“Easy to see that he is a banished one returned unexpectedly,” observed Mark, as the young woman, after the first wild embrace, seized the old man’s arm and hurried him towards the meeting-house, while tears of joy streamed from her eyes.
And this was not the only case they witnessed, for constantly, during the days that followed the accession of Radama the Second, exiles were hastening home,—men and women in rags, worn and wasted with want and suffering—reappearing in the city to the astonishment and joy of friends who had supposed them long since dead. Yes, the long-desired jubilee had come at last, and not only was there great rejoicing over those lost and found ones, but also over many who, through the power of sympathy, were brought at that time to the Saviour and repentance.
Referring to that period, one of those returned exiles writes thus:—
“On Thursday, 29th August 1861, we that were in concealment appeared. Then all the people were astonished when they saw us, that we were alive and not yet buried or eaten by the dogs. And there were a great many people desiring to see us, for they considered us as dead, and this is what astonished them. On the 9th of September, those that were in fetters came to Antananarivo, but they could not walk on account of the weight of the heavy fetters and their weak and feeble bodies.”
It was a strange gathering, and there were many surprises in the church that day, and some strange music too, besides that of psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, for, during the service, several exiles who had just arrived, hearing what was going on, had hastened to the scene of reunion without waiting to have their fetters filed off, and entered the house in clanking chains.
The preacher’s duty was one of unusual difficulty, for, besides these peculiar interruptions and the exclamations of surprised friends, the sympathy of his own heart nearly choked his utterance more than once. But Totosy was equal to the occasion. His heart was on fire, his lips were eloquent, and the occasion was one of a thousand, never to be forgotten. Despite difficulties, he held his audience spell-bound while he discoursed of the “wonderful words of God” and the shower of blessing which had begun to fall.
Suddenly, during a momentary pause in the discourse, the clanking of a very heavy chain was heard, and a man was seen to make his way through the crowd. Like Saul, head and shoulders above his fellows, gaunt, worn, and ragged, he had been standing near the door, not listening, apparently, to the preacher, but intent on scanning the faces of the congregation. Discovering at length what he looked for, he forced his way to the side of Reni-mamba, sank at her feet, and with a profound sigh—almost a groan—laid his head upon her lap!
Mamba, grown to a giant, seemed to have come back to her. But it was not her son. It was Andrianivo, her long-lost husband! For one moment poor Reni seemed terrified and bewildered, then she suddenly grasped the man’s prematurely grey head in both hands and covered the face with passionate kisses, uttering every now and then a shriek by way of relieving her feelings.
Great though the preacher’s power was in overcoming the difficulties of his position, Reni-Mamba’s meek spirit, when thus roused, was too much for him. He was obliged to stop. At the same moment the gaunt giant arose, gathered up Reni in his great arms as if she had been a mere baby, and, without a word, stalked out of the meeting to the music of his clanking chains. A Malagasy cheer burst from the sympathetic people.
“Praise the Lord! Let us sing!” shouted the wise Totosy, and in a few seconds the congregation was letting off its surplus steam in tremendous and jubilant song, to the ineffable joy of Ebony, who must have burst out in some other way had not this safety-valve been provided.