Of his latest article about Scottish missionaries, Paul James-Griffiths of Christian Heritage Edinburgh writes, “This week I’ve continued with the amazing story of Dr Robert Kalley, who fled persecution in Madeira, and ended up pioneering the first Protestant church in Brazil. I hope it inspires you all.”

After the persecution in Madeira, Dr Robert Kalley travelled to Palestine, as it was called then, and explored the Middle East. It was in Beirut that he sadly buried his first wife, Margaret. Bouncing back from this tragedy, he married Sarah Wilson in 1852. With a strong desire in their hearts to reach Portuguese-speaking people they went to Brazil three years later, where they became the first Protestant missionaries in the nation. It was here that they settled, largely in peace, establishing a fruitful and lasting legacy.

Although the Brazilian constitution stated that the official religion of the nation was Roman Catholic, Emperor Dom Pedro II, who lived near to the Kalleys in Petrópolis, became a great support to them, shielding them from the kind of fanaticism they had experienced in Madeira. He favoured learning and realised that an educated people would raise the standards of the nation. Robert Kalley seized this window of opportunity and sent for three of the exiled Madeiran Christians to come and help with the task of spreading the gospel.

The main congregations that sprang out of the Kalleys’ work were Igreja Evangélica Fluminense in Rio de Janeiro, and another church in Recife, Pernambuco. From these a network of other churches spread throughout Brazil, known as Cristã Evangélica. Both of the Kalleys taught at the Fluminense church, with Sarah’s love for music coming to the fore; she ran a music school and produced the first Protestant hymn book in Portuguese. Revd James Fanstone was placed as the pastor of the church in Pernambuco, and his son, Dr James Fanstone, went on to set up a hospital in Anápolis, and a nursing college there as well. Hospital Evangélico Goianio, which was the first hospital in the Anápolis region, grew under Dr Fanstone’s supervision to become a six-story building. In this hospital they followed the Christian ethos of providing paid healthcare for the wealthy and free service for the poor. By 1981, the hospital had 300 beds and 200 nurses. Dr Fanstone also pioneered 11 churches and a college, which later became the Evangelical University of Anápolis (UniEvangelica) in 1999. This university is well-known for its high standards of education and academic achievement, with strong departments in medicine, dentistry, law, education, engineering, business and social sciences.

In 1874 Robert Kalley wrote to the famous preacher, Charles Spurgeon of London, about the 200-member church in Rio de Janeiro, saying that “It is the first Protestant church formed of converts from Popery in this country. They are poor… Some were Mahommedans [Muslims], some were slaves and many did not learn to read til after their conversion… but they are supporting three day schools.”

Apart from pioneering churches, schools and healthcare in Brazil, Robert also stood against the slave trade long before it was abolished in Brazil in 1888. He openly welcomed slaves into his churches as equals, and when a Christian slave-owner, Bernadino de Oliveira Rameiro, came for communion, he was disciplined by Robert with the words, “Would you like to be treated as a slave by another man? … Those who do this are enemies of Christ and cannot be members of the Church of Jesus, of that Jesus who… gave us freedom.”

The Kalleys retired in Edinburgh, but even in their later years they were busy setting up the “Help for Brazil” society, which became a channel for missionaries to be supported as they came to Brazil. Robert Kalley is widely recognised as being the first Protestant missionary to preach the gospel in Brazil, and he put in the foundation for a movement that would lead to hundreds of churches being planted amongst Portuguese-speaking people in Brazil, Madeira, the Antilles, America, and Portugal. It was his godly example at an opportune time that opened up the passage for other missionaries to pour into Brazil, particularly from America.

At the end of a walking tour one evening in Edinburgh I took a group of thirty Brazilians into a café. They were in tears as they recalled the stories I had told them of brave Reformers and Covenanters, but then one of them asked whether I had heard of Robert Kalley. To my shame I had never heard of him until that evening. It is a joy to briefly uncover his story now.

Dr Robert Kalley and his wife Sarah are buried in Dean Cemetery, Edinburgh.