CHRISTIAN INFLUENCE IN WAR. 357 



Malagasy, and more than once has he aided in rescuing 

 persons who were on the point of being killed by the mob 

 for trifling thefts. In former reigns many offences, political 

 and otherwise, involved not only death to the offender, but 

 also reduced his wife and family to slavery ; but these cruel 

 and unjust laws have now been abolished. It is not, of 

 course, to be inferred that there is not yet immense room for 

 improvement in all these matters ; but still, the loving and 

 merciful and kindly spirit of the gospel is exerting a great 

 influence, and is making itself felt more and more powerfully 

 every year. Hardly any capital punishments have been in- 

 flicted during the reign of the present sovereign, who is 

 universally beloved for her kindness of heart and humane 

 disposition. 



But, perhaps, in nothing has the beneficent influence of 

 Christianity been so evident as in the amelioration of war. 

 In the early part of the present century, the Hovas, while 

 making themselves masters of the interior and eastern portion 

 of the island, carried on a series of cruel wars, in which great 

 sufi'eruig was inflicted on the outlying tribes. Fire and 

 sword were carried through the country ; the men were 

 mercilessly shot down or speared, and the women and children 

 were brought up as slaves to Imerina, so that a deep feeling 

 of hatred to the Hovas was left in the minds of the conquered 

 people, a feeling still strong after the lapse of forty or fifty 

 years. But in the last expedition against the S^kaliivas (in 

 1873), one of the divisions of the army returned without 

 firing a shot or taking a single life ; the other had to attack 

 the rebel stronghold, and in the conflict some few lives were 

 lost ; but, as far as is known, no other bloodshed took place. 

 So that the Hova army returned to Imerina, leaving a very 

 different impression upon the minds of people to that made 

 by former war expeditions. The people who at first fled 

 from the Hova camp soon perceived that they had nothing 

 to fear, and they found that its neighbourhood was the best 

 possible market for the sale of their produce. More than 

 that, on the Lord's Day divine service was held morning and 

 evening in the camp, so that many of the ignorant heathen 

 people heard for the first time the tidings of salvation. An 



