444 
HISTORY OF MADAGASCAR. 
desirous thus to testify their attachment to the Lord. The 
Missionaries considering them sincere, and in other re¬ 
spects suitable subjects to receive the rite, admitted their 
applications with thankfulness and joy. Endeavours were 
then made to ascertain whether the government would re¬ 
new the permission that had been given by Radama, for 
any of the natives who chose, to observe the religious cus¬ 
toms of the Missionaries; and the queen sent a message, by 
some of the principal officers, which was delivered in the 
chapel on the !22d of May, 1831, to the effect “that her 
majesty does not change the w r ords of the late king; aU 
that wish are at liberty to be baptized, commemorate the 
death of Christ, or marry, according to the manners of 
Europeans. No blame is to be attached to any for doing 
it, or not doing it.” 
Considering the absolute power of the sovereign, the 
increasing military character which the government had 
assumed, and the zealous and persevering efforts of many 
of the highest officers to restore the power of the idols, the 
Missionaries regarded the full toleration of Christianity by 
a government avowedly heathen, and the granting of reli¬ 
gious liberty, thus publicly confirmed, as one of the most 
important benefits secured to the native Christians, and to 
the cause of moral and religious improvement, since the 
death of Radama. 
On the following Sabbath, the 29th of May, 1831, twenty 
of the first converts to Christ in Madagascar were publicly 
baptized by Mr. Griffiths, in the Mission chapel, before a 
numerous, highly interested, and deeply affected audience. 
On the following Sabbath, June 5th, eight individuals were 
baptized by Mr. Johns in the newly-erected chapel at Am- 
batonakanga; six of these were young men, who had long 
been under Christian instruction as scholars, and were 
