At least eighty
per cent. of the people are unable to read. When they do, it is of
course in Spanish, A young man to whom I gave the Gospel of John
carefully looked at it, and then, turning to me, said: "Is this a
history of that wonderful lawyer we have been hearing about?" To
those interested in the dissemination of Scriptures, let me state
that no single Gospel has as yet been translated into Guarani.
A tentative edition of the "Sermon on the Mount" has recently been
issued by the British and Foreign Bible Society, a copy of which I
had the honor to be the first to present to the head executive.
Gentle simplicity is the chief characteristic of the people. If the
traveller relates the most ordinary events that pass in the outside
world, they will join in the exclamation of surprise-"Ba-eh-pico!
Ba-eh-pico!"
Information that tends to their lowering is not always accepted thus,
however, for a colonel in the army, when told that Asuncion could be
put into a large city graveyard, hastily got up from the dinner table
and went away in wounded pride and incredulity. The one who is
supposed to "know a little" likes to keep his position, and the
Spanish proverb is exemplified:
