After a time I found out one reason for this reluctance on the part of parents who were only adherents to send their children to school. It was this. The year before our arrival in Vònizòngo, a Jesuit priest had passed through the province, and had tried to found some Roman Catholic stations, and to gather the children into schools. In his anxiety to get the children gathered in, he is reported to have said: ‘We want not your children’s bodies, but only their hearts.’ Some old heathen, proud no doubt of his exceptional wisdom, explained to the people what that meant. He said: ‘Those white men are very clever and very cunning. They want to get the children gathered into schools, under the pretence of teaching them to be wise and good; but once they get them they will kill them, take out their hearts, dry them in the sun, and then reduce them to powder and make it into their medicine. For that is what their powerful medicine is made of, powdered children’s hearts!’ The ignorant people believed that story, hence their reluctance to allow their children to attend school. Later they became more enlightened, the more so after Queen Rànavàlona II issued her famous proclamation with regard to education.
Once settled at Fìhàonana, I began visiting the outlying village congregations, eighty-four in number, of which I was supposed to be in charge. Although I was not able to do much in the way of preaching at each place, still I could give out a hymn to be sung, read certain chapters, and give a short address. The people everywhere were delighted to see me, always giving me a hearty welcome, and these visits did us all good. They listened ‘with eyes and ears’ to all I had to tell them about the Gospel, the love of God, and salvation; for it was a wonderful story to them, and came to them with a freshness and an interest which those who have heard it from their infancy can hardly understand. That Àndrìamànitra Andrìanànahàry, God the Creator, should think of them, and love them, and send His only-begotten Son to seek and to save them, poor, degraded, besotted, sorcery-ridden Malagasy, amazed them, and they were never weary listening to the good news. Even to those of us who could tell the Gospel story only with stammering lips and another tongue for some time, they listened with a patience and a politeness that surprised and encouraged us.
I was not long in finding out how true the statement is that ‘There is a work to be done by missionaries which people in Christian lands hardly dream of. They have to create a moral sense before they can appeal to it—to arouse the conscience before they can look to its admonitions to enforce their teachings. Heathen consciences are seared, and their moral perceptions blunted. The memories scarcely retain anything we teach them; so low have they sunk, that the plainest text in the whole Bible cannot be understood by them. It is hard, until one goes to a heathen country, to realize how much civilization owes to Christianity.’ I found when I came to teach my own children the elements of religious truth, how quickly they apprehended them as compared with the Malagasy children; but they had been born with a measure of a mental and moral nature to which the Malagasy children were utter strangers.
The Malagasy have the capacity of our Covenanting and Puritan forefathers for sermon hearing, and four sermons a Sabbath—two in the morning and two in the afternoon—of an hour each was the common thing, until the practice had to be abandoned for lack of preachers. My wife was often asked in those earlier days if I was quite well, because I had not preached quite so long as usual. Even to-day, the modern sermonette prepared for ‘home consumption’ would meet with but scant courtesy and little mercy at the hands of a Malagasy congregation.
In my visits to the outlying congregations of the district I was at first much struck with the appearance of many village pastors and their wives. They were nicely and neatly dressed. The husbands wore clean white cotton pants, white shirts, and white làmbas (cotton plaids); while the wives had pretty print dresses and white làmbas. After a few visits it occurred to me that there was a striking sameness about the dresses of the pastors’ wives; but the obvious explanation was that they had probably all come from the same piece of print.
It was my custom at the first to visit the village congregations at their own request, or after sending them notice of my intended visit; but after a time I thought I should like to pay surprise visits, in order to see what their usual state was. I was astonished to find a sort of epidemic among the village pastors and their wives. Almost everywhere I went, on asking for the pastor I was told he was not well, and his wife also was ill. The epidemic did not seem to affect any one except the pastors and their wives. I soon found out the cause of all this pretended illness. When they were expecting my visit on the Sabbath, the pastor and his wife sent and hired proper clothing for the occasion; but when I arrived unexpectedly, they had no proper clothing in which to appear before the white man, and hence the feigned sickness. This also explained the sameness in their attire; for the same gown, the same pants, and the same white shirt had done duty all over the district, having been hired for a few pence wherever and whenever wanted.
Previous to our settlement at Fìhàonana, some of the village congregations had been visited by strange preachers from the capital, who professed to be local preachers connected with one of the congregations there. Razàka told me how an impostor of this kind arrived at Fìhàonana one Sabbath morning. He was taken at his word, and invited to preach. He gave out a hymn, prayed, and then announced his text—a verse from the fortieth chapter of Matio (Matthew), pronouncing it Madio (clean). Razàka suggested Matio, but he persisted in saying Madio. Razàka then gently hinted that there were not forty chapters in Matio; but the preacher was quite equal to the occasion, for he replied: ‘I don’t know anything about your village Bibles, I go by the capital Bibles!’
The village churches on the long route from the capital to the port of Mojangà, on the north-west coast, were often victimized by these self-styled preachers. A worthless creature, with that gift of speech which so many of the Malagasy possess, would arrive at a village on a Saturday afternoon, pretending to be a local preacher from the capital, and probably adding that he was an officer of the prime minister’s sons, or some palace official. Of course a deputation from the village church at once waited upon him, and invited him to preach next day. As a guest of the Christian community he received hospitality from Saturday to Monday at least, perhaps for a week, sometimes for a whole month. Some member, possibly a deacon’s wife, or a deaconess, but generally one of the young women of the choir, was appointed to keep house for him, and this often led to grave scandals.
I was informed of this state of affairs by my colporteur, whom I had sent down to visit those remote churches. I immediately reported it to the committee in Antanànarìvo. Printed certificates were prepared, which one of the missionaries in the capital, or I, was empowered to fill up, sign, and give to bona fide local preachers. I dispatched my colporteur again to Mojangà, with instructions to show a copy of the certificate to each church, and inform them that no one who failed to bring one of those documents duly signed was to be allowed to preach; nor was any one to be allowed to join them in the Communion Service, unless he brought a certificate of membership from the church to which he belonged.
While my colporteur was at Mojangà, the late Sir Bartle Frere visited the port. He landed on the Sabbath morning, worshipped, and joined in the Communion Service with the small native church there. The following May, being in London, he attended the annual meeting of the London Missionary Society in Exeter Hall, took a seat on the platform, and in the course of the meeting asked the chairman’s permission to make a few remarks. In a graceful speech he testified to what he himself had seen of the fruits of the society’s work on the north-west coast of Madagascar[29].