Thirty years in Madagascar

by Thomas T. Matthews

I went down to the school next morning, to enlist the services of the children. I said to them: ‘I want you to help me to floor the church.’ They looked at me and then at each other, not seeming to understand what I meant, and, perhaps, suspecting that I had gone slightly wrong in my head. I said: ‘We white men have a proverb which says: ‘Foolish people and children should never see half-finished work.’ You just do as I tell you, and you will find that it will be all right in the end. Every morning as you come to school, bring a stone in each hand, about the size of your fist, and fling them down at the church door.’ They did so for several months, and I went down one morning, and we flung all they had brought into one corner of the church; but they only filled a space of about twelve feet square and a foot deep. ‘Well,’ I said, ‘children, it will evidently take us a very long time to floor the church at this rate; suppose we set to work and finish it off at once.’ ‘Just as you please, sir,’ they said. ‘Well,’ I said, ‘you shall have a holiday to-day; but come at the usual hour to-morrow morning.’ They were all there at 8 o’clock next morning, and so was I, and after the hymn, reading of the Scriptures, and prayer, we started off to gather stones till 12 o’clock, and we kept at that, all over the moor from 8.30 till 12 o’clock for five days a week for over a fortnight. We filled the floor of the church, a space of 60 feet by 40. I got the women folks to bring me sand from the banks of the stream, and spread a few inches of sand over the stones. What was then wanted was a roller, but there was no such thing to be had. ‘Take what you have and you’ll never want’ came in useful again. I had no roller, but I had 260 children with a couple of feet each, and I set them scampering and dancing all over that floor, until they had tramped it as hard as any roller could have made it. I then had three inches of mud spread above the sand, and the whole floor washed with odorous waters, which, repeated at intervals, kept the floor unbroken, and gave freedom from the insect pest of Malagasy churches, and thus we got a clean, dry, comfortable floor, which had not cost money, and all felt that they had done their share in the producing of it—a most important item.

The walls of our new church had been nicely coloured and ornamented by means of stencil plates; but as we had to conduct a large day-school in it, the walls got soiled and suffered in other ways. We found, to our surprise, that there were a great number of budding artists among our boys, and they would persist in exercising their gifts on the walls, until our people became quite angry over their doings. They said: ‘We cannot allow the walls of God’s house to be desecrated in that way. If those boys won’t desist, we shall turn them out of the church to learn outside.’ ‘Yes,’ I said, ‘It is very thoughtless of them; but you “can’t put old heads on young shoulders,” and boys will be boys, the fact is, I was once a boy myself. There is nothing for it but to build a large school-house, and get them out of the church.’ ‘Oh,’ they said, ‘but that is building again, and we are tired of building.’ ‘Well,’ I said, ‘If you are tired of it, what do you think I am? What’s to be gained by falling out with the indications of Providence? Sit down and let us discuss the situation’; that is what the Malagasy enjoy.

We sat down and discussed the matter for two hours, until every one had his say—some several times over. After we had gone over all the pros and cons, I said: ‘Now to bring things to a point, you will make the bricks for the new school, the children will carry them to the site, and I will pay for the laying of them. The women will gather the thatch for the roof, you will thatch it, and I will be responsible for all the wood-work—the roof, the doors, the windows, and the glazing. ‘That’s it, sir,’ they said, and we all set to work with a will, and our fine large school was soon an accomplished fact.

The people fulfilled their part of the agreement with great heartiness. In fact, after I declined to leave them and go to Mojangà, to open a new mission on the north-west coast, they were most diligent; I had only to mention what I wanted done, and it was done at once. The men made 200,000 bricks, the school children carried them to the site, the women gathered 100 bundles of thatch, and the men thatched the building. The glass for the school, and also for three churches in the district, was a gift from my old friend Colonel R. Pilkington, M.P., of St. Helen’s. It was a fine school, a fit addition to our model church. It was of immense service for years. It was requisitioned during the reign of martial law, after the arrival of the French, and since 1897 there has been a large government High School for boys conducted in it. Compensation was paid for the other buildings requisitioned; but nothing has ever been obtained for it, for the remains of the manse, or for the yard for which we had a forty years’ lease.

While buildings were being erected, and the schools were being carried on, the churches of the district kept gradually increasing in number, and were being consolidated, as the people grew in knowledge, in the fear of God and in Christian liberality. The darkness and ignorance of their former benighted state gradually gave way before the rays of the rising sun of righteousness; and the light of the knowledge of the glory of God, as it shone ever clearer in the face of Jesus Christ. Hence there was a growing anxiety for instruction—especially religious instruction—as they came to understand more clearly what church membership and a profession of Christianity meant.

Of course such things could only be said of the members of the more advanced and intelligent churches; for, as might have been expected, from their very recent state, there was a want of reality among many. Much of their religion consisted of attendance at church on the Sabbath. They showed but slender signs of Christian life, if ever they had tasted that the Lord is gracious. We were convinced of the truth that ‘The soul of all reformation is the reformation of the soul.’ Until that takes place, there is nothing that can be depended upon. We have, however, thankfully to acknowledge that hundreds made really most praiseworthy efforts towards higher and better things. Remembering how handicapped many of them were by their past habits and heathen surroundings, their progress was most creditable.

SUBURBAN CHURCH, OLD STYLE.

SUBURBAN CHURCH, NEW STYLE.

IMERIMANDROSO CHURCH.