Brazilian Sketches | Page 6

the schools conducted by the various mission boards. One day a Methodist colporter entered a town in the interior of the State of Minas Geraes and began to preach and offer his Bibles for sale in the public square. Soon a fanatical mob was howling around him and his life was in imminent peril. Just as the excitement was at the highest two young men belonging to one of the best families in the place pressed through the crowd and, ascertaining that the man was a minister of the gospel, took charge of him and drove off the mob. They led the colporter to their home, which was the best in the town, and showed him generous hospitality. They invited the people in to hear him preach, and thus through their kindness the man and his message received a favorable hearing. It should be remembered, too, that these young men belonged to a very devout Roman Catholic family.
What was the secret of their actions? They had rescued, entertained and enabled to preach a man who was endeavoring to propagate a faith that was very much opposed to their own. The explanation is that they had attended Granberry College, that great Methodist school at Juiz de Fora. They had not accepted Protestant Christianity, but the school had given them such a vision and appreciation of the gospel that they could never again be the intolerant bigots their fellow townsmen were. The college had made them friends and that was a tremendous service. First we must have friends, then followers. Nothing more surely and more extensively makes friends for our cause than the schools, and it must be said also that they are wonderfully effective in the work of direct evangelization.
The First Baptist Church commissioned Deacon Theodore Teixeira and Dr. Shepard to pilot us over the city. The church provided us with an automobile and our splendid guides magnified their office. It is a MAGNIFICENT city, indeed. The strip of land between the mountains and the seashore is not wide. In some places, in fact, the mountains come quite down to the water. The city, in the most beautiful and picturesque way, avails itself of all possible space, even in many places climbing high on the mountain sides and pressing itself deep into the coves. Perhaps no city in the world has a more picturesque combination of mountain and water with which to make a beautiful location. It has about a million inhabitants, and being the federal capital, is the greatest and most influential city in Brazil.
Most of its streets are narrow and tortuous and until recently were considered unhealthy. A few years ago the magnificent Avenida Central was cut through the heart of the city and one of the most beautiful avenues in the world was built. Twelve million dollars' worth of property was condemned to make way for this splendid street. It cuts across a peninsula through the heart of the city from shore to shore, and is magnificent, indeed, with its sidewalks wrought in beautiful geometrical designs, with its ornate street lamps, with its generous width appearing broader by contrast with other narrow streets, with its modern buildings.
There is another street, however, which is dearer to the Brazilian than the Avenida. He takes great pride in the Avenida, but he has peculiar affection for the Rua d'Ouvidor. Down the Ouvidor flows a human tide such as is found nowhere else in Brazil. No one attempts to keep on the pavement. The street is given over entirely to pedestrians. No vehicle ever passes down it until after midnight. In this narrow street, with its attractive shops filled with the highest-priced goods in the world, you can soon find anyone you wish to meet, because before long everyone who can reach it will pass through. In this street the happy, jesting, jostling crowd is in one continuous "festa".
In passing through the city one is greatly impressed by the number of parks and beautiful public squares, and in particular with the wonderful Beiramar, which is a combination of promenades, driveways and park effects that stretches for miles along the shore of the bay. What a thing of beauty this last-named park is! There is nothing comparable to it anywhere. When Rio wishes to go on a grand "passeio" (promenade) nothing but the grand Beiramar will suffice.
One cannot help being impressed also by the prevalence of coffee- drinking stands and stores--especially if he meets many friends. These friends will insist upon taking him into a coffee stand and engaging him in conversation while they sip coffee. On many corners are little round or octagonal pagoda-like structures in which coffee and cakes are sold. The coffee-drinking places are everywhere and most of them are usually filled. The practice of taking coffee with one's friends