BIBLE REVISION AND ‘AN OLD DISCIPLE’
‘In the latter days it shall come to pass, that the mountain
of the Lord’s house shall be established in the top of the
mountains, and it shall be exalted above the hills; and peoples
shall flow unto it.’--MICAH iv. 1.
I became a member of the Committee for the Revision of the Malagasy
Bible in 1883, and remained a member for four years--till the finish
of the work. This duty proved most interesting and enjoyable. The
revision was not the triumph that the translation made by the first
missionaries had been--partly, I think, because it had been overlauded,
which led the people to expect too much from it; partly because, while
a more correct and literal translation, it was, in consequence, not
so idiomatic, and perhaps because the paragraph form in which it was
printed was not so popular, at least in the schools, as the old form
in verses. It occupies much the same place among the Malagasy that the
Revised English Version does among ourselves, with this difference,
that it is the only version which the Malagasy can now obtain.
The work of the revision led us to think more highly than ever of
the splendid work done by the early missionaries during the thirteen
years they were in the island. Reducing the language to writing,
founding churches and schools, making those noble--one might almost say
marvellously idiomatic--translations of the Bible, the _Pilgrim’s
Progress_, and other books, and so planting Christianity in the
hearts of the people that it could not be uprooted, was a work that has
never been surpassed in any mission field, and seldom, if ever, been
equalled. There were certainly giants in the mission field in those
days; but, as we have lately seen, the race has not quite died out.
We saw in the work of revision some fine examples of ‘the word-moulding
power of Christianity.’ To give a few of them: _Fitòndràntèna_ meant
carriage of the body, or one’s self; hence _tsàra fitòndràntèna_
meant good carriage--as we would say, a lady, or a person of good
carriage--debonair; but it has come to mean good conduct, hence moral
character. _Fièritrèrètana_, which meant the faculty of meditation,
has come to mean conscience. _Fàhadiòvana_, an abstract noun from
root _dìo_, whence adjective _madìo_, clean, pure, hence white, meant
cleanness, purity or whiteness of, say, a garment, or a cotton _làmba_
(plaid); it has come to mean moral purity (a virtue formerly unknown in
Madagascar, as it is in all heathen lands), as _fàhadiòvampanàhy_, the
purity or whiteness of the soul. _Hàmasìnana_ and _fàhamasìnana_, from
root _hàsina_, probably connected with _hàsina_--if not really the same
word--_the sacred tree_, meaning sacredness, has come to mean holiness.
_Fanàtitra_ meant a present, a gift; it now means, and is used almost
exclusively for, a religious offering. Thus: _Fanàtitra nòho ny
òta_, a sin-offering, lit. an offering on account of sin. _Fanàtitra
alàtsa-drà_, a sacrificial offering, lit. an offering in which there is
shedding of blood. _Fandràisana_ meant the time or place of receiving,
now _Ny Fandràisana_ stands for the Communion. _Fàhaverèzana_, abstract
noun, meant disgrace, of an officer or an official, or any one who
lost their position, now stands for the loss of the soul. _Fanàhy_, if
derived from the root _àhy_, which means care or solicitude, anxiety,
would mean the faculty of care, solicitude or anxiety; but if, as seems
more probable, it is derived from the root _nàhy_, which signifies will
or intention, it would mean the faculty of will, or choice; but it has
come to mean (if it did not always mean that, in a vague sort of way
at least) the soul, the spirit. The existence of a soul or spirit, as
distinct from the _tèna_, body, and _nòfo_, flesh, seems always to
have been recognized; for so much was certainly implied in the belief
of the people in ghosts, _matòatòa_, and _àmbiròa_, shades, or second
selves. Radàma I’s father when dying said: ‘It is my body that will be
buried, but my (_fanàhy_) spirit will be with you to whisper to you
words of counsel.’ _Fanàhy vàovào_ is a new spirit, which a Christian
receives at conversion. _Tsàrafanàhy_ is a good spirit, hence _Lehilàhy
tsàrafanàhy_ is a good man, lit. good-souled man. _Ràtsifanàhy_ is a
bad spirit, hence wicked.
[Illustration: THE AUTHOR TRAVELLING IN PALANQUIN.
THE MANSE AT FÌHÀONANA.]
The late J. Andrìanaivoràvèlona--the Spurgeon of Madagascar--was a
member of the Bible Revision Committee for twelve years, and did more
for the idiomatic tone of the new translation than all the others
put together. He was not only the orator of the island, but was also
a genius in his knowledge and use of the language, and a giant in
physical strength. He came into the committee looking very tired and
exhausted one morning. Our chief reviser said to him: ‘You look very
tired and worn-out this morning, Andrianaivo--what’s the matter?
what have you been doing?’ He answered: ‘I am tired; for I have not
recovered from my Sabbath labours yet.’ He was asked what he had done
on the Sabbath, when he replied that he had preached fourteen times!
He had left the capital at five o’clock, had his first service at six,
had food prepared for him at various centres, and continued services
till seven o’clock at night--fourteen in all--little wonder if he was
tired. I have heard all the great British preachers of the past forty
years; and I would as soon have heard Andrianaivo as any of them. I
have seen him keep an immense congregation spellbound for an hour and
twenty minutes. When at his best, the force, fervour and enthusiasm of
the man were magnificent, and carried all before them.
On Thursday, July 30, 1885, Razàka, the pastor of our old station
church at Fìhàonana, was called to his rest and his reward. Few men
were ever more missed or more sincerely mourned than he was. He was the
best and noblest Malagasy Christian pastor I ever knew, and one of the
truest and most sincere men I ever met. ‘He was a faithful man, and
feared God above many.’ He was loved and looked up to by his fellow
countrymen in a way, and to an extent, I have never known in the case
of other Malagasy pastors.
A tall, handsome, noble-looking old man, he appeared like a king among
men, with his ‘silvery locks waving in the breeze,’ in his case a
veritable ‘crown of glory.’ You felt, when you met him, that he was no
ordinary man. ‘Nature has written a letter of credit upon some men’s
faces,’ says Thackeray, ‘which is honoured almost wherever presented.’
It was so with dear old Razàka, for it might almost have been said
that ‘his face was his fortune’; for, although he had no ‘face like a
benediction,’ yet honesty was so stamped upon its every feature that
you had but to see it to feel that its owner was one of God’s noblest
works--an honest man.
One could not help being drawn, as by some magnetic influence, towards
the good old man. I well remember our first meeting, a few weeks after
our arrival at Antanànarìvo. We could not exchange a word, we could
only grasp each other by the hand, and look in each other’s faces; but
I felt, as I looked in that transparently honest face, that here was a
true man; and my heart warmed towards him, as a man who had done, and
said, and suffered much for the cause of Christ in Madagascar; and the
longer I knew him the more I loved and respected him. We drew to each
other from the first. We were fellow labourers in the vineyard of God
for many years, and the fastest friends to the day of his death. He
was ever a tower of strength to me. I hardly know how I could have got
through one-half of the work I was privileged to do in Vònizòngo but
for the help and encouragement I received from Razàka. ‘He was a good
man, and full of the Holy Ghost and of faith.’
Napoleon Bonaparte said: ‘Conquest made me what I am, and conquest must
sustain me.’ It was the grace of God, and the conquest it made of him
heart and soul, that made Razàka what he was, and sustained him to the
end. He had a deep and passionate love for his Bible: I have seldom met
any one who knew it as he did, for he seemed to know it from Genesis
to Revelation, and ‘the word of Christ dwelt richly’ in him, ‘in all
wisdom and spiritual understanding,’ while he strove to live up to his
light and to the testimonies of the Book he so dearly loved.
Once in a Bible-class I said to him: ‘Supposing some one were to say
to you, Razàka, that the Bible was not trustworthy--what answer would
you give him?’ ‘No one would be so foolish as to say anything of the
kind,’ he replied, ‘except some foolish Malagasy, who did not know
what he was speaking about. I should tell him to hold his peace until
he knew what he was talking about.’ ‘But,’ I said, ‘suppose some Vazàha
(European) were to say such a thing to you--how would you answer him?’
It was difficult to get the good old man to imagine any European who
could doubt or deny that the Bible was the Word of God. ‘Well,’ I said,
‘just let us suppose such a case for the sake of argument--I would like
to hear how you would answer him.’
‘Well, sir,’ he said, ‘I know that God made me, and I feel quite
certain that whoever wrote the Bible knew a great deal about me; for
it describes my state and wants as a sinner so exactly, that no one
who did not know me could have pictured them as the Bible does. Now I
know that no Malagasy wrote the Bible, or could write it--you Europeans
brought the book from over the sea; and what European there knows
anything about me? You know more about me than any other European, but
you did not write it; for the Bible was here years before you came.
The way I explain it, sir, is this: God made me, and “holy men of God”
wrote the Scriptures, “as they were moved by the Holy Ghost”--and that
is how I find my low and lost estate and my wants so pictured there.’
‘Yes,’ I said, ‘that is very good; but suppose the European were to
say: “My good old man, that may satisfy you, but that proves nothing,
and certainly does not prove that the Bible is true or the Word of God.
It is only a tissue of cunningly-devised fables, legal fictions, and
falsehoods.” What would you say then, and how would you answer that,
and prove that the Bible was trustworthy and the Word of God?’
‘The Bible a fable, full of fictions or falsehoods, sir,’ he said,
‘that can’t be; for the work it has already done in the land proves
that it must be the truth of God; I don’t know what your European
falsehoods, fables or folk-lore may be like; but the Scriptures are
very different from our Malagasy ones. Our fables and folk-lore are
filthy trash, and our lies as black as they can be made. I am an old
man, but I never in my life knew a lie do any good. As our Malagasy
proverbs say: “A falsehood may be very fat when it is uttered, but it
becomes very lean when confronted.” “A lie is like the early rice--it
serves the occasion, but does not hold out.” ‘No, sir,’ he said, ‘if we
think of the good that the Bible has already done in this country, that
seems to me to prove it to be God’s book; for no book could have done
what it has done in this land unless it were the Word of God. What was
this country before the Bible came? The people are not nearly so wise
and good yet as we hope they may become; but a great change has come
over them, and it is the Bible that has wrought that change. I remember
what the past was, and I know what the present is, and so can compare
them. The book that has brought this great change about cannot be a
mere tissue of fables and folk-lore, fictions and falsehoods--it must
be the Word of the Almighty to have wrought the miracles it has wrought
in the land, and to have done the good that it has done. I could not
believe that any collections of mere fables and folk-lore, or fictions
and falsehoods, could be the cause of all the good that has been done.’
Razàka was quite right: the Bible is its own best witness, and the
miracles it works, both at home and among the heathen, the best proof
of its divine origin.
Razàka was born at Fìhàonana, Vònizòngo, probably about the year 1814,
so that he had reached the ‘three score years and ten’ before he passed
away. He was the only child of his parents, and hence was spoiled by
them, and grew up a very wayward, wilful, wicked lad, the terror of the
village and neighbourhood, and a great authority on heathen charms,
especially love-philtres. His father being one of the head-men of the
district, numbers of the people visited him to consult him with regard
to district affairs; but such was their terror of the son, even as a
lad, that they would not venture to enter the village if they knew he
was in it.
As he grew up to manhood, his delights were cock-fighting,
bull-fighting, and _dìamànga_, a kicking game. Some years after
he was married, as his wife had no family, his father pressed him to
take a second wife; but he declined to do so, not from any high or pure
motives; but simply because he disliked the idea of having two wives.
He came to be on friendly terms with several of the public criers, the
men who used to proclaim in the fairs and district markets the royal
proclamations, laws of the land, and edicts on the affairs of the
kingdom, &c.; and, being a born speaker, he soon gained great power
and made money. He was restless, however, and early got weary of the
life he was living. God was preparing him for better and nobler work,
although he knew it not.
About 1833 some of the early missionaries visited Vònizòngo, and a
school was begun at Fìhàonana. Among the first scholars was a son of
the chief, who was a friend of Razàka’s. One day this lad told him
about the things they learned at school, and, among other things,
told him the story of Adam and Eve. The following day he was told
something that surprised him very much more than that, and arrested
his attention as nothing before had ever done. He was told that God
created the world and all in it, and that, although it is appointed
once for all men to die, _God would raise them to life again at the
last day_. Such truths laid hold of his heart and mind, agitated
him, and set him a-thinking, and ultimately led him to attend the
school himself, in order that he might learn more about the new
_Fìvavàhana_--religion. Being sharp, he very soon learned to read,
and to the end of his long life was a beautiful reader, and a most
fluent and gifted speaker.
When the chief’s widow (who was the first convert to Christianity
in Vònizòngo, and whose eldest son, Ràmitràha, the young chief, was
afterwards burned at Fàravòhitra, Antanànarìvo, for his faith in
Christ) heard that Razàka had entered the school, and had so quickly
learned to read, she said to him: ‘I am so glad to hear that you have
gone to school and learned to read, and that you will now be able to
study the Word of God. Now don’t be wilful and wicked any more--for the
Word of God forbids such things.’ These few words from that good woman
seem to have done more to break Razàka’s proud spirit and humble him
than all that had ever been said to him before. He obtained possession
of a copy of the Psalms in Malagasy, and a translation of a catechism
of the main doctrines of Christianity by the late Dr. Russell of
Dundee, and of the very small hymn-book the converts then had--all of
which he greatly prized. He afterwards obtained possession of several
portions of the Scriptures.
Razàka retained a great affection for the memory of the early
missionaries, especially for that of the Rev. D. Griffiths. I remember
once calling to see him, and finding him sitting on the floor of his
room writing, and by his side was a cut-glass ink-bottle, with a brass
cover which screwed down on to the mouth. I asked him from whence
he had obtained such a nice ink-bottle; and he answered that Mr.
Griffiths had given it to him as a parting present. Wondering how he
regarded such presents, I said to him: ‘You had better let me buy it
from you, as it is just the sort of ink-bottle I want to carry with me
on my journeys, and you can easily get another to serve your purpose
for all the writing you have to do.’ He made me no answer, but went on
to talk about something else. I returned to the subject, but he again
evaded giving me an answer. I then said: ‘You had better let me buy
that ink-bottle, Razàka’; and he answered: ‘Well, sir, if you really
want it I will make you a present of it, but as I received it from Mr.
Griffiths as a keepsake, I will never sell it.’ ‘No, my friend,’ I
said, ‘I do not want your ink-bottle; you keep it, I was only joking. I
am glad to find that you still retain such an affection for your former
missionary friend, that you will not part with his gift for money.’
Yes, Razàka was a born gentleman--one of Nature’s noblemen, who could
never stoop to a mean thing.
Some three years after the time mentioned above, the _praying_
was prohibited, persecution began, and death was made the penalty of
worshipping ‘the white man’s ancestor Jesus Christ’; but Razàka was
left unmolested for some years, and many drew to him for counsel and
prayer. This was especially the case after the martyrdom of his chief,
Ràmitràha, as Razàka got his big Bible and continued his midnight
prayer-meetings.
Shortly after this he was drafted into the army, in which he had to
serve down to 1876 without a penny of pay, and having many a pound to
pay to his officers; for under the Hova _régime_, the officers
lived mainly by blackmailing their men and by loot; hence tribal wars
were very popular, as they were simply plundering expeditions. His
father died the year he was drafted into the army, and in those days a
funeral was a very expensive affair indeed to relatives, so that it was
a time of trouble to him; but, notwithstanding his troubles, he was the
means of leading many to the Lord, of comforting and supporting others,
and of building others up in the faith.
The idol-keepers were continually at war with him, as he refused to
honour the gods of the ancestors, and even denounced them, and as the
land was full of idols and idol-keepers then, he was heartily hated
by all who had vested interests in that class of property. He was
regarded as ‘a setter forth of strange doctrines,’ a man who was bent
upon ruining his country by uprooting the religion of his forefathers.
Such was the hatred of the heathen party to him, that the wonder is
they did not make an attempt on his life. His wife was taken from him
by her heathen parents, and he was watched and followed when he left
his hut at night to visit some of the converts, or to go to one of
their midnight gatherings for prayer, as it was thought that he went
out during the night to rifle the tombs--a heinous crime in Madagascar,
and held worthy of death. Treasures were often buried with the dead,
and parties caught in the act in pursuit of them were summarily dealt
with. Many a night, as he learned afterwards, did his enemies lie
behind the tombs, with their spears ready to transfix him if he had
approached them, even if only to take a seat, as it would have been
taken for granted that he did so for no good purpose. One night, while
he and a few others were having a midnight gathering for prayer, and
he was offering prayer, a stone was flung into the hut, which struck
his eldest son on the head, and laid him bleeding and senseless on the
floor. When the father ceased praying, and a light was procured, he
found his son lying seemingly dead, but he had only fainted.
In the year 1849 the persecution became much more severe, and on
March 28 of that year, Razàka, along with many others, was sold into
slavery, because he was a noted leader among the ‘prayers.’ As he was
purchased by some of his relatives, his case was not so hard as that of
many others. Some who had made profession of Christianity were found
faithless when the hour of trial came; but he and many others stood
firm to their faith. The converts in Vònizòngo and the neighbourhood,
who had proved faithful, still met in his hut in Fìhàonana for their
midnight prayer-meetings, and for the reading of the Scriptures.
Razàka and his wife were among the first of the converts from Vònizòngo
who were baptized after the persecution began. They were baptized at a
midnight prayer-meeting in the house of Rafàravàvy one very dark night,
while the rain descended in torrents, the lightning flashed, and the
thunder roared. Her house was at Imarìvolànitra, near to the spot on
which the London Missionary Society printing-office now stands, and
within gunshot of the palace. It would have been death to the whole
party if they had been discovered In 1850 they were received into
church fellowship, and for the first time partook of the Lord’s Supper;
and from that time Razàka became a more prominent member than ever of
the persecuted band of Christians, with whose lives and fortunes the
future of the Church of Christ in Madagascar was bound up.
Razàka became so noted among the ‘prayers’ in Vònizòngo, that the
queen sent officers to arrest him and bring him to the capital. He had
notice of their coming, and escaped. He got back to Fìhàonana one dark
night and into the cave. He was able to let his wife know that he was
there, and she took him food during the night. He lay hidden in that
cave--the small-pox hospital--for two years, his wife taking his food
to him during the night. He lay near the mouth of the cave during the
day reading and re-reading the Bible--which was hidden there--until he
seemed to have got the whole book by heart. As he was thus out of sight
for two years, it was thought that he had escaped to the Sàkalàvas,
and been murdered by them as a Hova spy; and so search for him was
given up. Afterwards, in order to keep him and a few others of the more
prominent ‘prayers’ in Vònizòngo out of danger, Prince Rakòto Radàma
(afterwards Radàma II) sent Razàka and other five down to Bàly on the
west coast, under the pretence of seeing what the French priests were
doing there; but really to get them out of danger, in case their zeal
for the propagation of the faith might attract the notice of the queen,
and cost them their lives.
They started for Bàly on July 4, 1854, suffered great privations on
the way--were four days and nights without water, four of their number
going mad in consequence--and after all they never reached Bàly; for
they were seized by the Sàkalàvas as Hova spies, tied up, and taken
to the large Sàkalàva town of Namòroka. The old mode of tying up
prisoners, with small cords twisted round their wrists, was a most
painful and cruel method; and the cords were twisted more tightly round
Razàka’s wrists, until they cut into the flesh, as a sort of honour, he
being treated--as he really was--as the leader of the party. Shortly
after being caught they were sold as slaves to some Arabs, who, in
their turn, sold them to a French trader, who carried them to Nòsibè,
where they arrived on September 25, 1854.
At Nòsibè they found a Jesuit priest, who had been in Antanànarìvo,
and to him Razàka wrote, asking him to buy them, which he ultimately
did. He knew they were Protestants, but he probably hoped by freeing
them to make Romanists of them, and to be able to make good use of a
man like Razàka. In this he was disappointed, for Razàka and one of his
companions refused to change their religion. At this the Jesuit was
wrathful. He first tried to win them over, then he tried threatening
them, and at last he sent them as slaves to Réunion. Their case was
very pitiable--strangers in a strange land, free men and yet treated
as slaves. No doubt they would have fared far better if they would
have consented to change their religion and become Roman Catholics;
but they set their faces like flint against doing so, and they had to
suffer for it. On March 5, 1855, they were put on board ship to be
taken to Réunion, which they reached on April 1. The scenes that Razàka
witnessed on board the slave-ship and at Nòsibè dare not be described.
At Réunion the Jesuits tried hard to persuade Razàka to marry one
of their Catholic girls; but he refused, as he said he had a wife
in Madagascar. They said: ‘Very likely she has gone all wrong by
this time, or, regarding you as dead, has married some one else.’ He
answered that he did not think that probable; but in any case he would
wait to see before taking another wife. They wanted to rebaptize him.
He told them he had been baptized, but if it was likely to do him any
good, he had no objection to being done again. They said his Protestant
baptism was of no avail, as it had not been performed by a priest. He
asked in whose name they baptized, and they replied, in the name of
the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. He said: ‘It was in Their
name that I was baptized, and I don’t see that being baptized again
in Their name will do me any good’; and so he refused to submit to a
second baptism.
When they found that they could make nothing of him, and there was a
danger of his even turning some they had from the Roman Catholic faith,
their treatment of him changed. As he knew his Bible well, had a good
memory, and the gift of exposition, when he and the others were shut up
in the dormitory at night, he used to recount to them the stories of
the Old Testament, and the parables of the New, repeat and explain the
meaning of hundreds of verses in the Gospels and the Epistles, until
the faith of the listeners in the teaching of the Jesuits began to be
greatly shaken. When this was discovered, the anger of the Jesuits
knew no bounds; and, as they had no hope of ever being able to make a
convert of him, they determined to get rid of him and his companion. On
learning this, Razàka and his friend begged to be sent to Mauritius, to
be sold to the Rev. Mr. Le Brun, the Protestant missionary, afterwards
pastor there; but they would not do that. ‘No,’ they said, ‘we shall
send you back to Madagascar, you ungrateful creatures.’
Accordingly, on March 20, 1856, the two were shipped off to the Island
of St. Mary’s, which they reached after a voyage of three days, and
from there they got over to the mainland, and started up country for
home, where, after having been away nearly two years, they arrived on
April 7, much to the surprise and joy of their wives, children, and
companions.
On July 31, 1861, Rànavàlona I died, and persecution was at an end. All
were then free to worship God as they pleased. In 1863 a building was
erected in Fìhàonana, but it was soon found to be far too small for the
numbers who came together. After a time small churches were formed,
and buildings erected in most of the other large villages. Razàka
founded some forty of these small churches in the Fìhàonana district
in Vònizòngo. He was often away from home for weeks, and even months,
teaching, preaching, and founding churches. All this was a pure labour
of love on his part; for he obtained no recognition of his work in any
way, except that the people looked up to him as their father in the
faith, and the God-appointed apostle and ‘father and mother’ of the
district.
The late Dr. Mullens met with Razàka when in Madagascar in 1873, and,
in his _Twelve Months in Madagascar_, he says: ‘Of Razàka, the
pastor of the church at Fìhàonana, Mr. M. spoke much. It was a great
pleasure to Mr. Pillans and myself to see this good man: to talk with
him of the hard days of trial; and to hear from his own lips the story
of the sufferings he had endured. He told us of the meetings which the
fugitive Christians held for worship and mutual help. They used to
come long distances to such meetings; tracts were lent from one to the
other, as a tract could often be carried and hidden away, when a Bible
or a Testament could not. Parts of the New Testament were lent about,
even to single leaves; and leaves of the hymn-book and the _Pilgrim’s
Progress_. He said they used often to long for a rainy night, in
order that they might be able to sing. He showed us the underground
passage, beneath the floor of his huts (from the one rice-pit to
another, and from that out to the hollow ditch), by which, when the
soldiers came to search, the inmates and visitors could escape. He
accompanied us to a pile of immense boulders (in the circle formed by
them the persecuted Christians met for worship on the Sabbath mornings,
during lulls in the persecution), and showed us the “Cave” beneath the
big boulder, into which they used to creep to have a prayer-meeting,
and in the dark corner of which the Bible was hid for so long. He
brought vividly before us the sufferings and persecutions which his
heroic brethren and himself had endured; and in him we realized
something of the power of that faith by which all had been sustained.
Few finer bodies of Christians have been won for Christ by modern
missions than those faithful men and women in Vònizòngo.’
At my request, Razàka wrote an account of his _Life and Times_,
but he stipulated that it was not to be published during his lifetime,
in case it might get him into trouble with the government. It was
published by instalments, first in _Good Words_, and then as a
small booklet, hundreds of which have been given away as school prizes.
I had the satisfaction of seeing my dear old friend four days before
his death. I was in the neighbourhood of Fìhàonana, on my autumnal tour
through my district, and went over on the Sabbath morning to visit him
and our other friends at our old station, and to preach for them. I
found him prostrated with malarial fever, but had no idea he was so
near home--so near hearing the welcome, ‘Well done, good and faithful
servant!’ I was never more struck with the calm Christian resignation
of the man than I was on that occasion. There he lay, sweltering in
the fever--but not a murmur passed his lips. His honest face beamed
amid his sufferings, as if light from the ‘better land’ was already
falling on it. He expressed his sorrow at being found prostrated with
fever, when his friend had come so far to see him, as also his deep
disappointment at not being able to go to church to hear me preach. He
passed quietly away the following Thursday, July 30.
‘On the Saturday previous, he told us,’ said one of his fellow pastors,
‘that he would like to preach next day’ (although it was not his turn
to do so, the first Sabbath of August--the Communion Sabbath--being his
turn). His fellow pastors agreed to his wish; but he was never able to
carry out his intention; for the following day found him suffering from
fever and pneumonia, and of this he died. The day before his death he
said: ‘We do not know at all what shall be the day of our death.’ About
the middle of the day on which he died he said; ‘Prayer is the breath
of the believer,’ and also: ‘Jehovah will answer prayer.’ He asked them
to read Isaiah lxi to him, ‘The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me, &c.’
He asked for his fellow pastors to be called, and they came and prayed
with him. His wife and they asked how he felt, when he replied: ‘There
is only a very little (life, or way to go) left.’ Just before he died
he said to his daughter-in-law: ‘Don’t look at me any more!’ perhaps
he thought she would be frightened if she saw him expire; and so about
three o’clock in the afternoon of Thursday, July 31, 1885, he passed to
his rest and his reward.
The death of Razàka was a very great loss to the mother-church at
Fìhàonana, and to all the churches of the district, a far greater loss
than the loss of their missionary: for he was ‘father and mother’ to
them all; and they were all very deeply distressed at his death. They
realized that a prince and a great man had fallen in the Church of God;
and although they did not sorrow ‘as others who have no hope,’ for they
knew that Razàka had only gone on a little ahead to join the general
assembly and church of the first-born, who are written in heaven, and
the spirits of just men made perfect. But, feeling that in him they had
lost a father and a friend, their distress was very deep, the deeper
that there was no one like him left to help and guide them.
A vast multitude assembled at his funeral, and the signs of grief were
the greatest and deepest ever seen in Vònizòngo. His grave is on the
hill-side, to the east of Fìhàonana, quite near to the ‘Cave’ in which
he and the Bible were so long hidden.
Shortly after Razàka died another Vònizòngo veteran passed away, in the
person of Andrìantsehèno, the pastor of Ankàzobè. He died on Sabbath,
Oct. 25; and just before he expired, he said: ‘Say good-bye to Mr.
Matthews and Mr. Cousins, the elder, for me--for I am going!’ and
shortly afterwards he ceased to breathe.
[Illustration: FÌANÀRANTSÒA, CAPITAL OF BÈTSILÈO.
MALAGASY WORKING THE SOIL.]