348 CHURCH GOVERN xM EN T. 



a great influence and authority over the less important 

 churches, becoming the seats of patriarchates, so does the 

 capital of Madagascar exercise a very powerful influence over 

 the more ignorant country congregations. On the whole^ this 

 influence is most salutary and helpful to these iiagani, but 

 it might easily and almost insensibly develop into an arbi- 

 trary authority over the weaker brethren connected with each 

 city conjrregation's zitna-piangbnana or " offspring churches." 



And then again, the way in which districts, containing 

 congregations numbering from thirty to eighty, are bound 

 together by rules as to discipline and instruction, illustrates 

 the beginning of synods and presbyteries among the early 

 churches. In the capital there are nine strong congregations 

 who act as mother churches to as many districts radiating 

 from the city. These having mostly an English missionary 

 presiding over them form a kind of diocese, of which he is a 

 virtual bishop or overseer. And when, as will doubtless 

 eventually be the case, foreign superintendence shall have 

 been withdrawn, it can hardly be doubted that the native 

 mpitandrina or overseer of these larger churches will continue 

 to exercise a very sensible influence over the congregations 

 in his district, and will retain very much of the position of 

 a bishop, at least primus inter pares, if not much more of a 

 veritable epislwpos. 



But we may hope and trust that by giving the pastors and 

 teachers of the present Malagasy congregations a thorough 

 acquaintance with the history of the early Church, by pointing 

 out the evils which the infusion of a worldly spirit effected 

 in that Church, and, above all, by continuing to teach them 

 that the Bible is the only authoritative rule as to faith and 

 discipline also, — we may hope that Christianity in Mada- 

 gascar will be preserved from those evils and corruptions 

 which ecclesiasticism worked in post-apostolic and medieval 

 times. The Malagasy Christian people will doubtless even- 

 tually develop a Church system and discipline of their own, 

 probably combining the features of more than one, or two, 

 ecclesiastical organisations; but we may hope that their 

 Independency will never degenerate into isolation and weak- 

 ness, that their Episcopacy may never become a prelacy, a 



