The queen set twenty of our pastors free from government service, and among them Razàka, and sent them home to attend to their pastoral duties, and to do what they could to help forward the good work. They were told they were to attend to the interests of the people, the churches, and the schools of their respective villages; and that that would be taken in lieu of government service.
All the pastors and teachers were ultimately freed from government service, and this was a great boon to the churches and the people. Our Quarterly Meetings went through the list of our pastors, and sent it to the government, so that none might pass themselves off as pastors or teachers to escape the hated fànompòana.
During the conscription, the prime minister, as commander-in-chief, asked one man why he was so anxious to be freed from military service; he replied, because he was a pastor. ‘Were you chosen by the people?’ he was asked. ‘Yes,’ the man answered. ‘Has the missionary of the district confirmed your appointment?’ ‘Yes,’ he replied. ‘Can you read?’ he was asked. ‘Not much,’ the man replied. ‘Can you write?’ ‘No,’ he said. ‘What can you do then to benefit the people?’ ‘Well,’ he replied, ‘I do my best for the good of all and for the children in the school.’ ‘That’s right,’ said the prime minister, ‘go home and continue your good work; you are free.’
CHAPTER IX
DEVELOPMENT AND CONSOLIDATION
‘And they shall not teach every man his fellow-citizen, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord: for all shall know Me, from the least to the greatest of them.’—Hebrews viii. 11.
I got a fellow missionary to visit our station once a month for six months to teach singing. The class, which was conducted on the sol-fa notation, did our people much good. They enjoyed singing and learned the system readily, and our congregational singing vastly improved. I continued the class to the best of my ability, after the Bible-class on the Friday afternoons. It proved a great attraction, as many as from two hundred to two hundred and fifty attending. The Malagasy are fond of singing, and they sing remarkably well, considering the very small amount of training they have had.
Their beautiful language also lends itself readily to music. Malagasy abounds in vowel sounds and in liquid consonants. Its soft and musical flow has earned for it the name of the Italian of the southern hemisphere. It well deserves the name. It was refreshing to see and hear two hundred, from lisping childhood to grey old age, singing with heart and voice: ‘There is a happy land,’ ‘Oh, that will be joyful,’ ‘Rock of Ages,’ ‘Jesus, the Good Shepherd,’ and other well-known hymns.
At one of these singing-classes, at which we had been practising some new hymns, I asked Razàka how he liked the new hymns. ‘I like them all very well,’ but, he added—the tears meantime flowing down his furrowed cheeks—‘I like best, “Rock of Ages, cleft for me.”’ ‘Yes,’ I thought, ‘that’s the truth that touches the hearts of all God’s people of whatever clime or colour. That has the kernel of the Gospel.’
All the things that go in pairs in Madagascar are called mivàdy, i.e. mated, matched, married—literally, husband and wife. Thus a pair of gloves are mivàdy, the same with a pair of socks, or boots, or shoes. The idea is that of completion. The one is regarded as the complement of the other. The same idea was applied by our people to a hymn and its tune. They were mivàdy—united, mated, married. The hymn was regarded as the husband, and the tune as its vàdy, wife. Every hymn must have its own tune, its own vàdy, wife, and our people would not allow of their separation, their ‘divorce,’ as they called it. I did not know of this idea of theirs for years, and cannot say whether the natives in other parts of the island hold the same view of the matter; but our people in Vònizòngo certainly did. I found this out at one of our singing-classes.
There was a new missionary hymn, a free adaptation of ‘From Greenland’s icy mountains,’ which I wanted them to learn to sing, as I wanted it sung at the opening of our new church. ‘Now,’ I said, ‘I want you to learn to sing this hymn, as it is a very good one, and the author is coming to preach at the opening services, and I am sure he will be pleased to hear his hymn well sung.’ On this I started off singing the hymn to the tune ‘Missionary’; but no one joined in. I stopped and asked: ‘Why are you not joining in the singing?’ They answered: ‘That won’t do, sir.’ ‘Why won’t it do?’ I asked. They said: ‘Sir, that can’t be the proper tune for that hymn for that is the vàdy, wife of another hymn.’ They had married that tune to an adaptation of the English hymn, ‘Go when the morning shineth.’ They felt that it would be improper to separate this well mated and harmonious husband and wife! They demanded consistency on my part. ‘You often tell us,’ they said, ‘that divorcing is wrong, and yet here you yourself want to divorce izy mivàdy,’ these united ones. ‘But,’ I said, ‘that’s carrying the idea as to divorce to absurdity. Why, the hymn suffers nothing by the separation, nor does the tune.’ They said: ‘It would not be right, sir, and we don’t like the idea of separating them.’ ‘Why,’ I said, ‘over on the other side of the ocean, we have one tune to serve a dozen of hymns, and one hymn to a dozen different tunes.’ They answered: ‘You white people may do as you please on the other side of the ocean, but we don’t like such doings. We regard it as culpable divorce, and altogether wrong.’ I asked: ‘Do you really mean all this in sober earnest?’ ‘Yes, sir,’ they answered. ‘Well,’ I said, ‘I don’t want to hurt your feelings of propriety, or force you to do what you think wrong; but I am sorry, as I wanted this hymn sung at the opening services.’ ‘So you can, sir,’ they said, ‘if you wish it.’ ‘How can I?’ I asked. They answered: ‘Seek a vàdy for it.’ ‘Where could I get a tune for it?’ I said, ‘I am afraid I don’t know enough about music to be able to set a tune to a hymn, even if I found one.’ They replied: ‘Oh yes, sir, if you set yourself to it, you would manage, somehow,’ and with that we passed on to the singing of another hymn.