( 337 ) 



CHAPTER XVII. 



MALAGASY CHUECH LIFE, AS ILLUSTRATIVE OF THE HISTOEY OF 

 THE APOSTOLIC AND EARLY CHURCHES. 



AS REGARDS MORALS — RISE OF SUPERSTITIOUS PRACTICES AXD SACRAMENTA- 

 LISM — CHURCH DIVISIONS — CUSTOMS CONNECTED "WITH "WORSHIP — CHURCH 

 OFFICES AND GOVERNMENT — RELATIONS BETWEEN THE CHURCH AND THE 

 STATE. 



Morals. — In perusing portions of tlie New Testament, a 

 tliougiitful reader must frequently be struck by the some- 

 what strange prohibitions which are found in the apostolic 

 epistles, and addressed to the Churches of that early age ; 

 precepts which refer, not to matters of faith and doctrine, but 

 to what we are accustomed to call mere worldly morality. 

 We find, for instance, the admonitions, " Let him that stole 

 steal no more," " Lie not one to another," " Let no evil 

 communication proceed out of your mouth," together with 

 many others of similar import ; and it strikes us as somewhat 

 extraordinary that the apostles should think it necessary to 

 address such commands to those whom, in the very same 

 epistles, they call " sons of God," and " called to be saints." 

 There appears at first sight to be a strange inconsistency in 

 such differing language being addressed to the same people. 

 But we in this Christian England, where the gospel has been 

 a power for so many centuries, raising the tone of morals and 

 purifying the whole social system, forget that what the world 

 now claims as its morality — mere honesty, and truthfulness, 

 and purity — is really the offspring of Christian teaching, and 

 that these things were not recognised as duties by the mass 

 of society in the old Pagan world. 



Those, however, who labour in heathen countries, or 

 amongst peoples only lately emerged from heathenism, see at 

 once the need of such admonitions as were addressed by the 



Y 



