Thirty years in Madagascar

‘The earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea.’—Habakkuk ii. 14.

An embassy was sent by the British government to Madagascar in the summer of 1880. The late Admiral Gore-Jones and his staff went up to the capital and spent some time there in interviewing the queen and prime minister and in interchanging courtesies. Ostensibly his mission was to remonstrate about the slave trade on the west coast, to offer assistance in putting it down, even to the carrying of Hova troops to be placed at stations along the coast. Some suspected at the time that that was but a blind, and that the admiral had a secret mission; and it has been asserted by those who profess to know that he was sent out to feel the pulse of the Madagascar government, and find out not merely whether any wish for a British protectorate existed, but to definitely offer one if there were any likelihood of its being accepted.

There can be little doubt now that the interpreter was even then a traitor in the pay of the enemy, and he interpreted nothing of importance communicated to the prime minister. The Jesuits boasted after the war that they won Madagascar for France, and, however foolish in their own interests with the people such a statement made publicly may be, it was generally believed that for once they had told the truth. They had had a grant of 15,000 f. a year for many years (previously, I believe, it was very much larger), which was greatly increased after the war, and they earned their wages by their political intriguing.

An agent and protégé of theirs had long been at work in the palace. He received a handsome salary which he also had infamously earned; for he succeeded in seducing some of the chief officials from their allegiance, forming a party in the very cabinet itself, by whom the country was sold, and the people who trusted them basely betrayed. Hence the poor show the Malagasy made in fighting for their fatherland, until they found that they had been betrayed, and then they rose in rebellion against the French rule when it was too late. Madagascar and its people were betrayed, sold, bought, and paid for, and then the chief intriguer, who was also one of the arch-traitors, when he had done his infamous work was flung aside, while it is said that the other arch-traitor and some of his confederates had to pay large sums for their worthless lives.

We returned to Madagascar in 1882, but not to our old station, which had been filled up. There was, however, need for some one to take charge of the city church of Ambàtonakànga and the large country district during the furlough of its missionary, and after the way that we had both suffered from fever in Vònizòngo the Directors thought that it would be wiser for us to be in the capital for the first two years to become reacclimatized. The missionary did not return after his furlough, and we were accordingly appointed to take permanent charge of the city church and country district of A-kànga[31], and remained in charge of it for twenty years.

The interest created in our work, deepened by the many services I had conducted and by my pamphlet, took a very practical form; for the ladies of the Presbyterian and Congregational churches in Aberdeen sent us four boxes of remnants, patches, sewing-material, and some good cast-off clothing, all of which were of the greatest service to us; for by means of these my wife, assisted by six Malagasy sewing-mistresses, held, for six years, sewing-classes in connexion with the city Congregational school and the village schools for some 700 girls. By that means an immense service was done to the girls in the village schools, such as we could never have done for them had it not been for the efforts of these good and warm-hearted friends. Even such a good work had some drawbacks, however; for as it could not always be carried on some felt aggrieved, and when my wife and daughter came out in 1894, as that work could not be taken up to the same extent, many thought that they were being defrauded of their rights.

It was by no wish of our own that we went to the capital; for we had never taken to it, or to the spirit that then reigned in it and its churches, and we wanted to return to our old station, where we had spent so many useful years. We afterwards found, however, that God had work for us to do at A-kànga and in the district, although certainly not all of it work which we would have taken up by choice, and that the Directors had been wisely guided in placing us there. We found the work at the capital somewhat different from Vònizòngo, and the state of affairs at A-kànga very different from that of our old station. Some of the mischief at A-kànga we found to be the outcome of causes over most of which my predecessor had had little or no control, as they had been at work years before he went there.

The church at A-kànga had been formed by a nucleus of good people, some of whom had suffered for their faith during the ‘killing times,’ and the late Rev. William Ellis was the first to take charge of it. A number of officers, judges, and palace officials afterwards joined it, few of whom were ever any help or credit to it. When the palace church was formed many of them left and joined it. By the time of our settlement most of those who first formed the church had passed away, and, although there was still a nucleus of good people, they were greatly in the minority, while they occupied a lower social position than the majority of the so-called members and adherents. Most of these were very haughty, conceited, and self-righteous, and as destitute of real religion as the stone pillars of the church wherein they worshipped.

The senior pastor was in keeping with this part of his flock; he was the judge already mentioned who stole the ox which our people at Fìhàonana had provided for the queen’s messengers and the others who came to the opening services of the church. He had entered into the joint pastorate in the time of Mr. Ellis, whose successor had skilfully shelved him; but he had joined it again during the time of my immediate predecessor. There was much therefore that was most unsatisfactory in the mother-church and the country district when we took charge in 1882. Mr. Ellis, like other good men, often made the mistake of taking the Malagasy for their own profession, and at their own valuation, with the result that he was imposed upon and deceived, and by none more than by the relations or professed relations of the martyrs, towards whom his heart was very warm. It is better to be sometimes cheated than never to trust, but if a man trusts every one he will be certain to trust mere pretenders and in the end be deceived as Mr. Ellis was.

Appointed locum tenens to the A-kànga church, I entered like a stepfather into a spoiled and badly brought-up family. While merely locum tenens I could do but little to improve the state of affairs, although we were able to do something.

The state in which we found the A-kànga mother-church arose perhaps somewhat from the fact that there had been for some time a great deal of friction between my predecessor and it, from a cause as creditable to him as it was disgraceful to the church. One morning on his way from his house to the city he came upon a poor slave woman in chains, sitting crying by the roadside (a most unusual sight—I never saw such a one), and as the chains had broken the skin of her neck and ankles they were bleeding, and she was besmeared with blood. He was so touched and exasperated by the sight that he returned home, and at once wrote to the queen telling her of what he had seen. Her Majesty sent and had the woman brought into her presence, and she was so touched, shocked, and angered by the sight of the poor creature, besmeared with her own blood, that she ordered the chains to be taken off at once and put upon her owner!

A most drastic proclamation was drawn up there and then on the subject of the treatment of slaves, and even printed at the government press; but what its tenor was we never knew, as it was suppressed; for after the queen had cooled down the prime minister and cabinet represented to her that to put the woman’s master in chains, and to issue the proclamation, would cause a revolution, and might cost her not only her crown but her life, and theirs also, as the people were not ripe for such drastic measures. On their knees they pleaded with her to revoke the proclamation, which she wisely did.

There was great excitement over the affair, during which my predecessor found out that the heartless owner of the slave was a member of the A-kànga church. He at once brought the matter before a church meeting, representing that a man who would treat any human being, especially a woman, in that manner was unfit to be a member of the church. To his astonishment and disgust the meeting sided with the slave owner almost to a man (as of course all the other slave owners had made a point of being present), and from that time my unfortunate predecessor was opposed and thwarted by the semi-heathen portion on almost every possible occasion.

The missionary then volunteered to take a journey along the east and north-east coast, on behalf of the native missionary association of the ‘Union,’ to visit their stations and five evangelists. This journey, I believe, ultimately cost him his life; for he returned from it so filled with malarial poison that he was very ill for months—in fact, his life hung on a thread for weeks—and, although he recovered then, he was never again the same man, and he died some six years afterwards. His authority having been weakened by the opposition of the slave owners and other worthless members of the church, his long absence owing to his journey and subsequent illness, during which the church had been left very much to itself (which no church could then be without getting into an unsatisfactory state), were both causes of the condition in which we found it. It did not reach a satisfactory state until the old church was broken up and a new one formed.

Once, while on a visit to the capital from Vònizòngo, I had expressed my astonishment that there were no Congregational Sabbath schools. I was at once told that such an idea showed plainly that I was a country brother; for if I knew anything about work in the capital, I should know that Sunday schools could not be held there. I did not accept that statement as correct. A general Sabbath school for the children of the capital had been opened in the Friends’ high school-house about 1877, but what was one in a city of 80,000 inhabitants?

We had reached Antanànarìvo on our return from our first furlough in August, 1882, and on the first Sabbath of October I appealed to the church to help me to begin and carry on a Congregational Sabbath school, and asked for volunteer teachers from among the young men and women. Thirty-six volunteered, some from very mixed motives and mistaken ideas. For a year afterwards some of them asked me when I intended paying them for their teaching. I replied that I would pay them as soon as ever they were out of debt to the Almighty for food and raiment, health, strength, Gospel privileges, redemption, and freedom to worship Him. I heard no more about remuneration for Sabbath-school teaching.

We gathered a Sabbath school of two hundred which, although the numbers were allowed to fall while we were away on our second furlough in 1890–2, has kept up well ever since, and done much good work. The old deacons, however, regarded it as a new-fangled idea of mine and of the young folks, and would have nothing to do with it. They told me that my predecessors had had no such notions, and asked why I could not be content to follow in their footsteps. I pointed out that the time might not have been ripe for Sabbath schools in their days, and asked them what they would think of a mother who threw her children into the street instead of nursing them. But it was of no use; they were so firmly opposed to the introduction of Sabbath schools that they would hear nothing in their favour.

A few weeks after we had begun one of the brethren, passing home from church one Sabbath, saw our church-door open (after canonical hours), and came in to see the cause. He found the Sabbath school at work, and asked what was the meaning of the gathering of children. When I told him he seemed a good deal astonished, and what he saw and heard led him to bring the subject of a Congregational Sabbath school before his mother-church, the result being that they too set one going. The superintendent of the London Missionary Society press, who had charge of an important suburban church, hearing of our venture at A-kànga, began a Sabbath school next, and so one city church after another followed our leading—although some were two years before they did so—until all had Congregational Sabbath schools. The movement spread into the country districts, and for many years now all the most important districts have had Sabbath schools connected with their village churches. Many of them are very weak, some of them not much more than names; but still the movement has received a good start, is recognized as the right thing for every church to have, and as a most decided improvement on the past.

While on furlough I first met with an agent, and then with the secretary of the Children’s Scripture Union, and undertook to begin a branch in Madagascar, and for many years we have had there 12,000 members.

I found the village schools in a poor condition; for my predecessor had had very little private help for them, almost nothing except the grants made by the Imèrina district committee for elementary education, and so had to be content with a very inferior class of teachers, as the parents could not be persuaded to pay for properly trained teachers. After the first examination of the village schools when we took over the district, the returns were so poor that I determined to make an effort to get the parents to give more in order to secure trained teachers. I knew I would have to catch them by guile, and be able to show them in a striking and impressive way how they were defrauding their children, in not doing their duty by providing properly trained teachers for them.

With this end in view I gathered seventeen village schools at one centre in the largest church in the district to give out the prizes. On the prize-giving day I took three porters with six baskets of books of various kinds with me for prizes, about the quantity I would have required for the same number of schools in Vònizòngo. The church, although an immense place, was crowded in every corner with scholars, parents, teachers, pastors, and deacons, while dozens, not to say hundreds, were at the doors and windows. When I had distributed the prizes to all who had earned them, I found, as I expected I should, that I had only disposed of the contents of two baskets, leaving four untouched.

I called the attention of the parents and all present to this, and told them that, considering the number of scholars present, if even two-thirds of them had earned prizes, as they ought to have done, and would have done in Vònizòngo, all the six baskets would have been empty. I said nothing gave me greater pleasure than to gladden the hearts of the scholars by giving them the prizes they had earned, and that I would have been delighted to have given the contents of all the six baskets to their children; but, as they had seen for themselves, they had not earned them, and therefore had not received them. ‘But why is this the case?’ I asked. ‘Because the children were stupid or had no ability or keenness? By no means,’ I said; ‘but simply because their heartless parents would not pay for proper teachers for them, and so the poor children will have to go home from the prize-giving weeping instead of rejoicing carrying their prizes with them. Look,’ I said, ‘at your children; where would you find brighter-eyed, cleverer children? If they had only had proper teachers they would all have gained prizes.’

The parents went home, followed, as I expected, by their weeping children. They immediately discharged the cheap incapable teachers, applied to me for trained ones, and for the following eighteen years I had no trouble in raising the people’s share of the salaries of the trained teachers. The superiority of the schools of the A-kànga district was noted by both deputations of the Paris Missionary Society. They remarked in particular the ability shown by the children in Bible knowledge. This was due to the number of trained teachers we had. The late Professor Kruger, after being present at one of the poorest examinations in Scripture they ever passed (as the schools had been closed for three months that year on account of the war), said that he could not get a Protestant school in all France which could approach them in Bible knowledge.

We had many visits from our old friends from Vònizòngo, who were looking forward to, and fondly anticipating the time of our return at the end of the two years, when we all expected my predecessor in the capital back from furlough. One after another came to see me, and to tell me of the good they had received from my ministrations during our nine years among them, and of the new life and hopes to which they had been lifted by religion. If they had only come and told us a little, before we left on furlough, how much they would have cheered us, and how much it would have done for us! Still we were glad to hear what they had to tell us even then. It proved that we had not been labouring in vain.

What, however, has been said of the influence of teachers and preachers at home may be affirmed with much greater force of workers in the foreign mission fields, that they ‘are of all influences the most intangible: their thoughts enter the intellectual life of men—such as it is—and shape it, and the moral and religious life of men and fertilize them, but it is as the rain fertilizes the soil, itself disappearing in the process, leaving those benefited often utterly unconscious of the blessings they received.’

After a time I was able to get village school-boards—such as we had in Vònizòngo—established in the A-kànga district, and on the whole they did very good service up to the time of the French invasion in 1895.

The Malagasy government sent an embassy to France in 1882, to see if the difficulties between the two governments could not be amicably arranged. The embassy afterwards visited England and America, but without being able to attain their end. In 1883, because the Malagasy government would not yield to certain demands made by the French, war broke out. Without any warning the ports on the north-west coast were bombarded, and the town of Mojangà was occupied. Soon after Tàmatàve, the port of Madagascar on the north-east coast, was taken, or rather was abandoned by the Hovas, and thereafter occupied by the French. A fortified camp at Fàrafàtana, a few miles to the west of Tàmatàve, was formed by the Hova troops, and although Tàmatàve was held by the French for nearly three years—mainly by means of their warships—and the camp at Fàrafàtana was within reach of their guns, and was constantly shelled by them, and several attempts were made to carry it, yet the Hovas held it to the end of the war. This was almost entirely through the ability, energy, and determination of the late Governor of Tàmatàve, who was shot for his pains in 1896.

When the French sent up their ultimatum to the Malagasy government all French subjects, of course, received notice that they must leave the island. The Jesuits, Sisters, and French and French-Creole traders had a fortnight given them in which to prepare to leave for the coast. The British subjects in Antanànarìvo formed themselves into a committee of public safety; not that we were in any real danger, but rather that we might act in unison. The prime minister sent for us, and advised us not to go far into the country, as the people were very much exasperated by the action of the French, and the vast majority of those in the country districts were ignorant of the distinctions between French and British. We were all white men to them: mistakes might be made. As a matter of fact some were made, and others only just prevented. Some members of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel Mission were mistaken for Jesuits, and were consequently hustled about before the mob could be made to understand that they were British and not French priests.

On the day on which the Jesuits and Sisters had to leave the capital they started to walk to Tàmatàve, carrying their things in small bundles; but since to attempt to walk would have been perfectly suicidal, we doubted if they ever meant to do it; we fancied it was only a sensational display on their part. We were holding a meeting of the committee of public safety when the news was brought to us that they were starting, and we immediately sent our officials to see them, and discover if they had the means to pay for porters or if it was that they could not hire them. If they had the means, but could not get the men, our officials were commissioned to procure them, and if they had not the means, and could not hope to have, when they reached the coast, they were to find porters for them, and we would be responsible for their wages, as we could not allow European ladies to virtually commit suicide by walking to the coast, simply because they had not money to pay for palanquin-bearers.

When our representatives reached them they found that the queen and prime minister had heard how they intended to go, and had sent them palanquins and bearers from the palace, together with a captain and 150 soldiers, who were instructed to protect them, and obtain suitable food and shelter for them on their journey. They would all have received short shrift at the hands of some of the old heathen Hova officers if they could have had their will. The old heathen party were vexed at the kindness of the queen and prime minister towards the French subjects, especially towards the Jesuits. If they had had their way, as happily they had not, there would have been no exodus of French subjects.

Knowing what we do now, from the public boast of the Jesuits themselves, that ‘they gained Madagascar for France, and for this ought to have a free hand’; remembering also that these officers were heathens at heart, and that they had only too good reasons for suspecting the Jesuits of playing false, it is not to be wondered at if they wished to follow the old heathen method of dealing with such deceivers; but the queen and the prime minister were wisely advised to act as they did. The policy which the heathen officers wished to follow would have belied the Christian profession of the queen and government, and played into the hands of their enemies, who wished to provoke them to acts which would prove them the barbarians they maintained they were. As the lives of Europeans were respected and their treatment was in every way worthy of a civilized and Christian government the conduct of the Malagasy officials contrasted favourably with that of their antagonists. The French government of that day may have been very much deceived—indeed I am sure they were, and had their hand forced—in many ways; but some thought they were not over anxious to know the truth. The Jesuits and Sisters were ultimately sent to the nearest French colony, Réunion, in a man-of-war, and had to remain there to the end of the war.

To add to the embarrassment of the situation the queen, Rànavàlona II, the first Christian Queen of Madagascar, after an illness of some months’ duration, died on the morning of Friday, July 13, 1883. This event, so shortly after the commencement of the war, seemed as if it might prove another blow to the progress of Christianity; but it did not. We had heard that Her Majesty was ill, but were startled that Friday forenoon by the firing of the guns in and around the palace yard; and by seeing the people rushing from the weekly market, the women taking down their hair as they ran—the Malagasy sign of mourning on the part of the women. All were rushing home to hide or to protect their property, as they feared there might be a ‘rising’; but the new queen was immediately proclaimed, and all passed off quietly. Rànavàlona II was born in the year 1829, and ascended the throne on April 2, 1868.

The new queen was proclaimed on the forenoon of the day on which her aunt died. She had been known as Razàfindràhèty, but assumed the name of Rànavàlona III. She was born on November 22, 1861, and was baptized at Ambòhimànga on April 5, 1874. She received the elements of her education in a village school in a country district from one of the London Missionary Society teachers. She afterwards became a scholar in the Congregational school of Ambàtonakànga, the city church of which her father and mother became members. She was for some time in the Friends’ High School for Girls, taught by Miss Helen Gilpin, and afterwards for some years was a scholar in the London Missionary Society Girls’ Central School, taught by Miss M. T. Bliss. She was a member of the palace church. She had been married for some time to a relative of the queen, called Ratrìmoàrivòny, who died in the early part of May, 1883. Her accession gave great joy to the Christian portion of the community.

At her coronation on November 22, on the great plain of Imàhamàsina—the Champ-de-Mars of Antanànarìvo, where in former times proclamations against Christianity had often been made—her throne was set up. It was covered by the memorable canopy under which her aunt had been crowned in 1868, with the words: ‘God with us,’ ‘Glory to God,’ ‘Peace on earth,’ ‘Good will to men,’ round the cornice. On her right was a small table on which lay a large Bible. In the first paragraph of her speech she acknowledged that God had given her the kingdom. In the second she said that she hoped the blessing of God might rest upon her people. In the fourth she said: ‘My desire from God is to benefit you ... and govern you in righteousness.’ Again she explicitly declared that she placed her kingdom under the protection of God: ‘For I know,’ she said, ‘that the kingdom which is governed in dependence upon God is strong and progressive.’ ... ‘Remember,’ she added, ‘that it is righteousness alone that exalteth a nation.’ ‘The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.’ She concluded by saying: ‘Whoever forsakes the path of righteousness walks in darkness[32].’

In 1883 I thoroughly revised my translation of the shorter Catechism with proofs, and reissued it at a penny per copy. Some 16,000 copies have been sold. It was taught in the London Missionary Society normal and high schools in the capital, while latterly in the French normal and high schools, and in the local preachers’ and teachers’ classes of the Bètsilèo Mission it has also been taught.

During the war messengers came to the capital from the chiefs of the various tribes to assure the queen of their allegiance to her, and among others there came representatives of the great Sàkalàva tribe, or series of tribes, who inhabit some 600 miles of the west side of the island. These messengers were very much astonished at the state of things they found in the capital. They found the Hovas living, not, as they themselves did, in huts of mud and wattle or in miserable apologies for huts, constructed of branches of trees roofed with leaves or grass, but in beautiful brick houses which in their eyes were furnished luxuriously. They found them too professedly sitting at the feet of Jesus Christ, clothed and in their right mind, worshipping God the Creator. They saw too that even the household slaves were better fed and clothed, more intelligent, and living in more comfortable houses than even some of their own great chiefs and petty kings. They came to our churches, heard the preaching, saw the schools, and visited the mission hospital. They were delighted also with the kind reception and treatment which they received on all sides, from the queen and prime minister downwards. Finally they asked: ‘What is the meaning of all this change, and what has brought it all about; for this is not as things were in the days of your forefathers or even as they were a few years ago?’ They were told that ny fìvavàhana, ‘the praying,’ had brought all the changes, and doubtless they returned home to tell of all they had seen and heard, and how kindly they had been treated. They would also report about the wonderful and wonder-making ‘new religion,’ which had wrought such changes on men and things. I do not doubt that the outcome would have been an appeal from those tribes for missionaries to teach and tell them about the wonder-making fìvavàhana, praying or religion, but for the troubles that arose, and ended as all now know.

As Tàmatàve was blockaded for nearly three years we received no mails for the first six months after the war began, while flour, sugar, and all imported provisions rose to famine prices. We sent letters to the various ports, in the hope that they might be picked up by H.B.M. ship ‘Dryad’ or some passing vessel, and carried to a British port. To the disgrace of some Mauritius merchants be it told—in all probability French-Creoles—the captains of their vessels were forbidden to take mails or passengers to and from Madagascar. One British captain—I wish I could give his name—dared to disobey orders, and give a passage to three stranded members of our mission to Mauritius on their way to England, and was discharged by his owner for so doing on his arrival in port.

Our letters lay at Tàmatàve for six months, until the British government demanded that they should be given up. They were all opened, our papers and magazines were burned, and the London Missionary Society annual warrant of expenditure for the Imèrina district committee was never forthcoming. Perhaps it was supposed by its non-arrival the Methodist missionaries—who were believed to be inciting the Hovas to resistance—would be starved out; but we simply borrowed the money needed, and quietly went on with our work, which flourished and made progress, notwithstanding all the troubles.

Meetings to pray for peace were established at centres, and it was most pathetic to listen to the Malagasy pleading for their invaders, that God would bring them to a right mind, and take them safely home to their own land. The conduct of Captain Johnstone of H.B.M. ship ‘Dryad’ during that trying time was beyond all praise. He called at the various ports for our mails, taking away any British subjects who wished to leave the island, sent up letters and papers to us in the interior, and protected and defended British subjects and interests in a way and in a spirit for which he ought to have been made an admiral; but instead of that—as we afterwards learned, to our sorrow—he was censured.