When the language was mastered, and reduced to writing, the first task the missionaries undertook was the translation of the Scriptures. Here lies the radical distinction between Protestant and Roman Catholic missionaries. The former always give the people as soon as possible the Word of God in their own tongue; the latter never give it. There have been Roman Catholic missionaries in various parts of Madagascar since 1641; but they have never yet translated the Scriptures into Malagasy, and are not likely to do so. When the missionaries had translated and printed the Gospel of St. Matthew they sent up a copy to the king. It was read to him by one of his young noblemen whom the missionaries had taught to read. The king did not seem particularly interested in the Gospel until the account of the Crucifixion was reached, when he asked: ‘Crucifixion, what is that?’ It was explained to him. ‘Ah!’ he said, ‘that’s a capital mode of punishment; I will have all my criminals crucified for the future. Call the head-carpenter.’ He was called, and ordered to prepare a number of crosses. I was very intimate for fourteen years with a Malagasy native pastor who had seen some of those crosses. During the dark and terrible times of persecution, tyranny, and cruelty under the rule of Rànavàlona I, some criminals, it is said, were really crucified. When there was an addition to his family, Radàma I used to proclaim an _Andro-tsì-màty_--a day of general and unrestrained licentiousness. The whole country, and the capital in particular, was turned into a pandemonium of bestiality. Similar licence attended the great gatherings for the ceremony of circumcision. Mr. Hastie, the British Agent, compelled Radàma to put a stop to these orgies. He threatened, if another were proclaimed, to publish the proclamation in every gazette in Europe, and thus expose and hold him and his court and people up to the execration of Christendom. This had the intended effect. The king was always anxious to stand well with the nations of Europe; but when his wife came to the throne, she, being herself a shameless and outrageously licentious woman, restored these hideous customs. Some years ago a missionary on the Congo stated in _Regions Beyond_ that moral purity was quite unknown where he was labouring. A girl morally pure over ten years of age could not be found. It was the same in Madagascar, and is the same there to-day among the tribes that have not yet been reached by Christianity. Heathenism presents an indescribable state of things, and yet it never was so bad in Madagascar as in some other lands. A missionary from Old Calabar declared some years ago that in the sphere where he laboured he did not know a woman either in the Church or out of it who, in the days of heathenism, had not murdered from two to ten of her own children. The dark places of the earth are not only the habitations of cruelty, but of every unutterable abomination.