HISTORY OF MADAGASCAR. 
445 
subsequently employed as assistants to the Missionaries in 
teaching, and other departments of their work. 
The remaining two were a man and his wife, whose intel¬ 
ligence, piety, kind and generous efforts for the spiritual 
welfare of their countrymen, had long afforded the Mission¬ 
aries cause for devout thanksgiving on their behalf. The 
man was past the meridian of life; he had spent his days in 
the service of the idols, and the practice of delusive jugglery 
as a diviner, a supposed revealer of destiny, and a guide in 
all important affairs. He possessed great influence among 
the people, and had derived no inconsiderable emolument 
from the practice of his art. Early in the year 1830, a 
young man, earnestly seeking the way of salvation, who was 
on terms of friendship with the diviner, spoke to him on the 
sinfulness and danger of continuing the practice of divi¬ 
nation, and neglecting the words of true inspiration, which 
the Missionaries had brought to their country. He received 
with favourable attention the remarks of his young friend, 
and after being repeatedly persuaded, went himself to hear 
the preaching of the Missionaries. The new, and, to him, 
strange doctrines which they taught, filled his mind with 
reverence and wonder; and the Lord was pleased, there is 
reason to conclude, to impress the truth with divine power 
on his conscience and his heart. Soon after this, he pub¬ 
licly destroyed all his charms, and other emblems of super¬ 
stition and instruments of divination, with the exception of 
one or two, which, as pledges of his sincerity, he delivered to 
the Missionaries, who sent them to England. In order to 
be able to read for himself the New Testament, he took 
his place among the scholars at the school, commenced 
with the alphabet, and continued his endeavours, without 
relaxation, until he was able to read, with correctness and 
facility, that word which he esteemed u more precious than 
