HKB
the Propagation of the Gospel," who sent out Bishop Kestel Cornish and James Coles; "The Norwegian Missionary Society," "The Roman Catholic Missionary Society," and "The Society of Friends in England."
To summarize, approximately there are now 110 foreign missionaries on the island; over 2,000 congregations, with a total of 400,000 adherents, which include 100,000 church members; while the Protestant schools contain 150,000 children. No statement of the Christianizing agencies and influences would be just or correct that did not include that of the Roman Catholic Church. "No one," it has been truly said, "can be long in Madagascar without learning to admire the self-denial, patience and heroic fortitude with which its work is carried on." It has been thus fittingly described, a few years ago, by an English visitor: "In 1861, when Catholic missionaries landed on the shores of Tamatave there was not a Catholic on the island; but little by little, by dint of unwearied labor, suffering and preaching, they won over not hundreds but thousands of pagans to the love and knowledge of our Lord and His truth, so that their pagan converts number over 130,000. They have built a magnificent cathedral, which is the glory and pride of Antananarivo. They have also 300 churches and 400 or more Catholic stations scattered over the island, where 18,000 children are taught and trained by a large and elevated staff of Christian brothers and sisters of St. Joseph, and 641 native teachers. They have also created industrial schools, where various trades are taught by two devoted brothers, Benjamin and Arnoad, and at Ambohipo they have a flourishing college for young Malagash. They have also on the island four large dispensaries, where thousands of prescriptions are distributed gratis to all who seek to relieve their sufferings. They have also established a leper hospital at Ambohivoraka, where the temporal and spiritual wants of 150 poor lepers are freely administered to, and have already opened another such establishment, in Betsilio land. Prison visitation, dispensing rice, clothing, and spiritual instruction to half-starved and naked prisoners under the Madagascar rule; their catalogue of books devotional, literary and scientific; a dictionary, all of which have been edited and published in the Madagascan language, are among the golden contributions for civilization by the Catholics in this far-off island continent in the Indian seas."
In referring to their labors, and to which, comparatively, I have made but brief reference, Mr. Cousins says: "To much in the Roman Catholic system we may be strenuously opposed; but to their zeal, their skill, their patience, their self-denial, we render the homage of an ungrudging admiration."