WlLHELM GOETZ.
II. Evangelical Work: Of all European countries Portugal is the only one that was never touched by the Reformation. At the beginning of the six-
RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Portiunoula Indulgence Portugal
teenth century Portugal was enjoying the most brilliant period of her whole history, and by reason of her maritime and colonial enterprises i. The was rapidly advancing to the front Conditions, ranks of European powers. Nevertheless, in the sphere of religion, she seems to have escaped the stimulus which came to all other European countries, during this or the following centuries, from the Protestant Reformation. Several reasons may be offered in explanation: (1) The relative isolation of Portugal and her remoteness from the centers of the religious movement, together with the lack of easy means of communication in that period, precluded the possibility of the Portuguese coming in contact with the followers or the literature of the Reformers. (2) The absence of that preliminary preparation which came to other countries through the preaching of such early Reformers as Wyclif in England, Huss in Bohemia, Savonarola in Italy, and Lefevre in France, had left untilled the seed-plot in which the seeds of the Reformation might have taken root. (3) The most important factor, perhaps, in closing Portugal against the influences of the Reformation was the political despotism, united with that of the Church, which prevailed in Portugal at that time. This union was further strengthened in 1536 by the formal establishment of the Inquisition, and still more firmly cemented in 1540 by the admission of the Jesuits, into whose hands were committed the destinies of the nation for the two centuries that followed. Whatever the reasons may be, it is to be remarked that Portugal has continued down to modern times the most exclusively, if not the most intensely, Roman Catholic of all the Latin nations; and until to-day there has been no serious effort at religious reform.
Through all the stormy history of the little kingdom, Roman Catholicism has remained the State religion, and but few crises have arisen in which the voice of the Roman Catholic 2. Anti- Church has not determined the policy Roman of the nation. The only considerable Tendencies, defection from that church so far may be traced either to educational or political movements, rather than to the desire for religious reform. Toward the close of the eighteenth century the gradual infiltration of the ideas of the French philosophers inaugurated a " liberal " tendency among the cultured classes, which has steadily grown until to-day about fifty per cent of the educated Portuguese, if not professedly infidel, are in open opposition to the clergy. This movement away from the Church has been limited somewhat by the dense ignorance of the great mass of the people and the scant attention paid to education. In 1878 the illiterates were 82 per cent of the population and in 1909 they still comprised 78.6 per cent. In 1900 there were only 240,000 pupils in the elementary schools of Portugal, though education has been declared compulsory since 1844. Likewise in the political affairs of Portugal the nineteenth century marked a persistent struggle by certain elements of the population for " liberal " principles. The pernicious interference by the Roman Catholic clergy to defeat the aims of this move-
ment attracted a constantly increasing hatred from the working classes and has developed a strong anticlerical party among the masses themselves. Indeed, the overthrow of the monarchy in October, 1910, with the flight of young King Manuel, seems to indicate that liberal principles have now won to their support the majority of the people. And Senor Sebastiano Magalhaes Lima, one of the leaders in the new republic, has announced that " the program of reform will include the separation of Church and State." On the other hand, the most recent statistics indicate that the secular clergy in Portugal numbers 93,979 parish priests in a total population of 5,423,132, an average of one priest to every fifty-seven inhabitants.
The foregoing facts would lead to the anticipation that the history of Evangelical Protestantism in Portugal does not begin until the
3. Evan- nineteenth century, and that it owes gelical its origin not to any stimulus received
Activities, from the Reformation of the sixteenth century, but to the missionary activity of Protestant denominations during the last century. As far as can be learned, it was not before 1845 that the Gospel was for the first time persistently proclaimed in Portugal. Meetings were commenced almost simultaneously in Lisbon and in Oporto. In Lisbon it was Mrs. Helen Roughton, wife of an English merchant, who first, with her husband's assistance, held private meetings in her house and established a school for Protestant instruction. The Roughtons belonged to the Church of England, and their humble efforts resulted in the establishment of the Anglican Church of the Taipas, Lisbon. Mrs. Roughton lived until 1885, but a few years before her death adopted the views of the Plymouth Brethren (q.v.). At Oporto the first Evangelical worker was Miss Frederica Smith, who began work privately in 1845. She was born of English parents in Oporto and was subsequently married to James Cooley Fletcher, United States consul at Oporto. At Oporto there labored also about this time, Rev. A. de Mattos, one of the converts of a mission in Madeira, a naturalized American and probably the first Portuguese Protestant to preach in Portugal. Since these early beginnings several British societies have opened stations at Lisbon and Oporto, as well as at several other of the principal cities of Portugal. The Plymouth Brethren have considerable strength, especially in Lisbon. The Scotch Presbyterians also have a mission there. The Wesleyan Methodists have an important work in Oporto, under charge of Robert H. Moreton, who has spent thirty-seven years at this post. The strongest Evangelical church in Portugal is the Anglican. It has several stations in both Lisbon and Oporto. Besides this there are independent Protestant churches at Oporto and Porta-Legre, supporting their own pastors, while all over Portugal there are little bands of believers, without organization or a pastor, which are centers of influence thoroughly Protestant in spirit.
It has been remarked that the first Evangelical work in Portugal was done in connection with the school. It is hardly necessary to state that this method has been largely adhered to by the foreign
Portugal Positivism