The Malagasy are passing through their religious childhood, and have all the virtues and weaknesses of that stage. The Malagasy are a people who are still, as it were, but in the gristle, and not yet hardened into the bone of manhood. As a people they cannot originate anything, but they are great imitators, and they are also much readier to imitate the bad than the good. There is not much that is original in them, as a people, except ‘original sin,’ and of that virus they have a fair share. Overgrown children, they were attracted by what was sensational--especially in preaching--but not nearly so much by the tinsel in religion as might have been expected. This may account for the fact that neither the Roman Catholics nor their Anglican imitators have ever made great progress among them. They have learnt that ‘all is not gold that glitters,’ and are not in such danger as might have been feared of mistaking what Coleridge calls ‘magpiety’ for real piety. With many of them the good fight of faith has been a terrible reality. They had to struggle with strong, fierce, animal natures, like men fighting with wild beasts. The courage and determination with which some faced the fight was simply heroic. They took their corrupt natures by the throat, and strangled them with the strength which God supplied. Others maintained the struggle half-heartedly, and in their own strength, and it failed them. One man was suspended from church fellowship by one of the mother-churches in the capital. After some two years he applied to be readmitted, and as the pastor, deacons, and members were satisfied as to the sincerity of his repentance he was received back. As a thank-offering he gave the amount he calculated he would have given to the church during the time of his suspension, had he been in membership. After the church meeting he went up to the pastor and asked, in seeming astonishment, if that was all. The pastor said it was, and asked what else he expected. The penitent said, ‘Are you not going to beat me?’ ‘Beat you?’ said the pastor. ‘No, certainly not; we would never dream of doing anything of the kind.’ ‘Well, but,’ added the man, ‘I was a very prominent member of the church, and by my fall I greatly disgraced you all, and I feel that I so richly deserve a beating that I would be much happier if I got it.’ ‘It is not the custom of the church to receive penitents back into fellowship by thrashing them,’ answered the pastor. ‘You have been received back into membership, your thank-offering has been accepted, and you must go home feeling thankful and happy.’ ‘Yes,’ said the man, ‘but I would go home much happier, and with a quieter conscience, if I had had a good beating; for I feel I so richly deserve it, that the best thing I could get would be a good thrashing.’ It was all that the pastor could do (and only after a long talk, and the most positive refusal to touch him) to get the man to go home without his coveted beating!