‘Yea, and all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution.’—2 Tim. iii. 12.

The edict of Queen Rànavàlona I against the Christian religion was published on March 1, 1835. To effect a return to absolute heathenism at all costs was the settled policy of the queen and her advisers. Christianity and heathen barbarism could not exist together. Very soon, however, to the astonishment of the queen and her advisers, it was found that although the missionaries had been expelled, and the Bible and other religious books burned, a stop had not really been put to the ‘praying.’ They had not been able to expel the Spirit of God from the hearts of the people. The good seed of the Kingdom began through persecution to strike its roots deeper, and under the influence of the dews of Heaven to spring up and yield fruit. Midnight prayer-meetings were begun in the capital itself, within gunshot of the palace. At one of those midnight prayer-meetings, when discovery meant certain death, a young man, Razàka, and his wife from Vònizòngo were baptized. He had been a scholar in the mission school at Fihàonana, and afterwards became the native pastor of the mother-church at Fihàonana, which office he held for more than twenty years. Not only so; he became the Apostle of Vònizòngo, and founded some forty of the village congregations in that district.

The queen, thus thwarted, became more incensed than ever, and severer measures were resorted to in order to exterminate the hateful ‘praying.’ Death was the penalty of the slightest act of disobedience; but still the people continued to pray, and the Kingdom of God to make quiet but sure progress. The queen discovered, as other persecutors had done before, that the more she persecuted the people of God the more they increased and grew. Had the queen taken Christianity under her patronage, after the expulsion of the missionaries, she might have stifled it, or made it a mere name; but in persecuting the Christian faith she did it the best service possible. Persecution rooted and grounded Christianity in the hearts of the Hova people in a way that nothing else could have done. And not only so, but her cruelties did service to the cause of Christ in other lands besides Madagascar; for it was by the light of those martyr fires, which she in her cruelty had kindled, that thousands in this and other lands saw Madagascar, and were roused to take interest in the island and in Christian missions. Thus once more did God make the wrath of man to praise Him.

‘At the time when the missionaries left the capital severe persecution was directed against Rafàravàvy, a woman of rank who had become a convert prior to the proscription of Christianity. Her family, and she among them, had once been devoted in an exceptional degree to the service of the national idols. She was accused of “praying,” but upon the day they left Antanànarìvo she was pardoned on payment of a fine, and warned that if she was again found guilty her life would be forfeited. About a year later, with ten others she was again accused of praying and allowing others to pray in her house. When arrested she refused to betray those who had been associated with her. The officers entrapped a young woman named Ràsalàma, who had been included in the same impeachment, into revealing the names of seven Christians hitherto unknown to the officials. Among these was a former diviner, Ràinitsìhèva by name, memorable in Madagascar annals by his name of Paul. Rafàravàvy would have been executed, and thus have become the first Christian martyr in Madagascar, but for a great fire on the eve of the day fixed for her execution. This led to a postponement of her execution. Ràsalàma, while in prison, grieved by the weakness which had led her to betray others, uttered words which, on being reported to the commander-in-chief, determined him to put her to death.

‘She was ordered for execution next morning, and the previous afternoon was put in irons, which, being fastened to the feet, hands, and neck, confined the whole body in a position of excruciating pain. In the early morning she sang hymns, as she was borne along to the place of execution, expressing her joy in the knowledge of the Gospel, and on passing the chapel in which she had been baptized, she exclaimed: “There I heard the words of the Saviour.” After being borne more than a mile farther, she reached the fatal spot—a broad, dry, shallow fosse or ditch, strewn with the bones of previous criminals, outside what was formerly a fortification, at the southern extremity of the hill on which the city stands. Here, permission being granted her to pray, Ràsalàma calmly knelt on the earth, committed her spirit into the hands of her Redeemer, and fell with the executioner’s spears buried in her body.

‘So suffered, on August 14, 1837, Ràsalàma, the first who died for Christ of the martyr Church of Madagascar, which thus, in its early infancy, received its baptism of blood. Heathenism and hell had done their worst. Some few of the bystanders, it was reported, cried out: “Where is the God she prayed to, that He does not save her now?” Others were moved to pity for one whom they deemed an innocent sufferer; and even the heathen executioners declared: “There is some charm in the religion of the white people, which takes away the fear of death.” Most of her more intimate companions were either in prison or in concealment; but one faithful and loving friend, who witnessed her calm and peaceful death, when he returned, exclaimed: “If I might die as tranquil and happy a death, I would willingly die for the Saviour too[6].”’

‘Ràsalàma was accused of praying, one of her own servants being the accuser. She was taken to the house of one of the high officers in Andòhàlo. This officer made use of bad language towards her, when Ràsalàma severely reproved him, saying: “Take care what you say, for we shall meet again face to face at the last day.” The officer replied: “I shall not meet you again, you silly young woman.” “You cannot avoid doing so,” said Ràsalàma, “for we must all appear at the judgement seat of God on the last day; and every idle word spoken by men shall be revealed to them on the day of judgement.”

‘Just before her martyrdom, Ràsalàma wrote a letter to one of the missionaries who had taught her, in which she said: “This is what I beg most earnestly from God—that I may have strength to follow the words of Jesus which say: ‘If any one would come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me.’ Therefore I do not count my life as a thing worth mentioning, that I may finish my course, that is, the service which I have received from my Lord Jesus.... Don’t you missionaries think that your hard work here in Madagascar for the Lord has been, or will be, of no avail. No! that is not, and cannot be the case; for through the blessing of God your work must be successful.”

‘She also called to mind the words of Scripture which say: “Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His saints[7].”’

‘After the death of Ràsalàma, 200 Christians were sold into slavery. Rafàravàvy was also sold, but her owner, so long as she did her allotted task, allowed her much personal liberty. Among those who had witnessed Ràsalàma’s martyrdom was the young man referred to above, named Rafàralàhy, who had been in the habit of receiving Christians for worship at his house near the capital. This man was betrayed by a former friend, an apostate who owed him money, and took this means of cancelling his debt.

‘After being confined in heavy irons for three days, he was taken out for execution. On the way he spoke to the officers of the love and mercy of Christ, and of his own happiness in the prospect of so soon seeing that divine Redeemer Who had loved him and died to save him. Having reached the place of execution, the same spot on which Ràsalàma had suffered nearly a twelvemonth before, he spent his last moments in supplication for his country and his persecuted brethren, and in commending his soul to his Saviour. As he rose from his knees, the executioners were preparing, as was the custom, to throw him on the ground, when he said that was needless, he was prepared to die; and, quietly laying himself down, he was instantly put to death, his friends being afterwards allowed to inter his body in the ancestral tomb.

‘Rafàralàhy’s wife was seized, cruelly beaten, and compelled to name those who had frequented his house. Rafàravàvy, one of these, fled, and by the aid of native friends finally reached Tàmatàve. There, by the aid of sympathetic friends among the Europeans, with six other Christians, she escaped to Mauritius in safety. Five of these, including Rafàravàvy, visited England, and were present at a great meeting at Exeter Hall on June 4, 1839. Their presence centred extraordinary interest upon Madagascar, and indirectly upon the general work of the Society. The refugees were accompanied by Mr. Johns. They returned to Mauritius in 1842, and undertook work there among the many Malagasy slaves then in that island[8].’

The measures taken to destroy Christianity were not at all times equally severe; there were lulls in the storm, during which the persecuted had comparative quietness, and even gleams of sunshine. The years that stand out with special prominence in the annals of the persecution are 1835–37, 1840, 1849, and 1857. The next series of martyrdoms occurred in 1840. David Griffiths had been allowed to return to Antanànarìvo as a trader, and he, in connexion with Dr. Powell, whom business took to Madagascar, did all in their power to aid those whose Christian faith brought their lives into jeopardy. In May, 1840, sixteen of the proscribed made an attempt to reach the coast. Unhappily, they were betrayed, captured, and, five weeks after their flight, they were brought back. Two managed to escape. Of the rest, on July 9, 1840, nine were executed.

Many of the native converts fled to the forests, where they died of fever; or to the mountains, where they lived among the dens and the caves of the earth; or to distant parts of the island, such as to the Ankàrana in the north, or to the Bètsilèo country in the south, or to the Sàkalàva tribe who occupy some six hundred miles of the west side of the island—where the most of them were murdered as Hova spies.

The province of Vònizòngo, being about forty miles to the north-west of the capital, having no governor, and very few government officials, became a hiding-place for many of the persecuted Christians. Midnight prayer-meetings were held there for years—first in the house of Ràmitràha, who was afterwards burned at Fàravòhitra, and afterwards in the house of Razàka. The converts travelled twenty, thirty, and even forty miles to attend those meetings. At Fìhàonana they had one of the few Bibles that had been saved. This was a well in the desert, for the ‘Word of God was precious in those days.’ The converts met and spent the night in reading the Scriptures and prayer; and on the very dark nights of the rainy season they ventured on singing a hymn to refresh their weary hearts and souls, trusting the noise of the falling rain would drown their voices, as it might well do. On such nights the queen’s spies did not venture abroad.

Many of the persecuted fled from the capital and other parts to Vònizòngo, and hid there for months, and some for years. The rice-pits under the floors of the huts were favourite hiding-places, while refuge was also found among the rocks, in ravines on the hill-sides, and in the ‘cave,’ used as a small-pox hospital. Some of the rice-pits had underground passages connecting them with pits in the neighbouring huts, from which a passage led to the outside, so that if any in hiding in the first rice-pit were searched for, they could crawl into the pit in the adjoining hut, and thence find their way outside.

On one occasion Rafàravàvy Marìa, who afterwards escaped from the island and was brought to England, was in hiding in a hut in Vònizòngo, when an officer sent to search for her arrived in the village. He had come so suddenly that she had not had time to get into the rice-pit or outside into the fosse; she had barely time to crawl under a low wooden bedstead, and the woman of the house had only time to draw the mat on the bed down in front of it to hide her. She put some baskets with rice and manioc on the bedstead, to keep the mat from slipping down, when the officer entered the hut. He said: ‘Have you Rafàravàvy here?’ The woman of the house answered: ‘Look and see.’ He just looked round the hut, did not look under the bedstead, and went away. When he left the village to seek for her elsewhere Rafàravàvy escaped to a place of safety.

When very strict search was made by the queen’s orders for Bibles and other Christian books—for she more than suspected that they had not all been given up—the Christians in Vònizòngo were very much afraid they might lose their copy of the Scriptures. They said: ‘If we lose our Bible what shall we do?’ A consultation was held as to how and where the Bible was to be hidden to ensure its safety; and it was agreed that the best and safest place in which to hide the Bible was the small-pox hospital. The officers dreaded small-pox too much to venture there.

A little to the north-east of the village of Fihàonana a hill rises, and near the foot of it stands a cluster of large boulders. Inside that cluster, during the lulls in the persecution, from ten to thirty of the converts used to hold a Sabbath morning service. Underneath one of the largest of the boulders, at the foot of the hill, there is an artificial cave, dug out by the people to serve as a small-pox hospital for the village: in the dark corner of this cave the Bible was hidden between two slabs of granite. The queen’s officers arrived at the village, as it was expected they would, to search for the Bible and other Christian books, which the queen and government had reason to believe, from the reports of spies, were to be found there. A bootless search was made in the huts of the suspected, in the rice-pits, and in the village fosse; and then the officers directed their way to the cluster of boulders on the hill-side. As they were about to enter the cave where the Bible lay, some one said: ‘I suppose you know that this is the small-pox hospital?’ ‘We did not,’ they said, starting back in horror. ‘Wretch! why did you not tell us sooner? Why did you let us come so near?’ The officers beat a hasty retreat, and the Bible was safe. This particular copy is now, and for many years has been, in the library of the British and Foreign Bible Society, Queen Victoria Street, London.

Razàka lay for over two years in hiding in that cave, and during that time he seemed to have learnt most of the Bible by heart. After the martyrdom of Ràmitràha the queen had sent to have him arrested as the ringleader of the ‘prayers’ in Vònizòngo. Had he been caught, he would have been put to death. He had before that been sold into slavery for his religion; but, as a distant relative bought him, his slavery was of a mild type. He heard that the officers had been sent out to arrest him, and went into hiding. A report was spread that he had escaped to the Sàkalàva tribe in the west, and the search was given up.

On a dark night he returned to the cave, and there began his long concealment of two years. At night his wife took him rice; in the daytime, when it was safe, he lay at the mouth of the cave and read and re-read the Bible. How many times he read it through I do not know, but I do know that he had the most extraordinary knowledge of the Scriptures of any man I have met. This qualified him for the honour afterwards conferred upon him of becoming native pastor of the mother-church at Fihàonana and the Apostle of the Vònizòngo district.

I have been unable to discover the number of church members in the Vònizòngo district when the persecution began, in 1835; but in a letter written in 1856 it was stated that there were then 193. I was told, however, in 1871, by Razàka, that when the persecution began, there were thirty-six church members at Fihàonana, ten of whom were then alive. Of the twenty-six dead, two died as martyrs. One, Ràmitràha, was burned at Fàravòhitra Antanànarìvo; the other, Rakòtonomè, was thrown over the rocks at Ampàmarìnana. These men were preachers at Fihàonana.

Ràmitràha was chief of the village and district of Fihàonana—his younger brother was chief in our time; their mother had been the first convert to Christianity in the Vònizòngo district. Ràmitràha seems to have been a very remarkable man. After the outbreak of the persecution, and when it became known that there were many Christians in the Vònizòngo district, several officers and men were sent to bring them to the capital. While the officers were on their way there, Ràmitràha was informed of their coming, and that he was specially named as being a leader, and because midnight prayer-meetings had been held in his house. He was advised to flee; but he nobly refused. ‘Where could I flee to?’ he said. ‘If I flee to the west, I shall be speared by the Sàkalàvas as a Hova spy. If I flee to the forest, I shall die of fever. If I flee to the mountains or to the wilderness, I shall die of famine or fever; and if I am to die, I prefer to die for my faith.’ He was carried to the capital, along with some three hundred others, of whom the majority did not stand the test. To save their lives they took the oath to worship the idols and pray to the spirits of their ancestors and the departed sovereigns. Ràmitràha stood firm, and died for his faith in the flames at Fàravòhitra, while his fellow labourer, Rakòtonomè, was rolled down the precipice at Ampàmarìnana.

‘All through this period (from 1835 to 1849) accused Christians were often compelled to drink the tangèna, and many of them died. But it was not until 1849 that another fierce wave of persecution rolled over the infant church. On February 19, 1849, two houses belonging to Prince Ramònja, which had been used for Christian worship, were destroyed, and eleven Christians cast into prison. A kabàry was held at Andohàlo (the central piàzza of Antanànarìvo), and once again Christians were ordered to accuse themselves. In Vònizòngo a noble named Ràmitràha and others refused to worship the idols, and eighteen were condemned to death at Anàlakèly[9].’

‘Ràmitràha, a noble and a descendant of one of the most distinguished chiefs of the province of Vònizòngo, replied—when asked to take the oath invoking the idols—“God has given none to be worshipped on the earth, nor under the heavens, except Jesus Christ.” “Fellow,” exclaimed the officer, “will you not pray to the spirits of the departed sovereigns, and worship the sacred idols that raised them up?” To which the steadfast confessor replied: “I cannot worship any of them; for they were sovereigns given to be served, but not to be worshipped. God alone is to be worshipped for ever and ever, and to Him alone I pray.” This faithful man sealed his testimony to Jesus Christ in the flames.

‘On February 25, 1849, the accused Christians were gathered at Andohàlo for examination and trial. They were asked: “What is the reason that you will not forsake this new religion, and that, notwithstanding threats of severe punishment and even death, you keep on earnestly practising it? Speak out and tell the truth, don’t lie.” They answered, one by one, but the substance of what was said was: “This is the reason why we love it: we can pray to the true God for the queen, the kingdom, and for ourselves who work; and thank Him for redemption and the blessings received at His hands. We know that true religion benefits the kingdom, because in the Word of God, which we accept, there are good laws which benefit the subjects and bless them; and these laws are not opposed to the laws of the land.”

‘During the first week of March, the Christians throughout the central provinces were ordered to accuse themselves at the appointed place in each district. “I give these ‘prayers’ time to accuse themselves,” said the queen’s message; “but not for their own sakes do I give them time, but for the sake of Imèrina; and were it not so, I would put them all to death; for they persist in doing what I hate[10].”’

‘On March 21 and 22, 1849, the Christians were gathered at Anàlakèly, and were again subjected, not to examination as to their rigid adherence to the new religion, but whether they would take the prescribed oath or not. One by one they were asked the following questions, and all gave similar answers.

‘The Officer: “Do you still practise prayer?”

‘Christian: “Yes, I still pray.”

‘Officer: “Will you not pray to the twelve sacred mountains, and the sacred idol that raised up and sanctified the twelve sovereigns?”

‘Christian: “The mountains are but earth to be trodden upon, and the idols are but wood from which houses are built, quite lifeless, the work of God’s hands—hence we cannot pray to them or worship them.”

‘Officer: “Will you not pray to Andrìanampòinimèrina and Radàma?”

‘Christian: “Andrìanampòinimèrina and Radàma were worthy of reverence as sovereigns while here on earth; but as to worshipping them, that cannot be done, as the objects of worship cannot be increased.”

‘Officer: “Will you not worship Her Majesty Rabòdonàndrìanampòinimèrina?”

‘Christian: “Rabòdonàndrìanampòinimèrina is the sovereign appointed by God to be served and obeyed; but she is only human, hence we cannot worship her, we can only worship God.”

‘Officer: “Won’t you take the oath?”

‘Christian: “We cannot do so, and we have vowed not to do so.”

‘Officer: “Do you still regard the Sabbath day as sacred, and abstain from all work on it?”

‘Christian: “The Sabbath is a day set apart for the service of God; during the six days we labour and do all our work, but we still hold the Sabbath sacred.”

‘Officer: “Why do you say that you will not worship or pray to any one except God; and yet you worship and pray to Jehovah and Jesus Christ?”

‘Christian: “Jehovah and Jesus Christ are God under different names.”

‘One man was asked by the officer: “Who are your companions, fellow?” To whom he replied: “You and all the people on the earth are my companions.” This same man strengthened his fellow Christians by saying: “Be not afraid of them who kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul; but rather fear Him Who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.”

‘On Wednesday, March, 28, 1849, a proclamation was issued and read at Anàlakèly condemning the eighteen Christians who had refused to give up praying to Jesus Christ and worship the idols. It ran—“Concerning these eighteen brothers and sisters whom I have interrogated and examined: they will not follow the doings of you the majority of my subjects; therefore I shall put them to death. Some of them shall be burned at Fàravòhitra, and the rest I shall fling over the precipice.” When the condemned heard the sentence, they began singing a favourite hymn: “We are going home, O God.”

‘The Christians were mocked, jeered at, and vilified by their fellow countrymen, called traitors to their fatherland, and worshippers of the “white man’s ancestor[11].”’

‘The sentences of the queen upon the offenders were divided into classes, according to their rank or their crimes. The four nobles, two of whom were husband and wife, were sentenced to be burned alive at Fàravòhitra, at the northern end of the hill on which the city is built; and they were burned under circumstances of cruelty which dare hardly be described. The fourteen others of inferior rank were sentenced to be hurled from the edge of Ampàmarìnana, a precipice to the west of the palace, and their wives and children sold into irredeemable slavery. The total number of those on whom one or other of the sentences was pronounced on this occasion amounted, at the lowest computation, to 1,903, but by some accounts it is nearer 3,000.

‘The soldiers took up the four nobles, and carried them from the plain up the hill-side to Fàravòhitra, to a place on the highest part of the hill. As they were carried along they kept on with their hymn-singing. Thus they sang until they reached the spot where four piles of firewood were built up. They were then fastened to stakes in the centre of the piles above the wood. When the piles were kindled, and the flames were rising round them, they prayed and praised the Lord. Among the utterances then heard by those standing near were: “Lord Jesus, receive our spirits—lay not this sin to their charge”; and, as if the visions of the future triumphs of the Lord were given to their departing spirits, one was heard to exclaim: “His name, His praise, shall endure for ever and ever.”’

One of the four burned was a woman, Ramàrindàlana, the wife of Andrìampanìry, who was a preacher at Fìarènana, West Vònizòngo. The condition of this poor woman failed to move the hearts of her persecutors. She was about to become a mother, and actually gave birth to a child in the flames which consumed her and her offspring. Truly ‘the tender mercies of the wicked are cruel.’

‘Once, if not more than once, the falling rain extinguished the fire, which was rekindled; and to one of the sufferers (as we have said) the pains of maternity were added to those of the flames. While they were thus suffering, a large and triple rainbow—the sign of God’s promise and faithfulness—stretched across the heavens, one end seeming to rest upon the spot whence the martyrs’ spirits were departing. Some of the spectators, to whom the phenomenon appeared supernatural, fled in terror. One friend, who faithfully remained to the end, records of the martyrs: “They prayed as long as they had life. Then they died; but softly, gently. Indeed, gentle was the going forth of their life, and astonished were all the people around that beheld the burning of them there[12].”’

The names of the four martyrs burned at Fàravòhitra were Ràmitràha, Andrìantsiàmba, Andrìampanìry and Ramànandàlana his wife.

‘Among these so-called criminals who perished at the stake were some, as we have seen, of the highest rank, in whose veins the blood of former kings was supposed to flow. In the same order and manner in which they had been brought to receive judgement the remaining fourteen confessors (all of whom were from the province of Vònizòngo) were taken along the public streets, through the crowds in the city, the agitated and deeply affected crowds, to the top of the rock at Ampàmarìnana, the Tarpeian rock of Antanànarìvo. There on the top of that lofty precipice, at the edge of the western crest of the hill on which the city is built, the filthy fragments of matting wrapped round their bodies were removed. Their arms still remained pinioned and their ankles bound. Thus bound they were rolled in mats, carried one by one to the edge of the precipice and rolled over the downward-curving edge, whence they fell fifty feet, striking a projecting ledge, bounding off, and then falling upon the jagged and broken fragments of granite lying at the base of the precipice, some two hundred feet below the edge from which they had been hurled[13].’

‘One of them, before he was rolled in the matting, asked permission to stand up and view once more the striking scene before him, as from that spot the country can be seen for some sixty miles in three directions—west, north-west, and south-west. His request was granted; he rose, feasted his eyes for a few moments on the familiar scene, and then bowed his head in prayer. He was then rolled in the mat and hurled over the precipice. As his body descended to the rocks below he was heard singing[14].’

Another, Rainiàsivòla, after being rolled over the edge of the downward-curving rock, was caught by the thorns which grow out of a fissure of the rock, some twenty feet below the edge. The officers who had rolled him over were in mortal terror, for it seemed as if their commission was not to be accomplished, and they might have to answer with their own lives for its failure. Lying there among the thorns on the edge of that precipice, the man must have looked up and seen their trepidation; for he shouted up to them: ‘Don’t be needlessly alarmed; I will wriggle myself clear and roll myself over!’ By violent exertion the thorns were snapped, he was freed, and fell upon the jagged rocks below, where he lay a mangled corpse. That man had been idol-keeper and diviner to Razàka-Ratrìmo, the father of Rànavàlona II, the first Christian Queen of Madagascar; but after his conversion he made firewood of the idol, and, as we have seen, died a martyr for his faith in Jesus Christ[15].

‘Ranìvo, an interesting and beautiful young woman of one of the first families, for she belonged to the tribe or clan from which the reigning family traced their descent; the queen herself, therefore, wished to save her. When questioned she said: “I cannot serve the idols: God alone will I serve, as long as my life shall last; for God alone has given me life and spirit—a higher spiritual life to worship Him; and for that reason I worship God.”

‘“You are wrong in your mind, or ill,” said the examining officer, “or you are under some charm; and you should consider well lest the queen hate you, and you should destroy yourself for no purpose.”

‘“I am not deranged,” she replied, “nor am I ill.” Then addressing her father, who was present, she said: “You indeed love me, O father, but God has given me a spirit to worship Him, and I should be filled with fear if I were to cease to pray to Him; therefore I shall not cease to worship Him, lest I should die everlasting death.”

‘“Bind her!” said the officer; and she was bound like the others.

‘The queen, anxious to save her, had with that view ordered her to be placed so that she might see her fellow Christians hurled from the fearful height, expecting that that would frighten her into submission. After they had all been hurled over, she was led by the executioner to the edge of the rock, and directed to look down upon the mangled bodies of her friends. She did so, but the sight did not lead her to waver in mind; for she still declined to take the required heathen oath necessary to save her life. “Dispatch me,” she said, “for my companions have already gone.” Her relatives entreated her to comply with the queen’s demand, and so save her life; but she said she could not take the oath, and she preferred to follow her martyred friends. They thought her insane, and reported to the queen to this effect, and hence her life was saved[16].’

A younger brother of Ranìvo was a great friend of mine for many years, and I got him to write a sketch of the life of his sister for our Malagasy monthly, Good Words.

‘The mangled and scarcely lifeless bodies of Ranìvo’s Christian companions, who had been hurled over the precipice, were dragged to the spot on the top of the Fàravòhitra hill, on which the four nobles had been burned, and there consumed in one vast pile. The lurid flames of this funeral pyre were intended to spread awe and terror among the inhabitants of the numerously peopled villages around from which they were visible[17].’

While Ràmitràha was in prison his mother visited him, and is said to have urged him to promise to pray to the idols sometimes, seeing that they were ‘nothings,’ and save his life; but he answered, ‘I will not, I cannot.’ I once asked Razàka, our native pastor at Fihàonana, and Ràmitràha’s successor, in conducting the midnight prayer-meetings at Fihàonana, if he thought Ràmitràha’s mother was a really good woman. He said she was one of the best Christian women he had ever known. ‘For,’ said he, ‘her life was a testimony to her faith. She used to visit the sick, read the Scriptures to them, pray with them, teach the children, and do everything you could think of a good woman doing. In fact she was instant, in season and out of season, in every good work.’ ‘Well, but,’ I said, ‘if she was really the good Christian woman you say she was, how do you explain her asking her son to promise to pray to the idols sometimes in order to save his life?’ He replied: ‘I cannot explain it, sir; but she must have half lost her senses through grief at the prospect of death to her first-born and much loved son; for I am quite sure that she was a truly good woman.’

Ràmitràha’s younger brother, Andrìampàrany, also visited him while in prison, and I asked him whether his brother seemed daunted at the prospect of death. ‘Not at all,’ he replied, ‘he seemed rather to rejoice.’ I had in my possession Ràmitràha’s New Testament and some of the books of the Bible which had belonged to him; they were given to me by his widow, who was a member of my congregation at Fihàonana. To my intense regret they were lost by a friend in Scotland to whom I sent them. Her husband’s death was a life-long sorrow to her till, in 1876, pneumonia brought her release, the deaconesses and other Christian women soothing her last moments with hymns of faith and hope. Their only son, Rakòtovào, has been for many years pastor of one of the churches in the Fihàonana district. There was also a daughter, Rànàhy, who lived with a relation in the village of Fihàonana—a grey-haired, fine-featured, good old lady of one of the chief families of the district, ‘an old disciple,’ known as Rafàravàvifòtsivòlo—grey-haired Miss Last-born.

It was about this time at one of the midnight prayer-meetings, held in the house of Rafàravàvy Maria in the capital, that Razàka and his wife were baptized and received into the church. He had been a pupil of the missionaries, had been expelled from his father’s house for his adherence to the New Religion, and had his first wife (the wife his father and friends had provided for him) taken from him by her parents. They refused to allow their daughter to live with an outcast! He wrote his story for me, on condition that I should not publish it during his lifetime. After his death, in 1884, it appeared in the Malagasy Good Words, and was afterwards issued in the form of a booklet, many copies of which have been given as school prizes. He told me that during the persecutions many of the Christians fled from the capital to Vònizòngo, and there remained in hiding for many a day.

After the martyrdom of Ràmitràha, Razàka secured the Bible which belonged to the small Christian community at Fihàonana, and with it carried on the midnight prayer-meetings, which Ràmitràha had begun. He once said to me: ‘You know, sir, that often at those midnight prayer-meetings, when we read the Bible, we came upon parts we did not understand. We had no missionary to explain them.’ ‘What then did you do?’ I asked. ‘We read and re-read them,’ he replied, ‘prayed and re-prayed over them until we thought we understood them.’ They used often, he said, to long for the rainy season, for a thunderstorm with its torrential rains, that they might be free to refresh their hearts with a hymn. In the central provinces of Madagascar some five months of the year pass without rain; but when the rains do come they descend in a deluge. Terrific thunderstorms usher in these tropical rains. In an hour and a half I have known three inches of rain to fall. In the lap of such storms the persecuted found freedom to worship God. The Malagasy are fond of singing, and sing well. Their language lends itself to musical expression. It has been called the ‘Italian of the Southern Hemisphere.’ It is soft, liquid, flexible, and rich in vowels.

‘In 1853 the Rev. William Ellis, sent out by the London Missionary Society, and Mr. James Cameron from the Cape visited the port of Tàmatàve, but they were not allowed to journey to the capital. In June, 1854, Mr. Ellis again went to Tàmatàve, and during a stay there of some weeks saw many Christian refugees; and was enabled to do something to sustain the courage and the hope of the persecuted natives.

In July, 1856, Mr. Ellis visited the island again, was allowed to visit the capital, which he reached on August 25, and where he stayed until September 26. He saw much to confirm the constancy of the disciples, tidings of which had reached England from time to time. While aware of the dangers to which the Christian natives were exposed, he and other friends of Madagascar were hopeful that matters would now improve, especially as the prince royal was known to be favourably disposed towards Christianity. But these hopes were speedily overclouded. In July, 1857, a renewed and even fiercer outbreak of persecution occurred[18].’

It has been asserted that the Christians who were stoned to death at Fìadànana and Fàravòhitra in July, 1857, were political rather than religious martyrs; and one ill-informed clergyman has actually gone the length of saying that no Malagasy has ever been martyred for belief in Christianity! He affirms that any who suffered death did so because of their connexion with the Lambert and Laborde conspiracy—with which Ida Pfeifer, the famous German lady traveller, who was in Antanànarìvo at the time, became involved—to dethrone the queen and place her son, the crown prince, afterwards Radàma II, on the throne. There is, however, not only not a vestige of proof for such an assertion, but the following extract from the Native Narrative of the Persecutions gives verbatim the queen’s order for their execution and the reason for it. The royal order for their execution runs: ‘They persist in the practice of the worship which I have prohibited, says the sovereign, and they are grieved, it is said, on account of those I have previously put to death, and state that I have executed as many as 1,300 in one day. These are crimes worthy of death, and I inform you, O ye under heaven.’

Not a single word about any conspiracy—which would certainly have been referred to had there been any foundation for the above-mentioned reckless assertions. The names of all the fourteen who suffered are given in the Narrative, which says: ‘On July 18, 1857, at Fìadànana (an open space a little to the south-west of the capital, and which can be easily seen from the palace-yard), they were stoned to death in the presence of an immense gathering of the people. They were first bound to stakes, and at the order “Fling!” a shower of stones darkening the sky almost like a cloud of locusts was hurled at them. All the fourteen were not stoned together at Fìadànana, only eleven, as Ràmahàzo, who was arrested after the others, was stoned by himself the following day; Ramànandàfy was pounded to death in his own house, and Rabètsàrasàotra, who was caught later, was stoned to death at Fàravòhitra on July 29, 1857. At the execution of all the Christian martyrs, but especially at the execution of those stoned to death at Fìadànana, everything was done calculated to rouse and excite the populace to the utmost. Bands with bugles sounding, big drums and kettledrums being beaten, and cymbals clashing, marched through the streets and lanes of the capital. The royal chanters and the conch-shell blowers paraded through the city, chanting the praises of the sovereign and sounding their shells. The cannon roared from dawn to midday. An immense pile of Bibles, books of the Bible, Gospels, hymn-books, catechisms, and other Christian books was raised on a spot to the north of the palace and burned. The excitement and yelling of the people, who had been wrought up into a state of frenzy, was frightful to see and hear: the city was a perfect pandemonium[19].’

The cruel instincts of a people like the Malagasy, just emerging from heathenism, can only be gradually eradicated by time. It will take a long course of Christian training, through many generations—as in our own and other lands—to effect a permanent change. It augurs well, however, for the future of Madagascar that so much has already been accomplished in that direction in so short a time. Volumes might be written on the progress of Christianity during the periods of persecution, as it would take volumes to recount the sufferings of that evil time. Enough has been said, however, to indicate the baptism of blood and suffering which ushered in the new life of that benighted people. It is said that the darkest hour is that which precedes the dawn—and the dawn for Madagascar was at hand.

On Friday, August 16, 1861, Queen Rànavàlona died at the age of eighty-one, after a reign of thirty-three years; or—as the Malagasy rather poetically put it—‘she turned her back on the affairs of this life,’ since they dared not say that a sovereign died. She ended her long life of cruelty and shameless immorality in the darkness of heathenism, without a ray of hope for the future to lighten up the gloom of the dark valley, while terrors of some kind—probably the superstitious horrors of a guilty conscience—seem to have tormented her during her last hours; as if the shadows from the swift-coming eternity were appalling her, chilling her heart, and filling her soul with horrors.

Her reign was a veritable reign of terror, and lives as such in the memory of her people. They tell that when any of her fighting bulls died she had their carcases rolled in silk plaids and buried; but when her subjects complained of the severity of the forced labour which she demanded, she used to say: ‘Make three of them!’ that is, behead them and cut them through the middle! It is believed that during her reign some ten thousand perished from the poison ordeal alone. Her Christian subjects were treated as common criminals, and chained together by the neck by hundreds, a gang of them sometimes extending to nearly half a mile. If one of the gang died, the dead body had to be dragged along by the living, until the guard struck off the head and released them from the ‘body of death.’

In the interior of the island, in the Bètsilèo country and wherever the Hovas had jurisdiction, criminals were kept in chains. Some of the condemned Christians were so treated. Prisoners had to earn their own living, and were only confined to prison during the night. On the days, however, on which the sovereign appeared they were not allowed to leave the prison; or if allowed out on those days, at noon, before the sovereign was to appear, they had all to return to prison, were counted and locked up. Why? Because if one of those criminals managed to secrete himself, and then emerged from his hiding-place to gaze at and salute the sovereign as she passed, wearing her diadem and beautiful in the glory of her royal apparel, he was a free man whatever his crime had been. His chains were at once struck off, for he had looked on the sovereign in her beauty and saluted her—the salutation being: ‘Is it well with you, my sovereign?’ and no one could do that and still remain a prisoner. ‘Thine eyes shall see the king in his beauty’ (Isa. xxxiii. 17); ‘Whosoever shall call on the name of Jehovah shall be delivered’ (Joel ii. 32).

Razàka informed me that when tidings reached the province of Vònizòngo of the queen’s illness, he started for the capital with a beating heart. He felt that he was now on the threshold of liberty. When he arrived at the capital he sought out his old friend Andrìambèlo, the pastor of Ampàribè, Antanànarìvo, and asked: ‘How is the queen?’ He was told that she was very ill. Next day he called again and asked, and was told that she was at the point of death.

On the third day, while these old friends sat and discussed the possibilities of the future, they saw first one man run past the house, and then others. They went to ascertain the cause of excitement. They were then told that ‘the queen had turned her back on the affairs of this life.’ ‘When we were told this,’ he said, ‘we could not speak. We took hold of each other’s hands, looked each other in the face, and wept. This was all we could do. We wept for joy; we were free.’ I said: ‘Did you weep for joy, Razàka, that the queen was dead?’ He answered: ‘We did, sir, for we knew that we were free from our sufferings and our sorrows, and free to worship God when and where we pleased; and we wept for joy.’

On the death of the queen, Razàka and other worthy men who had been sold into slavery, put in chains, or banished to distant provinces for their faith, were set free, and they set to work to build up what had been broken down, and spread anew the Word of God. Much was done in that direction in the province of Vònizòngo, mainly by the labours of those men.

The dire persecution, which had lasted from 1835, came to an end with the death of Queen Rànavàlona I, in August, 1861. Her son became king, as Radàma II, and the cruel laws against Christianity were repealed.

‘Rànavàlona I was the wife given to Radàma I by his father, Àndrìanàmpòinimèrina, the founder of the dynasty, with the express injunction that a child of his, of whom she should be the mother, should be his successor. Rànavàlona was neither the wife of his choice nor the mother of his children.’ Her only child, Radàma II, had been born a year after her husband’s death. It has been said that, cruel and heartless as Rànavàlona was, she was not incapable of acts of personal kindness. She had climbed to the throne over the murdered bodies of the lawful heirs to it, and ‘her position as a despotic queen called into exercise her fiercest passions and her indomitable will—both being fostered and intensified by the superstitions of her country and her time. She was declared to be the divinity incarnate, invested with absolute rule and resistless power. In the overruling providence of God, this woman became the means of testing, purifying, and strengthening in her country that divinely implanted faith which the chief energies of her life were employed to destroy.’