I heard of one little _Andrìandàhy_--village squire or squireen--who had been accused of thrashing his people to church. I sent for him and all connected with the case, and went into the whole affair, and found, after hours of investigation, that it amounted to nothing more than this: he met a slave of his going to another church, seized him by the arm, and perhaps twisted him round, and told him he ought to attend the same church as himself. The slave informed the pastors of his church what had happened; and the two pastors, not being on the best of terms with his master, tried to make a case against him. I believe my summoning all parties to meet me did good; for the report of what I had done soon spread, and also of what I had said on the subject of masters compelling their people to attend church. This was the only case I ever heard of in Vònizòngo, and I am quite certain that little, if anything, of that kind was done in our district. One reason of this was that the majority of the people themselves were so anxious to attend the House of God (many of them no doubt from mistaken notions) that nothing of the kind was needed. But even if many of them had been made to attend church by the head-man of the village, instead of being left in the village to steal the goods of those who did go, or to commit worse crimes, I confess that I cannot see it to be so terrible a charge after all. At the same time, I should most certainly tell the head-men to take no such course. It was a phase of ‘compulsory education,’ as the church was then the only means of education, and the Malagasy were only overgrown children. In some districts the ‘Palace Church Evangelists’ fined those who did not attend church; but even that was only history repeating itself. For in England, in the days of ‘Good Queen Bess,’ a man was fined a shilling if he did not attend the parish church once a month. The state of things I found in Vònizòngo astonished me not a little. What the people chiefly needed was to be taught and guided; and they were most anxious to follow that which was right. Of course many things were done among them which we did not like. But as knowledge was imparted most of the objectionable things disappeared like morning mists before the rising sun. But the piety of the people proved to be more substantial than the ‘morning cloud and the early dew that passeth away.’ Central Madagascar had been roused by the power of God’s grace from the sleep of ages. Some regarded our work with suspicion, and, because all our converts did not at once equal the Christians of lands that have had the Gospel for centuries, they were almost prepared to ascribe it to mere political excitement or surface-work.