Madagascar looks like a rather small island on the map, lying along by the side of Africa, as Great Britain lies by the side of Europe. But it really is more than a thousand miles long and more than three hundred miles wide. The first European who ever saw this island was a Portuguese named Fernando Soares. That was about fourteen years after America was first seen by Columbus. Its people are called Malagasy. We do not call one of them a Malagasy, and two or more of them Malagasies, any more than we speak of one Portuguese and two or more Portugueses. For one or for more we write it the same way-a Malagasy man or the Malagasy people. They are not so dark in color as the people on the continent of Africa, and they have straighter hair. In looks and in customs they are more like Asiatics. There is a picture of two of them on the next page-a man and a woman. Do you not think that their dress is grace ful, and that they seem to be treating each other politely? The Malagasy were very degraded and vile heathen, living more like beasts than like men, when Soares discovered their country, and so they remained for three hundred years more. Only about seventy years ago the first Christian missionaries were sent to them from London. The king of Madagas car, Radama, wished them to come, not because he cared for their religion, but because he thought they would teach his people useful arts. He did not become a Christian himself, and he died of his vices in 1828, when he was only thirty-six years old. But before that a good number of his people had become Christians. After Radama's death, one of his wives, named Rabodo, made herself queen by killing a number who had a better right than she had to the throne. As queen she took the name Ranavalona I. What wicked woman mentioned in the Second Book of Kings does this remind you of? Queen Ranavalona became a dreadful persecutor. The first martyr was a woman named Raselema. She was speared to death as you may see in the picture below. Many more were killed in that way, and many were thrown from a precipice, as you see in the picture on the next page. It is believed that over ten thousand suffered death under this cruel queen, who reigned thirty-three years, and died August 15, 1861, only twenty-eight years ago. After her, her son, Radama II., began his reign quite well, but soon showed himself very wicked and foolish. The army put him out of the way and made his widow queen, Rasoherina I., making her promise not to persecute any of her people for their religion. She kept her promise, but she was not a Christian. She died April 1, 1868. Her successor, Ranavalona II., was a Christian, and at her coronation she had such mottoes as these put up over her throne: Glory to God, Peace on earth, Good will to men, God is with us. She also had a large Bible by her side, in the sight of her people. For fifteen years this Christian queen was a good mother to her people, and they made great progress in Christian civilization. "She declared in her last words her trust in Jesus Christ as her Saviour, and charged the prime minister and her successor to remember that her 558 Threshing-floors. [December, kingdom was resting upon God." This was six years ago. Her niece, Ranavalona III., was crowned on her twentysecond birth-day, November 22, 1883. She is also a Christian, and I wish that she might be allowed to rule her people according to her own mind. But the French nation have put her under what they call "protection." I am afraid that that will not help the queen to rule well nor her people to live well. But I do not believe that Christ will let that people go back to heathenism. They are part of his kingdom, which is an everlasting kingdom. I have taken these statements and pictures from the little book, "Madagascar," which is mentioned on page 200 of our September number. The publishers have kindly lent us the plates for the pictures. There are more pictures in the book, and it is a very good book for you to read. That notice (in the September number) tells you where you can get it. THRESHING-FLOORS. Many references in the Bible to threshing and threshing-floors are made more plain and forcible by what we frequently see in our rides over the mountains. A threshing-floor is simply a smooth piece of ground, trodden hard, and about thirty feet in diameter. When the harvest has been gathered, the sheaves are brought to the threshing-floor and piled up together. In this country it never rains in summer, and there is no need to put the grain away in barns. Next they spread some of the grain over the floor several inches deep, and it is ready for the threshing. Two clean oxen or cows are yoked together and made to draw the thresher. This is a very simple instrument, being merely a smooth plank (like a stone boat) with pieces of iron or stone fastened in the under side. A man or woman or a child stands on this, and the oxen walk round and round the floor over the grain until the straw is all cut to pieces and the grain separated from the chaff. As they walk around thus, the oxen help themselves, as much as they like, to the grain, for they are not muzzled. After the threshing is finished, then comes the winnowing. The people choose a rather windy day if they can, and they generally have the threshing-floor in an exposed place. When the grain is ready they take a sort of wooden pitchforks and toss the grain and chaff into the air. The wind blows away the dust and chaff, while the grain and straw fall back, until by degrees the grain is quite clean and ready to be stored away. The broken straw is called tibbin, and is mixed with the barley for the horses to eat. W. S. N. Rev. George A. Ford, of Sidon, Syria, sends us the following translation of an Arabic letter. If you think it very extravagant, perhaps you will do well to let it make you careful not to say extravagant things yourselves. For instance, some of you may be inclined to call this letter awfully funny. His excellency, the most honorable, the most glorious, lofty in efficiency, exalted in character, my lord Leopard Wolf, the most modest, may God preserve his noble existence ! After kissing your revered hands and begging ceaselessly your worthy prayers, we beg to submit that in a most blessed time and distinguished hour we were honored by your precious letter conveying the welcome and reassuring tidings of your welfare and making inquiry concerning ourselves. May the Lord God search you out with his greatest blessings and bountiful mercies! Your letter affected our hearts as did Joseph's visit to Jacob. And as for us, by the bountiful gifts of the Creator, we are in perfect health and happiness such as we desire should be the permanent possession of your excellency. And our longings for your lordship are like those of travellers for their native land and of sheep for their pastures. And oh that we might be blessed with the light of your smiling countenance, to quench therewith the flames of longing that have consumed our livers! And should you honor us soon by visiting us, you would deluge us with the seas of your kindness. And should we attempt to describe the pangs of separation from you, tongues would be exhausted and pens be broken ere they could accomplish even a portion of their task. We therefore content ourselves with the words of the poet "Were all earth's brimming fountains reservoirs of ink, And every twig a pen, from nothing wont to shrink, That strove to tell thee how I pine and long for thee, Not one ten thousandth of one tenth their tale would be." 559 This is all that is necessary to write, to which we add our heartfelt longings to all whom your prosperous and dwellgorgeous ings may shelter; as also from here my lord and lady, father and mother, kiss your pre-. cious cheeks. And may you live and thrive! He who prays long life for you, your brother, LION WOLF. NEW MOONVILLE, September 29, 1886. P.S. Your father is experiencing at present a merciful dispensation of Providence, but it is hoped will soon be well. Your sister, She-Wolf, we have suitably engaged in matrimony. May we soon rejoice in similar good fortune to yourself! Your immediate immediate presence is required without fail, for your mother has been dangerously ill for some time, so that it is doubtful whether you can yet reach her alive. Let not the perspiration dry upon your face till you arrive. (Finis.) NOTES. The first paragraph is the address, usually identical or nearly so upon the envelope and at the head of the letter. The employment of the names of wild animals for children is the resort of those parents whose first children die young. They believe that the adoption of this practice insures the life of the children thus named. And the giving of the same name to brother and sister, the latter being distinguished by a feminine termination, is very common. The letter is from a younger to an older brother, and the terms of reverence are not exaggerated in this specimen. The couplet introduced I have rendered roughly and freely, giving the sense as nearly as I could. It is customary to fill up a page with ceremonious compliment, and leaving the matters of importance for which the letter was written to be inserted in cross lines as a postscript at the bottom. Only yesterday I received a long letter and foolishly neglected the Oriental rule to read the P.S. first, and to read nothing else if in a hurry. I read the long letter through, astonished at its identity with another letter from the same writer a few days previous. The postscript explained that this was only a copy, sent lest the other should fail to reach me. This letter is by no means an extreme sample of Oriental compliment and circumlocution. But, on the other hand, the civilizing influences that have now been so long at work are fast doing away with these superfluities and insincerities, as they usually are. 560 Scenery of Northern Syria-Sabbath a Delight. SCENERY OF NORTHERN SYRIA. While summering upon the mountains, Rev. W. S. Nelson wrote of some of his journeyings and sojournings. He thus gives us to see, with his eyes, some of the scenery of that land : Crossing the summit, a most brilliant scene lay suddenly before us. The valley of the Nahr Ibrahim, at the head of which is Afka, is one of the wildest and most beautiful in Syria, and we looked down on the whole of it. A thousand feet below us lay a complete covering of fleecy cloud, with the sun pouring its light down upon it. Across we could see the opposite mountain range like the shore of a lake of snow, and a few rugged summits rose out of the cloud like islands. Out toward the Mediterranean the cloud mantle was unbroken, and to our right only bounded by the rocky precipice. We could pause only a few minutes to drink in the beauty of the scene, and then began a rapid descent towards the clouds. At length we passed into them, and the sun became obscured as by a dense fog. Our road was visible only a few rods ahead of us, and we rode on in the damp mist till we were near Afka, when the clouds dispersed. . . . THE CEDARS. Here we are seven thousand feet or more above sea level and within two hours ride of the summit (ten thousand feet), where the snow still lies, August 24. The grove consists of four hundred and twenty-one very large cedars, enclosed in a wall for their preservation. One old tree is more than forty feet in circumference near the base, and several others are nearly as large. Most of them are several feet in diameter, tall and straight as an arrow. It is the only remnant of the old trees. There are a few groves of smaller ones at other points in Lebanon, but none of the old giants. THE SABBATH A DELIGHT. How to make it so to little children is the anxious study of many a conscientious and [December. loving mother, and of sympathetic fathers as well. Mrs. Harriet A. Sawyer, of St. Louis, has prepared an excellent help for this in the form of a series of cards, forty-eight in number, on which the Bible story of Joseph is told in attractive rhyme. Each card contains one stanza and a picture illustrating one scene in that story. The pictures are beautifully drawn and colored, and numbered so that children can easily arrange them. They can be placed so as exactly to cover a space two feet square, or longer and narrower spaces, and in various forms, as the little ones may fancy. The same pictures and verses are also given upon blocks-two pictures on each block on its opposite sides. We have seen nothing of the kind more attractive. We think that many little children and their parents will thank Mrs. Sawyer for these pretty blocks and cards. We suggest that they be kept for Sabbath only and put out of sight all the rest of the week. The publisher is E. I. Horsman, 80 and 82 William Street, New York. We think this a good place for what we have said about the Sawyer Sunday Blocks and Cards. We presume that mothers read these children's pages, and we hope that the little children will talk to their mothers about these blocks and pictures. A mother who is now a saint in heaven, and whose children are now men and women, when they were little used to have a Sabbath-day scrap-book in which she put nice pictures and stories and hymns suitable for the Sabbath, which she would cut out of illustrated Christian papers. This scrap-book was kept out of sight all the week, and only used on the Sabbath. This helped very much to make "the Sabbath a delight." Mrs. Sawyer's blocks and cards are on the same plan, and we think that our little Presbyterians and their mothers will like them very much. H. A. N. |