Hugh Miller says: ‘There are two periods that are favourable to observation, an early and a late one. A fresh eye detects external traits and peculiarities among a people, seen for the first time, which disappear as they become familiar; but it is not until after repeated opportunities of study and a prolonged acquaintance that the internal characteristics of a people begin to be rightly understood.’ This is especially true with regard to Madagascar and the Malagasy; for while there was, and is, much about them and the history of Christianity in the island, as also about their present and future, to deeply interest and indeed fascinate any one who has a spark of missionary enthusiasm in him, still it is only to those who have had repeated opportunities of studying the people, and a prolonged acquaintance with them, and the work in all its phases, that the internal characteristics of the people, and real conditions of the work, can be rightly known. As it was in our Lord’s time, and is at home now, the rich do not crowd into the Kingdom, and it is left chiefly to the common people to hear the Gospel gladly, and press into it; so, with few exceptions, it has been in Madagascar. The higher the social scale the more profuse was the profession, the less the real practice. From many points of view both the capital and the country districts might have been compared to a stagnant pond, on which the green slime of ages had gathered thickly. When the living waters of the Gospel flowed into the pond a commotion was caused, bad odours were generated, and much was brought to the surface that had long been hidden by the slime or embedded in the mud. The only hope of clearing away the filth was to keep the living waters streaming into the pool. Purification in such a case could not be the work of a day; the filth was the accumulation of ages. Twenty years could not do much.