Shortly after our return from Ambátovóry, in the beginning of January, it was arranged that a GENERAL CONFERENCE of the English missionaries should be held in Antanánarivo, to consider the present position and needs of their missionary work in the island. The place chosen for the meeting was the Memorial Church at Faravohitra: and it was impossible not to associate the present prosperity of the mission and its consequent demands, with the uncompromising fidelity of the martyrs from which they have sprung. Mr. Pillans and I took the deepest interest in all the details of that great day of suffering, which the Faravohitra Church specially commemorates. We heard the story from men who had witnessed the events: we trode every step of the ground which the feet of the sufferers have made evermore sacred: and from the platform on which the church stands, every spot connected with it from its beginning to its close was before our eyes. It was patiently rehearsed for us: the crowded assembly on the Análakély plain beneath: the booming of the cannon; the agitation of the people: the sentence pronounced by the judges on the noble four, of death by fire. There (we were told) they mounted the red clay road, singing: “There is a happy land, far, far away:” here they crossed the bare granite rock: there they rounded the old tombs: here they reached the weird, waste ground, whereon the brushwood was already piled. Around them were the silent crowd, that wondered and trembled but could not understand them. We stood on the spot where they died; where they died joyous, triumphant, singing and apparently without pain. In the first meeting of the Conference we sang their dying hymn: a hymn which is now used as their dismission-hymn by more than a thousand Christian congregations in Madagascar every Sabbath-day. It is always sung to the tune _Mariners_. “Grant us, Saviour, royal blessings, Now that to our homes we go; Fill our hearts and lives with gladness, Make us love divine to know: Gladden us with joys of heaven, In this desert world below. “Thanks we give Thee, Holy Spirit, Who hast taught us words divine: May we learn the holy lesson, Let Thy face upon us shine: Dwell in us, enlighten, lead us, Nothing would we be but Thine. “And when earth no longer keeps us, When shall end life’s little day, Bear us to the upper heaven, Father, in Thy house to stay: Joy unspeakable our portion, There, for ever and for aye.”