162 
VISITS TO MADAGASCAR. 
CHAP. VI. 
fluence than has yet been apparent over the future of that 
people, if not on other nations. 
More than twenty years have passed since the profession 
of the Christian faith was publicly prohibited in Madagascar, 
and during this period every available means have been em¬ 
ployed, often with subtile ingenuity and great severity, to 
enforce the prohibition. Death has not only been indicted, 
but, in the preliminary treatment of the condemned, and in 
the manner and circumstances of their punishment, it has 
been an object to augment the agony of their sufferings, and 
to render the prospect of death most frightfully appalling. 
The Arst Christian martyr in Madagascar suffered in 1837, 
the second in the following year. Three or four years after, 
nine at least w T ere put to death in such a manner, and with 
such accompanying circumstances, as were intended to involve 
the supposed criminals in the deepest ignominy. In the year 
1846 the sufferings of the people appear to have been great; 
but the severest persecution to which they were subjected, 
and in which the greatest number fell, occurred in the year 
1849. At this period a few saved their lives by escaping 
from the island. Some of these visited our country*, and all 
eventually found an asylum in Mauritius. Others, I was in¬ 
formed, who had been either sentenced to die, or who had 
too much reason to fear that if seized their lives would be 
forfeited, escaped, and either remained in concealment or 
became homeless wanderers in the country. 
But besides these, multitudes, probably amounting to 
thousands, and including those of every rank and age, from 
the unconscious infant who, with its parents, had been sold 
into slavery, to the venerable sire whose long life had been 
spent in the service of his country,—or from the noble, whose 
* An interesting and deeply affecting narrative of the early persecutions of 
the Christians in Madagascar, published in London in 1840, by the late 
Messrs. Freeman and Johns, formerly missionaries in the island. 
