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. [Illustration: AMBATONAKANGA FROM FARAVOHITRA. ANTANANARIVO ON A FÊTE DAY.] While on furlough I first met with an agent, and then with the secretary of the Children’s Scripture Union, and undertook to begin a branch in Madagascar, and for many years we have had there 12,000 members. I found the village schools in a poor condition; for my predecessor had had very little private help for them, almost nothing except the grants made by the Imèrina district committee for elementary education, and so had to be content with a very inferior class of teachers, as the parents could not be persuaded to pay for properly trained teachers. After the first examination of the village schools when we took over the district, the returns were so poor that I determined to make an effort to get the parents to give more in order to secure trained teachers. I knew I would have to catch them by guile, and be able to show them in a striking and impressive way how they were defrauding their children, in not doing their duty by providing properly trained teachers for them. With this end in view I gathered seventeen village schools at one centre in the largest church in the district to give out the prizes. On the prize-giving day I took three porters with six baskets of books of various kinds with me for prizes, about the quantity I would have required for the same number of schools in Vònizòngo. The church, although an immense place, was crowded in every corner with scholars, parents, teachers, pastors, and deacons, while dozens, not to say hundreds, were at the doors and windows. When I had distributed the prizes to all who had earned them, I found, as I expected I should, that I had only disposed of the contents of two baskets, leaving four untouched.