p. 24 | Religious Liberty in Madagascar

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Aug 29, 1907

Religious Liberty in Madagascar

PROTESTANT missionary societies in Madagascar are learning what religious liberty is when interpreted by an infidel, and this is a demonstration of the fact that religious liberty is not an outgrowth of infidelity any more than it is an outgrowth of the practise of that organization which held the world in its grip during the Dark Ages. The French governor-general threatens the existence of Protestant mission schools. He has also ordered the closing of the Y. M. C. A., saying, “I have decided that no more associations be permitted. . . . The association must be dissolved at once.” His iron hand even reaches into the homes of the people. The father is permitted to hold family worship only with the members of his own family. If there is present one stranger, the family worship is considered a religious meeting, and all religious meetings outside church buildings are prohibited. Thus all evangelistic and all itinerant missionary work is now illegal. But even through such bulwarks of opposition as this, the message of the third angel will yet go to these people who sit in darkness.