Of Razáka, the pastor of Fiháonana, now growing grey with years, Mr. Matthews spoke to us thus: “He is one of the most remarkable men I ever met. To this man we owe not only the number, but the satisfactory state of the churches in a large part of Vonizongo. He was sent to the coast by Radáma II., while prince, before the death of his mother, in order to see what the French missionaries were doing on the west coast. He was captured by the Sakalavas, was sold to the French, and was taken to Bourbon. There they tried hard to make a priest of him, but could not; he knew his Bible too well. When they found that they could make nothing of him, and that he was likely to turn some of their people from them, by teaching the Gospel, they sent him back to Madagascar. He returned, after some time, to his own village. Since the death of the old Queen, in 1861, he has been not only the pastor of the mother church at Fiháonana, but really the head of the whole district, and the man to whom all the churches look as to their father and their guide. Although only a clansman, and neither a chief nor a freeman, such is the respect felt for the man, that he has more influence in the district than twenty chiefs.” It was a great pleasure to Mr. Pillans and myself to see this good man: to talk with him of the hard days of trial; and to hear from his own lips the story of the sufferings endured. He told us of the meetings which the fugitive Christians held for worship and mutual help. They used to come long distances to such meetings; tracts were lent from one to the other, as a tract could often be carried, and hidden away under their garments, when a Bible or Testament could not. Parts of the New Testament were also lent about, even to single leaves; and leaves of the hymn book and Pilgrim’s Progress. He said that they often used to long for a rainy night, in order that they might be able to sing. He showed us the underground passage beneath the floor of his house, by which, when the soldiers came to search, the inmates and visitors could escape. He accompanied us to a pile of immense rocks, and showed us the little cave beneath the big boulder, three feet high, into which they used to creep for their meetings: and the hollow where their Bible was hid away. He brought vividly before us the sufferings and the persecution which his heroic brethren and himself had endured: and in him we realized something of the power of that faith by which all had been sustained. Few finer bodies of Christians have been won to Christ by modern missions than these faithful men and women in Vonizongo. [Illustration: MARTYRS’ CAVE. ]