The Lutheran Pioneer St. Louis — 1929, Page 120

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120 THE LUTHERAN PIONEER.

In practise the religion of the Malagasy was
fetishism, for they held that all pain, sickness, and
death are caused by evil spirits, which can operate
only through human agency. Hence the sick were
said to be bewitched; the witch was consequently
sought and then killed. Of course, in almost every
case the “witch” would be somebody against whom
the sick person or the witch-finder had a grudge.
The person accused of being a witch was put through
an ordeal by giving him a decoction of tangena,
a poisonous fruit. If he lived after taking the
poisonous drink, he was deemed innocent. Since

‘a. small dose of stuff only acted as an emetic, the -

guilt of the accused person was actually decided by
the person who administered the drug.

Worship of the dead was practised. Nativities
and fortunate, days were predicted by the stars
and moon. Divination was carried on by means
of straws, beads, beans, sticks, rice, pebbles, and
the like.

Polygamy and slavery were prevalent. However,
outside of the king no man could have more than
twelve wives. Infanticide was practised in a limited
measure.

First Missionary Attempts.

The London Missionary Society sent its first
missionaries to Madagascar early in the past cen-
tury. Work at first was very hard. After a year’s
work, there were only three pupils in the first
mission-school. Though intelligent, the people were
morally very degraded. Superstition held the people
in darkness and for a long time would not permit
the light of Christianity to penetrate. The fact that
there were two factions at the royal court also
hindered the open profession of Christianity. How-
ever, while both factions were unfavorable to the
spread of the Gospel, the one faction, headed by the
king, favored the cause of education, and this gave
some encouragement to the missionaries.

The first missionaries also found that the in-
dustrial arts had an appeal with the Malagasy, who
soon saw the great superiority of the white man in

_ mechanical matters. Where the door had been tightly

“closed to all direct evangelizing, the missionaries
found a means of approach through education and
_ the industrial arts. A school for adults was opened

in the palace yard under the patronage of the king,
and here army officers and their wives learned the
- udiments of Western education. Other schools
were soon founded, and in 1826 a printing-press

in a number of natives expressing a desire to become
Christians. The king gave his consent to their
baptism; but the king died at the early age of
twenty-six.

Trouble Comes.

The oldest wife of King Radama, Ranovalona,
succeeded him to the throne after she had murdered
the king’s nephew, who was to have been his suc-
cessor. Other murders of the late king’s relatives
followed in rapid succession. On the day of her
coronation the new queen took several of the national
idols in her hand and said: “I have received you
from my ancestors. I put my trust in you, there-
fore support me.”

Soon reverses came. The thirty-two schools with
their 4,000 pupils were closed. Preaching was
prohibited. Soon after, relations with Great Britain
were severed; it was plain that the storm was not
far off. Though there was a brief calm before the
tempest broke forth and though the queen even
expressed her approbation of the work done by the
missionaries, yet it was only too apparent that the
storm could not be far off.

The Storm Lowering.

When Christianity made rapid forward strides,
the queen forbade the celebrating of the Lord’s
Supper. Then people were forbidden to learn to
read. Next the Christians were practically out-
lawed. While at first it was found a difficult thing
to enforce the cruel enactments made by the tyran-
nical queen, the storm at length could no longer be
held back, and it burst in all its fury upon the heads
of the native Christians when a chief accused the
Christians of preaching treason.

The Storm Bursts.

What the queen had been waiting for was ‘at
hand — an opportunity to stop the onward course
of Christianity with a show of right. The determi-
nation of the queen was soon known in every village
and hamlet throughout the island. A threatening
silence reigned supreme about the royal palace.

Song and dance were stilled. Fear was written on.

thousands of faces. One seemed to ask the other,
“What will the end be?” Little did the people
dream what a fearful orgy of bloodshed was soon to
be enacted in the capital.

An edict was issued requiring every man, woman,
and child living near the capital to assemble there
on March 1, a Sunday. No less than 100,000 per-
sons came together when the firing of a cannon gave

the signal. ‘The queen told the assembled multitude