from belfry and tower this summer morning, religion seems to have little vitality in the Brazilian capital. It has lost its hold upon the intelligent and educated classes. An American who contrasts the listless and perfunctory celebration of mass in the churches here with the same religious service in New-York churches of that faith is shocked and amazed. What is devotional there is the most mechanical mummery here. The priests have the appearance of worldly men earning a good living in religious trade. The very altar-boys, as I have watched them here, seem to be cutting up pranks with unseemly levity in the holy places. A single Sunday in Rio will go far toward convincing any thoughtful observer that one of the best things that could happen for the Church in Brazil would be the same rough shaking-up which political institutions are receiving. I write in no spirit of intolerance or hostility to Roman Catholicism. It is the comparison which I have made here and in other coast towns between the Church as it is found in the United States and in Brazil that compels the conclusion that the abrogation of the establishment as a State religion would be of inestimable benefit to Christianity. If the country has required thorough-going processes of revolution, so has the Church. The separation of Church and State would tend powerfully to promote a revival of religion. Roman Catholicism is purest, strongest and more active as a religious force where it is separated from the State, and where Protestantism is arrayed against it, as in the United States. It is corrupt, weak and least useful where it is a State establishment, as in Brazil, and where Protestantism does not come into serious rivalry with it. The most sincere Catholic here would have reason for rejoicing if the Provisional Government were to proclaim a separation of Church and State. There would then be signs of resurrection among these gilded tombs of religion.