CHRISTIAN RITES REGARDED AS CHARMS. 339 



apostolic and early Church history by missionary experience 

 in modern days. 



There are, however, several other points in which missionary 

 experiences in Madagascar (in common, no doubt, with many 

 other heathen countries) illustrate and explain Church history 

 in early times ; and prominent among these is the Rise of 

 Superstitious Practices and Sacramentalism. 



The Malagasy mind, like that of most other semi-civilised 

 peoples, is a fertile soil for the rapid growth of all sorts of 

 superstitious notions. Malagasy idolatry is mainly a belief in 

 ody or charms— charms to prevent evil of various kinds, or 

 to obtain certain benefits. So that unless great care is taken 

 on the part of the teachers and guides of such people when 

 they have only lately come out of heathenism, their supersti- 

 tious ideas are almost inevitably transferred to the two great 

 symbolic ordinances of the Christian religion; and Baptism 

 and the Lord's Supper are immediately regarded as the 

 Christian ody or charms. So much is this the case that I 

 have often seriously debated whether it would not be best to 

 defer for a considerable time the introduction of both sacra- 

 ments until the people's minds have been further enlightened, 

 and some groundwork of knowledge laid down. Otherwise 

 they are almost certain to regard these two symbolic ob- 

 servances as means of obtaining some vague benefit, quite 

 irrespective of the moral condition of those receiving them. 



It would be ludicrous, were it not also saddening, to see 

 how baptism is regarded amongst the semi-heathen Malagasy. 

 In some cases people have come up from the country districts 

 saying they wished " to pray to the baptism ; " in others they 

 ask that they may " drink baptism," probably confounding the 

 two sacraments together. Soon after the burning of the idols 

 in the central provinces in 1 869, when the Queen and Govern- 

 ment gave in their adhesion to Christianity, there was a great 

 rush to worship ; and when they heard that their sovereign 

 and the Prime Minister had been baptized, immediately eager 

 crowds came forward to receive the ordinance while yet 

 utterly ignorant of its meaning. And in very many places, 

 especially in those away from the control of a missionary or 

 an enlightened native pastor, great numbers of people, some- 



