DEATH OF THE PRIMATE ARCHBISHOP OF BAHIA.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume II, Issue 75, 3 October 1874, Page 9

DEATH OF THE PRIMATE ARCHBISHOP OF BAHIA.

The Bombay Catiolic Examiner saj« :— " lntelliger.ee has been received from Brazil by telegraph, the 85-h June, rf Ihe death of the Most Reverend the Primate Archbishop of Buliia, Don Manuel Joaqinn Da Silveira. With deep grief we tell this sad new*, because the Church m Brnzil can ill afford to be deprived of i's head in this hour of darkness, when persecution is raging, and two of the venerable Bishops of the empire are alreudy in prison. No later than the 30th May last we published the splendid Pastoral issued by Don Manuel, protesting against the tyranny the Freemasons were exercising upon the Church of which he was the Pi mute. There was no doubting the sincerity of his words, for they made the blood tingle in the veins, as did those of the great Saint Cyprian, the Bishop of Carthnse, who, exhorting his flock to martyrdom, said, speaking of death, ' No man can be afraid of it but he who is loath to go to Christ ; nor can any one be loath to go to Christ but lie who hath reason to fear that he sliall have no part in liis kingdom.' The Bishop of Bahia wrote, on the 2nd March last:— 'let us fearlessly sacrifice ourselves, and stop not, if ni-eestuiry, at shedding our blood, besause on our conscience lies the foundation of our glory, and we must obey God rather than man.' Hi» Master has accepted tlie sacrifice he then made of his lifi-, and the ardour of his resolve to be faithful to the end has hastened on the stroke of death which would entitle him to the Martyr's crown."