Chapter 6: Through the Land of the Jesuit Fathers
ABOUT the year 1600 it became clear to the Jesuit Fathers that the newly-discovered regions of Paraguay and South Brazil were an ideal country for a great new empire in the new world, which would compensate them for their losses in the old. Their subjects would be the scattered but numerous Indian tribe of the Guaranis, and they — the priests and lay brothers of the Order of S. Loyola — should be the exclusive owners, governors, and lawgivers of the land.
So plans were laid with all the political acumen and foresight, and with all the cunning and secrecy for which this Order has been famous.
The rivalry of the Crowns of Spain and Portugal, the very nebulous condition of international boundaries, and the cruelty and injustice of the policy of the discoverers towards the Indian owners of the soil furnished the desired opportunity, and in 1610 the Jesuit Fathers initiated their vast ambitious scheme with the building of a Mission City in the interior of Paraguay. Others followed rapidly, so that in 1627 the region included a large area in Brazil, and S. Nicolau was built. By 1631 there were twenty of these mission cities with over a hundred thousand inhabitants, all speaking the Guarani and by the end of the same century there were seven Jesuit cities in South Brazil. The now empire was called Missoes, the capital being the town of S. Borgia, on the banks of the mighty Uruguay. There were no civil laws, nor rights of property or person. Body and soul, the Indians were considered as belonging to the Jesuits, a more or less benign form of slavery, but which eventually became nearly as cruel and heartless as that of the Portuguese. The Indians were compelled to work for their lordly rulers, and in turn they were well fed, protected from the Paleface, and saturated with Romish doctrine. They were mainly employed in the cultivation of sugar, maize, beans, etc., which were sold in the ports of Assumpcao and Buenos Aires, the large profits being divided between the Spanish Crown and the treasury of the Jesuits, the latter always having the Lion’s share.
The Indians were well armed and exercised in military tactics. No foreigners or white men, other than members of the Order, were allowed to penetrate the region, and by 1750 the wealth and power of this ecclesiastical empire was so great, and was extending so rapidly, that the fear and jealousy of their neighbors were aroused; but the priests defied the Crowns both Spain and Portugal. It took about three years of effort on the part of the united armies of these two powers before the Jesuits were overthrown., The Indians fought fiercely for their master’s territory, and its fall involved the slaughter of thousands of these simple-minded people. The cities went up in clouds of flame and smoke, and the Jesuits were driven out of the land. The remnant of the Indians were enslaved or scattered, to revert to their old savage lives, but now embittered with intense hatred of the white man, civil or ecclesiastical, as many of them remain to this day.
It was to this region that the Secretary of the British and Foreign Bible Society for Brazil turned his special attention, and at the end of September, 1920, I reached the old Jesuit capital, S. Borgia, after a month’s journey from Rio, visiting en route most of the large cities on the frontiers of Uruguay and the Argentine, and selling many copies of the Scriptures.
In all my experiences of Bible work in Brazil I never met with so warm and sympathetic a welcome as I had in this region. The spirit of Jesuitism is dead, and liberty of conscience is a reality; and throughout I scarcely heard one cross or contrary voice. As a rule, we had not books enough for the demands, while in more than one place we sold more Scriptures than there were houses.
The only traces of the old Jesuit Empire of Missoes are the vast ruins here and there, that of S. Miguel being the largest. Most of them must now be excavated with difficulty from the depths of the densest forest jungles, where the wild cat and the panther find a home, and the rattlesnake a hiding‑place. Had the Word of God been given to the people in place of the lifeless fables and superstitions of Petite something more noble and more enduring would now mark the immense efforts of those ancient monies.
So ended a great conspiracy to bolt and bar out the pure Gospel from a great and beautiful country.
In the shadow of its ruins the Bible colporteur now carries the living, quickening Word. The Romish priests are powerless to hinder their flocks from buying and reading the Bible, which is today easily the best-known Book in the very region where once the Jesuit ruled with iron hand.
In S. Borgia a curious incident had taken place a lee, weeks before our arrival. It seems that many dwellers in these parts have a craze for searching for die traditional treasures which lie buried in these old-world ruins and very occasionally some hidden hoard of Jesuit wealth or equally valuable documents have been brought to light.
Among the ecclesiastical treasures of S. Borgia were three huge wooden saints, much venerated by the people mainly on account of their great antiquity. Touched with the craze referred to, the priest of this ancient capital of the Jesuits conceived the idea that these images were a likely hiding place for the gold or parchments of his predecessors, and in an evil hour for him he chopped them up. His researches were so complete that there could be no putting the saints together again, so he set the cap on his vandalism by sending the remains out to the kitchen to cook his dinner.
The inhabitants of S. Borgia were furious, and no wonder! One night, a little after this event, a motor car drew up at the house of the priest, just at an hour when he had expected one to take him to a marriage ceremony. On emerging, attired for the occasion, he was seized and bundled into the car, which drove off at top speed in the direction of the river. On the way his captors demanded satisfaction for their outraged saints, and the reply not being satisfactory the car was stopped at a muddy creek, into which his reverence was rolled. Hurrying on with him, the River Uruguay was soon reached, and there the luckless priest was put in a small canoe, minus all his clothes, and made to paddle himself across to Argentine territory, where his persecutors left him in a state of nature.
S. Borgia is now without a priest.
It may be added that this man had been a great persecutor of the believers in this city.
From the last-mentioned town we traveled across country on a rather rickety old American “Spider” and three mules, covering in this way some four hundred miles of the former Missoes territory, and selling books all the way. It was a rare thing to offer a book without selling it.
The weather was wet and cold, the roads muddy, and the going often heavy, and as the population between towns is rather thin our night accommodations were not seductive — sometimes under an old ox cart, and another time with the pigs. On one occasion, after passing twenty-six hours since our last meal, we pulled up and unharnessed, while a pot of porridge could be prepared. In these immense open campus of the far south firewood is strictly limited, and a minute search only produced a mere handful of little damp sticks and dried grass. With considerable patience we succeeded in getting a Klan fire under the Spider from which we hung our pot, and watched it with affectionate eyes. Would the bits of firewood last out till the pot boiled? A violent storm of wind and rain answered the question, and suddenly harness, bags, and books, etc., had to be crowded into the small available space under the Spider, ourselves included. It was a drencher, and the fire flickered and ended in a blinding, suffocating The storm showed no signs of abating, and our shelter was — well, incomplete; so, swallowing our ill-cooked porridge, we hastily loaded up in the and floundered on another ten miles in the storm and mud.
This is merely to indicate that such a ministry is not without its penalties, although there are always God compensations at hand if we only trouble to look round for them. Indeed, at the end of the ten miles referred to we struck a good Samaritan. Mud, too, is not always an undesirable element, for more than once when passing through waterless regions we were only too glad to be able to filter the same through our handkerchiefs to cook our food with or to quench our thirst, though the resultant liquid would strongly resemble Epps’ cocoa.
In well under two months’ work my young colporteur, Enrico, and I disposed of 156 Bibles, 417 Testaments, and 978 Gospels.
In one town, visited I met an old man of seventy or more who first heard of the Bible as a very little boy when read aloud by his sister. A poor, neglected orphan, he was specially attracted by the story of our Lord receiving and blessing little children. “He must be very fond of children,” he thought. “Nobody seems very fond of me.” When the priest discovered and burnt the Bible the lad felt it acutely, and resolved that when he grew up he would get that Book for himself. A few years later, while living a wild, wicked existence, on meeting a colporteur he stole a Bible from him, and to his satisfaction found the well-remembered passage again. The theft discovered, he was compelled to return the Book (that was a poor specimen of colporteur, one thinks); and it was many years before another chance came his way.
Seeking an appointment where it was necessary to be able to read well, he resolved to improve himself; so it chanced that, meeting a man selling books, he hastily bought the biggest one of his stock without inquiring much as to its composition. On reaching home and examining his purchase he found to his astonishment and delight that it was the same Book which, as a lad, his sister used to read to him.
He now began to study in earnest, and soon gathered round him a group of interested neighbors. Hearing of a Gospel preacher located in a town 150 miles away, he sent for him, at his own expense, and opened his house for the meetings and his heart to the Gospel. In a very short time an important evangelical congregation was established in that city, possessing its own fine church building and schools, and of this the old man is still an honored elder.
Without doubt the vast majority of the evangelical churches in Brazil owe their existence to the Bible Society; and with equal certainty it may be said that the person most (eared by the lineal successors of the Jesuit Fathers is the Bible colporteur.