church is given its annual cleaning, just before the celebration of the saint's day, thousands of people congregate here, roll in the waters which are used to wash out the building, and drink the filthy stuff, deeming it to be holy. There is hardly a more revolting scene to be found anywhere, and all in the name of religion. Until recently, when the police put an end to it, a most disgusting species of holy dance was observed on this annual day in which the most sensual practices were indulged.

Perhaps the most famous shrine in all Brazil is in the far interior of the State of Bahia on the San Francisco River. It is the famous Lapa. The image has its shrine in a cave in a very remarkable geological formation. One hundred thousand people make pilgrimages to this shrine every year from all of the States in Brazil. The last Emperor himself made a visit to this shrine. From June to August of last year $20,000 was collected from the pilgrims. Our missionary, Jackson, met a man who had been on the way six months. It required him a year to make this trip. The same missionary saw a family from the State of Alagoas which had been on the journey six weeks. Dr. Z. C. Taylor says he passed through sections that had been almost depopulated because the men had sold out their homes, horses and cattle in order to seek a miracle in their favor at this same shrine. Fire destroyed the image in 1902. Protestants were accused of setting fire to it because a missionary was near at the time. (He was forty miles away.) In the controversy that arose the missionary noted that, inasmuch as the new image was sent by freight and not by ticket, it must be an idol and not a saint. Suffice it to say, that a new image was placed and the people are worshiping it with the same zeal with which they worshiped the old, even though the new one came by freight and the old one was supposed to have fallen from Heaven. It is believed to have miracle working power and to give great merit to one who makes the pilgrimage to it.

In the daily paper called the "Provinca," published in Pernambuco, there was printed on August 23, 1910, the following telegram from the city of Rio, the capital of the Republic.

"The Seculo (Century) of today announces that on St. Leopold street in Andarahy (a suburb of Rio) there was discovered a fountain of water in a hollow rock, in which a plebian found an image of a saint.

"This image," adds the Seculo, "although in water, did not present the least vestige of humidity. The news of this curious discovery was immediately circulated, and there was a great pilgrimage, including a reporter of the Seculo, to this miraculous fountain in Andarahy."

It is very probable that this telegram heralds the advent of a new shrine, because it is in this fashion that these so-called miracle-working shrines are brought into existence.

Not all of these shrines are canonized, but nevertheless they have power over the people. As we were making a trip into the interior of the State of Pernambuco we passed a station called Severino. Near the station we could see a splendid church building which had been constructed in honor of St. Severino. This saint is not in the calendar, not recognized by the church nor the bishop, yet it is popular all over Brazil. Many people are named after him, and to this shrine are brought many of the same sort of things as were described in connection with the shrine of the Good End. This idol is stuffed with sugar-cane pith. The head of it was found in the woods some time ago. A tradition was started that an image had fallen from Heaven. The superstitious people believed the report and soon a shrine was in full operation, which today, even though it be not canonized, is exerting a far-reaching influence. The owner of the shrine gave up his farming and lives handsomely on the offerings the deluded bring to his private shrine.

In one of the most magnificent churches in Bahia is an image of a negro saint. This holy being won his canonization as a reward for stealing money from his master to contribute to the church. That is it: Do anything you please, provided you share the spoils with the church.

Across the breast of the Virgin's image in the church of Our Lady of Penha in Pernambuco, before which church the Bibles were burned in 1903, are written the following words: "One hundred days' indulgence to the person who will kiss the holy foot of the Holy Virgin." This pitifully expresses, perhaps, the thought behind saint worship. It is the hope that the aching of the sinful heart may find some assuagement through the worship of these gilded, gaudy images. It is claimed by the priests and some of the more intelligent that the image worshiped is only a concrete representation of the saint, and it contains symbolically the spirit of the saint. To be sure! This is exactly the reason the more intelligent fetish worshiper in Africa assigns for worshiping his hand-made god. The etone or piece of wood is a representative of God and to a degree contains His spirit. Such worship is condemned as being idolatry in the African. The thing which is idolatry in the African must be idolatry in the Catholic. Even the Catholics will condemn the idol worship of the heathen, and yet this same Catholic church has in scores of places in South America and in other heathen lands, taken the identical images worshiped by the heathen and converted them into Catholic saints.

In the city of Braga, in Portugal, is a temple which centuries ago was devoted to Jupiter. It was afterward converted into a Catholic church and dedicated to St. Peter. The idol Jupiter, with two keys in his hand, was consecrated into St. Peter. In another part of the same city is a temple devoted to Janus in Roman times, which was turned into a temple dedicated to St. John. The idol which formerly was worshiped as Janus is being now worshiped as St. John. In the same temple there is an image now consecrated as St. Mark which was formerly the god Mars. The saint worship in Brazil is just as heathenish. In China Buddhist idols were renamed Jehosaphat by the Jesuits and worshiped. Their practices in Brazil are in keeping with their methods in other lands.

What is the difference between a worshiper who thus seeks indulgence through the worship of an image in Brazil and a like worshiper with a like soul need bowing before a similar wooden image in Africa or China?

CHAPTER VII.

PENANCE AND PRIEST.

Confession and penance play a large part in the religious life of the common people. The priests exercise great ingenuity to preserve the confessional. The better educated classes have long ago deserted the confessional, but it still holds sway over the common people and hangs like a dark shadow over the immoral deeds of the priests. Along with it flourishes the performance of penance. These two hand-maidens in wrong-doing often thrive in an absurd way.

In Penedo, the capital of the State of Alagoas, a new wharf was being built and the money granted by the Government was not sufficient to complete the work. The contractors approached the two monks who were to hold a mission in the city during February, 1904, and offered to pay them $500 if they would instruct the people to, in penance, carry across the city the stones which had been brought from the interior. A large quantity of building material had been brought down by rail and needed to be transported across to the wharf. The monks agreed, gave instructions accordingly, and in one week the people carried these stones across the town to the wharf. The transfer of these stones would have cost $2,500. At least 10,000 people engaged in this colossal act of penance. They came from two counties. Thus the contractors, by a little skillful manipulation, made penance save them considerable money.

In some of these penances the people wear crowns of thorns on their heads and cords about their necks and go barefooted through the streets of the city in their pilgrimages to