HISTORY OF MADAGASCAR. 
499 
dently giving them up with extreme reluctance and sorrow. 
They were required to state explicitly the extent to which 
they had followed the instructions of the Missionaries, and 
were fined or degraded in rank accordingly. 
The case of the young men, several hundreds in number, 
who had been under the care of Mr. Cameron for the pur¬ 
pose of learning useful arts, will illustrate the general opera¬ 
tion of this iniquitous edict. These young men went in a 
body, the morning after the last meeting, and confessed that 
they had attended public worship, and learned to read the 
Scriptures. They were requested to write their names, 
in different classes, according to what they had done; the 
first class was to include those who had been baptized, the 
second those who had attended prayer-meetings, or abstained 
from labour from religious motives on the Sabbath. The 
first class comprised sixteen. Four of these added, that, 
though they had been baptized, they had not followed the 
instructions of the Missionaries, but had committed sins 
tolerated by the usages of the country, and they pleaded 
this in extenuation of their being liable to displeasure for 
having been baptized ; the other twelve added, that they 
had not only been baptized, but had ever since most scru¬ 
pulously endeavoured to act as became Christians. They 
were all deeply affected, and it is said that some of them 
had resolved, if required to engage in any idolatrous wor¬ 
ship, rather to suffer death than comply. 
After these young men and others had spent several days 
in classifying and giving their names, those who held any 
honours or rank in the service of the sovereign were publicly 
degraded, and reduced nearly two-thirds in their rank and 
income. Among the people, those who did not hold offices 
under government were fined according to the extent to 
which they had attended to the duties of Christianity. It 
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