Part 7

Of the British backers more will be told at another time, but there was one man mentioned in the cable of whom something should be said now. This is G. M. Rollins of New York. Rollins has been a mystery to the English-speaking people of the port. He came here on the steamer “Wordsworth” about December 1. He lived on the “Wordsworth” for a time, and then moved to the “Vandyke,” a hulk owned by the Lamport & Holt line, and used as a warehouse. Here he lived with “the manager off shore” of the line. In some way he got acquainted with Gama and the two became good friends. It was on this account that Gama opened negotiations for a compromise with the Government through Admiral Benham. When people learned this, there were many wild conjectures about Rollins. These conjectures were the wilder because Rollins did not choose to tell people why he came here, and, further, because he said he was authorized by Mr. Taylor of the New York _Herald_ to send letters to that paper, while the _Herald’s_ special representative published a note in _O Paiz_ saying that Rollins was a fraud.

Rollins tried to get the American barks to remain out in the bay, and promised them the free use of a tug and lighters if they would do so. At first they agreed to this, but afterward went to the piers. Rollins would have supplied Lamport & Holt lighters and tugs had they remained, and it is guessed that Gama would have paid the bill through Rollins.

To fully understand the result of Admiral Benham’s action it should be said that until the “Detroit” opened the way the port was practically blockaded to all commerce save that of the regular liners. Ships had been lying in port four months, waiting opportunity to discharge and load. Gama had all of the tugs of the harbor, save two belonging to the Lamport & Holt line, one to Wilson, Sons & Co., one under the German flag, and one that was captured by the British naval fleet when Boyton tried to blow up the “Aquidaban” with it. This last was used as a British war-ship tender, but occasionally towed a merchant ship. The line’s tugs were naturally to be had by other ships, but rarely and at high prices. Lighters were equally scarce. Gama would not let the ships go to the piers, and was in this supported by the foreign war ships so long as Captain Lang of the British ship “Sirius” dominated the foreign fleet.

The coming of Benham changed all this. The Yankee barks led the way to the piers--led at the head of a great procession. The ships of other nations locked yardarms and crushed fenders that they might get into the line. Time has been when the American flag and the American naval fleet have been jeered and scoffed at in foreign ports, and American citizens insulted because they were Americans. I have seen that done myself, but the next day after the “Detroit” ranged up along the insurgent fleet to demonstrate that the American ships could not be fired on with impunity, I saw the flag of Great Britain dragged in the dirt of the Praça “Harmonia” and denounced as “the red rag of Brazilian rebels.” I saw British ship captains look on, and I heard one say, while others applauded:

“That’s right. By God, if you want protection after this you must apply to the Yankees.”

JOHN R. SPEARS,

Special Correspondent of the _N. Y. Sun_.

The official report of the U. S. Navy Department states that the cruiser “New York,” under command of Captain J. W. Phillip, cleared for action to sustain the “Detroit” if necessary.

THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH IN BRAZIL AS A STATE CHURCH AND AS RELATED TO PROTESTANTISM.

(From the _New York Tribune’s Special Correspondent_ at the establishment of the Republic in 1889.)

Rio, December 29. The church bells of Rio make a great clangor on Sundays. If religion were a thing of sounding brass, this great city would have cause to be known as one of the centers of Christianity. There is a jangling chime in the Lapa dos Mercadores, and there are bells great and small, harsh and shrill, resounding from hill to hill and echoing back from the outermost mountains. The Church is the oldest of Brazilian institutions. On the Castello there is a church, once the cathedral, with a portion of its walls as old as 1567. The cornerstone of the Capella Imperial, now the cathedral, was laid as far back as 1761. The Candelaria, the largest and most costly church in Rio, has been under construction since 1775. The crumbling church of the Franciscan friars on San Antonio was begun in 1700, the Gloria, overlooking the harbor, was built in 1714, and the Rosario about the same time. Many of the monasteries and convents, which are now practically abandoned under the operation of Imperial laws, date back to the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The churches are not only of great antiquity, but they have been built in the main by lay brotherhoods employed in works of mercy. No other South American city has so many hospitals and asylums in active operation. The Misericordia alone cost $1,750,000 and accommodates 1,200 patients. The lay confraternities have done and are still doing a magnificent work of mercy in Rio, and are imparting to religion elements of practical philanthropy which command respect and admiration. But old and useful as the Church is, and loud as is the summons to the faithful from belfry and tower this summer morning, religion seems to have little vitality in the Brazilian capital. It has lost its hold upon the intelligent and educated classes. An American who contrasts the listless and perfunctory celebration of mass in the churches here with the same religious service in New-York churches of that faith is shocked and amazed. What is devotional there is the most mechanical mummery here. The priests have the appearance of worldly men earning a good living in religious trade. The very altar-boys, as I have watched them here, seem to be cutting up pranks with unseemly levity in the holy places.

A single Sunday in Rio will go far toward convincing any thoughtful observer that one of the best things that could happen for the Church in Brazil would be the same rough shaking-up which political institutions are receiving. I write in no spirit of intolerance or hostility to Roman Catholicism. It is the comparison which I have made here and in other coast towns between the Church as it is found in the United States and in Brazil that compels the conclusion that the abrogation of the establishment as a State religion would be of inestimable benefit to Christianity. If the country has required thorough-going processes of revolution, so has the Church. The separation of Church and State would tend powerfully to promote a revival of religion. Roman Catholicism is purest, strongest and more active as a religious force where it is separated from the State, and where Protestantism is arrayed against it, as in the United States. It is corrupt, weak and least useful where it is a State establishment, as in Brazil, and where Protestantism does not come into serious rivalry with it. The most sincere Catholic here would have reason for rejoicing if the Provisional Government were to proclaim a separation of Church and State. There would then be signs of resurrection among these gilded tombs of religion.

What has impaired the influence of the Church in Brazil has been the corrupt and scandalous life of many of the clergy. This is not a wanton Protestant charge. It is the sorrowful admission of faithful Catholics themselves. The evil has been one of long standing. When Dom Pedro II. was in his infancy, Antonio Diogo Feijo was Regent of the Empire. He proposed as a good Catholic a measure for sanctioning the marriage of the clergy, and compelling the Papal authorities under menace of disestablishment to allow its enforcement. When the measure failed, he wrote a book entitled _Celibao Clerical_ or _Clerical Celibacy_ in defense of his position, with many detailed statements of fact. The book was burned by order of the ecclesiastical authorities, but a copy of it was found in a village of San Paulo not long ago, and an edition of 5,000 copies was immediately reprinted. The immorality which this devout Catholic Regent denounced in his day still defiles the influence of the Church in Brazil. Some of the most active politicians here are known to be the sons of priests. Celibacy is too often only a cloak for immorality here. Good Catholics frankly tell you that this is one of the open scandals of their Church.

This is a time when there is real educational work to be done in Brazil. A nation is to be trained for self-government and citizenship. Old things have passed away. New social and political conditions are to be created. The Church should have a great part in this work of making a nation. It should be breaking the bonds of superstition, ignorance and medievalism. It should be teaching men and women by the example of its own clergy to lead pure and incorrupt lives. It should be leavening the whole lump of Brazilian republicanism. If the Church were disestablished and the clergy purified and reformed, it would be one of the grandest and most useful results of the revolution. For, in the long run, no nation in its political life and aspirations can get above the level of the religion which it believes or affects to despise.

1864 AND 1900.

“There is much that is discouraging in the aspect of Brazil, even for those who hope and believe as I do that she has before her an honorable and powerful career.

“There is much also that is very cheering, that leads me to believe that her life as a nation will not belie her great gifts as a country. Should her moral and intellectual endowments grow into harmony with her wonderful natural beauty and wealth the world will not have seen a fairer land.

“Every friend of Brazil must wish to see its present priesthood replaced by a more vigorous, intelligent, and laborious clergy.”--PROF. LOUIS AGASSIZ, 1864.

Eleven years of self-government and a disestablishment of the Church have brought the Brazilian nation out of an imperialism politically and a greater imperialism religiously. Within two years part of the priesthood has been “replaced by a more vigorous, intelligent and laborious clergy” in the State of São Paulo. A. R. H.

JOHN T. MACKENZIE.

JOHN THERON MACKENZIE, the founder of Mackenzie College at S. Paulo, Brazil, was born in the town of Phelps, Oswego County, N. Y., July 27, 1818.

He traveled extensively in the Old World and his attention was constantly attracted to the ignorance, superstition and poverty of the masses in Italy, and the lack of Christian culture in what should have been the most Christian of all countries. This spectacle of a lapsed Christianity affected him deeply, and he determined to honor his father’s memory and satisfy his own convictions by establishing, somewhere, a College where the Bible should be the foundation of education. After at least one unsuccessful attempt to carry out his idea in Europe, he heard of the work that was being done by the Protestant College at S. Paulo, Brazil, shortly after the fall of the Empire; a staunch American, his heart went out to the youngest of American Republics, and he saw, at once, the value to the nascent Republic of having its youth grounded in a knowledge of God’s Word. Without special solicitations on the part of the College, he offered spontaneously to the Trustees of the Protestant College the sum of $50,000 with which to erect a building “to be known as Mackenzie College,” and to be maintained as an institution of “learning based on the Protestant Bible, where in each department shall be daily and properly taught the teachings of Jesus Christ and his Apostles as recorded in said Bible.” Of this sum only $42,000 was received. While the College was in course of construction, its founder was stricken by apoplexy and died September 17, 1892.

Transcriber's Notes:

Italics are shown thus: _sloping_.

Variations in spelling and hyphenation are retained.

Perceived typographical errors have been changed.