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Rev. Wardlaw baptized the first thirteen members on July 8, 1883, the date of organization of the Church of Fortaleza. At the time, there was controversy in the newspapers, resulting in the publication of two leaflets. Wardlaw wrote one of them, The Cult of the Saints, in response to another of the same title written by Father Constantino Gomes de Mattos. After one year, the Committee of Missions determined that he should spend some time in São Luís do Maranhão, where he was from October 1883 until April 1884, traveling in then to the United States. In July 1885, Wardlaw organized the Church of Mossoró, in Rio Grande do Norte. On May 22, 1887, he participated in the ordination of the first Brazilian Presbyterian pastoralists of the Northeast: Belmiro de Araújo César, João Batista de Lima, and José Francisco Primênio da Silva. At that time, in a theater rented in Natal, one of which there were more than six hundred people.

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In addition to repeated visits to Mossoro, Wardlaw made trips through the interior of Ceará, visiting Baturité and other points, in which he faced fearlessly many persecutions. On of these journeys, was accompanied by the Rev. John R. Smith and by the then Presbyter William Calvin Porter, having the three workers faced tremendous persecution in Conceição de Baturité. In Fortaleza, Wardlaw published articles in the Liberator, a newspaper with three thousand copies distributed throughout the province. In the discussions with Father Constantino, counted on the collaboration of José Damião de Souza Melo, the first Presbyterian believer of Fortaleza, who was a journalist and poet. In 1888, he participated in the organi-zation of the Presbytery of Pernambuco, on August 17, and the Synod of the Presbyterian Church of Brazil, on 6 September. The Church of Fortaleza was formally organized, through the election of first officers, on August 6, 1890.

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A few years later, Rev. Wardlaw had a disagreement with Dr. Matthew Hale Houston, secretary of the Nash-ville Missions Committee, and was fired from his missionary. Citing the high cost of living and the few fruits of work, Houston understood that new missionaries should not be sent to the north of Brazil, but to China and Japan. In November 1893, Rev. William Calvin was sent to work in Ceará. Porter, who stayed there until 1895. In the winter of 1894, Porter and Wardlaw made a trip missionary to the cities of Quixadá and Uruburetama. When they returned, they almost lost their lives. in the crossing of the Curu River, which was overflowing due to the rains; Wardlaw was taken by the current more than a kilometer downstream. On a visit from Dr. Houston to Fortaleza,

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Porter served as an instrument for the reconciliation of the two workers. With the transfer of the couple Porter to Natal, Wardlaw and his wife were left alone for some time, divided between Fortaleza and Baturité, in addition to other points. In 1896, it reached the Ceará to assist Wardlaw Rev. Reginald P. Baird, son of Rev. James R. Baird, who had worked in the American colony in Santa Bárbara, in the state of São Paulo. In the following year, because of difficulties in his pastorate, Rev. Wardlaw was off from the Pernambuco Presbytery and the Mission. The cause of the difficulties would have been the fact that he engages in commercial activities, setting up a bookstore. Lived in Fortaleza for a few more years, dealing with his private affairs, and returned to the United States in the second half of 1901. Rev. Natanael Cortez recounts a case picturesque. Wardlaw was once picked up by a group of boys on the streets of the capital Ceará:  "Father married! Father married! Look at the married priest!  "The missionary,  very  well  dressed,

 distributed a few nickels among the boys and recommended: "Look boys, to be continued! Call me married father. Non-denominated, non-denominational priest. " Rev. Wardlaw died on January 20, 1934. His wife died the same year. Despite difficulties in expressing himself in Portuguese, and although he had withdrawn from unpleasant circumstances, his courageous work became an inspiring page in the history of Brazilian Presbyterianism. Mary Hoge Wardlaw wrote the book in English titled Candida or By a Path, she did not Know: A History of Ceará. In 1941, Rev. Natanael Cortez found in Miami a daughter of the Wardlaw couple.

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Bibliography:

• Lessa, Annaes , 188, 215, 535-37.

• Ferreira, History of IPB , I: 224-30, 297s, 452-54.

• A General Catalog of Union Theological Seminary in Virginia, 1807-1924 .

• Bear, Mission to Brazil , 35, 40, 43, 48.

• Natanael Cortez, Presbyterianism in Northern Brazil (Recife, 1957), 9-11.

• Mary Hoge Wardlaw. Candida; or, By a Way She Knew: A Story From Ceará .

Richmond, s / d.

• Fernandino Caldeira de Andrada, "Rev. De Lacey Wardlaw ", Brazil Presbyterian

(March 1998), 20.