The education of the young naturally formed an important element in the work of the mission from its commencement, and under the patronage of Radàma I the work flourished greatly. Radàma never became a Christian. ‘My Bible,’ he would say, ‘is within my own bosom.’ But he was a shrewd and clever man, and his ideas had been much broadened through intercourse with foreigners, and especially through his constant intercourse with Mr. Hastie, the British Agent, and he clearly saw that the education of the children would be an immense gain to his country. Thus he did all in his power to further this branch of missionary work, and both he and Mr. Hastie showed great interest in the prosperity of the schools. In the year 1826 about thirty schools had been founded, and there were nearly 2,000 scholars; in 1828 the schools were forty-seven, but the number of scholars had fallen to 1,400. At one time the missionaries reported 4,000 as the number of scholars enrolled, though there were never so many as this actually receiving instruction. During the fifteen years the mission was allowed to exist (1820–1835) it was estimated that from 10,000 to 15,000 children passed through the schools; so that when the missionaries were compelled to leave the island there were thousands who had learned to read, and who had by the education they had received been raised far above the mass of their heathen fellow countrymen. The direct spiritual results of the missionaries’ work were of slow growth, and it was not till eleven years after Mr. Jones’s arrival in the capital that the first baptisms took place. This was on the Sabbath, May 29, 1831, in Mr. Griffiths’s chapel at Ambòdin-Andohàlo, when twenty of the first converts were baptized in the presence of a large congregation. On the next Sabbath, June 5, eight more were baptized by Mr. David Johns in the newly erected chapel at Ambàtonakànga. From this time the growth was comparatively rapid and encouraging, and by the time of the outbreak of persecution two hundred had been received into church membership.