We had a fine station school at Fìhàonana. The girls, one hundred and fifteen in number, were taught in the small school-house in the manse yard, to be near my wife; and the boys, one hundred and twenty-five in number--instead of twenty-five as formerly--in the church in the village. Here, as elsewhere, the great change in the number of the schools and the scholars was mainly brought about (apart from the royal proclamation with regard to education) by interesting the local authorities in the education of the children, by making them members of the village school-boards, and leading them to induce the parents to send their children to school. I give here an illustration of the good done by Bible teaching, especially among the young. A little Malagasy girl was brought to Antanànarìvo from the north-west province of Madagascar, and placed in the Friends’ High School for Girls, at that time under the charge of Miss Helen Gilpin. Miss Gilpin made the imparting of Bible knowledge a very special feature of her teaching. The girl was quick at learning, as most Malagasy children are, and was very diligent; she made extraordinary progress in all subjects, but in no subject more than in Scripture knowledge. The stories of the Bible threw a spell over her; she was fascinated with them as she had never been before by any stories, so she was never weary of listening to the Bible being read to her, until she could read it for herself. The story of the Flood; of Noah and his family in the ark; of Joseph and his brethren; of the wonders at the Red Sea; of the wanderings of the children of Israel in the wilderness; of the death of Moses on the mount; of the three Hebrew youths in the fiery furnace; of Daniel in the lions’ den--were there ever such stories as these? Those of the New Testament were no less captivating. There was the visit of the Wise Men from the East, led by the star, seeking for the infant Saviour; the flight into Egypt; the murder of the children of Bethlehem; the calling of the Apostles; the conversions on the Day of Pentecost; the conversion of St. Paul, and his travels, &c. Then the parables and the miracles. But most wonderful and heart-stirring of all, there was the death of the Saviour on the Cross! These filled the mind and memory of that little girl by day and her dreams by night, and were as real as anything that happened to her in her own life.