs. iv.,

vii., xi., xiv., xix.
Barnes, A. M. : Izilda, a Story of Brazil (1896).
Bates, H. W. : The Naturalist on the Amazons (1863). 2 vols., pp.

59-76, 86-95.
Bigg-Wither, T. P.: Pioneering in South Brazil (1878). 2 vols.

Vol. I., pp. 114-119.
Brown, W. : History of the Propagation of Christianity among the

Heathen (1854). 3 vols. Vol. L, ch. i.
DuNDAS, R. : Sketches of Brazil (medical). Especially sects, i., ii., iv.
Fletcher, J. C. and D. P. Kidder : Brazil and the Brazilians (1866),

pp. 161-176.
Ford, I. N. : Tropical America (1893), chs. ii.-iv.
Gardner, G. : Travels in the Interior of Brazil (1849), pp. 342-347.
Gundert, H.; Die Evangelische Mission (1894), pp. 509-511.
Historical Sketches of Presbyterian Missions (1897), PP- S^S'-S^S-
Hodder, E. : Conquests of the Cross. 3 vols. Vol. HI., pp. 98-III.
Humphrey, A. R. : A Summer Journey in Brazil (1900), pp. 72-95,

102-111, 141-146.
John, I. G. : Handbook of [Southern] Methodist Missions (1893), pp.

102, 103, 272-311.
Leonard, D. L. : A Hundred Years of Missions (1895), pp. 375-377.
Mackenzie, R. : America, a History (1882), pp. 544-557.
Millard, E. C. and L. E. Guinness : South America, the Neglected

Continent (1894), pp. 50-63. 82-89, 118-135, 159-165.
Missionary Review of the World (1890), pp. 341 -348, 422-427;

(1892), pp. 868-870; (1895), pp. 812-819; (1896), pp. 109-II3;

(1897), PP- 300-302, 539, 540, 832-835, 854, 855.
Orton, J.: The Andes and the Amazon (1870), chs, xxi., xxii.
Reid, J. M. and J. T. Gracey: Methodist Episcopal Missions (1895),

3 vols. Vol. L, pp. 285-302.
Smith, H. H. : Brazil, the Amazons and the Coast (1879), pp. I-18,

205-225, 541-587-
Southey, R. : History of Brazil (1822), pp. 5-32.
Student Missionary Appeal (1898), pp. 282-284, 287-289.
Thompson, A. C. : Protestant Missions (1894), pp. 9-12.
VoGEL, C. : Le Monde Terrestre (1884). Vol. III., ch. vi.
Wallace, A. R.: Travels on the Amazon and Rio Negro (1853),

pp. 476-519-
Wells, J. W.: Three Thousand Miles through Brazil (1886), pp.

347-358-
Young, R. : From Cape Horn to Panama (1900), pp. 1 16-123, 125-

127, 181-187.

219

APPENDIX A
ADDITIONAL READINGS FOR CHAPTER V.

PARAGUAY.

Child, T. : The Spanish-American Republics (1891), pp. 366-403.
Clemens, E. J. M. : La Plata Countries of South America (1886),

chs. xxx.-xxxii.
Handbook of Paraguay (1892), chs. i., ii., viii., xv.
La Dardye, E. de B. : Paraguay (trans. 1892), pp. 56-74.
MULHALL, M. G. and E. T. : Handbook of the River Plate (1892),

pp. 637-653.
Page, T. J, : La Plata, the Argentine Confederation,, and Paraguay

(1859), ch. xxvi.
Rays of Sunlight in Darkest South America, pp. 34-43.
VoGEL, C: Le Monde Terrestre (1884). Vol. III., ch. v., sect. 13.
Young, R. : From Cape Horn to Panama (1900), pp. 128-157.

URUGUAY.

Child, T.: The Spanish-American Republics (1891), pp. 404-433.
Clemens, E. J. M.: La Plata Countries of South America (1886),

ch. vi.
Crawford, R. : South American Sketches (1898), especially chs.

iii., xxii.
Handbook of Uruguay (1892), chs. i., vi.
Herzog, C. : Aus Amerika, ch. xliv.
Millard, E. C. and L. E. Guinness : South America, the Neglected

Continent (1894), pp. 46-49.
MuLHALL, M. G. and E. T.; Handbook of the River Plate (1892),

pp. 581-613.
Page, T. J. : La Plata, the Argentine Confederation, and Paraguay

(1859), ch. xxvi.
Rays of Sunlight in Darkest South America, pp. 52-62.
Reid, J. M. and J. T. Gracey : Methodist Episcopal Missions (1895),

3 vols., pp. 302-316, 369-376.
Vogel, C: Le Monde Terrestre (1884). Vol. III., ch. v., sect. 12.

argentine republic and fuegia.

Bishop, N. H.: The Pampas and Andes (1883), chs. vii., viii.
Brown, W. : History of the Propagation of Christianity among the

Heathen (1854). 3 vols. Vol. III., Appendix I., XVIII.
Burkhardt, G. E. and R. Grundemann : Kleine Missions-Bibli-

othek (1876). Vol. I., Pt. II., pp. 253-264.
Child, T. : The Spanish-American Republics (1891), pp. 305-342.

220

APPENDIX A

Clemens, E. J. M. : La Plata Countries of South America (1886),

ch. ix.
CoAN, T. : Adventures in Patagonia (1880), especially chs. vii., xii., xvii,
Crawford, R. : Across the Pampas and the Andes (1884), Ap*

pendix II.
Darwin, C. : A Naturalist's Voyage (1886), pp. 177-188, 204-230.
Dixie, Lady F. : Across Patagonia (1880), pp. 62-80, 151-154.
Ford, I. N. : Tropical America (1893), ch. vi.

HoDDER, E. : Conquests of the Cross. 3 vols. Vol, III., ch. Ixxii.
Hudson, W. H.: Idle Days in Patagonia (1893), PP- 5-7» 207-216.
Hudson, W. H.: The Naturalist in La Plata (1892), ch. i.
John, I. G. : Handbook of Methodist Missions (1893), PP- 468-480.
Leonard, D. L. : A Hundred Years of Missions (1895), PP- 372-375-
Marsh, J. W. and W. H. Stirling : Story of Commander Allen

Gardiner, R. N. (1874), especially chs. iv.-viii.
Millard, E. C. and L. E. Guinness : South America, the Neglected

Continent (1894), pp. 20-45, 89-93, IOO-I17.
MULHALL, M. G. and E. T.: Handbook of the River Plate (1892),

pp. 1-7, 247-306.
Myers, S. A.: Self-sacrifice, or the Pioneers of Fuegia (1861),

chs. viii., xv.-xix.
Page, T. J. : La Plata, the Argentine Confederation, and Paraguay

(1859), ch. xxvi.
Pertuiset, E. : Le Tr6sor des Incas a la Terre de Fere (1877), ch. viii.
Ratzel, F. : History of Mankind (1897). 3 vols. Vol. II., pp. 78-91.
Rays of Sunlight in Darkest South America, pp. 9-34, 47-52, 71-73.
Reid, J. M. and J. T. Gracey : Methodist Episcopal Missions (1895).

3 vols, pp. 302-316, 354-365-
Thompson, R. W. and A. N. Johnson : British Foreign Missions

(1899), pp. no, III.
VoGEL, C. : Le Monde Terrestre (1884). Vol. III., ch. v., sects. 10, 11.
Young, R. : From Cape Horn to Panama (1900), pp. 44-88, 97-114.
Young, R. : Light in Lands of Darkness (1884), pp. 33-70.

ADDITIONAL READINGS FOR CHAPTER VI.

Bishop, N. H. : The Pampas and Andes (1883), ch. xx.

Herzog, C. : Aus Amerika, chs. xxxviii., xxxix.

Historical Sketches of Presbyterian Missions (1897), pp. 323-332.

Missionary Review of the World (1897), PP- 575-579-

Reid, J. M. and J. T. Gracey : Methodist Episcopal Missions (1895).

3 vols., pp. 379-382.
Taylor, W. : Our South American Cousins (1878), chs. vi.-xxi.
Vogel, C. : Le Monde Terrestre (1884). Vol. III., ch. v., sect 9.
Young, R.: From Cape Horn to Panama (1900), pp. 89-97, 158-180.

221

APPENDIX A
ADDITIONAL READINGS FOR CHAPTER VII.

BOLIVIA.

Myers, S. A.: Self-sacrifice, or the Pioneers of Fuegia (1861), ch. xi.
Reid, J. M. and J. T. Gracey : Metliodist Episcopal Missions (1895).

3 vols., pp. 379-382.
VoGEL, C. : Le Monde Terrestre (1884). Vol. III., ch. v., sect. 8.

Darwin, C.: A Naturalist's Voyage (1886), pp. 362-371.
Herzog, C. : Aus Amerika, chs. xxxv., xxxvi.

Markham, C. R. : History of Peru ( 1 892), chs. i., ii., pp. 1 1-64, ch. xxi.
Markham, C. R. : Travels in Peru and India (1862), pp. 1-59.
Middendorf, E. W. : Peru (1893). 3 vols. Vol. I., pp. 157-270;

Vol. II., pp. 1-34.
Millard, E. C. and L. E. Guinness : South America, the Neglected

Continent (1894), pp. 138-146.
Prescott, W. H. : History of the Conquest of Peru, Vol. I., chs. i., iii.
Ratzel, F.: History of Mankind (1897). 3 vols. Vol. II., pp. 170-

203.

Reid, J. M. and J. T. Gracey : Methodist Episcopal Missions (1895).

3 vols., pp. 379-382, 391-393-
Taylor, W. : Our South American Cousins (1878), chs. iii.-v.
Vogel, C. : Le Monde Terrestre (1884). Vol. III., ch. v., sect. 7.

ECUADOR.

Missionary Review of the World (1897), PP- 37-4<^-

StObel, a.: Skizzen aus Ecuador (1886). (Cuts accompanied by

short descriptions.)
Vogel, C: Le Monde Terrestre (1884). Vol. III., ch. v., sect. 6.

ADDITIONAL READINGS FOR CHAPTER VIII.

Historical Sketches of Presbyterian Missions (1897), PP* 332-339.

Petermann's Mitteilungen for 1892, pp. 87-125.

Rays of Sunlight in Darkest South America, pp. 75-79.

Regel, F. : Kolumbien (1899), PP- 86-121, 139-169.

Student Missionary Appeal (1898), pp. 281, 282.

Vogel, C: Le Monde Terrestre (1884). Vol. III., ch. v., sect. 4.

ADDITIONAL READINGS FOR CHAPTER IX.

Butterworth, H. : Over the Andes (1897), chs. vii., viii.
Curtis, W. E. : Venezuela (1896), especially chs. i., v., xii., xvi.
von Humboldt, A. : Natur und Reisebilder (1875), P^- ^I-' ^hs. i., iii.
von Humboldt, A. : Travels to the Equinoctial Regions of America,

222

APPENDIX A

1799-1804 (1852). 3 vols. Vol. I., pp. 394-401 ; Vol. II., pp. 84-

109; Vol. III., pp. 137-142.
SlEVERS, W.: Die Cordillere von Merida (1888), pp. 191-225.
VOGEL, C: Le Monde Terrestre (1884). Vol. III., ch. v., sect. 5.

ADDITIONAL READINGS FOR CHAPTER X.

Clemens, E. J. M.; La Plata Countries of South America (1886),
ch. xxix.

Ecumenical Missionary Conference, New York, 1990. 2 vols., ch. xix.
Mackenzie, R. : America, a History (1882), pp. 534-543.
Millard, E. C. and L. E. Guinness : South America, the Neglected

Continent (1894), pp. 69-81, 94-99, 166-176.
Missionary Review of the World (1893), PP- 836-839; (1897), PP

842, 843.
Student Missionary Appeal (1898), pp. 284-287, 289-297.

223

APPENDIX B

o t""

a 4»

151

e c C-; c_-
.2 .2 .2 « .2 U

rt rt'E rt E rt g

IIIIJII

"o 'o >- "o <^ "o <«

•£•£ "5 °-° °

rt rt 3 rt c rt C
UUougUo

C S M C "2 C "2

rt OS --• rt ij rt 1^

i ic^ §£ ifa

w V

s !:

•* II 2

•* S E
>s.2„

III

cro "

•sjuapnjs

saijisjaAiun

pUB S3331I03

•SJB[oq3S

O « M M -♦

5; :8

SlOOqOS J9M0I

puB Xjbxuuj

•ajjui -bs
asd XjisuaQ

•suBipuj

00 «> p.

^g.s

0^0,4)

•noij^indoj

5? Ov^i^ S H

OvcT ^ uS

•bs ui B3JV

^ 2

NO O

§ I

S, 5

a 6

'^ ^ '2 o .

< O

U^»

«"«"«^Pi

324

■S;n 3:= ?.:3
ti-3 3>3 i:-3

05S

o3 ^:§ 2-1

15 rt

•3 k C

«3

= s <s

APPENDIX C

2'3

^ 2 " o
S : s «"

> u >

2 •< n

•: ti;

2- >i

.S*

A -

jTtd
n z^

> s.

•5 I:

l:E

^5i i3

r:50

.CM

00 NO VI B a

Year of report.

Countries occupied
year of entrance.

W M

Missionaries, ord'nd.

: -^

Laymen.

: 0.

Wives.

;

Other women.

• ::::::: • | Male physicians.

o» :

Native workers,
both sexes.

*■

W U\

•>!

-*■

■♦«•

Stations.

o»

: :

Out-stations.

: :

•

Communicants.

: :

Adherents, not com-
municants.

: •*

Day-schools.

:
:

: :

:
:

Pupils.

: :

*■

■: 1

Higher institutions.

: :

: 1

Students.

Patients.

O
O

23S

•SJUSIJBJ

APPENDIX C

,-luapn4S j

•suopnjiisui jaqSiH

i i

" :

•sndnj

1 1

VO ;

: i

■sjooqos-iCEQ

• s-

lo :

: -

•sjuBDiunui

-UIOD JOU 'SJU343qpV

0-.

"in

: :

•sjuroiunmmo^

: ^,

1 1

•suoij'Bjs-jno

: :

rL :

5- :

•suoiiEjg

M \0

M N

" -

■> : -

•S3X3S q4oq

t>.

-*•

8 :

•U3UIOAV JsqjO

APPENDIX C

8 :

;

i "

: H

1 s

;• 'f

1 ;r

00 ;j^

0
^

: 0

■* ^

i '

■1 0

0 K

<??

•<^

^ ?

•

: g

€

•

n •*

^ o^

o\ N 0

urn 0

;

( VO

: ^

'*•

1 !^

•

^ S

: ^

VO (T,

: £

\ f?

■^

en ti

'►T G^ii,

"on

'^00'

zil (1898), Arg. Rep. (189

zil (1836), Arg. Rep. (183
ile (1878), Peru (1S87), D
jguay (1839), Paraguay.

cg^

. <:

o?S

42
3
ft

d
.5

3
P

•3

British Guiana (1835

ezuela (1805), Brazil,
Rep., Bolivia (1899)

gia and Falklands (

e (1894), Paraguay (

Arg. Rep. (1896).

'0
u

e^)

•c

3X1

aa^

fcU

f ~

1 1 1

" :

>. :

u :

— 1

0 :

S :

.2.M

a
2.S

Parts

South American Evangel

c :

"3
>

a
rt

-a
§

c
o

.15 u

.2
0

c
>

&
0

^ c

■<i-

IT)

00*

„•

. .

f»>

fo en

o .

C/)X5

227

ANALYTICAL INDEX

Besides indicating the location of important topics, this IndcK is
also intended for use in preparing the various studies. Having read
over its analytical outline before taking up each chapter, the student
sees exactly what ground is covered by the section to be mastered.
So, too, after having studied the chapter, its outline can again be used
in lieu of questions put by a teacher, thus enabling the student to see
what topics have been forgotten. The numerals following each topic
and sub-topic refer to the pages where they may be found.

CHAPTER I

GEOGRAPHICAL AND GBNBRAL

I. Panoramic view of South America, 3, 4.
II. River systems of the continent, 4-7.
I. The Orinoco and its tributaries, 5.
«. The Amazon, or Amazons, 5, 6.

3. The Rio de la Plata, 6.

4. South America's degree of accessibility, 7.
III. Highlands and mountains, 7-10.

1. Highlands of Guiana and Brazil, 7.

2. South America's great mountains, 7-10.

(x) General characterization, 7. 8. (2) Andean scenery : in the south, 8 ;
in Chile, 8; in Bolivia, 8; in Peru, 8, 9 ; in Ecuador, 9, 10;
in Colombia, 10. (3) Bearings of these mountains on mission-
ary geography, 10,
IT. Habitable plains, 10-14,

1. The Llanos of the Orinoco, 10, 11.

(i) General characteristics, 10, 11. (2) Reclus' description, 11.

2. Selvas of the Amazon, 11, 12.

(i) Extent and character, 11. (2) As seen by travellers, externally and
internally, 12.

3. The Gran Chaco, 12, 13.

(i^ Location and character, 12, 13. (2) A Chaco night scene, 13.

4. The pampas, 13, 14.

(i) Different pampa regions, 13. (2) Summer morning on the pampas,
13, 14. (3) Their moral effect, 14.
V. Wastes and deserts, 14-16.

1. The Shingle Desert of Patagonia, 14, 15,

(x) General character and extent, 15. (2) Impressions mad« by this
desert, 15.

2. The Atacama Desert, 15, 16.

3. Salt and fresh marshes, x6.

VI. South American productions, 16, 17.
X. Minerals and metals, 16.
s. Products of the forests, 16, 17.

228

ANALYTICAL INDEX

3. Field products, 17.

4. South America's place in twentieth century development, 17.
VII. South American races, 17-22,

1. Dr. Herbertson's summary view of these, iS,

2. Their social condition. iS, ig.

3. Immigration and its prospects, ig-22.

(I) Habitable area available, 19, 20. (2) Material resources, 20. (3)
Accessibility to immigrants, 20. (4) Climatic conditions and
diseases, 20, 21. (5) Stability of government, 21, 22.
VIII. Characteristic features of different countries. 22-27.

1. Argentine Republic, including Patagonia,' 22.

2. Bolivia, 22, 23.

3. Brazil, 23.

4. Chile, 23, 24.

5. Colombia, 24.

6. Ecuador, 24.

7. The Falklands and South Georgia, 24, 25.

8. The three Guianas, 25.

9. Paraguay, 25, 26,

10. Peru, 26.

11. Uruguay, 26.

12. Venezuela, 26, 27.

IX. Method of treatment here followed, 27,

1. Relation of main parts of the text-book, 27.

2. Order of presentation, 27.

CHAPTER II

BRITISH GUIANA, OR DEMHRARA

I. Settlement of British Guiana, 31.
II. Its population, 31-33.

1. Number and races, 31, 32.

2. Negroes and effect of their enfranchisement, 32.

3. Immigrants and their home countries, 32, 33.

4. Difficulties of evangelizing immigrants, 33.
Summary of the work of different churches, 33-37.

1. Early attempts : Individuals, JNloravians, C. M. S., 3?,

2. Initial efforts of the S. P. G., 33, 34.

3. Original attitude of the government, 34.

4. Bishop Austin's labors, 34, 35.

5. Other societies and their work, 35.

6. Gradual withdrawal of government aid, 35, 36,

7. Extent of missionary success in Guiana, 36, 37.

8. Future of the Guiana negro, 37.
Work for the aboriginal races, 37-40.

1. The societies engaged, 37, 38.

2. Description of one mission, 38, 39.

(i) Mr. Brett's labors, 38. (2) Results of missionary effort, 38,
(3) The mission station described, 39.

3. Characteristics and future prospects of the Indians, 39, 40.
V. Mission work for Asiatic immigrants, 40-42.

1. The Chinese and their Christianization, 40.

2. The Eart Indians, 41, 42.

(i) Denominational cooperation ; meagre results, 41. (2) Hope for the
younger generation, 41, 42.

CHAPTER III

DUTCH GUIANA, OR SURINAM

I. Races of Dutch Guiana, 45-47.
I. Races and their numbers, 45.

229

III

ANALYTICAL INDEX

2. The African populations, 45, 46.

3. Religious ideas of tlie Bush Negroes, 46, 47,
II, Moravian Indian missions, 47-49.

1. Beginnings and pioneers, 47, 48.

2. A second Indian mission, 48, 49.

(1) Louis Christopher Dahne, 48. (2) Retrogression, 48, 49.

III. Mission to negro slaves, 49-51.

1. Early policy of this work, 49.

2. Difficulties encountered by early missionaries; Verbond, 49, 50.

3. Languages used : Negro-English, Dutch, 50.

4. Steps toward a self-dependent native church, 50, 51.

IV. Missionary work among Bush Negroes, 51-54.

1. The land of these negroes, 51.

2. Work in the interior, 52-54.

(i) Missionaries engaged, 51. (2) Schmidt renews the mission, 52, 53.
(3) Mary Hartmann's labors, 53, 54.

3. Present status of the mission, 54.
V. Work for coolies and lepers, 54.

1. Coolie mission, 54.

2. The leper hospital, 54.

VI. Statistics of Moravian Guiana missions, 54.
VII. Difficulties of the Guiana field, 55.

1. Proselyting by Roman Catholics, 55.

2. Looseness of the marriage tie, 55.

CHAPTER IV

I. Discovery and subsequent history, 59-62.

1. Period of discovery and settlement (i 500-1640), 59, 60.

2. Period of development (1640-1822), 60, Ci.

(i) Accelerated progress and reasons therefor, 60. (2) Obstacles to
progress, 60. (3) Leading spirits of the period, 60. (4) Its
close, 60, 61.

3. The Empire (1822-18S9), 61.

(i) Early portion of the period, 61. (2) Reign of Dom Pedro II., 61,

4. The United States of Brazil (1889-), 61, 62.

(i) Positivism ; new attitude of the masses, 61, 62. (2) Presidency of
Dr. Campos Sales, 62.
II. Peoples of Brazil, 62-67.

1. General statements concerning them, 62, 63.

(i) Their relative proportions, 62, 63. (2) Growth in population, 63.
(3) The immigrants, 63. (4) Languages, 63.

2. The whites, 63-65.

(i) Earlier and later immigrants, 63,64. (2) Characterized: socially,
physically, intellectually, morally, 64, 65.

3. The blacks, 65, 66.

(i) Introduction of slavery and later condition, 65. (2) Romanism
and the blacks, 65, 66.

4. Aboriginal races, 66, 67.

(i) Habitat and possible origin, 66. (2) Social and moral character-
istics, 66, 67.
III. Conditions bearing on Protestant missions, 67-74.

1. Social conditions, 67-70.

(1) Statistics, 67, 68. (2) Race and color line, 68. (3) The family and
its debasement, 68, 69. (4) Need for missions, 69, 70. (5)
Noble elements of character, 70.

2. Political conditions. 70.

3. Brazil's intellectual life, 70-74.

(i) First college in Brazil, 71, 72. (2) Present intellectual status : de-
gree of illiteracy, schools and higher institutions, 72, 73.

2.^0

ANALYTIC A.L INDEX

(3) Brazil's literary men, 73. (4) Book stores and period-
icals, 73. (5) Intellectual influence of Protestant mis-
sions, 73, 74.
IV. Protestant missions in Brazil, 74-88.

1. Early pioneers under Villegagnon, 74-76.

(i) Securing colonists, 74. (2) Arrival and disagreements, 74, 75.
(3) Effect of failure on Brazil's history, 75, 76.

2. Dutch attempts at evangelization, 76, 77.

(i) Religious aim and work, 76. (2) Success among the Indians, 76, 77,

3. Some efforts of the northern Methodists, 77.

(i) Early workers and work, 77. (2) Mr. Nelson's labors, 77.

4. " Help for Brazil," 78, 79.

(i) Dr. Kalley's efforts, 78. (2) Its extension, 77, 78. (3) Formal or-
ganization of the society, 79.

5. Northern Presbyterian enterprises, 79, 80.

(i) Beginnings under Mr. Simonton, 79. (2) Subsequent spread, 79.
(3) McKenzie College, 79, 80.

6. Southern Presbyterian mission, 80.

(i) Pioneers and lines of work, 80. (2) United Synod of Brazil, 80.

7. Southern Methodist work, 81, 82.

(i) Initiation and development of the mission, 81. (2) Work taken
from the northern Methodists, 8i, 82.

8. Southern Baptist convention, 82.

9. Protestant Episcopal missions, 82, 83.
ID. British and Foreign Bible Society, 83.

11. American Bible Society, 83, 84.

12. International Committee of the Y. M. C. A., 84.

13. Smaller independent movements, 84, 85.

{1) Societies, 84. {2) Church of England, 85. (3) Lutherans, 85.

14. Successful features of these societies, 85, 86.

(i) Usual methods, 85. (2) Use of the Bible, 85, 86. (3) Emphasis of
self-supporting churches, 86.

15. Distribution of missionary and other forces, 86, 87.

16. Work for the aborigines, 87, 88.

(i) What has been done, 86, (2) Further work greatly needed, 87, 88.

CHAPTER V

REPUBLICS OF THE PLATA RIVER

I. The River Plata and adjacent countries, 91-99.

1. The river and its great tributaries, 91, 92.

2. Physical characteristics of the Plata republics, 92, 93.

(i) Forests, 92. (2) Pastures, 92. (3) Fruit producing area, 92. (4)
Mineral resources, 92, 93.

3. The peoples of these countries, 93, 94.

(1) Common characteristics, 93. (2) Various currents of immigration,
93i 94- (3) Uncivilized Indians, 94. (4) South America, the
theatre of Latin development, 94.

4. Moral conditions of these republics, 94-09.

(i) General statement, 94, 95. (2) Isabella's mistake, 95. (3) Protestant
tendencies purged out, 95, 96. (4) South American Roman-
ism characterized, 96, 97. (5) The question of fundamental
truths : Protestantism's leading principles ; teachings of Ro-
manism. 97, 98. (6) Possibilities for the Romanist, 98, 99.
(7) Supreme motive in work for Romanists, 99.
IL Missions in Paraguay, 99-103.

1. Historical facts preceding the coming of Protestantism, 99, 100.

2. Causes and establishment of the first mission, 100, 101.

3. Vindication of the civil status of Protestantism, loi.

4. South American Missionary Society's Indian work, 101-103.

(i) Beginnings, loi, 102. (2) Character of these Indians, 102. (3)
Work done for them, 102, 103.

231

ANALYTICAL INDEX

III. Missions in Uruguay, 103-106.

1. Historical reasons for its being a " BuiTer State," 103, 104.

2. Montevideo and other towns, 104.

3. Present status of Protestantism in Uruguay, 104-106.

(i) The Church of England's work, 104, 105. (2) The Waldensian
Church, 105. (3) Salvation Army and Lutherans, 105. (4)
Vernacular work of the Methodist Church (North), 105, 106.

IV. Argentine Republic, 106-116.

1. Its natural advantages, 106.

(1) Geographical features, 106. (2) Resulting immigration, 106.

2. Its heroic history, 106, 107.

3. Characteristics making Argentina an important factor In the future,

107-110.
(1) A land of plenty, 107. (2) Favorable climate, 107, 108. (3) A
wheat producer for the world, 108. (4) Its commercial im-
portance, 108, 109. (5) Leader in progressive movements,
109. (6) Summary, 109, 110.

4. Beginnings of Protestant effort, no, iii.

(i) Three periods with dates, no. (2) Character and beginning of early
work, 110. (3) Service of the Bible societies, 110. (4)
Founding of the Methodist Episcopal mission, in.

5. Present status of Argentine Protestant missions, 111-113.

(i) Fundamental value of the Bible work, in. (a) Populations of Ar-
gentine field, in, 112. (3) Twofold aim of Argentine work,
112. (4) Protestant missions not primarily proselyting agen-
cies, but rather constructive forces, 112. (3) Missions not an
undesired intrusion, 113.

6. Buenos Aires, the chief missionary centre, 113-115.

(i) Its cosmopolitan character and strategic importance, 113, 114. (2)
Church of England in city and suburbs, 114. (3) Lutheran
and Reformed churches, 114. (4) Isolated individual enter-
prises, 114. (5) Methodist Episcopal mission, 114, 115.

7. Missionary operations in provinces and towns, 115, 116.

(i) In Rosario, 115. (2) In Parana, 115, 116. (3) Valley of the Chubut
river, 116.

8. Work of the South American Missionary Society, 116.

9. The fruitage of Argentinean missions, 116.

CHAPTER VI

I. Origin of the name Chile, 119.
II. Geography of the republic, 119, 120.

1. Its location and dimensions, 119,

2. The northern section described, 119, 120.

3. Its central zone, 120.

4. The southern portion of Chile, 120.

III. Mineral productions, 120, 121.

1. The nitrate of soda deposits ; description, 120, i2X.

2. Products of the mine : copper, silver, etc., 121.

IV. Agriculture ; fruits ; wool and hides, 121.
V. Industries of Chile, 121, 122.

1. The protective system and factories, 121.

2. Present manufactures, 121, 122.
VI. Commerce of the republic, 122.

1. Its character, 122.

2. Chilean ports, 122.

3. Imports and nationalities engaged, 122.
VII. Populations of Chile, 122, 123,

1. Principal cities, 122.

2. Races : pcones, foreign colonists, 122, 123.

232

ANALYTICAL INDEX

VIII.

IX.

X.
XI.

XII.
XIII.

XIV.
XV.

XVI.
XVII.

XVIII.

Government, of the republic, 123-125.

1. Its character, 123.

2. Congress : branches and membership, 123,

3. Right of suffrage ; ballot, 123.

4. The parliamentary system, 124.

5. President and Council of State, 124.

6. The Judiciary, 124.

7. Provincial intendants and governors, 124.

8. Centralization of power, 124, 125.

9. Government ownership of telegraphs and railways, 135.

10. Navy and fortified ports, 125.

11. Civil list and its effect on business and finance, 125.
Education, lower and higher, 125, 126.
I. Schools and university, 125, 126.
3. Special schools, public and private, 126.
Societies and institutes, 126.
Eleemosynary institutions, 126.

1. Their variety and character, 126.

2. Effect on private benevolence, 126.
Santiago, the Pearl of the Andes, 127, 128.
I. Setting of the city, 127.

3. Nearer views of Santiago, 127, 128,

3. Its elevation and water supply, 128.

4. A great social and residential centre, 128.

5. Its history, 128.
History of Chile, 128-130.

1. Diego Almagro's coming, 128, 129.

2. Settlements under Pedro Valdivia, 129.

3. Colonists and the aboriginal Araucanians, 129.

4. Incentives to freedom, 129.

5. Freedom won, 129, 130.
(1) Story of the struggle, 129, 130.

6. The building of the nation, 130.
Chilean social life, 130, 131.

1. Winter enjoyments and activities, 130, 131.

2. Social life in summer, 131.
Literature and art, 131, 132.

1. Periodical publications, 131.

2. Books ; number and character, 131.

3. Art galleries and artists, 131, 132.
Politics in Chile, 132, 133.

1. Spaniards lacking in combination ; results, 13a.

2. The clerical party and its aims, 132.

3. Objects of the liberal party, 132.

4. The Spanish theory of government, 132, 133.

5. Chile's comparative freedom from revolutions, 133.

6. Evils arising from the clerical party, 133.
Religion and morals, 133-136.

1. Early character of South American religion, 133, 134.

2. Its leading tenets, 134.

3. The fruits of Romanism, 134-136.

(i) It divorces morals and religion, 134 (2) Other fruits, 135. (3)
Favors ignorance, 135. (4) Looseness of marriage ties ; re-
form laws, 135, 136.

4. Hierarchy of the State Church, 136.
Protestant missionary work, 136-139.

1. The two leading Boards, 136, 137.

(i) Presbyterians, 136. (2) Methodists, 137. (3) Literature and force
of the two societies, 137, (4) Self-support and progress, 137.

2. Activities of other societies summarized, 137, 138.

3. Temperance agitation, 138.

(3) Prominent heroes, 130.

ANALYTICAL INDEX

4. Mission to the Araucanians, 138, 139.

(i) The Indians described, 138. (2) South American Missionary Soci-
ety's work ; Canada's honorable share in it, 138, 139.

CHAPTER VII

THE LAND OF THB INCAS

I. A bit of Inca history, 143-146.

1. Extent of the Empire, 143.

2. Its two ancient capitals, 143.

3. The Inca court, 143.

4. Early history of the Empire, 143, 144.

(i) Its lack of homogeneity, 143, 144. (2) Two dominant tribes, 144.
(•3) The Inca race, 144.

5. Inca religion, 144, 145.

(i) Its gods and temples, 144. (2) The Sun, 145.

6. The first Inca and his successors, 145.

7. Character of Inca civilization, 145, 146.

8. Effect of three centuries of oppression, 146.

II. Peculiar dilhculties encountered by missions, 146-149.

1. Priestcraft, 147.

2. Power of the sword, 147.

3. Resulting demoralization, 147.

4. Incaism, and its present traces, 147,

5. Pre-Incan idolatry, 147.

6. Present lack of population, 147, 148.

7. Meagre immigration, 148.

8. Religious liberty greatly restricted, 148.

9. Scholasticism's blessing and bane, 148, 149.
10. Lack of extended evangelization, 149.

III. Successful beginnings, 149-157.

1. Supposedly impenetrable regions entered, 149-151.

(1) J. Mongiardino, 149, 150. (2) Unsuccessful attempts, 150. (3)
Mr. Milne's party, 150. (4) The tour of 1884, 150, 151.

2. Occupation of strategic points hitherto luitenahle, 151-154.

(i) Peru : Lima, C'allao, etc., 151 ; successful lines, 151, 152; Methodist
school work, 152 ; Cuzco workers, 152, 153; Adventists, 153;
independent laborers, 153; American Bible Society, 153;
Woman's Society, M. E. Church, 153, 154; Plaza of Inquisi-
tion headquarters, 154. (2) Ecuador, 154. (3) Bolivia, 154.

3. Regeneration of heart and life, 154, 155.

4. Development of workers, 155.

5. Tendency toward revivals, 155.

(1) Caliao revival in 1897, 155. (2) Later it will aflfect Spaniards, 155.

6. Disappearance of legal difficulties, 155, 156.

7. A glorious outlook, 156, 157.

IV. An appeal to women, 157-159.

1. Romantic history of Incaria, 157.

2. Priestly subjugation of womanhood, 157, 158.

3. Protestantism afforded no relief, 158.

4. Iniquity of the confessional, 158.

5. Hopeless condition of these three lands, 158, 159.

6. Women superior to men in this field, 159.

7. Woman's work, consequently, most advantageous, 159.

CHAPTER VIII

COLOMBIA

I. The aboriginal Indians, 163, 164.

1. The Aruhacas and Catholic missions, 163,

2. How to reach the Indians, 163, 164.

3. Their customs described, 164.

ANALYTICAL INDEX

II. The pioneers and founding of Protestant missions, 164, 165.

III. Recent efforts in Colombia, 165-169.

1. Presbyterians in Bogota, 165, 166.

(i) Reinforcements and death, 165, 166. (2) Bogota described, 166.

2. Southern Presbyterians, 166, 167.

(i) In Barranquilla, 166. (2) Mr. Erwin's labors, 166, 167.

3. Northern Presbyterians in Barranquilla, 167, 168.

4. Their labors in Medellin, 168, i6g.

5. American Bible Society's work in Bucaramanga, 169.

6. Itinerants of the Methodist Church, 169.

IV. Most effective forms of effort, 169, 170.

1. Day- and boarding-schools, 169, 170,

2. Evangelistic touring, 170.

(i) Its character, 170. (2) Its success, 170.
V. Some Colombian converts, 170-172.

1. Doctor Heraclio Osoona, 170, 171.

2. Juan Cortez, 171.

3. Rev. Manuel Ferrando, 171.

4. Esteer Garcia, 171, 172.

5. General characterization of converts, 172.

VI. Main results of mission work in Colombia, 172, 173.

CHAPTER IX

VENEZUELA

I. Venezuela's area and population, 177.
II. Its discovery and history, 177, 178.

1. Discovery and naming, 177.

2. Sketch of Venezuelan history, 177, 178.

III. Cosmopolitan character of the population, 178, 179,

1. The Indians, 178.

2. The Spaniards, 178.

3. So-called Venezuelans, 178, 179.

IV. Venezuelan homes, 179-181.

1. Caracas, the main centre, 179.

2. Its residences described, 180.

3. Interior views, 180.

4. Surroundings of missionary homes, 180,181.

5. The one thing lacking, 181.

V. Beginnings of Protestant effort, 181-183.

1. The first workers and church, 181, 182.

2. Emilio Silva Bryant, 1S2, 183.

VI. Present missionary operations, 183-188.

1. Presbyterian work, 183, 184.

(i) Rev. Mr. Ferrando, 183. (2) Present status, 183, 184.

2. Christian. and Missionary Alliance, 184, 185.

(i) In Caracas, 184, 185. (2) In La Guaira, 185.

3. Work of the Brethren, 185, 186.

(0 Mr. Mitchell's tours, 185, (2) His testimony, 185, 186. (3) In
Valencia, 186.

4. South American Evangelical Mission, 187,

5. Independent work, 187.

6. Character of Protestant efforts, 187, 188.

VII. Elements in the contest, 188-190.

1. Day of small things, 188.

2. Essentials most needed, 188, 189.

3. Greatest hindrances, 189, 190.

(i) Immorality, 189. (2) Poverty, 189. (3) Foreign examples, 189, 190.

4. Venezuela's hope for the future, 190.

235

ANALYTICAL INDEX

VIII. Points common to Colombia and Venezuela, 190-194.

1. Summary statements, igo.

2. Importance of evangelizing these lands ; methods, 190, 191.

3. Kind of candidates desired, 191, 192.

4. Home life of the missionaries, 192, 193.

5. A Macedonian cry, 193, 194.

CHAPTER X

SOUTH AMERICA AS A MISSION FIELD

L South America's physical development, 197-200.

1. Proportion of surface available for dense population, 197.

2. Sparsely populated area suited for immigration, 197.

3. Accessibility to immigrants, 197, 198.

(i) Its coasts, 197. (2) River navigation, 198. (3) Railways, 198.

4. Welcome accorded European home-seekers, 198.

(i) North America and South compared, 198. (2) South America de-
sirous of immigrants, 198.

5. Akin to the United States, 198, 199.

(i) In physical conditions, 198, 199. (2) In climate, 199. (3) In re-
sources, 199.

6. Consequent results, 199, 200.

(i) Emigration turning to South America, 199. (3) Soon will receive
millions from Europe, 199. (3) This increase will be luiprc-
cedentedly rapid, 199, 200. (4) Will probably surpass other
continents as receiver to virgin soil of Europeans, 200.
II. South America's moral development, 200-203.

1. Moral homogeneity in all parts, 200, 201.

2. Kinship among all its nations, 201.

(i) Common traditions, aspirations and tendencies, 201. (2) Character
of uniting bond, 201.

3. All-prevailing aspiration to imitate the United States, 2or, 202.

(i) Particulars in which they have done this, 201. (2) Differences,
201, 202.

4. Freedom from Old World domination, 202.

(i) South America the freest continent, 202. (2) This freedom vitir
ated, 202.

5. Possibilities resulting from this moral and political status, 202, 203.

(i) South America oflfers largest field for future moral movements ; illus-
trations ; favoring circumstances, 202, 203. (2) Possibly the
best field for developing moral characteristics of the United
States, 203. (3) Must ultimately stand as larger half of New
World humanity, 203.
III. South America's moral drawbacks, 203-210.

1. Deleterious influences of the priesthood, 203-205.

(i) Some instances, 203, 204. (2) Character of the priests, 204, 203.
(3) Pope Leo's Encyclical, 205,

2. Evils due to the sword, 205, 206.

(i) Revolutions, 205. (2) International wars, 206. (3) Share in these
of the priests, 206. (4) Example of great contrarieties, 206.

3. Peculiar forms of demoralization, 206, 2oy.

(i) Civil wars, 206. (2) Perverted patriotism, 206. (3) Despotism,
206. (4) Servility and unbelief, 207.

4. Supposed remedies for moral defects ineffective, 207, 208.

(i) Good constitutions ineffective, 207. (2) Failure of law, 207. (3)
Immigration morally ineffective, 207. (4) All these a help
but not a cure, 207, 208.

5. Exclusion of the one thing needful, 208, 209.

(i) Practical paganism prevalent, 208. (2) Worse off than pagans, 208.
C3) Apathy of Protestantism, 208. (4) Reform from within
desirable but not probable, 208, 209.

6. Synopsis of the moral situation, 209, 210.

(i) Regeneration must come from without, 209. (2) South America at

236

ANALYTICAL INDEX

the bottom of the moral scale, 209. (3) The two Americas a
significant object lesson, 209. (4) South America to be tlie
great battlefield of Romanism and Evangelical Christianitj',
209, 210.
IV. North America's obligation to rescue, 210-212.

1. The continent nearest to North America, 210.

2. Influences from the United States peculiarly welcome, 210.

3. Europe leaving America for the Americans, 2x0,

4. I'he argument of achieved success, 211.

(i) Initiative from without, 211. (2) Pioneering accomplished, 211.
(3) Signs of future triumphs, 211.

5. Inferences from the above, 211, 212.

(i) South America an excellent field for North American societies, 211.
(2) The work to be done, 211, 212.
V. Reflex influences from South American missions, 212-215.
1. On Catholic Europe, 212, 213.

(i) Immigrants less subject to priests, 212. (2) Europeans less in-
volved in politics, 212. (3) Best gospel workers are converted
Europeans, 212. (4) Work for immigrants peculiarly urgent,
212. (5) Thej"- transmit the leaven to their European homes,
212. (6) Immigrants easier to reach in South America than
at home, 212, 213.
a. Reflex influence on the Latin race, 213, 214.

(i) Argued from influence of Saxon America on Saxon Europe, 213.

(2) Great future of Latin race will be in South America, 213.

(3) Latin evangelization a related whole, 213. (4) This race
has a new opportunity to retrieve their mistake at the Ref-
ormation, 213. (5) If regenerated, the race would speedily
rise, 214. (6) Mutual influences of the two Americas, 214.
(7) Power of universal evangelization, 214.

3. Reflex influence on the Americo-European family, 214, 215.

(i) South .A^merican Asiatic populations will not greatly increase, 214.
{2) Nor will the Africans, 214. (3) Europeans' will fill up the
continent, 214. (4) Two Americas and Europe the homes of
European humanity, 214, 215. (5) Interplay of moral influ-
ences will develop unity and homogeneity, 215. (6) Vantage
ground for a world-embracing missionary movement, 215.

237

MAP INDEX

This Index indicates the location on the map of the various mission
stations, but it does more. Immediately following the name, enclosed
within parentheses, is the population of the city or town except where
it could not be obtained. When it is printed in black-faced type the
figures were obtained from " Andree's Geographsches Handbuch " ; if
in ordinary type, the information was found in "The Statesman's Year-
book," or some other trustworthy source. The numbers following the
parentheses indicate the society or societies having resident mission-
aries there. The reader may learn the name of the societies correspond-
ing to the numbers by reference to the society list in Appendix C,
where the number stands at the left hand of each society. The final
capital letter and number on the right of each town in the Index indi-
cate the square on the map where the town is found, the capital letters
being on the side margins of the map and the numerals on the top and
bottom margins.

Akkerboom, 28 B4

Albina, 28 B6

Albuoystown (in Georgetown), 11 B4 B5
Ambato, (10,000)— 19 C2

Angol, (6.^00)— 27 P'2

Anna Catherine, 36 British Guiana
Anna Regina, 31 British Guiana

Antofagasta, (13,000)— 27 E2

Araguary, 13 D5

Arghntink Republic, (4,573,608) —
^> 3> 7> '°> ^^> 16, 21, 24, 26, 27, 29,
30, 32, 33-
Asuncion, (4:6,000)— 16, 27 E4

Azul, (7,800) — 10, 21 F4

Bahia. (300,000)— 4, 10, 17 D6

Bahia Blanca, 32 F3

Barranquilla, (15,000)— 4 A2

Beekhuizen, 28 B6

Bergendal, 28 B6

Berseba, 28 B6

Beterverwachting, 28 B5

Bethvenwagting, 31 British Guiana

Better Hope (translation of Beterver-
wachting), 18 B5
Bogota, (96,000)— 4 B2
Bolivia, (2,000,000) — 15, 16, 32,
Brazil, (14,333.915)— i, 2, 4, 5, 6, 7,

10, 13, 16, 17, 23, 26, 27, 32.
British Guiana, (286,222)— 8, 11,

12, 16, 18, 20, 28, 30, 31.
Bucaramanga, (11,000)— i B2

Buenos Aires, (745,000)— i, 3, 11,
16, 24, 27, 29, 30, 33 F4

Cabacaburi, 31 B5

Callao, (35,000)— 22, 27 D2

Campinas, (18,000) — 13 Es

Campos, (40,000)— 17 Es

Caracas, (7?2,000)— 4. 10, ii A3

Carolina, 32 C5

Cartagena, (9,700)— 33 A2

Castro, 4 E4

Catharina Sophia, 28 B6

Caxias, (10.000) — 13 C5

Charlottenburg, 28 B6
Chile, (2,712,145)— 3. 4, 10, i6, 27, 33.

Chilian, (39,000)— 4 F2

Cholchol, 33 F2
Colombia, (4,000,000) — i, 4, 35.

Colon, (1,500)— 35 B2
Combe (in Paramaribo), 28 B4 B6

Concepcion, La, (40,000)— 27 F2

Concordia, (11,500) — 27 F4

Copiapo, (9,300)— 4 E2

Coquimbo, (8,400)— 27 F2

Cordoba, (48,000)— 11, 32 F3
Coronel Suarez. 29 Argentine Republic

Cuenca, (30,000)— 27 C2
Ciudad Bolivar, (11,000)— 32, 34 B3

Curitiba, (25,000)— 4 E5

Cuzco, (83,000)— 29 D2

Diamante, (2,000) — 16 F3

Domburg, 28 B6

Dutch Guiana, (65,168)— 16, 28.

Ebenv Point, ii British Guiana

Ecuador, (1,271,861)— 8, 16, lo.
Essequibo, 12 British Guiana

238

MAP INDEX

Falkland Islands, (2,050) — 33.
Feira de St. Anna, 4 D6

Florianopolis (Desterro), (31,000)

-4 Es

Fortaleza, (4:1,000) — 13 C6

French Guiana, (33,300).
Friendship, 12 British Guiana

Garanhuns, (see Canhotinho), 13 C6
Georgetown, (56,000) — ii, 12, 16,

28. 31 B4 B5

Goed Fortuin, 12 British Guiana

Graham's Hall, 28 B5

Groot Chatillon, 28 B6

Guayaquil, (51,000)— 19, 27 C2

Heerendyk, 28 B6

Helena, 18 B5

Huacho, (5,000) — 14 D2

Iquique, (33,000)— 27 E2

Juiz de Fora, (15,000)— 5 E5

Keppel, 33 H4

Kwattahede, 28 B6

La Concepcion, (40,000)— 27 F2
La Paz, (40,000)— 15 D3

La Plata, (65,000) — 10 F4

I,arangeiras, (3,000) — 4 D6

La Serena, (16,000)— 27 E2

Las Flores, 29 F4

Las Garzas, 16 Argentine Republic

Lavras, 13 E5

Leliendal, 28 B6

Lima, (105,000)— 11, 14, 16, 27 D2
Lomas de Zamora (^ La Paz), (7,000)

-27 F4

Machala, (3,000) — 27 C2

Mahaica, 12 65

Maranhao, (39,000)— 13 C5

Marianna, 5 E5

Maripaston, 28 B6

Medellin, (37,000)— 4 B2

Mendoza, (39,000)— 27 F3

Mercedes, (9,500) — 27 F4

Montevideo, (361,000)— 3, 11, 27,

30 F4

Moruka, 31 B4 B5

Natal, (14,000)— n C6

New Amsterdam, (9,000)— 12, 16,

24, 31 B4 B5

Nickerie, 28 B4 B6

Nictheroy, (36,100) — 6 E5

Nova Friburgo, 4 E5

Olavarrja, (2,000) — 10 F3

Oreala, 31 B5

Oruro, (15,000)— 15 D3

Ouro Preto, (aa,000)— 6 E5

Panama, (^5,000)- 35 B2

Para, (65,000)— 17, 27 Cs

Paraguay, (730,000) — 16, 27, 33.
Parahyba, (40,000)— 13 C6

Paramaribo, (589,000)- 16, 24, 28

B4B6
Passa Tres, 6 E5

Paysandu, 30 F4

Pelotas, (33,000)— 2 F4

Pernambuco, (190,000)— 6, 13, 17 C6
Peru, (4,609,999) — 14, 16, 22, 27, 29
Petropolis, (12,000) — 5 E5

Piracicaba, (5,000) — 5 Es

Plaisance, 31 British Guiana

Porto Alegre, (55,000)— 2, 16, 27 E4
Potribo, 28 B6

Queenstown, II Bs

Quepe, 33 F2

Quito, (80,000)— 10, 19, 27 C2

RiBEiRAO Preto, (8,000) — 5 E5

Rio de Janeiro, (533,651)— i, 5, 6,

7, 16, 17, 23 Es

Rio Grande do Sul, (21,000) — 2, 16 F4
Rosario, (94,000)— 3, 7. 27, 33 F3

Rust en Vrede (in Paramaribo), 28

B4B6
Rust en Werk, 28 B6

St. Andrews, 16 Colombia

Salem, 28 B6

Salto, (13,000)— 30 F4

San Bernardo, (5,200) — 10 F2

San Felipe, (11,300)— 27 F2

Santa Maria da Bocca do Monte, 2 E4
Santa Rosa, (3.000) — 27 C2

Santiago, (356,000)— 4, 27 F2

Sao Joao d'El Rei, (8,000) — 13 Es

Sao Paulo. (100,000)— 4, 5, 13, 17 E5
Suhin Station, 33 E4

Talca. (33,000)— 4 F2

Tekenika, 33 H3

Temuco, (4.000) — 27 Fz

Trujillo, (11,000)— 29 C2

Tumbez, (3,300)— 27 Ci

Uruguay, (840,725)— j, ii, 16, 27, 30.
USHUAIA, 33 H3

Valdivia, (^,700) — 10 F2

Valencia, (39,000)— 11 A3

Valparaiso, (133,000)— 3, 4, 16, 27 F2
Venezuela, (2,444,816)—!, 4, 10,

II, 32, 34.
Victoria, 32 A3

Waikthlatingmangyalwa, 33 E4
Waini, 31 British Guiana

Wanhatti, 28 B6

Wanica (in Paramaribo), 28 B4 B6

Warraputa, 31 B5

Waterloo, 28 B6

Date Due

ir^O %

iy!r ^ n -

-ftrr!^

fk.

Internet Archive Audio

Featured

Top

Images

Featured

Top

Software

Featured

Top

Books

Featured

Top

Video

Featured

Top

Mobile Apps

Browser Extensions

Archive-It Subscription

Save Page Now

Full text of "Protestant missions in South America"

See other formats