Hugh C. Tucker

Not only did he put the Bible into the pulpits and bookcases of Brazil, but its spirit of love and service found expression in the hearts of the people, in parks, schools, and playgrounds."No, no, don't stop!" said the man, when Dr. Tucker started to help load the mules. "Read more. Let the others load the animals while I call my neighbors, that you may read to them, too, and tell them what these things mean, for they are new and strange to us."

Every day they met people who asked, "Where are you going, and what is this new book you carry with you?"

"How can these things be?" said one man. "Is it true that so long as two thousand years ago such wonderful things happened and today I hear of them for the first time and even yet my friends have not heard? You are slow about giving the Bible to my people!"

Now Dr. Tucker had thought he was giving the Bible to the people of Brazil just as fast as he could, but he redoubled his efforts. He sent out still more colporteurs. They gathered the people in the public squares of the cities and read and preached to them, and the people listened gladly. Sometimes the colporteurs started out with sacks filled with Bibles and came back with their sacks full of the images the people had been worshiping and had cast away when they read, "I am the Lord thy God. Thou shalt have no other gods before me."Dr. Tucker has given more than a million Bibles to Brazil. He presented a Bible to President Prudenti Moraes on his inauguration day. He has found many ways of giving the spirit of the Bible in addition to putting the book into the hands of the people. He does not wish anyone to think that this is a magical book, and that it is enough merely to have it.

When he took Bibles to the sick boatmen down in their poor little mud huts by the river-side, he found they had no one to care for them properly,—there are many thousands of sailors coming into the port of Rio every year,—so Dr. Tucker became the "seamen's friend." He rented a house and made it a Seamen's Home. In one year more than ten thousand sailors came to his Home. Most of them were glad to pay for their meals and beds, but he did not turn any away if they were ill or had no money. There were free beds and free meals for those who needed help, and doctors to care for those who were sick, and employment found for those who were out of work.

While he was preaching in the slums of Rio he found many people who were poor and sick, as there are in all great cities. He went to a young Brazilian doctor and asked him to visit the homes of the poor people in the slums.

The young doctor came back and said, "Why, Dr. Tucker, it is almost enough to make anyone ill just to go into these homes and see how the people live. There are so many dark rooms and so little sunlight, and the houses are very dirty. In almost every home someone is sick." Dr. Tucker remembered how the multitudes came to Jesus and were healed, and so he thought one of the best ways to give more of the Bible to the people was to help those who were sick.

He had stereopticon pictures made which showed how tuberculosis might be prevented. Then he went to the United States Ambassador and to the mayor of Rio and to the president of the Board of Health and to other great men who could help him and told them he was going to give a lecture and wanted them to come and sit on the platform. He sent cards out all over the city telling how many people had tuberculosis and what they should do to be cured and inviting people to his meeting.

Those who came were so much interested in the pictures, that the city officials arranged for him to show them to the children in the public schools. Then they had him talk to the people who gathered in the public squares of the city. The government gave him money to fight tuberculosis, and he started a hospital where sick people without money could be treated and where they could hear and read about Jesus the Great Physician.

Next he started a school for poor children. The children wanted to come to school, and Dr. Tucker was very happy until he saw how strangely they behaved.

"What can be the matter with them?" he asked. "They sit with their hands folded. They don't want to study or even to play. Their eyes are dull."

He asked the children questions and visited their homes to find out why they did not want to study or to jump about and play.

"No wonder my school children sit with their hands folded," he said when he came back. "They are half starved. Some of them have nothing but a cup of coffee and a pickle to eat all day."

He remembered how Jesus had fed those who were hungry, so every day he provided a lunch of whole wheat mush with milk and sugar. Soon the hollow cheeks of the children began to get round and rosy, their eyes began to shine, and they wanted to run and jump and play.

"I wish we could feed all the hungry children in Rio," said Dr. Tucker one day. He knew he could never get them all in his little school, but he thought of another plan—he started a cooking school to teach the mothers to cook good meals at home. He told the gas company about his plan, and they gave him the stoves he needed. The mothers came with their children, and while the children learned reading and writing and arithmetic, the mothers learned how to prepare food that was better for children than coffee and pickles. Dr. Tucker had found another way to give the Bible to Brazil.

One day he said, "The Bible tells us to clothe the naked, but how can we ever get clothes enough for all of the poor people of Brazil!"

Presently he walked into the office of a sewing machine company and told the manager about his plan to clothe the naked.

"That would be fine!" the manager said. "Of course the only way to clothe all the poor people is to teach them how to make their own clothes."

He sent sewing machines to Dr. Tucker's school, and soon the mothers were learning to sew. Dr. Tucker had found still another way to give the Bible to Brazil.

Now his school children were well and happy. Their cheeks were round and rosy, for they had a lunch at school and their mothers gave them good food at home. Their clothes were neat and clean, their eyes were bright and shining, and they were ready to study and play. But where should they play? There was no trouble about a place to study. They could study at school or at home, but when they wanted to play there was no place at all. Rio is one of the most beautiful cities in the world, and many of the people are very wealthy and live in beautiful homes, but Dr. Tucker's poor little children in the slums lived in houses that were built close together right on the street.

There was a very beautiful park, with lovely green grass, but the superintendent of parks was very proud of his green grass and had a fence of iron rails around it with a sign, "Keep off the grass" wherever a child could get in.

Every time Dr. Tucker saw that park, his eyes looked like the eyes of his school children when they were hungry. But one day as he went through the park, his eyes began to twinkle. He clapped his hands and said to himself, "I'll do it!" At once he walked up boldly to the mayor of Rio and the superintendent of parks.

"The children have no place to play," he said. "Why don't you open up a part of the city park for a public playground?"

The mayor and the superintendent of parks were so shocked they could scarcely say a word. They were so proud of their beautiful park, they had never let people even walk on the grass; and now this bold man actually dared to propose that they should put swings and teeter boards and tennis courts right where the grass was most beautiful!

But they could not forget what he said about happy children being worth more than beautiful grass, and one day they drove to Dr. Tucker's door in a fine automobile and invited him to ride with them. They did not ask him where he wanted to go, but drove straight to the park.

"We have decided to do what you ask and let you make your playground on one condition," announced the mayor.

"Good!" said Dr. Tucker, "What's the condition?"

"That you get all the equipment for a first-class playground," answered the superintendent of parks.

Dr. Tucker was thinking very fast. "Equipment for a first-class playground" meant swings and bars and teeter boards and tennis nets and footballs and ever so many other things boys and girls love in a playground. With the same twinkle that was in his eyes when he looked at the park and said, "I'll do it," he said now, "All right, I'll take you up."

He did not have a single cent in his pocket to buy all these things and he did not know where he was going to get so much money, but he said to himself:"I'll look around a bit and see what I can see."

The first thing he saw was some men tearing up an old street-car track. He went to the manager of the street-car company. "What are you going to do with those old rails?" he asked. "May I have them?"

"Yes, I guess so," answered the manager.

Dr. Tucker said "Thank you" very politely and then added, "I'll have to have them shaped a little differently and a few holes bored in them. Would you mind doing this in your shop?"

The manager said he would do that, too. When Dr. Tucker said "Thank you" very politely again and turned to go, the manager asked: "What in the world do you want those old rails for?"

"For swing supports and all sorts of equipment for the playground."

He told the manager about his ride with the mayor and the superintendent of parks and all about the things he was going to make for the playground and athletic fields out of those lovely old rails.

"Nonsense, man!" said the manager. "Those old rails aren't good enough. Why you ought to have the best stuff money can buy for Brazil's first public playground.""Of course we ought," said Dr. Tucker, "but since we don't have the money to buy them with, I propose to see what we can make."

"What would you buy if you did have the money?" asked the manager. "Think it over and let me know."

Dr. Tucker went home and got a catalog of a New York store. A few days later he went into the manager's office with the catalog in his hand. The manager was so busy he scarcely had time to look up.

"Are you too busy to look at the things we need for the playground?" asked Dr. Tucker.

"Yes, I am," replied the manager. "You just take that catalog and mark what you need, and when I go to New York perhaps I can get it for you."

Dr. Tucker's eyes twinkled twice that time. He felt as if his fairy godmother had shown him a wonderful palace and told him to help himself. He sat down and marked in that catalog the things he knew the boys and girls of Rio would have marked if they had held his pencil.

The manager took the catalog to New York with him and bought every single article that had a mark before it. He paid for them with dollars—seven hundred and forty of them—out of his own pocket.

A Playground in Rio de Janeiro

On the grounds of an old private park the children of the city now swing and slide and bat and jump.When the swings and bars and outfits came and were set up in the park, the opening day was announced. The people came in crowds from all over the city. The band played, and the flag of Brazil was raised. The mayor made a speech, and the children cheered, and then they scampered off to swing and slide and bat and jump; and the first public playground of Brazil was open.

That evening Dr. Tucker walked down the street. He thought of his million Bibles, and he thought of his school and his playground which put the love of God into visible form.

"The Bible is coming into Brazil," he said to himself. "Not only into the pulpits and into bookcases, but its spirit of love and service is coming into the parks and schools and the streets and, best of all, into the hearts of the people." And his own heart was glad.