Children of South America :: CHAPTER III BLOSSOM BABIES

CHAPTER III BLOSSOM BABIES

Leaving our little Indian friends, we now make our way through the State of Sao Paulo, in South-Eastern Brazil, to the city of the same name, which means “St Paul.” The climate here is more temperate and healthy (except in the lowlands near the sea-coast), which is a pleasant change from the tropical heat of Northern Brazil.

Sao Paulo is very up-to-date, and more like a modern European city than any other in Brazil. Yet although many of the Portuguese-speaking people who live here are educated, they are very ignorant of the true religion of the Lord Jesus Christ. Their religion, like that of the people in every other city in South America, consists chiefly in the worship of a woman, the Virgin Mary, and there are very many Roman Catholic feasts given in her honour during the year.

The mother of our Saviour is thus the object of worship of many thousands of women and children in South America to-day, and yet the exaltation of the Virgin Mary has not by any means uplifted these women and children; on the contrary, their social, moral, and spiritual state is worse than that of the women and children of any heathen country. It is only where the Lord Jesus Christ is worshipped and upheld that mothers, sisters, and little children are honoured, cared for, and put into their proper place.

In South America the Lord Jesus is either represented as a little child in His mother’s arms, as on the cross, or as lying dead in a coffin. As the Saviour is thus misrepresented to them, it is perhaps not to be wondered at that these women and children, who do not know the truth about His love, turn away from the apparently dead Christ, to the warm, kindly-looking, gaudily-decked figure of Mary, about whom the Church of Rome says: “Come unto Mary, all ye who are burdened and weary with your sins, and she will give you rest.”

It is to Mary and not to the Lord Jesus that the children of South America are bidden to turn.

Think of your own happy childhood, of mother and your bright home; of your church, your Sunday-school, and your day-school; of the bright, happy hours you spend in play; of the laughing, chubby, clean, and healthy children of our own cities. Think; and now come with me through the city of Sao Paulo, where we see people of all nations and colours, from the blackest negro to the whitest European.

PALMS, LILIES AND BABY BLOSSOMS

We will pay a visit to some bright, budding blossoms of humanity who have been gathered from streets and places of wickedness, and planted in a beautiful Home standing in its own grounds, lying on the outskirts of the town. Here thirty-six little human “blossoms” live and flourish under the motherly and fatherly care of Mr and Mrs Cooper, their daughter, and other workers.

The story of the first “blossom” is that while Mr and Mrs Cooper were doing missionary work in another part of Brazil, a little baby girl was given to them by her mother, who was quite out of her mind. The poor wee mite was little more than skin and bones, but loving care and plenty of good food soon transformed her into a bonnie maiden.

To describe all these thirty-six “blossoms” would fill a book. The Blossom Home is one of the brightest spots in Brazil to-day, and it is a real joy to leave the city and to hurry away at sunset over the low fields, with the wide sky on all sides coloured always with different hues, and the fresh, cool breath of evening, while a bevy of expectant children await your appearance under the pines and palms of the walk to the house. That these little ones were ever poor, or diseased, or homeless, does not seem possible as we mingle with them at the evening play-hour.

That Tecla was ever anything but a sweet-faced yellow-haired child, that Baby was ever thin and wrinkled, that Bepy was ever serious, or Rosa not always happy, seems so long ago as not to belong to the present age of the Home. One “blossom” came all the way from Maranham, a city more than 2000 miles away from Sao Paulo, which shows how much such orphanages are needed in Brazil.

It would be nice to stay here and make their further acquaintance, to see the little ones in the kindergarten, and the older ones at their lessons. It would be interesting to spend a Sunday at this haven, and to see the keen interest they display in missions and missionaries.

During the week, at morning worship they are trained to look out over the whole world, and to pray for a particular place each day. At Sunday-school they, of their own accord, have a collection amongst themselves, and every week they try to do something extra, for which they are paid, and out of this they freely give to the missionary box. They send to the child-widows of India, to the school for blind children at Jerusalem, and to other missions in which they are interested.

We would like to watch them, too, at their work, for they are all busy little bees, and what a hive of happy industry it is—dairying, poultry-raising, laundry, kitchen, housework, and gardening! The reason why we cannot stay for more than a flying visit is because there is no room for us, and if not for us, then for no one else, for the Home is already more than full.

“The girls’ dormitories hold fourteen beds, and there are twenty girls! Baby Grace sleeps in a cot beside the bed of ‘Mother’ and ‘Daddy,’ but the other five have to sleep in the dining-room, which means making up beds at bedtime. The walls of the Home are not made of india-rubber, so they cannot be stretched to receive any more ‘blossoms.’ What is then to be done? Applications are constantly coming in, a recent one being for a motherless baby girl of a month old. How the heart of Christ must yearn over these little ones of whom He said when here on earth: ‘Of such is the Kingdom of Heaven!’”

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