Of course things have altered, and have been very much improved in some respects during the past quarter of a century, even to the country missionary. In our time he had not only to be physician and dentist to his own family, but also to some 10,000 people. He was not only preacher, teacher, and guide to the churches and people, but amateur architect, builder, bookseller, and general adviser to his district on almost all subjects; in fact, director of practically everything, and for some years actually judge of the divorce court! Indeed there fell to him too much work of all kinds, much of which he ought not to have had to do; but then there was no one else to do it, and he had to take it up and do his best. Work under these circumstances in country districts, in these early days at least, was the most laborious, worrying, and wearying I have ever known. It was never finished, but its very difficulties and drawbacks, in my opinion, made it all the more elevated, enviable, and honourable. I have mentioned the divorce court, or rather, the cases of divorce which came before our monthly church meetings, and on which we had to pronounce judgement. It was a most disagreeable duty which we were thus compelled to take up. There was one satisfaction about it: our judgements were seldom disputed or departed from. They were almost always loyally carried out. During the earlier years of our first term of service we seldom had three church meetings in succession without having a case of divorce to settle. But such has been the progress even in that direction, that I had only one bad case to deal with during the past fifteen years. One day one of the best and most godly of our native pastors came to me in great sorrow. His daughter had been married--against her father’s will, I think--for some years to a petty chief of some means, but no character. He had tired of her, or had seen some one else that he fancied, and so, to get rid of her, he brought a charge of infidelity against her. She denied the charge most vehemently, but as I was then in charge of West Vònizòngo, in addition to my own district, her father came and asked me if I would, as a personal favour to him, go into the case privately first, and see where the truth lay. I agreed to do so, and on the day appointed he, his daughter, her husband, their relations, and a few friends came to the manse, and we went into the case. I had little difficulty in seeing almost from the first that it was a trumped-up charge. Few Malagasy can stand cross-examination; they soon contradict themselves. After I had quite satisfied myself that the charge was false, I took the husband and wife into my study to have a private expostulation with him. ‘Now,’ I said, ‘I am quite convinced that you are bringing a false charge against your wife.’ ‘Indeed he is,’ she said; ‘I would sooner die than disgrace my father and friends by such conduct.’