Shortly after this he was drafted into the army, in which he had to serve down to 1876 without a penny of pay, and having many a pound to pay to his officers; for under the Hova _régime_, the officers lived mainly by blackmailing their men and by loot; hence tribal wars were very popular, as they were simply plundering expeditions. His father died the year he was drafted into the army, and in those days a funeral was a very expensive affair indeed to relatives, so that it was a time of trouble to him; but, notwithstanding his troubles, he was the means of leading many to the Lord, of comforting and supporting others, and of building others up in the faith. The idol-keepers were continually at war with him, as he refused to honour the gods of the ancestors, and even denounced them, and as the land was full of idols and idol-keepers then, he was heartily hated by all who had vested interests in that class of property. He was regarded as ‘a setter forth of strange doctrines,’ a man who was bent upon ruining his country by uprooting the religion of his forefathers. Such was the hatred of the heathen party to him, that the wonder is they did not make an attempt on his life. His wife was taken from him by her heathen parents, and he was watched and followed when he left his hut at night to visit some of the converts, or to go to one of their midnight gatherings for prayer, as it was thought that he went out during the night to rifle the tombs--a heinous crime in Madagascar, and held worthy of death. Treasures were often buried with the dead, and parties caught in the act in pursuit of them were summarily dealt with. Many a night, as he learned afterwards, did his enemies lie behind the tombs, with their spears ready to transfix him if he had approached them, even if only to take a seat, as it would have been taken for granted that he did so for no good purpose. One night, while he and a few others were having a midnight gathering for prayer, and he was offering prayer, a stone was flung into the hut, which struck his eldest son on the head, and laid him bleeding and senseless on the floor. When the father ceased praying, and a light was procured, he found his son lying seemingly dead, but he had only fainted. In the year 1849 the persecution became much more severe, and on March 28 of that year, Razàka, along with many others, was sold into slavery, because he was a noted leader among the ‘prayers.’ As he was purchased by some of his relatives, his case was not so hard as that of many others. Some who had made profession of Christianity were found faithless when the hour of trial came; but he and many others stood firm to their faith. The converts in Vònizòngo and the neighbourhood, who had proved faithful, still met in his hut in Fìhàonana for their midnight prayer-meetings, and for the reading of the Scriptures.