We are now in the midst of a revival … that grows brighter every day. … A priest has asked prayer for himself; his son and two daughters are attendants at worship. One of the daughters told her father she was seeking the true religion, the new birth, and when she found it she would follow it at any cost or sacrifice. …

An amusing incident occurred between a believer’s little son and a padre. The father had already indoctrinated the boy on images—that they were nothing more than pieces of dumb wood. Seated in the padre’s house, he looked up at the images and said: “Senhor Padre, you don’t worship that image, do you? I don’t; it is nothing but a piece of wood.” The padre stamped his foot, saying, “Hush up, boy; have you gone mad, too?” The new converts are reported to have gone crazy.

The padres avoid saying anything about us in the papers now, but teach in their pulpits and at confessions that we are demons and devils; that we treat the body kindly, but that the souls of all who join us will be lost eternally. While preaching at a member’s house last week the assistant to the vicar at the cathedral came to the window and listened some twenty minutes. The part of the sermon to which he listened was on the necessity of the new birth, certainly strange news to him.

Excerpted from “The Work in Brazil” by Z.C. Taylor, Foreign Mission Journal, May 1884, p. 4.