Even The Chattering Monkeys In The Trees Overhead
Would Spurn The Poison And Eagerly Clutch The Bright Trinket.
Perhaps
the looking-glasses I gave the poor females would, after the orgies
were over, serve to show them that their beauty was not increased by
this beastly carousal, and thus be a means of blessing.
It may be
asked, Can the savage be possessed of pride and of self-esteem? I
unhesitatingly answer yes, as I have had abundant opportunity of
seeing. They will strut with peacock pride when wearing a specially
gaudy-colored headdress, although that may be their only article of
attire.
Having on board far more salt than we ourselves needed, I was enabled
to generously distribute much of that invaluable commodity among
them. That also, working in a different way, might be a means of
restoring them to a normal soundness of mind after we left.
Poor lost creatures! For this draught of the white man's poison, far
more terrible to them than the deadly nightshade of their forests,
more dangerous than the venom of the loathsome serpent gliding across
their path, they are willing to sell body or soul. Soul, did I say?
They have never heard of that. To them, so far as I could ascertain,
a future life is unknown. The explorer has penetrated some little way
into their dark forests in search of rubber, or anything else which
it would pay to exploit, but the missionary of the Cross has never
sought to illumine their darker minds. They live their little day and
go out into the unknown unconscious of the fact that One called
Jesus, who was the Incarnate God, died to redeem them. As a
traveller, I have often wondered why men should be willing to pay me
hundreds of dollars to explore those regions for ultimate worldly
gain, and none should ever offer to employ me in proclaiming the
greatest wonder of all the ages - the story of Calvary - for eternal
gain. After all, are the Indians more blind to the future than we
are? Yet, strange to say, we profess to believe in the teachings of
that One who inculcated the practice of laying up treasure in heaven,
while they have not even heard His name. For love of gain men have
been willing to accompany me through the most deadly fever-breeding
morass, or to brave the poisoned arrows of the lynx-eyed Indian, but
few have ever offered to go and tell of Him whom they profess to
serve.
The suffocating atmosphere quite precluded the idea of writing, for a
pen, dipped in ink, would dry before reaching the paper, and the
latter be saturated with perspiration in a few seconds; so these
observations were penned later. So far as I could ascertain, the
Romish Church has never touched the Guatos, and, notwithstanding all
I have said about them, I unhesitatingly affirm that it is better so.
Geo. R. Witte, missionary to Brazil, says: "With one exception, all
the priests with whom I came in contact (when on a journey through
Northern Brazil) were immoral, drunken, and ignorant.
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