If the measure of our suffering be the measure of our greatness, we
cannot wonder that this martyr church is strong in faith, giving
glory to God. Hence all the quiet but solid strength of their present
prosperity. Hence the great but not too rapid increase, in their
numbers. Hence it is that, though persecution left them poor, they
have built nearly a hundred village chapels; that their search into
the Word of God is deep, continuous, and unwearied; that their
congregations are crowded; that, at a missionary prayer meeting held
early in the day, sixteen hundred persons gather together; and that,
when a volunteer preacher finds it inconvenient every Sabbath to
visit a distant village, his brethren invite him permanently to
reside there, and offer to pay him a sufficient income till that
village shall be christianized.

[Illustration: AMBATONAKANGA CHURCH, MADAGASCAR.]

How shall we forget their grateful rejoicings when the first stone
church in memory of their martyrs was set apart for worship! By the
entire christian population, and even by many heathen, it was felt
to be a truly festive day. From early dawn they began to gather around
the edifice, eager to secure a place on an occasion so memorable.
You see the little parties of christian villagers making their way
across the western plain; coming in from the southward, where many
churches lie; or from the north, where, in the sacred village of
Ambohimanga, the man who should have been chief guardian of its
heathenism, is now the teacher of its christian church. Streaming
along the public roads of the city, the many processions, headed by
their singers, mount to the noble platform of rock on which the Church
of AMBATONAKANGA stands. The building will hold eleven hundred