After a time I found out one reason for this reluctance on the part of parents who were only adherents to send their children to school. It was this. The year before our arrival in Vònizòngo, a Jesuit priest had passed through the province, and had tried to found some Roman Catholic stations, and to gather the children into schools. In his anxiety to get the children gathered in, he is reported to have said: ‘We want not your children’s bodies, but only their hearts.’ Some old heathen, proud no doubt of his exceptional wisdom, explained to the people what that meant. He said: ‘Those white men are very clever and very cunning. They want to get the children gathered into schools, under the pretence of teaching them to be wise and good; but once they get them they will kill them, take out their hearts, dry them in the sun, and then reduce them to powder and make it into their medicine. For that is what their powerful medicine is made of, powdered children’s hearts!’ The ignorant people believed that story, hence their reluctance to allow their children to attend school. Later they became more enlightened, the more so after Queen Rànavàlona II issued her famous proclamation with regard to education. Once settled at Fìhàonana, I began visiting the outlying village congregations, eighty-four in number, of which I was supposed to be in charge. Although I was not able to do much in the way of preaching at each place, still I could give out a hymn to be sung, read certain chapters, and give a short address. The people everywhere were delighted to see me, always giving me a hearty welcome, and these visits did us all good. They listened ‘with eyes and ears’ to all I had to tell them about the Gospel, the love of God, and salvation; for it was a wonderful story to them, and came to them with a freshness and an interest which those who have heard it from their infancy can hardly understand. That _Àndrìamànitra Andrìanànahàry_, God the Creator, should think of them, and love them, and send His only-begotten Son to seek and to save them, poor, degraded, besotted, sorcery-ridden Malagasy, amazed them, and they were never weary listening to the good news. Even to those of us who could tell the Gospel story only with stammering lips and another tongue for some time, they listened with a patience and a politeness that surprised and encouraged us.