160 
VISITS TO MADAGASCAR 
CHAP. VI. 
channels through which accusations against them had come 
to the authorities during the long period of their proscrip¬ 
tion. Sometimes it was by the subordinates of those in 
authority who were ordered to track their steps and to listen 
or spy around their dwellings; sometimes by those to whom, 
impelled by the yearnings of love to their souls, they had 
declared the foundation of their own hopes; sometimes by 
their nearest relatives. The father had sometimes accused 
his child. Indictments against some had been preferred by 
those to whom the same mother had given birth, and with 
whom they would otherwise have been laid, after death, side 
by side in the same tomb. Even the slaves who for years 
had served in their families, and had thus become acquainted 
with all their habits, had been admitted as accusers and 
witnesses against them. Yet none of these had laid to their 
charge anything but their religion. 
On the other hand, much had been by the same means 
adduced in their favour. They did not deny that they had 
prayed, but freely and frankly, and no one impeached their 
testimony, declared that they had prayed for their sovereign 
and her officers, for the good of the kingdom, and the pros¬ 
perity and happiness of the people. No contrary evidence 
was ever brought forward, and even their j udges, after listen¬ 
ing to the items of accusation against them, have been known 
to declare that there was no harm in that; but the reading 
of the book and the praying had been prohibited, and slavery, 
torture, or death was the penalty of disregarding such pro¬ 
hibition. The book had taught them to fear God and honour 
the king, and prayer had been the means of enabling them to 
do both, to meet the claims of the present life, and yet to 
cherish the hope of the life which is to come. As one of 
their own number simply yet forcibly expressed it, when, 
having been condemned to die on account of his faith, a 
message was brought in the name of the sovereign to the 
