

TRAVELLING PRIESTS. 



133 



— a large income in Brazil, but hardly earned, if 

 the inconveniences and privations which they 

 must undergo to obtain it are- taken into consi- 

 deration. They stop and erect the altar wherever 

 a sufficient number of persons who are willing to 

 pay for the mass is collected. This will some- 

 times be said for three or four shillings, but at 

 other times, if a rich man takes a fancy to a 

 priest, or has a fit of extreme devotion upon him, 

 he will give eight or ten mil reis, two or three 

 pounds, and it does happen, that one hundred 

 mil reis are received for saying a mass, but this is 

 very rare ; — at times an ox or an horse, or two 

 or three, are given. These men have their use 

 in the world : if this custom did not exist, all 

 form of worship would be completely out of the 

 reach of the inhabitants of many districts, or at 

 any rate they would not be able to attend more 

 than once or twice in the course of the year, for 

 it must be remembered that there is no church 

 within twenty or thirty leagues of some parts ; 

 besides, where there is no law, nor real, rational 

 religion, any thing is better than nothing. They 

 christen and marry, and thus preserve these ne- 

 cessary forms of religion, and prevent a total for- 

 getfulness of the established rules of civilised so- 

 ciety; a sufficient link is kept up to make any 

 of these people, if they removed into more popu- 

 lous districts, conform to received ideas, 



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