chap. xv. THE CHRISTIANITY OF THE PRESENT. 
425 
may, for purposes to us inscrutable, be allowed by the all¬ 
wise and all-merciful Gfod to be again enforced. 
It may be sufficient therefore to say that, so far as my 
opportunities of observing it have extended, the religion of 
the present is the same as that of the past, and appears to be 
sincere and satisfactory, a religion derived simply and solely 
from the teachings of Grod’s holy word, unfolded, applied, and 
sustained by the operations of the Holy Spirit. Under this 
Divine influence it appears to have attained a measure of 
development that is truly marvellous. That it is to be 
ascribed to this source alone would appear from the fact, 
that a large number of those who have suffered became 
Christians after the last missionaries had left the country. I 
repeatedly passed the places where the martyrs suffered, 
spots that will be consecrated by the most hallowed and 
affectionate associations in the minds of the Malagasy through¬ 
out all future ages. I had met and conversed repeatedly 
with their widowed survivors and their orphan children, as 
well as with those who witnessed the steadfastness of their 
faith and the quiet triumph of their death; and from their 
testimony had derived more than confirmation of all that we 
had previously heard. 
The authorities in Madagascar, who sought by torture and 
death to extinguish the Christian faith, by whatever motives 
they may have been actuated, only imitated the Diocletians 
of the early ages, and the Alvas, the Medicis, and the Marys 
of more recent times, and with corresponding results in the 
invincible constancy of those who fell and the subsequent 
fruits of the imperishable seed which was scattered in the 
martyrs’ blood. Deeply affecting were the details which I 
received of the sorrows and the consolations of the sufferers; 
of their conduct in the hour of peril, as well as on the day of 
impeachment and of trial; with the noble testimony which 
they bore, when brought before judges and rulers, for His 
