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.
[Illustration: 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!’”