The Young Men’s Christian Association has entered the Brazilian field in a number of places. At the present time it has associations organized in Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo, Porto Alegre and Pernambuco, with college chapters at Mackenzie and Granberry Colleges and the Military School in Porto Alegre. It is, I believe, doing a good work on the broad lines adopted by that great world-wide organization, where people of varying beliefs can unite their efforts for mutual profit, and also for the general good of the communities in which they live. There is a great field for this work, in my opinion, in this land where there is so much religious indifference among the men, who seem to leave the religious work almost entirely to the women of their families. At present these institutions are cramped in their work by lack of funds, but the secretaries, who are young Americans, are energetic in their efforts and are doing the very best they can with the resources at their command. They aid very much in the fraternizing of the native and foreign elements of the communities. It is an age of almost complete religious indifference, at least among the men of Brazil; and any movement that will rouse the people from this lethargy, either within or without the Roman school, will be beneficial to the country. CHAPTER XVI THE EMPIRE The history of Brazil contains more exciting chapters, and has been the most chequered of the South American republics. Its territory has been the battleground of Spaniards, Portuguese, French, Indians and negroes. It has been successively a capitancia, a province, an empire and a republic. And yet, with all these changes and admixtures, the language, customs, religion and laws of Brazil are substantially those of Portugal. Rome gave these things as a heritage to that country, and she in turn transmitted them to her colony in the New World. Early in the year 1500, one Pedro Alvarez Cabral, a Portuguese nobleman, sailed from Lisbon for the East Indies. Owing to some peculiar instructions that had been given to him by the King of Portugal, he sailed far west of the usual route for vessels bound to those islands. One bright morning, during Easter week, land was sighted, and his little fleet came to anchor off the coast of what is now the state of Bahia. Believing that this was only an island he named it the “Island of the True Cross,” and took formal possession of it in the name of his sovereign. On Easter Sunday a landing was made, and the first mass was held. A few days later the entire fleet departed, leaving only a couple of mutinous sailors on shore.