‘The earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea.’—Isaiah xi. 9.
The schools occupied much of my time and attention. I was convinced that in no other way could I better serve the objects of the mission in Madagascar. The foundation for something higher than the three R’s was laid. The minds of the children were stored with the knowledge of Him ‘Whom to know is life eternal.’ Some warm-hearted friends of missions seemed to suspect that we gave too much time and attention to our schools, and not enough to what they called ‘the preaching of the Gospel.’ They forgot that preaching is not the only means by which a knowledge of the Gospel may be imparted. Real ‘evangelistic work’ may be done to greater advantage in the village school than on the village green. The value which we assign to teaching is the result of experience. The means we had were not the best, but they were all that we had, and we made the best of them.
I did not like school work; I had had no special training for it. I preferred preaching and Bible-class work; but it was not a case of choice but of necessity. The schools had to be founded, worked, and kept at their best; they were the hope of the country and of Christianity in it. Of the adults, who had grown up in ignorance, superstition, and sin, I confess I had not all the hope I would have liked to have had of their becoming ‘new creatures in Christ Jesus’; but of the children I had every hope. In them we had an approach to virgin soil on which to sow the ‘good seed of the Kingdom.’ As has been said, ‘Men must be formed to the practice of the elementary virtues of Christianity before it is possible for them to recognize the beauty of holiness, and the nobleness and eternal obligation of righteousness.’
In point of returns for labour, we obtained the speediest and most satisfactory from the schools. At least one-half of our congregations were heathen, or semi-heathen; and while we were glad to get them within sound of the Gospel, we knew that many of them attended church only from fear of the queen—a mistaken fear. The ‘fear of God’ had little to do with it. The sight that used to gladden my heart most, when I preached at my own station, was the 200 children sitting there in front of me. They answered the questions put to them with a fervour and eagerness which did one’s heart good. They led the singing. Their voices made the church ring with the songs of salvation. They were the most attentive listeners to the sermon, and their eyes sparkled with an intelligence of which their poor parents knew nothing, and never would know: they were too old to learn, even if they wished to, which many of them did not. From the schools of the first missionaries came some of the foremost of the martyrs, and the best and most devoted pastors in the country. The truth learned by those men in the schools of former times sank into their hearts, and in due season brought forth fruit, before and conspicuously during the ‘killing times.’ Our schools were not merely secular institutions, they were essentially religious.
Our Quarterly Meeting became a source of strength to the churches. When the ritualists tried to gain a footing in the district, it was only the vigorous measures adopted by the Quarterly Meeting that saved one of the best of our churches from being ruined. The pastor who had invited them was an ignorant man, who had caused more trouble than all the other pastors of the district; but he was the petty chief of that village. He had been appointed to be the chief pastor of the church before we settled at Fìhàonana. Being the chief of the village, many of the members were afraid to take action against him. They appealed to the Quarterly Meeting for help. The case was taken up very warmly; Razàka and other two of the chief pastors were appointed to visit the church on the following Sabbath, suspend the pastor from office and membership, and appoint the second pastor in his place.
On the following Tuesday, when the would-be ‘successors of the Apostles’ arrived to do what the Apostle Paul carefully avoided, ‘lest he should build upon another man’s foundation,’ they found that their quondam friend, who had promised to hand over the church and congregation to them, was no longer a member of that church, and therefore had no power to carry out his promise. Knowing the man as I did, and how such things were managed, I strongly suspect that he felt certain in his own mind, even if he had no positive promise, that his services would be handsomely recognized. Happily the whole affair was frustrated by the prompt action of the Quarterly Meeting.
Our girls’ school at Fìhàonana gave us no small trouble for a time; the parents kept taking away their daughters of tender age to marry them, and prevent their attendance at school. Had this been done by heathen and semi-heathen parents only, we should not have been so surprised; but it was also done by parents of whom we expected better things, and I had to censure them severely for their conduct. My wife did her best for the schools, though she was hindered by scarcity of material for the sewing-classes, and the state of her own health. She was laid low several times with fever, and had to play the part of nurse to her household in their troubles. These seasons of sickness and anxiety, in addition to my daily burden of anxiety about all the churches, were often trying. Our people were kind at such seasons. They were grateful for all we had been able to do for them in their own seasons of trial. Indeed, the longer we were with them, the more we loved them, and, I believe, the more we were beloved by them.
About this time our good Christian queen set all the Mozambique slaves free. In her proclamation she said:—‘Now, the kingdom having been given by God to me, I declare that I will put a stop to these evils; for I am a sovereign tsy tìa vèzovèzo (who dislikes disturbance, or quarrelsomeness). Therefore I decree, that I set free all Mozambiques in my kingdom to be ambàniàndro (subjects), whether those newly introduced or those who have been here for a long time.
‘And if there are any who will not obey this edict, but still hold the Mozambiques as slaves, I shall count such as criminals, and the penalty of the laws shall be enforced upon them.
‘And I also decree, that whoever has traded in Mozambiques can no longer make any legal claim in respect of such transactions. And if this decree of mine is perverted by any one to deceive the wise or incite the simple, and so cause disturbance in my kingdom, then, whoever he may be, I will hold him guilty, and condemn him to death; for I am a sovereign that will not deceive.’
We all had a most merciful and marvellous preservation on the evening of Sabbath, December 2, when our house was struck by lightning, during the most terrific thunderstorm that had been known or heard of by the oldest inhabitant. It had been intensely hot and oppressive during the previous fortnight, but especially so that Sabbath. It seemed that such heat must soon lead to something. Towards sunset the clouds gathered, the sky grew dark—sure signs of the approaching storm. As we sat at tea, I heard the first mutterings of the thunder in the north-west and remarked: ‘There’s relief coming at last.’ After dark, as the storm drew nearer, the roll of the thunder became louder, and the flashing of the lightning more awful. As the hours of the evening passed, the storm seemed to be gathering strength for a final outburst. We heard the roaring of the wind increase, until it had the force of a tornado. The rain fell in torrents, and vivid and yet more vivid flashes of lightning were followed by louder and louder rolls of thunder. It led one to think of Him Who is ‘a hiding-place from the wind, and a covert from the tempest.’
At a quarter past nine a blinding sheet of lambent flame enveloped the house. For an instant the whole yard seemed to be flooded with living fire. This was followed by a terrific explosion in one of the lower rooms. There was a lightning-conductor twelve feet high on the centre of the roof; but the lightning, as was afterwards discovered, in striking the rod had melted the silver from it, and glancing from the rod to the gable, had gone down the chimney of the lower room, where it exploded. The ceiling at the south-west corner was torn down, the floor of the bedroom above, right under the baby’s cot—from which she had just been lifted—was blown up. The current then went up the wall of the room to a copper bell-wire. It ran along this wire, along two sides of the roof of the room, the roof of the lobby, two sides of the roof of the children’s bedroom, and then down the wire in the corner of the room, broke the bell, ploughed its way down the wall over the inner door of the kitchen, which it smashed, through the doorway and the kitchen, escaping finally by the outer door, after knocking the cook down on its way, and burning him severely!
My wife, baby, and nurse were in the bedroom, and their escape from death was marvellous. The baby had wakened a few minutes before the explosion, screaming so piercingly that my wife—who had gone to bed—had to rise, lift it from its cot, and try to quieten it. She rang for the nurse to prepare its food. She took a step forward, to take the milk from the girl, and to that step, humanly speaking, she owed her own life and that of the child; for just at that instant the house was struck, the explosion took place, and the spot from which she had just stepped was blown up, the flooring being thrown over her head, a piece of one of the boards falling on the head of the nurse and cutting it open!
Sitting in the room adjoining, I knew the house had been struck, but thought the noise of the explosion was caused by the falling of one of the gables. A deathlike silence followed, and then the screams of my wife betokened her fright, and her agony of fear for the other children. We found them, however, to our unspeakable relief, all safe, and sleeping so soundly that not even the terrific explosion had wakened them. And although the electric current had gone down the copper wire in the corner of their bedroom, within a few inches of our eldest daughter’s head, not a hair of her head had been harmed.
We had a very interesting case, which I shall relate, as showing how the truth was working its way into the hearts of some of our young people. It was that of a young and very poor petty chief. Although a chief, he had not felt that he was degrading himself—as many would have done—by working for me in various ways. At first he learned to make bricks, then he carried wood while the manse was building. I had noticed that he was among the most diligent of all who worked for me. After the building was finished, he was asked to come to school, and, although much older than the majority there, such was the progress made, that he was several times sent out as a teacher. I had often observed him in church paying marked attention to the preaching, and I hoped the truth was finding its way to his heart. He called one day to ask for a copy of the Catechumen’s Catechism, and to tell me that he wished to become a candidate for baptism and church membership. I examined him on three occasions, had several most interesting conversations with him and had every reason to be satisfied, and recommended him for church fellowship.
A few weeks after he called again, and said that since he had joined the church, he had been very much exercised in mind as to what he ought to do to advance its interests. He desired work to be assigned him. He also wished to attend my classes, and to go out as a local preacher on the Sabbath. He became a most regular attendant and went out almost every Sabbath preaching. I afterwards gave him some months of private instruction, and sent him up to the Institution at the capital. After four years’ training he returned to Vònizòngo, took up the work of an evangelist, and has done splendid work for twenty years.
From the returns for the year ending 1878 I find that £89 11s. 9d. was raised in the district for church purposes, and £41 18s. 2d. for the salaries of teachers; in all, £131 9s. 11d., equivalent to £657 9s. 7d. The contributions of the entire district for 1868 had only reached the very modest sum of £2 8s. 6d. When we settled at Fìhàonana in 1871, Razàka handed £1 10s. 0d. to me to keep for the church, that being the sum in hand from the church-door collections, less expenses, for the previous nine years! During our nine years at Fìhàonana, our small station church of some ninety members, a third of whom were slaves, raised upwards of £150, while £700 was raised by the other small churches of the district, equivalent to the people to £750 and £3,500 respectively of our money[30].
The work kept steadily advancing, year after year, and our people made quiet but distinct progress in Christian knowledge and in Christian character. The darkness of their former state gave way before the light of the Gospel, and our hearts were gladdened by seeing results from our former labours. For a time our work suffered interruption from a severe epidemic of malarial fever in the central provinces, which resulted in a large death-rate. We ourselves also suffered severely. In consequence of this epidemic, my medical work was greatly increased, but my ordinary labours among the churches, schools, and Bible-classes were much interfered with, and almost all teaching was suspended for a time.
For about four months every year—from February to June, known as the fever season—malarial fever, diarrhoea, and dysentery were prevalent in Vònizòngo. This being a great rice district, the harvest season and just after it, April and May, were generally the worst for fever, &c.; but the year 1878 was exceptionally severe. Strange to say, however, those portions of the district which formerly had suffered most from this scourge had only a slight visitation, while those which had been comparatively safe hitherto suffered most on this occasion. In our neighbourhood the attack was severe. All over the central provinces about forty per cent. of those who were seized died. About two hundred fatal cases occurred in connexion with our station.
It must be borne in mind, however, that the majority of those who were attacked received no proper medical treatment. Of those who could and would receive medicine, the great majority recovered; in fact, very few cases proved fatal. In the more distant and less enlightened villages hardly a person could be found ready to give up the native nostrums and risk trying proper remedies, hence the excessive mortality. Simple medicines and proper nursing were almost all that were needed; but hundreds of poor ignorant people would not take proper medicines, even when offered to them for nothing.
There was a range of hills, about two miles to the west of our house, on the opposite side of an extensive rice valley. The people in the villages along the foot of that range suffered severely during the epidemic. Razàka and some of the deacons went to visit them when the epidemic was at its worst. They found the poor creatures in a miserable condition, five, six, and even eight lying in a single hut, prostrated with fever, and in several cases with the corpses of children which no one had been able to bury. And yet hardly one in ten could be persuaded at first to give up the native nostrums, and accept the medicines we had sent them. In some cases they even denied they were ill, lest my messengers should give them quinine, while some were so ill that they could hardly articulate.
I asked Razàka the reason of such repugnance to the proper remedies, and he replied: ‘Simply ignorance, foolishness, and superstition.’ While some few refused the quinine as being too bitter, and others because they were afraid it might bewitch them, the majority declined to take it because it was too powerful! They said they knew very well that the white man’s medicine would cure them, for it was powerful; but it would not only cure them, it would also quite destroy all the virtue of their own medicine. If once they took white man’s medicine, nothing except white man’s medicine would ever cure them again. They had a white man and medicine now, they said, but as they did not know how long they might have either, they preferred keeping to their own òdy, on which they could fall back in their time of need. They did not seemingly take death into account.
As we could not stand aside while these ignorant creatures committed suicide, and practically murdered their children in their folly, bottles of quinine mixture were prepared, and Razàka and the deacons were sent to the villagers and were told: ‘If they won’t take the medicine willingly, pour it down their throats.’ They did so, with the result that the poor creatures were cured, and fell fairly in love with the òdi-tàzo (charm for the fever). They would not take it even for nothing that year; but, the following year, bought £11 worth of quinine during the four months of the fever season!
The Malagasy regarded all disease as the result of witchcraft, and so all medicine was fànafòdy, that which takes off or removes the òdy (witch charm). Our medicine was therefore regarded as the most powerful òdy, which not only cured the patient, but also conquered and destroyed the virtue of all other and weaker òdy. This reluctance is still met with in the darker parts of the island. The people came to call quinine òdi-tàzo, the charm for the fever; a wash for the eyes, òdi-màso, a charm for the eyes; and a cough mixture, òdi-kòhaka, a charm for the cough.
During the time that the epidemic was at its worst, 12 ounces of quinine were disposed of in six months, and we lost only one patient by death in our village. Thus a victory was gained for our medicines and mode of treatment of the sick, while a heavy blow was dealt at the native nostrums and absurd methods of treatment.
Many of these poor sufferers were in a state of delirium. This the Malagasy know as miàrahàba ny akòho, i. e. saluting the fowls. The Malagasy are very polite. If they meet a superior, or if he enters their hut, he is saluted with: Tsàra và tòmpokò è? i. e. ‘Is it well with you, my lord?’ While lying ill with fever, the fowls would find their way into their huts, and hearing the pattering of their feet on the mats, the sick would imagine, in their delirium, that these fowls were their superiors come to visit them, and would salute in the usual way: ‘Is it well with you, my lord?’ Hence one in bad fever delirium was said to be saluting the fowls.
The state of emaciation in which some were brought to us was terrible. Their faces wore a hue between green and grey; the white of the eyes was a greenish yellow, and imparted a hideous aspect to them. The spleen was generally very much enlarged. They were brought in all states and conditions, and sorely taxed my limited medical knowledge, as they taxed my sympathies. Poor miserable slaves—more like skeletons encased in leather than human beings—came begging for quinine. They had no money to buy it, nor would their masters give them any; but I could not refuse them medicine.
My wife and I both suffered severely from the fever, which left us very limp and shattered in health; but we felt thankful that our children escaped as they did. As soon as we were able to travel, we went to the hills for a month, which braced us up again.
During my absence the ritualists made another attempt to get a footing in the district; but they failed. By throwing the burden of keeping the teachers they wished to send out of the district upon the natives themselves, I so put them on their mettle that they were more anxious than even I was to keep them at a distance.
After the epidemic of fever, we had a slight visitation of small-pox. Of course the majority of the people were very foolish over vaccination. Great numbers of them would neither be vaccinated, nor allow their children to be so. Still, we did manage to vaccinate a fair number of children, and more adults than at any former time. Only a few could be persuaded to bring back their children, that others might be vaccinated from them, or the lymph be taken off. I taught a few of the more intelligent pastors, local preachers, and teachers how to vaccinate and supplied them with lymph, and so we had most of the people in our own immediate neighbourhood vaccinated one way or another. I was very anxious to get that done, as four of our own children had not been vaccinated, and I had no lymph with which to do them until I obtained some from England. Yet though we had vaccinated all in the villages near us, it was not such a protection as it ought to have been, as the garments of those who died of small-pox were in many cases sold in the public market!
The natives had rather a rough and ready way of vaccinating. They made three small cuts on the left arm with a piece of glass—generally a piece of a broken bottle—put in the lymph, closed the cuts, and then put on a small plaster of boiled rice to keep the edges together. Some of my cases did not ‘take,’ but I think all theirs did.
Our fine new school-house was finished and opened at the end of the year. We had most successful opening services, at which the queen’s representative was present. He also handed the prizes to the 336 who had distinguished themselves in the examinations.
The congregations all over the district continued to keep up well; most of the churches were well filled at the Sabbath services. The attendance at these services was not in every case due to fervent piety or the desire for instruction. Many only desired to stand well with the local chiefs and the authorities. Still, whatever their motives may have been, it was well that they were there; for while they were in church they were at least out of the way of much temptation to evil, and they heard the Word of God, which was blessed to many who were led to see themselves as sinners, and to seek Him Who came to seek and to save the lost.
The congregations made most marked progress during that year in the grace of generosity to the cause of God, and for the support of the school teachers. The previous year, the twelve small churches under the charge of the trained evangelist had raised their share of his salary for the year—£4 16s.—in advance, the first time that such a thing had been done; but during that year the unprecedented sum of £30, equal to them to £150, was raised in the district a whole year in advance, to pay the people’s share of the salaries of six trained teachers settled among them, and four evangelists about to be settled. Such a thing had never been done before in the history of the island. We felt very pleased and thankful for what we had been able to teach the people to do; the more so, as we had the satisfaction of knowing that we were not only the first, but up till then, at least, the only missionaries in the island who had been able to persuade the Malagasy to raise such a very large sum a whole year in advance in order to pay their share of the salaries of their teachers and evangelists.
Now and then in some quarters there were signs below the surface of remnants of heathenism and semi-heathenism. We had some displays of this nature during the epidemic, when many were panic-stricken. We had one sad sample during that year of the heathenism still remaining brought to light by the death of the young wife of one of our trained teachers. Her parents, although they attended the village church occasionally, were evidently heathens at heart. Her father was a retired Hova governor, reputed to be rich. He made a great funeral feast, for which a number of oxen, sheep, and pigs were killed. The corpse of his daughter was rolled in thirty-four silk làmbas (plaids), while all the best and most expensive dresses and ornaments, &c., belonging to herself and her mother, were placed in the family tomb along with the corpse. Money to the amount of £2 4s., equivalent to £11, was put into her grave-clothes for expenses in the other world, while £3, equivalent to £15, was paid to the so-called musicians who made day and night hideous by their discordant noises from the time of her death to that of her burial, to keep the bad spirits at a distance, and little wonder if they did! In all, £83 2s. 9d., equivalent to £415 13s. 9d., was worse than wasted over the funeral of that poor girl by her heathen parents.
In my long journeys in Madagascar, I always suffered from the heat—a sort of mild form of something of the nature of heat-apoplexy I should suppose—and hence in our journeys from our station to the capital or back, we always started very early in the morning, generally at four, often at two o’clock, so as to get to the journey’s end before the hottest and most exhausting part of the day—about three in the afternoon. Though generally suffering from headache by the time I got in, a night’s rest as a rule set me right again.
Twice had that long weary journey home from the capital to be undertaken by moonlight. I got a lady’s palanquin—a long oblong box made of strips of sheepskin fastened to two long poles—and lay down in it with a rug over me to protect me from the dews of the night, covered my face with my helmet, and tried to sleep, but not with much success.
I arrived at home suffering from very severe headache, which lasted for the following four days. A night’s rest was enough to free me from headache from exposure to sunlight, but it took four days to do so from that of exposure to moonlight. I could not understand this at first, nor till the text came into my mind: ‘The sun shall not smite thee by day, nor the moon by night.’ The moon smites, in some senses, more severely than the sun, and the effects remain longer. Of course if the effects of the rays of the sun reach the point of sunstroke, the result is far worse than anything the moon can do.