156 VISITS TO MADAGASCAB. CHAP. VI. and hearts; the truth had operated like seed germinating upon a virgin soil, and the freshness and vigour of its growth had been proportionate. I could not avoid noticing the absence of all bitter and vindictive feelings towards those who had inflicted the sufferings they had borne. They seemed to regard it as permitted by Crod, and to speak of it as a cause for exercising confidence in the Most High. The circumstances of the individuals about whom we often conversed had been peculiar and almost unprecedented in the annals of the past. Those from whom alone they had received instruction on the subject of religion had been removed almost as soon as their lessons had begun to take effect; and thus deprived of their teachers, but few means were left to them of supplying the deficiency which must have been severely felt. They had been required by the authorities under whom they lived to surrender all their books, and the few retained were forbidden to be used. The chief means of preserving their faith were small por tions of God’s Word. As, in our physical organisation, the loss of one faculty is often attended with the augmented efficiency of those that remain, so with regard to their means of spiritual improvement, deprived of all other advantages, and possessing that which remained only in a very limited degree, they seemed to have acquired a familiarity with those portions of Divine truth to which they had access, and to have studied them with an avidity, affection, and perseve rance truly wonderful. From all the accounts that were given, the Truth seems to have been sought as a priceless treasure, and hoarded in their hearts as something more precious than gold and dearer than life. Their faith in its entireness and solidity was based simply on the Scriptures. They seem neither to have known nor thought of any system or creed as such, but to have regarded the truth of the Bible as that which was able to make them wise for both