Thirty years in Madagascar

by Thomas T. Matthews

Appointed locum tenens to the A-kànga church, I entered like a stepfather into a spoiled and badly brought-up family. While merely locum tenens I could do but little to improve the state of affairs, although we were able to do something.

The state in which we found the A-kànga mother-church arose perhaps somewhat from the fact that there had been for some time a great deal of friction between my predecessor and it, from a cause as creditable to him as it was disgraceful to the church. One morning on his way from his house to the city he came upon a poor slave woman in chains, sitting crying by the roadside (a most unusual sight—I never saw such a one), and as the chains had broken the skin of her neck and ankles they were bleeding, and she was besmeared with blood. He was so touched and exasperated by the sight that he returned home, and at once wrote to the queen telling her of what he had seen. Her Majesty sent and had the woman brought into her presence, and she was so touched, shocked, and angered by the sight of the poor creature, besmeared with her own blood, that she ordered the chains to be taken off at once and put upon her owner!

A most drastic proclamation was drawn up there and then on the subject of the treatment of slaves, and even printed at the government press; but what its tenor was we never knew, as it was suppressed; for after the queen had cooled down the prime minister and cabinet represented to her that to put the woman’s master in chains, and to issue the proclamation, would cause a revolution, and might cost her not only her crown but her life, and theirs also, as the people were not ripe for such drastic measures. On their knees they pleaded with her to revoke the proclamation, which she wisely did.

There was great excitement over the affair, during which my predecessor found out that the heartless owner of the slave was a member of the A-kànga church. He at once brought the matter before a church meeting, representing that a man who would treat any human being, especially a woman, in that manner was unfit to be a member of the church. To his astonishment and disgust the meeting sided with the slave owner almost to a man (as of course all the other slave owners had made a point of being present), and from that time my unfortunate predecessor was opposed and thwarted by the semi-heathen portion on almost every possible occasion.

The missionary then volunteered to take a journey along the east and north-east coast, on behalf of the native missionary association of the ‘Union,’ to visit their stations and five evangelists. This journey, I believe, ultimately cost him his life; for he returned from it so filled with malarial poison that he was very ill for months—in fact, his life hung on a thread for weeks—and, although he recovered then, he was never again the same man, and he died some six years afterwards. His authority having been weakened by the opposition of the slave owners and other worthless members of the church, his long absence owing to his journey and subsequent illness, during which the church had been left very much to itself (which no church could then be without getting into an unsatisfactory state), were both causes of the condition in which we found it. It did not reach a satisfactory state until the old church was broken up and a new one formed.

Once, while on a visit to the capital from Vònizòngo, I had expressed my astonishment that there were no Congregational Sabbath schools. I was at once told that such an idea showed plainly that I was a country brother; for if I knew anything about work in the capital, I should know that Sunday schools could not be held there. I did not accept that statement as correct. A general Sabbath school for the children of the capital had been opened in the Friends’ high school-house about 1877, but what was one in a city of 80,000 inhabitants?

We had reached Antanànarìvo on our return from our first furlough in August, 1882, and on the first Sabbath of October I appealed to the church to help me to begin and carry on a Congregational Sabbath school, and asked for volunteer teachers from among the young men and women. Thirty-six volunteered, some from very mixed motives and mistaken ideas. For a year afterwards some of them asked me when I intended paying them for their teaching. I replied that I would pay them as soon as ever they were out of debt to the Almighty for food and raiment, health, strength, Gospel privileges, redemption, and freedom to worship Him. I heard no more about remuneration for Sabbath-school teaching.

We gathered a Sabbath school of two hundred which, although the numbers were allowed to fall while we were away on our second furlough in 1890–2, has kept up well ever since, and done much good work. The old deacons, however, regarded it as a new-fangled idea of mine and of the young folks, and would have nothing to do with it. They told me that my predecessors had had no such notions, and asked why I could not be content to follow in their footsteps. I pointed out that the time might not have been ripe for Sabbath schools in their days, and asked them what they would think of a mother who threw her children into the street instead of nursing them. But it was of no use; they were so firmly opposed to the introduction of Sabbath schools that they would hear nothing in their favour.

A few weeks after we had begun one of the brethren, passing home from church one Sabbath, saw our church-door open (after canonical hours), and came in to see the cause. He found the Sabbath school at work, and asked what was the meaning of the gathering of children. When I told him he seemed a good deal astonished, and what he saw and heard led him to bring the subject of a Congregational Sabbath school before his mother-church, the result being that they too set one going. The superintendent of the London Missionary Society press, who had charge of an important suburban church, hearing of our venture at A-kànga, began a Sabbath school next, and so one city church after another followed our leading—although some were two years before they did so—until all had Congregational Sabbath schools. The movement spread into the country districts, and for many years now all the most important districts have had Sabbath schools connected with their village churches. Many of them are very weak, some of them not much more than names; but still the movement has received a good start, is recognized as the right thing for every church to have, and as a most decided improvement on the past.