With regard to the state of the churches, as I found them in 1871, all I can say is, that if not quite all we could have wished them to be, they were a great deal better than we had any right under the circumstances to expect. While others had to tell of multitudes rushing to baptism and many to the Lord’s Table, in an altogether unfit state, I had nothing of the kind to complain of. On the whole things were done decently and in order in Vònizòngo. This was in a great measure, if not entirely, due to the fact that there was such a man as Razàka superintending the district and directing the other pastors. I attribute, under God, the very satisfactory state of the churches found in Vònizòngo, when compared with most other districts, to the wise conduct of Razàka, and Ràinisòa, the chief pastor of the Fìerènana district, and to the kind of men whom, as a rule, they led the churches to choose for pastors and preachers. The pastors as a body, although of necessity they did not possess much knowledge—in fact there were some few of them who could not even read—possessed a good deal of common sense. These men had done, and were then doing, noble work.

Although I have heard much about it, I never saw an instance of people being thrashed to church. I did see, in 1883, in another district, people brought to church by Malagasy policemen, by order of the ‘Palace Church Evangelist,’ who did just as he liked, ruled the district with a rod of iron, and ruined it—so that to-day it is only the shadow of what it ought to have been. We had no such doings in Vònizòngo.

I heard of one little Andrìandàhy—village squire or squireen—who had been accused of thrashing his people to church. I sent for him and all connected with the case, and went into the whole affair, and found, after hours of investigation, that it amounted to nothing more than this: he met a slave of his going to another church, seized him by the arm, and perhaps twisted him round, and told him he ought to attend the same church as himself. The slave informed the pastors of his church what had happened; and the two pastors, not being on the best of terms with his master, tried to make a case against him. I believe my summoning all parties to meet me did good; for the report of what I had done soon spread, and also of what I had said on the subject of masters compelling their people to attend church. This was the only case I ever heard of in Vònizòngo, and I am quite certain that little, if anything, of that kind was done in our district.

One reason of this was that the majority of the people themselves were so anxious to attend the House of God (many of them no doubt from mistaken notions) that nothing of the kind was needed. But even if many of them had been made to attend church by the head-man of the village, instead of being left in the village to steal the goods of those who did go, or to commit worse crimes, I confess that I cannot see it to be so terrible a charge after all. At the same time, I should most certainly tell the head-men to take no such course. It was a phase of ‘compulsory education,’ as the church was then the only means of education, and the Malagasy were only overgrown children. In some districts the ‘Palace Church Evangelists’ fined those who did not attend church; but even that was only history repeating itself. For in England, in the days of ‘Good Queen Bess,’ a man was fined a shilling if he did not attend the parish church once a month.

The state of things I found in Vònizòngo astonished me not a little. What the people chiefly needed was to be taught and guided; and they were most anxious to follow that which was right. Of course many things were done among them which we did not like. But as knowledge was imparted most of the objectionable things disappeared like morning mists before the rising sun. But the piety of the people proved to be more substantial than the ‘morning cloud and the early dew that passeth away.’ Central Madagascar had been roused by the power of God’s grace from the sleep of ages. Some regarded our work with suspicion, and, because all our converts did not at once equal the Christians of lands that have had the Gospel for centuries, they were almost prepared to ascribe it to mere political excitement or surface-work.

More seems to be expected of converts from heathenism than from home converts, and even than from ordinary Christians, when there certainly ought to be much less. No time is allowed for growth in grace, which there certainly ought to be, as it is generally found, I think, that there is as much human nature in most of them as there is in other people—if not more. Heathen habits of a lifetime and heathen superstitions are deeply rooted in their natures, far too deeply to be very easily eradicated. ‘It is very strange indeed that it should not be taken for granted that many native Christians, even when truly converted, are, like so many Christians at home, cold-hearted, inconsistent and vulnerable to the shafts of temptation.’

We cannot expect the subjects of ‘the obscene empires of Mammon and Belial’ to take any interest in Christian missions, or do anything except scorn missionaries, their work, and their converts.

Unless people have a heart interest in religious work, they are likely to make the most of the shortcomings of native Christians—as a sort of self-justification—and to disparage the work of the modern missionary accordingly. They would not dare to disparage the work of the Apostle Paul, because history has vindicated it; but they choose to forget what ‘unsatisfactory’ people many of Paul’s converts in Corinth and Galatia were.

CHAPTER VI
EARLY EXPERIENCES

‘Truth springeth out of the earth; and righteousness hath looked down from heaven.’—Psalm lxxxv. 11.