At a quarter past nine a blinding sheet of lambent flame enveloped the house. For an instant the whole yard seemed to be flooded with living fire. This was followed by a terrific explosion in one of the lower rooms. There was a lightning-conductor twelve feet high on the centre of the roof; but the lightning, as was afterwards discovered, in striking the rod had melted the silver from it, and glancing from the rod to the gable, had gone down the chimney of the lower room, where it exploded. The ceiling at the south-west corner was torn down, the floor of the bedroom above, right under the baby’s cot—from which she had just been lifted—was blown up. The current then went up the wall of the room to a copper bell-wire. It ran along this wire, along two sides of the roof of the room, the roof of the lobby, two sides of the roof of the children’s bedroom, and then down the wire in the corner of the room, broke the bell, ploughed its way down the wall over the inner door of the kitchen, which it smashed, through the doorway and the kitchen, escaping finally by the outer door, after knocking the cook down on its way, and burning him severely!
My wife, baby, and nurse were in the bedroom, and their escape from death was marvellous. The baby had wakened a few minutes before the explosion, screaming so piercingly that my wife—who had gone to bed—had to rise, lift it from its cot, and try to quieten it. She rang for the nurse to prepare its food. She took a step forward, to take the milk from the girl, and to that step, humanly speaking, she owed her own life and that of the child; for just at that instant the house was struck, the explosion took place, and the spot from which she had just stepped was blown up, the flooring being thrown over her head, a piece of one of the boards falling on the head of the nurse and cutting it open!
Sitting in the room adjoining, I knew the house had been struck, but thought the noise of the explosion was caused by the falling of one of the gables. A deathlike silence followed, and then the screams of my wife betokened her fright, and her agony of fear for the other children. We found them, however, to our unspeakable relief, all safe, and sleeping so soundly that not even the terrific explosion had wakened them. And although the electric current had gone down the copper wire in the corner of their bedroom, within a few inches of our eldest daughter’s head, not a hair of her head had been harmed.
We had a very interesting case, which I shall relate, as showing how the truth was working its way into the hearts of some of our young people. It was that of a young and very poor petty chief. Although a chief, he had not felt that he was degrading himself—as many would have done—by working for me in various ways. At first he learned to make bricks, then he carried wood while the manse was building. I had noticed that he was among the most diligent of all who worked for me. After the building was finished, he was asked to come to school, and, although much older than the majority there, such was the progress made, that he was several times sent out as a teacher. I had often observed him in church paying marked attention to the preaching, and I hoped the truth was finding its way to his heart. He called one day to ask for a copy of the Catechumen’s Catechism, and to tell me that he wished to become a candidate for baptism and church membership. I examined him on three occasions, had several most interesting conversations with him and had every reason to be satisfied, and recommended him for church fellowship.
A few weeks after he called again, and said that since he had joined the church, he had been very much exercised in mind as to what he ought to do to advance its interests. He desired work to be assigned him. He also wished to attend my classes, and to go out as a local preacher on the Sabbath. He became a most regular attendant and went out almost every Sabbath preaching. I afterwards gave him some months of private instruction, and sent him up to the Institution at the capital. After four years’ training he returned to Vònizòngo, took up the work of an evangelist, and has done splendid work for twenty years.
From the returns for the year ending 1878 I find that £89 11s. 9d. was raised in the district for church purposes, and £41 18s. 2d. for the salaries of teachers; in all, £131 9s. 11d., equivalent to £657 9s. 7d. The contributions of the entire district for 1868 had only reached the very modest sum of £2 8s. 6d. When we settled at Fìhàonana in 1871, Razàka handed £1 10s. 0d. to me to keep for the church, that being the sum in hand from the church-door collections, less expenses, for the previous nine years! During our nine years at Fìhàonana, our small station church of some ninety members, a third of whom were slaves, raised upwards of £150, while £700 was raised by the other small churches of the district, equivalent to the people to £750 and £3,500 respectively of our money[30].
The work kept steadily advancing, year after year, and our people made quiet but distinct progress in Christian knowledge and in Christian character. The darkness of their former state gave way before the light of the Gospel, and our hearts were gladdened by seeing results from our former labours. For a time our work suffered interruption from a severe epidemic of malarial fever in the central provinces, which resulted in a large death-rate. We ourselves also suffered severely. In consequence of this epidemic, my medical work was greatly increased, but my ordinary labours among the churches, schools, and Bible-classes were much interfered with, and almost all teaching was suspended for a time.
For about four months every year—from February to June, known as the fever season—malarial fever, diarrhoea, and dysentery were prevalent in Vònizòngo. This being a great rice district, the harvest season and just after it, April and May, were generally the worst for fever, &c.; but the year 1878 was exceptionally severe. Strange to say, however, those portions of the district which formerly had suffered most from this scourge had only a slight visitation, while those which had been comparatively safe hitherto suffered most on this occasion. In our neighbourhood the attack was severe. All over the central provinces about forty per cent. of those who were seized died. About two hundred fatal cases occurred in connexion with our station.
It must be borne in mind, however, that the majority of those who were attacked received no proper medical treatment. Of those who could and would receive medicine, the great majority recovered; in fact, very few cases proved fatal. In the more distant and less enlightened villages hardly a person could be found ready to give up the native nostrums and risk trying proper remedies, hence the excessive mortality. Simple medicines and proper nursing were almost all that were needed; but hundreds of poor ignorant people would not take proper medicines, even when offered to them for nothing.
There was a range of hills, about two miles to the west of our house, on the opposite side of an extensive rice valley. The people in the villages along the foot of that range suffered severely during the epidemic. Razàka and some of the deacons went to visit them when the epidemic was at its worst. They found the poor creatures in a miserable condition, five, six, and even eight lying in a single hut, prostrated with fever, and in several cases with the corpses of children which no one had been able to bury. And yet hardly one in ten could be persuaded at first to give up the native nostrums, and accept the medicines we had sent them. In some cases they even denied they were ill, lest my messengers should give them quinine, while some were so ill that they could hardly articulate.