not reign much longer. Natives give details of
her last days. The aged Queen had for some time been suffering in
health; diviners had been urgently consulted, charms and potent herbs
had been employed, with no avail. Late in the summer of 1861 it became
generally known that the fatal moment could not long be delayed.
Mysterious fires were said to be seen on the tops of mountains
surrounding the capital, and a sound like music was rising from Iatry to
Andohalo. The Queen eagerly questioned those around her as to the
meaning of these portents. But while the dying Queen was anxiously
praying to the idol in which she placed her trust, there were those who
whispered to the prince that the fire was the sign of jubilee to bring
together the dispersed, and to redeem the lost, and so the event
proved.

The aged Queen passed away during the night of August 15, 1861, and
early on the morning of August 16 the news spread rapidly through the
capital, and her son was proclaimed as Radama II. One of the first acts
of the new sovereign was to proclaim religious liberty. The chains were
struck off from the persecuted Christians and the banished were
recalled. Many came back who had long been in banishment or in hiding,
and their return seemed to friends who had supposed them to be dead like
a veritable resurrection.

The joy of the Christian was intense. The long season of repression had
at last come to an end. Now it was no longer a crime to meet for
Christian worship, or to possess Christian books. On that first Friday
evening some of the older Christians met and spent the night in prayer,
and Sunday services were begun in eleven private houses; but these were
soon consolidated into three large congregations. Radama II eagerly
welcomed intercourse with foreigners and gave Christians permission to
write at once, urging that missionaries be sent out, himself writing to
the London Missionary Society making the same request. The society
responded promptly with a large band of men and women missionaries,
twenty or thirty thousand copies of the Bible, New Testament and tracts.

The result of three-quarters of a century of Christian work in
Madagascar has been that the Christian religion has taken firm hold on
the people. Manifest and noticeable are the number and prominence of
church buildings in and around the capital. There are four stone
memorial churches, built by the friends of the London Missionary Society
to remind coming generat