We found even in our last year, before taking our second furlough, that the mother-church and congregation of A-kànga was far from being a pure one. Our first troubles that year began with a controversy with regard to Christians--especially pastors, preachers, and Sabbath-school teachers--countenancing theatres, operas, and balls. The poison of so-called civilization, frivolity, and indecorum had been introduced, and was affecting certain sections of the community. Those of us who had the courage of our convictions with regard to such primrose paths and gilded roads to ruin felt it to be our duty to set our faces like flint against them, and denounce them both in public and in private. As a result we had the honour of being for a time the best-abused men in the capital. We were held up to ridicule as bigots, and charged in the public press with being enemies to the public weal. We were hindering Madagascar in her march towards civilization. The line of demarcation, however, between the precious and the vile, between those who feared the Lord and those who feared Him not, became more distinct at this time than it had been since the ‘killing times.’ The sifting process had, in a measure, begun; not in the way we would have chosen, but perhaps in the way that most clearly showed who really had in them the root of the matter, and preferred the house of God to any of the synagogues of Satan. The war between France and Madagascar ended with the conclusion of a treaty of peace in 1886; but the war between real religion and French civilization was greatly intensified. By the treaty concluded, while the Hovas had the control of all domestic affairs, France obtained a privileged position with regard to foreign affairs. A French resident was established at the capital with a guard of honour of fifty French soldiers. It need scarcely be said that, in such circumstances, there was friction from the first between the French and the Hova governments--perhaps it was intended there should be--and things went from bad to worse, until what had been wanted all along was obtained, a pretext for sending an expedition to take over the island. And yet it will never be worth a tithe of what it has cost, and what it is likely to cost, in men and money. The French government was grossly deceived about the policy and work of the London Missionary Society, and the real state of affairs--perhaps they were not anxious to know the truth!--by the Jesuits, the colonial party, impecunious Frenchmen, French-Creoles, and others who had their own ends to serve in urging the government of the day to take action.