Thirty years in Madagascar

I was sent to visit the Bètsilèo Mission, a hundred miles to the south of Antanànarìvo, during 1885. I was away for seven weeks, and returned rather exhausted, for I was worked very hard indeed while in the south. I enjoyed my visit, however, and returned refreshed in spirit and glad at heart for what I saw being done in Bètsilèo. Like Barnabas of old, when I came and had seen the grace of God (or rather the fruits of that grace) I was glad and, like him, I exhorted them all, that with purpose of heart they would cleave unto the Lord. I was very specially interested in the work at Ambòhimàndròso. I found young men there better acquainted with the Bible, biblical geography, and the shorter catechism than I have found anywhere else. It was refreshing to witness what Christian zeal can accomplish.

My visit to the Bètsilèo Mission led to the institution of a most important service in the capital, after our return, namely, a special service twice a year for women. While we were at Ambòhimàndròso—some thirty miles south of Fìanàrantsòa, the capital of the Bètsilèo country—I suggested to the wife of our missionary there that she and the two ladies from the capital should have a special service for women only, while her husband and I were having our service for the men. She was rather shy at first about having such a service, as it would be quite a new departure; but after consulting with the other two ladies it was agreed to give the plan a trial. They did so, and it was a success. On the return of the two ladies to Fìanàrantsòa they bore testimony to the success of the service, and the ladies there determined to have one also, and this was even a greater success.

On their return to the capital the two ladies reported their successful services for women in the south, and at once set to work to arrange for such services in Antanànarìvo at the time of the ‘Union Meetings,’ while the fathers, husbands, and brothers were at the men’s meeting. Our A-kànga church was chosen for the service, since it was the only one which could be kept perfectly private, and the entrance could be regulated by our front gate, besides being most central. I acted as gatekeeper for the first few meetings, but the ladies were soon able to manage all by themselves. These services have been most successful throughout. The night before the first service I had a hint that some young men might try to pass in, dressed as women, as there was the greatest curiosity among some of them to hear what the ladies would say to the women. If any really ever meant to attempt this they had changed their minds, as only one appeared of whom I was in any way suspicious, and as that one did not come forward, after my eye caught her—or him—there was no trouble, and all passed off well.

As we had very few things to give to the scholars of our village schools as prizes at the annual examinations for general progress, but especially for proficiency in Bible knowledge, except books—Bibles, Testaments, hymn-books, Good Words, and story-books—I cast about in my mind what I could get to give them instead of books as a change. I only rewarded progress and proficiency. I remembered that what I was most anxious to secure when I was a boy at school was a pocket-knife, and so I sent for a few dozen pocket-knives; but they proved a failure as prizes. Why? Because, although by that time most of the lads had begun to wear short pants reaching to the knees, they had no pockets in them, and they felt it a foolish thing to go through the world carrying a knife in their hand! I was deeply disappointed at this failure. I determined, however, to have another trial, and this time with the girls. I sent for six dozen dolls, and made a decided hit. The girls who gained them as prizes laid them on their arms, and returned to their seats, seemingly in no way elated; but they could not long conceal their happiness over this appeal to their affections, and when they thought no one was observing them they stole fond glances at the dolls in a manner which was most refreshing to see.

The poor things had never possessed toys of any kind. The amusement of the little girls had been to catch locusts and tear off their legs, and to clap their hands in great glee when the insects beat their wings in agony, quite unconscious of the suffering they were causing to their victims. The amusements of the elder girls were less innocent; while the boys, boy-like, indulged in cock-fighting and forms of amusement of that description. In former times—and even still in the heathen parts of the island—the men indulged in a kicking game, while the upper classes, headed by the sovereign, had bull-fighting,

With such early training it was little wonder that the Malagasy grew up heartless and cruel, and without a particle of sympathy for the sufferings of man or beast; but religion has given them with the new heart a measure of humanity, and they turn now to more wholesome amusements.

Malagasy parents are generally named after their children, not their children after them. The Bezànozàno tribe have a kind of rod, the scrapings of which they give to their children as a medicine. They also use the same rod for chastising their children. The Chinese call a beating being made to ‘eat stick,’ but the above practice is being made to do so in a double sense and literally!

I found I had made a slight mistake, however, even with regard to the dolls; for I had ordered wax-faced ones. This was a disadvantage, as the wax faces softened and got out of shape with the heat, and they could not be washed, which was a most important item, as few things that do not stand washing are of much use in Madagascar. The huts have no chimneys, and the smoke has to find its way out by the doors, windows, and eaves. The result naturally is that the huts become covered with soot. Festoons of it hang from all parts of the roofs, and everything is very dirty. Thus every person or thing that does long service is said to be maìntimolàly, black with soot—veterans, whether military or missionary, get this name.

After two years of labour in the district I found that there was still the greatest need for the continual reiteration of the most elementary truths of the Gospel and of the fundamentals of the faith. It was a difficult task indeed to preach and teach the great doctrines of the Bible in interesting and intelligible language to a people who were still only in the first stages of civilization; for however great may be the force of faith apart from the mere terms of it, yet these must also be taught. To neglect these is to neglect the foundations or the pillars which support the arch. It is vain to expect it to stand without them.

The world at large—the heathen world in particular—is a great spiritual hospital, full of soul-sick patients; where we see sin in all its tragic and repulsive hideousness. We find it ‘the most tragic reality of our mortal life, and the greatest blot on God’s otherwise fair creation.’ There is no cure for it, no power that can meet and master it, except the Gospel. A late lieutenant-governor of Bengal has said: ‘If the evangelical Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ is not true we must invent it, if we are to do any good among the heathen.’

Of course we all knew very well that, at that time, among our semi-heathen people there was much mere lip and little of heart religion. It was simply profession and superficial acquaintance with a few of the truths of the Bible; but no heart love or heart reverence. It was our aim, therefore, to try by God’s help to make them what they never were before, and to teach them the great principles that would guide them to a new and higher life.

We had the honour at A-kànga of initiating the movement of collections of money, clothing, and medicines for the soldiers at the front. I brought the proposal before the congregation of our mother-church, and they heartily endorsed it, and the other churches soon followed our example. We did not by any means raise the largest amount, as many of the churches were larger than ours; but ours were purely voluntary contributions. On several Sabbaths the collections were made in the other city congregations in the usual Malagasy way. The names of the members and adherents being called out in rotation, they were asked in the presence of the congregation how much they were prepared to give. If the amount named was thought large enough for the wealth of the subscriber the announcement was received with acclamation; but if not it was declined, and the donor was frankly told that it was not enough, and he had to raise his donation to such a sum as his fellow worshippers deemed proper. A very large amount of money was thus raised; yet I doubt if any of it ever reached those for whom it was intended: for as neither officers nor soldiers of the Malagasy army received any pay it was little wonder if none of the money ever reached the rank and file. I think some of the clothing and the medicines sent may have reached them; but of even that I am sceptical, such was the corruption that then prevailed. Reports reached us that some of the clothing was actually sold to the poor soldiers. The queen sent a large sum of money to the army on the north-west coast to be distributed among the soldiers; but the Hova officer in command appropriated the whole, and it was much the same with the quinine and other medicines sent for their use. Everything was sold to them by their rapacious heathen or semi-heathen officers.

During that year we had some very trying cases in which the severest church discipline had to be exercised, and a most unworthy pastor and an evangelist had to be excommunicated. The pastor had been put into office in the first instance simply because he was the eldest son of the chief of the village. An attempt was made to reinstate him, and for the same reason; but although the jury was packed, and to intimidate the people the chiefs from the neighbourhood had presented themselves, I had them and all the false members removed, the church doors locked, and the vote taken by ballot, and so these evil machinations were frustrated.

For some years there had been but a slight increase in the membership of the churches, either in the capital or the country; but there had been far fewer suspensions from fellowship than formerly, while the new members were of a more intelligent and satisfactory character. Up to the time of our second furlough in 1890, this may be said to have been the case; but to have gauged the results of the work, either in the capital or in the country, by the handful of new members gathered in yearly, or by their seemingly slow growth in grace, would have been to make a great mistake. For after all, the true test of mission work is not so much the statistics of church members or adherents, or even the size of the congregations and schools; but the kind and character of the men and women those churches turn out, and how they stand the wear and tear of life, and face its temptations. Our church members were the salt that kept the whole mass from utter corruption; the only lights in a wilderness of darkness. Through them, and by means of them, religious influences and religious truth were penetrating and permeating all classes of the community. But just as you cannot diffuse influence over a whole countryside, and have the same visible results as you might, had it been confined to one village, or focused on a single congregation, so our work suffered from its very success, suffered in intensity and depth from its wide extension.

It also suffered somewhat from an overestimate of the past, and with the influences supposed to be at work. We are prone to compare the men of the present to their disadvantage with the men who lived, and worked, and even died for their faith in times of persecution in Madagascar and elsewhere. The estimate of the piety of these earlier times is contrasted with a piety which has not to face death, though it may have to face the more exacting tests of life and growth. In the view of these early and heroic witnesses for Christ, more has been expected of their countrymen than it was reasonable to expect at so early a stage in their religious history. Principle had to take the place of sentiment, and sincerity that of mere profession, before they could be called strong; but the power that makes for righteousness was at work among them, and had been from the first. Mysterious and indefinite in its operations, but obvious and mighty in its results.

The Malagasy are passing through their religious childhood, and have all the virtues and weaknesses of that stage. The Malagasy are a people who are still, as it were, but in the gristle, and not yet hardened into the bone of manhood. As a people they cannot originate anything, but they are great imitators, and they are also much readier to imitate the bad than the good. There is not much that is original in them, as a people, except ‘original sin,’ and of that virus they have a fair share. Overgrown children, they were attracted by what was sensational—especially in preaching—but not nearly so much by the tinsel in religion as might have been expected. This may account for the fact that neither the Roman Catholics nor their Anglican imitators have ever made great progress among them. They have learnt that ‘all is not gold that glitters,’ and are not in such danger as might have been feared of mistaking what Coleridge calls ‘magpiety’ for real piety.

With many of them the good fight of faith has been a terrible reality. They had to struggle with strong, fierce, animal natures, like men fighting with wild beasts. The courage and determination with which some faced the fight was simply heroic. They took their corrupt natures by the throat, and strangled them with the strength which God supplied. Others maintained the struggle half-heartedly, and in their own strength, and it failed them.

One man was suspended from church fellowship by one of the mother-churches in the capital. After some two years he applied to be readmitted, and as the pastor, deacons, and members were satisfied as to the sincerity of his repentance he was received back. As a thank-offering he gave the amount he calculated he would have given to the church during the time of his suspension, had he been in membership. After the church meeting he went up to the pastor and asked, in seeming astonishment, if that was all. The pastor said it was, and asked what else he expected. The penitent said, ‘Are you not going to beat me?’ ‘Beat you?’ said the pastor. ‘No, certainly not; we would never dream of doing anything of the kind.’ ‘Well, but,’ added the man, ‘I was a very prominent member of the church, and by my fall I greatly disgraced you all, and I feel that I so richly deserve a beating that I would be much happier if I got it.’ ‘It is not the custom of the church to receive penitents back into fellowship by thrashing them,’ answered the pastor. ‘You have been received back into membership, your thank-offering has been accepted, and you must go home feeling thankful and happy.’ ‘Yes,’ said the man, ‘but I would go home much happier, and with a quieter conscience, if I had had a good beating; for I feel I so richly deserve it, that the best thing I could get would be a good thrashing.’ It was all that the pastor could do (and only after a long talk, and the most positive refusal to touch him) to get the man to go home without his coveted beating!

Our mission district of Anativolo, where we had fourteen preaching stations, with their small village schools, under the charge of three untrained evangelists, was utterly ruined during the year 1888 by a band of brigands from the forests of the north. They came as far south as within forty miles of the capital! At one village in the Vònizòngo district four men were killed, and thirty women and children carried off to be sold to the Sakalava tribe on the west coast. It was five years before we got these mission stations in Anativolo restored; then the march of the French expedition from the north-west coast, and after that the rising against the French rule, ruined the work for another three years, and the district is now so sparsely populated that I fear it will never again be what it was.

We left the capital in April, 1888, for the small London Missionary Society sanatorium on the hills at Ambàtovòry for our annual month’s holiday. I had seldom looked forward with more longing to our month of rest, expected more from it or received less. On the night of Wednesday, May 9 (the night of the large local weekly market for the neighbourhood), I was sitting reading in our small parlour. About ten o’clock my attention was attracted by a slight scratching at the Venetian shutter-door of the French window, which opened on to the walk. I looked up from my book, and thought that the cat had been shut out. I turned again to my book. I had hardly done so, however, when with a crash the Venetian shutter-door was torn open, the French window burst in, and a band of burglars sprang into the room, and I saw the gleam of their long Malagasy knives and meat-axes! So utterly unexpected was the thing that I was stupefied for a few seconds. I scarcely realized what had happened. As I had been sitting opposite the open door of the room I sprang through it, closing it behind me, to which act I may have owed my life, although I hardly think they would have harmed me, unless I had offered resistance. I rushed upstairs to the bedroom, where I found my wife in a state of terror; she had been startled from sleep by the crash. She thought the house had been struck by lightning. I had taken my small bull-dog revolver with me for mad dogs, with which we were rather bothered in those days (I had shot five of them in our own yard during our first term, and one in our own kitchen), and now I went to get it in case it might be needed. Unfortunately it had been hanging in the lobby, and passing it in my hurry, by the time I had discovered my mistake the burglars had secured it. It would have been of no use to me, however, even if it had been in the bedroom, as the only three cartridges I had brought with me were in my courier-bag, which was hanging on the back of the door of the room into which the burglars burst. As there was no weapon of any kind in the bedroom, not even a stick, we could do nothing except remain quiet—a very difficult thing for me to do while the house was being ransacked—and commend ourselves to the care of God. After recovering from the shock and fright of my first surprise, I wanted to go out and attack the burglars with anything I could find; but my wife and our good old nurse, Rafàra, held me back. The former said if I went out of the room, and they caught sight of me, they might fling a knife at me, which might cost me my life.

The band was a notorious one, and had been the terror of that countryside for years. The leader had been often in prison, and his character was well known; but he had always escaped being put in chains or being sent to penal servitude, doubtless by bribing the judges. His assistant was the son of the so-called superintendent of police for the district, who informed his father that if he gave any information that would lead to his capture he would do for him! The majority of the band were most desperate fellows, on whose breasts had been made seven times the scars of the blood brotherhood, which pledged them not to turn queen’s evidence if it cost them their lives. There were two lads among them from whom much better things might have been expected, and one of them was reported to have provided the knives for the night’s work! As treasurer of the missionary fund of the ‘Union’ I had had £100 handed over to me, just before leaving the capital, and it was probable the burglars had heard of that, and believed I had taken the money with me. Twenty of the band were caught, and sixteen sent in chains to the Malagasy Botany Bay; but none of the property stolen was ever recovered, only its value was refunded by the authorities from the sale of the property belonging to the burglars.

Hugh Miller says: ‘There are two periods that are favourable to observation, an early and a late one. A fresh eye detects external traits and peculiarities among a people, seen for the first time, which disappear as they become familiar; but it is not until after repeated opportunities of study and a prolonged acquaintance that the internal characteristics of a people begin to be rightly understood.’ This is especially true with regard to Madagascar and the Malagasy; for while there was, and is, much about them and the history of Christianity in the island, as also about their present and future, to deeply interest and indeed fascinate any one who has a spark of missionary enthusiasm in him, still it is only to those who have had repeated opportunities of studying the people, and a prolonged acquaintance with them, and the work in all its phases, that the internal characteristics of the people, and real conditions of the work, can be rightly known. As it was in our Lord’s time, and is at home now, the rich do not crowd into the Kingdom, and it is left chiefly to the common people to hear the Gospel gladly, and press into it; so, with few exceptions, it has been in Madagascar. The higher the social scale the more profuse was the profession, the less the real practice. From many points of view both the capital and the country districts might have been compared to a stagnant pond, on which the green slime of ages had gathered thickly. When the living waters of the Gospel flowed into the pond a commotion was caused, bad odours were generated, and much was brought to the surface that had long been hidden by the slime or embedded in the mud. The only hope of clearing away the filth was to keep the living waters streaming into the pool. Purification in such a case could not be the work of a day; the filth was the accumulation of ages. Twenty years could not do much.

We found even in our last year, before taking our second furlough, that the mother-church and congregation of A-kànga was far from being a pure one. Our first troubles that year began with a controversy with regard to Christians—especially pastors, preachers, and Sabbath-school teachers—countenancing theatres, operas, and balls. The poison of so-called civilization, frivolity, and indecorum had been introduced, and was affecting certain sections of the community. Those of us who had the courage of our convictions with regard to such primrose paths and gilded roads to ruin felt it to be our duty to set our faces like flint against them, and denounce them both in public and in private. As a result we had the honour of being for a time the best-abused men in the capital. We were held up to ridicule as bigots, and charged in the public press with being enemies to the public weal. We were hindering Madagascar in her march towards civilization. The line of demarcation, however, between the precious and the vile, between those who feared the Lord and those who feared Him not, became more distinct at this time than it had been since the ‘killing times.’ The sifting process had, in a measure, begun; not in the way we would have chosen, but perhaps in the way that most clearly showed who really had in them the root of the matter, and preferred the house of God to any of the synagogues of Satan.

The war between France and Madagascar ended with the conclusion of a treaty of peace in 1886; but the war between real religion and French civilization was greatly intensified. By the treaty concluded, while the Hovas had the control of all domestic affairs, France obtained a privileged position with regard to foreign affairs. A French resident was established at the capital with a guard of honour of fifty French soldiers. It need scarcely be said that, in such circumstances, there was friction from the first between the French and the Hova governments—perhaps it was intended there should be—and things went from bad to worse, until what had been wanted all along was obtained, a pretext for sending an expedition to take over the island. And yet it will never be worth a tithe of what it has cost, and what it is likely to cost, in men and money. The French government was grossly deceived about the policy and work of the London Missionary Society, and the real state of affairs—perhaps they were not anxious to know the truth!—by the Jesuits, the colonial party, impecunious Frenchmen, French-Creoles, and others who had their own ends to serve in urging the government of the day to take action.

The Malagasy, once you really know them, are most likeable; but you have to know them thoroughly. The Hovas have in them the making of a fine people, and in proper hands much might be made of them; but nothing will be made of them if they are simply regarded as dirty niggers or ‘imitative monkeys whose market value is nil.’ They are a most extraordinary mixture of love of money, simply for its own sake, and wondrous generosity; of suspicious cunning, and unqualified trust in those whom they respect and love; of childlike and docile simplicity, and the most mulish and unreasoning obstinacy. I believe it was this last trait in their character sanctified which enabled them to endure martyrdom so calmly and courageously. If once you win their respect and love—and they are not difficult to win—you may do almost anything you like with them, and they in turn will do anything for you. Doubtless some of the above-named features are common to most heathen people; others are peculiar to the Malagasy.

It does not follow nowadays that when any great man in either the political or religious world changes his views, or his creed, all his followers or dependants change with him. Each one claims the right now to judge for him-or herself; but, as we all know, it was not always so. There was a time in the history of our own and other lands when clans and even countries did not dare to differ from their chiefs or sovereigns. If the sovereign or chief professed conversion, it almost always followed that the whole kingdom or clan did the same. History repeated itself in this respect in Madagascar. When the Hova queen made profession of Christianity the vast majority of her subjects in the central provinces imitated the royal example. The natural result followed. These wholesale conversions were found to be of a very superficial character, as we find in the early history of the church nearer home. Districts once nominally Christian relapsed into heathenism, and had to be reconverted; so it was in some cases in Madagascar. There was not so much danger of the Malagasy relapsing into absolute heathenism; but there was a great danger of their resting in a form of godliness, while denying its power.

It was difficult to get two truths burned into their minds: the heinousness of sin—whether found out or not—and the holiness of God. If they did not quite believe that ‘’tis only daylight that makes sin,’ they certainly did believe that ‘a sin concealed is half-forgiven.’ It is only fair to remember in view of this the dense ignorance of the vast majority, and the fact that they had so lately emerged from heathenism. They were strange blendings of good and evil; of vices and virtues; of lofty aspirations and gross pagan practices; of Christian ideals and heathen traditions. Still, notwithstanding these grave drawbacks, there was much to be profoundly thankful for, and especially the help we received from our converts. We had a noble band of native fellow-labourers—pastors, local preachers, teachers, evangelists, and latterly Sabbath-school teachers. What was most needed was more evangelical fervour, moral earnestness, and missionary enthusiasm. ‘No kind of mission work,’ some one has said, ‘is safe that is not enthusiastic.’ We are still, I fear, far from being safe in this respect, either at home or abroad.

Emerson speaks of liberty and snow always being associated; but in religious affairs cold and corruption, torpor and formality generally go together. We are told that fevers never spread except in hot weather; cold always kills the infection. That may be quite true with regard to fevers and infection; but we know as a fact that real religion seldom spreads except in an atmosphere of fervour. Frigid religion will never help to kindle the fires of a new devotion in hearts dead in trespasses and sins; it can only help to foster formality. Cold may prevent the spread of infection in the natural world; but it is almost always the cause of disease, death, and corruption in the spiritual. Frosty friendships are but sorry affairs; but frozen religion is one of the abominations that make desolate. I know that fire may be got by using a piece of ice as a burning-glass; but ice is not generally used for that purpose!

By the death at this time of Ràsamoèly (a young dentist, and one of our local preachers at Lazaina) in the out-district, we lost one of the best and most warm-hearted of our young men, and that too under most painful circumstances. There had been a number of very daring burglaries in the capital and suburbs during the previous few months. A few nights before Christmas, 1889, Ràsamoèly dreamt that his house had been broken into by burglars, and starting up in his fright and half-asleep he jumped out at the window. He fell on his back, and died a fortnight after from spinal injury.

Strange to say, although the accident had happened in the capital, I had not heard of it until the morning of his death, when he sent for me. I went to him at once, and found him lying on a small truckle-bed, very earnestly engaged in prayer. He was praying with his eyes open, and saw me enter the room and take a seat at his bedside; but went on praying fervently and beautifully for some time after I entered. When he had finished we shook hands, and he thanked me for coming so promptly to see him. He then began to tell me very quietly and calmly that he was dying, that the doctors had told him there was no hope; but he added: ‘I am not afraid to die; for I am trusting in Jesus Christ for salvation.’ His mother was sitting by his bedside, quite broken-hearted, weeping and sobbing in a most passionate way. He talked to her so gently, telling her that she ought not to grieve so sadly because he was dying. ‘If,’ he said, ‘I were in chains, or in prison as a burglar, or were dying from the effects of bad living, then you might weep, but not because I am going home to my Father’s house on high. I am very sorry to be separated from you so soon, but we shall soon meet again to part no more.’ He also talked most solemnly and earnestly to his brother and sister, and made them promise that they would give their hearts to God and live for Him.

He and I had a long talk together, after which I prayed with him. My wife and I called in the afternoon to see him. We found him still conscious; he recognized us both, shook hands with us, and then asked me to pray again with him. Death was now rapidly approaching, and just after I had finished praying, he complained of the cold creeping up his body, and asked for more blankets. His attention then seemed to be suddenly arrested by something he saw in the roof of the room. He gazed with seemingly rapturous astonishment, while a look of ecstasy passed over his face. Had he a vision, and of whom, or of what? Did he see his father, the good old deacon, or did he see the Saviour Himself waiting to welcome him? He looked several times intently at us, as if he would have said: ‘Don’t you also see this?’ but he seemed no longer able to articulate, and in a short time all was over. He was safe home, and with the Saviour Who had loved him and given Himself for him, and on Whom I had heard him so fervently call that morning for help and strength. His was the most triumphant death I had ever seen.

We were frequently cheered by hearing of instances of the truth taught being translated by our people into rules of life and conduct. A teacher of one of our village schools, on his way home from the capital one day, found a large sum of money lying on the grassy pathway by the roadside, rolled up in a small piece of dirty calico. He knew at once that some one had lost the money, but as there was no one within sight, he had no idea to whom it belonged. He went on his way for a few miles, when he came upon two men excitedly talking about something.

As he drew near them, and caught something of their conversation, he asked them if they had lost anything; and they answered that they had lost a large sum of money, but where they could not tell. They were returning from a local market, where they had sold an ox, and it was the price of the ox they had lost. One of them had rolled the money in a piece of calico, after the usual Malagasy fashion, and stuck it in his girdle, from which probably it had slipped out when he was sitting on the grass by the roadside resting. The teacher handed them the money he had found, and asked them if that was their money. On seeing and counting it they said it was, and asked him where he had found it, and how he knew it was theirs. He told them how he had found it, and that he had gathered from what he had heard of their conversation that they were the owners of it. They asked him if any one saw him find the money, to which he answered, ‘No.’ How did he know then that it was theirs? they asked. He answered he did not know; how could he? he only suspected they were the owners from what he had overheard of their discussion. Then they asked how it was that he came to give up the money, seeing that no one saw him find it, and neither they nor any one else would ever have known he had it. The teacher said: ‘You are quite wrong there; for, in the first place, it would have been dishonest of me to have kept the money, and in the second place, God saw me find it. He would have known.’ One of the men asked him: ‘Are you a “prayer”?’ To which he answered: ‘Yes.’ ‘Then,’ he said, ‘let me shake hands with you, and ask your forgiveness. Ever since the “praying” was introduced into the island, I have been an enemy to it, and done everything in my power to oppose it, for I thought it wrong to forsake the religion of our forefathers and take up with the white man’s; but I shall do so no more. I shall do all I can for the future to help the “prayers,” and I will learn to pray myself. A religion that can lead a young man like you to return such a large sum of money, when you might have safely kept it, and neither we nor any one else would have ever known—that religion must be the true one, and a good thing for the country and the people.’

On August 5, 1890, the British government concluded a treaty with France in which, very unjustly as most people think—because he was giving away what did not belong to England, and granting what he had no right to grant—Lord Salisbury recognized a French protectorate over Madagascar. The French government consented to the following clause, which most of us knew was hardly worth the paper it was written on:—‘In Madagascar the missionaries of both countries shall enjoy complete protection. Religious toleration and liberty for all forms of worship shall be guaranteed.’ Immediately on the seizure of the island, that clause practically became a dead letter, as the Jesuits were let loose and allowed to work their own will for a time, until they overreached themselves, and had to be first checked and then repudiated.

During 1891 there was a slight religious movement in the capital. There were not ‘showers of blessing,’ but the dew of the Spirit descended, and the churches were quickened and refreshed. Perhaps more was made of it than should have been; but this was not much to be wondered at, seeing it was the first experience of the kind in the capital. There was a good deal of blossom, but not much fruit came of it, only what did come was genuine. Some of the best, most satisfactory, and most devoted of the younger Christian workers in the capital and neighbourhood to-day are among those who found their way into the Kingdom then. One lad was converted through reading a story in English, in a volume of the Herald of Mercy, which I had given to a friend of his, from whom he borrowed it. He went to the secretary of the Imèrina district committee, and confessed to having stolen two shillings from the normal school money, some years before, when I was in charge of the institution. He was a scholar there then. He pleaded for forgiveness, and returned the money fourfold! The secretary told him how glad he was to hear of his conversion, and to see the fruit of it in his confession and restitution.

Political difficulties began to arise, and a spirit of unrest spread among the people during 1893. The prime minister, deceived by those whose interests it served, was led to believe that his son and son-in-law had conspired against his life. They were tried and sentenced to death, but the French resident and others remonstrated so strongly against such a course, that the sentence was reduced to banishment for life. All these things affected the work, but still the consolidation of the best of the country churches, and the work in the village schools, made most satisfactory progress.

From the time of our settlement in the capital, I had felt that not nearly enough was being done for the girls and young women of Antanànarìvo, and that there was more than room for another high school for them in the neighbourhood of A-kànga; I had tried hard to persuade the Imèrina district committee to take the same view. The majority of the committee was with me, but such was the opposition from vested interests that the proposal had to be given up. While at home on furlough I had received help from friends for our work, and so on my return I built a small school in the A-kànga churchyard, and began, in a very humble way, a private high school for girls. We and our friends found eighty per cent. of the funds for the school for the first five years. We provided all the material for the sewing-classes there, and at the centres for the village schools, while our eldest daughter devoted herself, as a labour of love, for three years as it proved, to the work of the school. With much covert opposition, condemnation, and with very faint echoes of praise, or encouragement, in the end she made it what it became. The following sketch, written some years later, shows how this work prospered. It was written by Miss Matthews, who for some years superintended the work:—

‘Almost from the time of my father’s settlement in Antanànarìvo, in 1882, he had the idea that enough was not being done for the girls and young women of Àntanànarìvo, while so much was being done for the boys and the young men. He did not think that two high schools—the London Missionary Society Girls’ Central School and the Friends’ Girls’ High School—were enough for the girls and young women of a city of nearly a hundred thousand inhabitants. The London Missionary Society’s Central School supplied the wants of the centre of the capital, while the Friends’ supplied the needs of the north end of the capital; but there was really no proper provision for the needs of the south end of the capital, or for the west, south-west, and north-west sides of it.

‘When my father was at home on furlough in 1890 some kind friends gave him money to help him with his work, and with that, and a grant of fifty pounds which the directors made him for the purpose, on his return to Madagascar, in 1892, he built a schoolroom in the Ambàtonakànga yard. He soon saw that it would never be what he wished it to be without a European lady in charge of it. In 1894, as the time drew near for my mother’s return to Madagascar, it was arranged that I should return with her to assist her with her sewing-classes.

‘By the time we arrived at Madagascar father had conceived the idea of my taking charge of the girls’ school at Ambàtonakànga, and a few days after we arrived he took me to see it, and said, “There, my dear; there is a school for you to take charge of, and to work up.”

‘I was rather astonished, and said, “But I am not a teacher; I have had no training as a teacher.” Father said, “Neither am I; just buckle to and do your best”; so that is what I did!

‘There were twenty-six pupils when I took charge first, and we had two hundred and thirty when we left. Shortly after I took charge we had to leave for the coast owing to the French war, and the march of the French on the capital; and we were away three months. For nearly four years I superintended the school as a labour of love, taking up the work as something providentially laid upon me. I was splendidly assisted by my staff of Malagasy teachers, but most of all by E. Rabarijaona, the principal teacher, really the head master of the school, to whose untiring efforts we owe it, in the main, that the school has been for so long in such a satisfactory state. After the visit of the deputation, the foreign secretary and Alderman Evan Spicer, on their recommendation the Directors recognized my work in the school.’