During the carrying out of the contracts the missionaries were hard at work on their translation of the Scriptures. They knew very well that what had taken place was but a calm before the storm, which they saw approaching, and that when it burst they would all be expelled from the island. They were most anxious to be able to leave the completed translation of the Word of God with the people. In March, 1830, a first edition of 3,000 copies of the New Testament was completed. Messrs. Cameron and Chick used to go down for a few hours in the morning to the Government Works at Ampàribè, to see to the soap-making and other work going on there; and after that they and the other artisan members of the mission went up in turns to help at the printing-office. The ministerial brethren would be there with their translation, and, under the guidance of the superintendent of the press, one member of the mission put up the type, while another brought the paper, another inked the type, and the rest took their turn at working the press. When, as was latterly the case, no labourers could be got to do it, even the ladies of the mission sometimes helped at this heavy task.

Thus these devoted men and women often worked to the small hours of the morning printing off the Scriptures. Before their task was finally accomplished the New Testament, and also single books of both the Old and New Testaments, were bound up and set in circulation. Single sheets even of the Gospels, tracts, leaves of the Pilgrim’s Progress, and of the small hymn-book found their way all over the island; and some of these, as late as 1871, I found in the possession of the people in Vònizòngo.

CHAPTER II
‘THE KILLING TIMES’

‘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.

THE CAVE IN WHICH THE BIBLE WAS HID FOR TWENTY YEARS.