of the
common people. The priests exercise great ingenuity to preserve the
confessional. The better educated classes have long ago deserted the
confessional, but it still holds sway over the common people and hangs
like a dark shadow over the immoral deeds of the priests. Along with it
flourishes the performance of penance. These two hand-maidens in
wrong-doing often thrive in an absurd way.

In Penedo, the capital of the State of Alagoas, a new wharf was being
built and the money granted by the Government was not sufficient to
complete the work. The contractors approached the two monks who were to
hold a mission in the city during February, 1904, and offered to pay
them $500 if they would instruct the people to, in penance, carry
across the city the stones which had been brought from the interior. A
large quantity of building material had been brought down by rail and
needed to be transported across to the wharf. The monks agreed, gave
instructions accordingly, and in one week the people carried these
stones across the town to the wharf. The transfer of these stones would
have cost $2,500. At least 10,000 people engaged in this colossal act
of penance. They came from two counties. Thus the contractors, by a
little skillful manipulation, made penance save them considerable money.

In some of these penances the people wear crowns of thorns on their
heads and cords about their necks and go barefooted through the streets
of the city in their pilgrimages to the church. All, that through these
means they may find some ease for the conscience which accuses them of
evil.

What shall I say of the priests? I believe I will say nothing. I
declined steadily to soil the pages of my note book with the records of
the immoral deeds of these men. I will let speak for me an educated
Brazilian, a teacher in an excellent school in Pernambuco, who is not a
professing Christian, but who, like a great many of his class, admires
Christianity very sincerely. When Mr. Colton, International Secretary
of the Young Men's Christian Association, passed through Pernambuco in
June, 1910, he was given a banquet by some of the leading men, which
event offended so grievously the Catholic authorities that they
published in the "Religious Tribune," their organ, a bitter diatribe on
the Young Men's Christian Association. The professor, to whom I
referred, who is now one of the leading judges in the state, published
the following answer to this attack. He