58 Through the BraziHan Wilderness 



a "Protestant Catholic," her mother having been a Prot- 

 estant, the daughter of an immigrant from Normandy. 

 However, it appeared that the older children had been 

 baptized by the Bishop of Asuncion, so Father Zahm 

 at the earnest request of the parents proceeded with the 

 ceremony. They were good people; and, although they 

 wished liberty to think exactly as they individually 

 pleased, they also wished to be connected and to have 

 their children connected with some church, by preference 

 the church of the majority of their people. A very short 

 experience of communities where there is no church 

 ought to convince the most heterodox of the absolute 

 need of a church. I earnestly wish that there could be 

 such an increase in the personnel and equipment of the 

 Catholic Church in South America as to permit the es- 

 tablishment of one good and earnest priest in every vil- 

 lage or little community in the far interior. Nor is there 

 any inconsistency between this wish and the further wish 

 that there could be a marked extension and development 

 of the native Protestant churches, such as I saw estab- 

 lished here and there in Brazil, Uruguay, and Argen- 

 tina, and of the Y. M. C. Associations. The bulk of 

 these good people who profess religion will continue to 

 be Catholics, but the spiritual needs of a more or less 

 considerable minority will best be met by the establish- 

 ment of Protestant churches, or in places even of a Posi- 

 tivist Church or Ethical Culture Society. Not only is 

 the establishment of such churches a good thing for the 

 body politic as a whole, but a good thing for the Catholic 

 Church itself; for their presence is a constant spur to 

 activity and clean and honorable conduct, and a constant 



