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And who is there prepared to say that the missionary was capable of so analyzing these motives as infallibly to determine upon the existence of the one class or the other, or to assign its proper strength to each, if both were acting in combination? The only thing a man could do after the most earnest prayer and diligence, was to proceed upon the principle which Mr. Knibb, in one of the letters included in his Memoir, says was his own maxim, not to wait till he obtained all the evidence he could desire, but till he obtained so much that he dared not incur the responsibility of refusing the application. Now nothing but the lapse of time and the operation of new circumstances, could fairly test the character of the churches so formed. That test has come with greater rapidity, and perhaps in a severer form, than many anticipated. It is now acting in its full power, and the results are developing themselves every day. It is now no longer necessary for the black man to have a white protector, up a whole day, and to go, not only to lose no longer necessary for the labourer to appeal from his employer to his spiritual teacher; and, consequently, one mighty impulse to a religious profession is removed. But, on the contrary, there is positive reason for reluctance in taking that step. There is not only the absence of an impulse, but the presence of an obstacle. A religious profession involves to some extent pecuniary liability. The funds which sustain the services of religion are drawn, with the most trifling exceptions, not from the general congregation, but from the inquirers and the church, and for these funds their new condition has opened up modes of application of which formerly they were ignorant. Clothed and fed, and guarded like children in the days of slavery, like children they spent all the money they had, and that the moment after they obtained it, upon their favourite object, which then was the cause of religion. But now, required to clothe, to feed, to guard, and to elevate themselves, they find it necessary to ponder before they part with the pecuniary fruits of their industry. That a certain amount of such caution is right, will be granted; and that it should sometimes be carried to excess, we should be the last people to wonder at. There is, perhaps, no severer trial to the piety of our own churches than that which arises from this cause; and we cannot be surprised that, coming so suddenly and so powerfully on churches so young, so inexperienced, of such slender attainments, it should make a rapid separation between the chaff and the wheat. Accordingly, not only our own churches, but those of every other evangelical communion, mourn over a somewhat general langour. It must not be concealed, that multitudes who were formerly full of zeal, are now engrossed with the world; and not a few, of whose piety they had the most decided conviction, they have been obliged to detach from their fellow

ship; while the numbers seeking to avow themselves soldiers of Christ, form a striking and touching contrast to the "exceeding great armies" of former times. It is undoubtedly a sad thing to contemplate this state of comparative depression; but who can be surprised that it should come; and now that it has come, who would give way to despondency? It is my decided conviction, that, with all the deductions which must be made, these churches have not reached a state of religious feeling far beneath our own. The attendance at public worship has not, on the average, very greatly diminished. They still travel many miles under their scorching skies to the house of God. Whenever, in the course of our tour, we fixed a public meeting, we met with a prompt response. In our own agricultural counties, under the best circumstances, it is hard to obtain a meeting, even in the evening, when all the labour of the day is over. But what would be thought of a proposal to give

that day's remuneration, but to contribute something to the object presented; yet this was done repeatedly in our journey. It signified not on what day of the week, or at what hour of the day we summoned the gathering,-it was there before us. The mountains poured down their torrents of independent settlers, and the plains contributed their companies of the humbler labourers, that still seek their sole subsistence on the estates. The ground around the chapel quickly shook with the trampling of a hundred horses, and the air with salutations which, if loudness be any index of cordiality, must have proceeded from the very abysses of the heart." But the moment the service began, all was unbroken silence, and a propriety of demeanour quite delightful; and he must have been an intolerable speaker who was not quickly greeted with flashes of the eyes and teeth, or with the deep "Amen," which bespoke devotional sympathy. And, although I have spoken of their pecuniary contributions, there is still left among them a degree of liberality not unworthy of imitation. Let us remember that all their ministers, and all their schools, are supported by themselves; and we did not hear, in any part of the island, a single wish breathed to fall back again upon the pecuniary bounty of the British churches. Without at all pretending to distinguish between the donations which arise from principle, and those which spring from other causes, it deserves to be mentioned, that last year, which was on many accounts the least prosperous, twenty-four pastors, representing about 24,000 members, raised not less than £10,000 sterling, which, you perceive, is nearly, on an average, 10s. a-piece; and, at this moment, on all the property connected with the Mission, amounting to about £130,000 in value, the whole remaining debt amounts to a sum somewhat under £4000.

And, when we are able to announce such a fact with respect to England, I think we shall demand a jubilee. But not only has the present depression some mitigatory features; there are connected with it some things which mark a positive improvement. There is not only a greater searching of heart amongst all genuine Christians, but also a deeper conviction, on the part of all the missionaries, of the necessity of a more accurate knowledge among the people. They now perceive more distinctly than they ever did, that the season for scattering the seed with a bold hand over hill and dale, has given place to that in which they must address themselves to the less exbiliarating but essential toil of casting up the furrows, confirming the roots, and displacing the choking thorns, that they may have, not only the green blade and the tall stem, which they have long had, but the full corn in the ear. Many churches which had extended themselves beyond all possibility of pastoral superintendence, and even instruction, except of a most partial and infrequent kind, are becoming divided into separate communities, each with its own minister. In most of these churches bible-classes are taught by the pastors and their wives; and I would say of the latter, that we found none of them in zeal a whit behind the very chiefest of the apostles," and in some churches, the congregations have salaried scripture readers, who devote their whole time to the work which their names indicate. That important class of men, too, to whom a great amount of success is to be attributed, those called leaders, are now undergoing a steady improvement. I cannot pass by these good men without giving expression to my conviction of their general faithfulness. The propriety of their very existence, as office-bearers, has been questioned; but nothing could indicate a greater want of acquaintance with the circumstances that called them forth. Nothing could have been done without them; and, accordingly, we found every denomination bringing them into requisition; Wesleyans, independents, presbyterians, Moravians, and evangelical clergymen, all employ them, although variously naming them helpers, rulers, elders, scripture readers. Nothing in the West Indies gave us greater pleasure than to witness these good men devoting so much of their time, and of the energies of their minds, to the superintendence, and, as far as they could, to the instruction of the people. If you were to enter the cottages of some of them, you would see stretched across the rafters, under the rude palm thatch, a number of forms, generally of their own construction, which are brought down and made to occupy the whole of the floor, two evenings in the week for the general meetings of the districts; and every morning before the sun is high enough to light their way or to chase the dew from the dripping trees, you would see the devout people all coming in to

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hear the scriptures read, to offer their morning praises, to supplicate help for the day's conflict, and then to issue forth to their labours on the estates and provision grounds. What could the missionaries do for these remote dwellers in the glens and on the rocks without such guardians? That these poor men are unlearned, except in that lore" which angels desire to look into," is no fault of their own. That not more (as I confess I was a little surprised to find) than one-third of their number can even read the scriptures, serves but as a memorial of that Egyptian darkness in which they spent their youth, and from which they were delivered only by "a mighty hand and an outstretched arm." These men, who sustained unshaken the first shock of per secution, receiving in their bodies the marks of the Lord Jesus, and who must always be regarded as the confessors of the first age of that sable church, are already assuming the signs of advanced life, and are passing to their reward; while the missionaries, with scrupulous regard to their feelings, and yet with a proper consideration of the requirements of the new state of society, are assisting them, and gradually supplying their places with men of more varied qualifications, likely to secure a wider influence over the instructed youth; and if their most earnest endeavours for this purpose meet with success, one great essential stone is laid in the foundation of their second temple. Besides these, there are others on whom they are fixing their anxious attention, with a view to the duties of the ministry. The necessity of pastors for the people, of their own colour and lineage, is becoming every year more urgent. The missionaries have never neglected that work, although many in England have greatly wondered they should have made so little progress. I acknowledge myself to have been among that number. Never till I reached the spot, had I had a just appreciation of the difficulties in the way; never till then did I so clearly perceive the extent to which the education of the people in civilized countries has been carried on in the persons of their ancestors,-the extent to which quali ties, which we deem natural and innate, are the result of subtle influences in society, the operations of which we cannot detect, and of which we cannot tell "whence they come or whither they go." Of all these hereditary advantages the people of those lands are destitute. The entire population stands intellectually at zero. Every man must rise in his own person from that point; a circumstance which not only renders the process of elevation more tedious, but has a tendency,— and he who wonders at that tendency is, I fear, but partially acquainted with himself,to charge the individual so distinguished from the surrounding multitude with so much vanity, as materially to interrupt his usefulness. Until the standard of education he

and in some years, perhaps in another generation, if we have reasonable patience to wait, we shall find the work accomplished. I must not detain the meeting from the more valuable

raised universally, there will always be great obstacles in the way of a highly qualified race of native pastors. Yet a beginning has been made, and well made. Upon the brow of a green mountain, surrounded by scenery love-statements of my esteemed friend, but I must lier, I should not wonder, than that Academus express the conviction in which I know he so celebrated in classic song, stands our col- will unite, that we have just reason for gratilege for the education of a native ministry. tude for the results of missions among this It is presided over by a highly qualified interesting people. When I compare them individual, our oldest missionary in the West with what I saw of their own race in the Indies. Every year the class of young men republic of St. Domingo, during a deeply improves. Those at present studying there-interesting visit to that island, which I dare and some of them we examined previous to not now ask the meeting to permit me to their admission-appeared to us in the highest describe, and above all, when I compare degree hopeful. At the ordination of one who them with those miserable captives whom we had finished his course we attended, and the together saw in the capital city of Cuba, in confession which he read, in point of language, the streets and squares of which our ears were of consecutive statement, and of comprehensive for the first time assailed by the clanking of thought, I have never heard surpassed at any chains, and with what was, in some degree, similar service in this country. When I even worse, for the chain is somehow associated think of the good manners and intellectual with the decisions of justice-with the sound aspect of these academicians, I cannot but of the whip, that horrid symbol of the oppressay that the notions which most of us have sion and dehumanization of man, then no derived from our nursery pictures, of the language could utter our estimate of that work appearance of the negroes, is altogether of mercy, in which we have been permitted to erroneous. We figure them-I once did, take so large a part. I have not attempted and many still do-as men of no foreheads, to conceal the present state of religion, but to of extravagant mouths, of preposterous nos- speak honestly, although not despondingly. trils,-when such cases are almost as rare as For who can question that the churches have they are in England. A large majority are sunk under this wave of trial, only to emerge men of the noblest mould. But with respect, in greater purity? If the ministers are united last of all, to that elementary, popular educa- in counsel, and in self-sacrifice, and there tion, which in one sense lies at the basis of never was greater union among all religious all permanent improvement, I regret to say denominations in that island than at presentthat the missionaries appear to have consider- if the British churches continue their sympathy ably over-calculated the estimation in which and their prayers,-now, if possible, more the people would hold it. They thought that indispensable than ever, it is not permitted by building excellent school-rooms, and bring- us to doubt that the conflict now begun, and ing over from England teachers, male and only begun, will end in conquest, and that female, highly qualified, they would speedily the promise, that "the gates of hell shall not spread the blessing. But in that they were prevail against the church," which has been mistaken, and now they find,-what I am already so nobly fulfilled in the past annals of afraid we, in this vexed England, are doomed that people, shall meet with a still more signal to find that a splendid educational apparatus accomplishment. is one thing, and the disposition of an ignorant The Rev. J. ANGUS then rose and said: I population to avail themselves of it, quite am sure I concur most heartily in the feelings another. They find, now that their school- of this meeting in welcoming me home again rooms are miserably filled, and the great with my respected friend and brother who majority of their schoolmasters occupying the has just addressed you. I join in that feeling situation of pastors, that instead of relying with more earnestness, perhaps, than you can upon one sudden stroke, they must call into do, from a knowledge of the peculiar kind of operation an agency which no legislation can danger to which during our journey he was produce, of which the part shall be to enter exposed. For my own part, I confess I have the homes of the peasantry, and to track the a strong feeling that the church at Liverpool footsteps of the children wherever they roam, also owes to the Baptist Missionary Society a perpetually and patiently endeavouring to noble contribution, from the fact that he is awaken the desire of improvement, and allur- here to-day. I never saw a man so strongly ing to habits of application. Of course, there devoted, in interest and in feeling, to the conis little in this to excite or bewitch the imagi-dition of the people in Haiti; and more than nation, little that is akin to that magical rapidity with which we now aspire to accomplish every thing. But it is the penalty which, in all countries, is exacted by centuries of neglect, and the only condition upon which ignorance will relax her death grasp. That agency is rapidly coming into operation;

one letter expressed to me, and wished me to express to the Committee, their desire that our brother Birrell would return. I rejoice on our account that he is here, as I should have rejoiced on theirs had he remained. I rise to address this meeting, as may be sup posed, under very peculiar feelings, and with

pensively. The expense, however, would really be, on the long run, in using common English woods instead of the hard, beautiful wood of the island: and if it were said that every missionary has, at least, one horse-and that many have even horses and a chaisethey might be set down as gentlemen in some other sense than the one in which all Christians aspire to that name. The fact is, that without horses they cannot attend their stations, or move a mile from home, or obtain the commonest comforts of life, or hold any intercourse for counsel or sympathy with their brethren or friends. Horses are not luxuries, but essentials; and if you will not allow your missionaries a horse, you may call them home. If, again, I were to say that there are many thousand members of the church who cannot read, you might suppose them disqualified for their position, and extremely ignorant both of truth and duty. But, however decisive against them such ignorance might be if they lived in our own country, in Jamaica it is found to consist with great shrewdness, intelligence, and considerable bible knowledge. Whether it be, that by doing God's will, according to the amount of their light, more light has been obtained, or whether it be that, not able to read, their ear has become more sensitive, their minds more thoughtful, and their memory more retentive, the fact is, that there are many leaders and members who have accurate scriptural knowledge, are eminently qualified for their office, can repeat whole chapters, and even correct the younger members of the class in reading the scriptures, though not able to read themselves. The deputation were received by our churches and brethren with a cordiality and a degree of affection that I feel myself altogether unable to describe. I cannot conceal from this meeting that we had our fears whether there might not be some coldness, some indifference to our visit, some suspicion of its purpose, and I now desire to confess, that in these respects we were wrong. Everywhere the houses of our brethren were open to us. The churchmeetings, the books, and the secrets, if they had any, were most freely disclosed, and a fuller exhibition I believe it is impossible to conceive. The respect and affection with which the churches in Jamaica regard the Committee of the Baptist Missionary Society were most gratifying to us. It was imagined that the Committee could do anything they pleased; and if Mr. Birrell and myself had remained in Jamaica till we had settled all the business, public and social, that was brought before us, we certainly should not have returned till another year. I have, however, in my own mind a most deep conviction of the responsibility resting upon the Baptist Missionary Society in consequence of this feeling. I believe, whether wisely or unwisely, justly or unjustly, this Society has more power in the island of Jamaica than

a deep conviction of my need of divine help, that I may speak with all boldness and with all integrity, doing injustice neither to our brethren, nor to this meeting, nor, most of all, to the common cause of our Redeemer. Bear with me, and give me, whilst I speak, your sympathies and prayers. I need scarcely tell you that for the last nine or ten years at least, the Baptist Missionary Society has been anxious, sometimes on one ground, and sometimes on another, to send a deputation to Jamaica. They applied to my late honoured predecessor without success, and to not less than a dozen brethren, but their applications failed; and now, last of all, a deputation has gone forth on behalf of the Committee, and of the churches connected with our body throughout this country; and I desire to acknowledge, in the face of this meeting, that that deputation is owing chiefly to the kind sympathies and the generous help of one of the Treasurers of our Society. I believe that, humanly speaking, that deputation would never have gone but for our friend, Mr. Peto; and I desire now, in the name of my brethren, and in my own name (and, may I not add, in the name of this meeting?), to thank him, and to join in united prayer to God, that he would be pleased to enrich him in his own soul, and to recompense to him again all that he has done, and given, and felt in connexion with our mission. Independently of the successful or unsuccessful results of our mission, I cannot withhold the statement of my conviction that such deputations will confer, if they are repeated, a greater blessing upon our churches both at home and abroad than it is easy to conceive. I trust that this will be but the beginning of a system that will be continued in future years. The objects of our visit, as set forth in the letter of instructions we received, are many of them of a business character. We were to assure our brethren of the deep interest taken in their labours by their English friends; we were to explain things which were misunderstood; we were to correct impressions which, as we thought, had been hastily and unjustly formed. We were to ascertain on the spot the state of property and deeds, to attend to various minor questions of business, and generally to make the fullest inquiry into the condition of the churches, and, so far as practicable, of the island. There are some things which, in going to Jamaica, we need to unlearn. If I were to say that we had turtle for dinner you might deem us extravagant; but if that we had bread and cheese, you might deem us economical. In truth, however, the economy would be exercised in the first case, and the extravagance in the second. If I were to say again, that the houses of our missionaries were floored with cedar, and had doors of solid mahogany, hinges of brass, or, as one friend gravely reported, of gold,-they might be supposed on that account to live ex

not Grecian. I think it is not Gothic; but whatever it be, it is full of interest, and highly characteristic of its origin. It tells plainly who were the builders. The men who occupied the pulpits either handled the trowel and plummet, or at least spent their time among the workmen and planned the buildings. Coultart, and Knibb, and Burchell have all left behind them the proofs of their skill; and we learned to love the places the better that the impress of their genius was so frequent and visible. The engineering and architec tural ability which their chapels often display, especially in effecting enlargements, is very striking. Additions to the back or front were obvious enough, but not always practicable. In such cases our brethren have added a lofty aisle to one side of a low-roofed building, in Eagle Street style (if our friends will forgive me coining a name). Sometimes you find fronting the pulpit a deep square cavity opening into a large room below, where you catch a glimpse of half your congregation. Sometimes the chapel was enlarged by increasing the height and adding a gallery; sometimes by removing part of the floor and forming a basement. In fact, the chapels have all the imperfections (and interest too) incident to the circumstances in which they were built. But they have qualities of sterling worth. They are admirably adapted for their purpose, and they are filled. They are nearly all large and substantial—they are erected where they ought to be, in towns, at the corners of the streets, not in courts and lanes, and on the hills accessible and visible to all. As we watched the people on every side winding through the valleys to the place of meeting, the words of Dr. Watts struck us with fresh beauty:

even the House of Assembly itself. One is even difficult to name it. I am sure it is only fault did these friends find with your deputation. The only one, at least, of which I heard. They no doubt stated others, or would have done so, if they had known the imperfections of one of the deputation at all events, as I know them. "In one thing," said Mr. Finlayson, of Brown's Town-the man who was repeatedly flogged, in the days of slavery, because he would not give up praying-in one thing you disappoint us. We know the Baptist Missionary Committee have no earthly head, for they are all brethren: but we did expect to see old men with grey hairs," said he, "like mine. Your hair, however, is dark, and not grey: but I see," he added, "how it is; you have got the grey hairs inside," a compliment I must personally disclaim, but which I believe to apply most accurately to my friend and colleague, Mr. Birrell. It is natural, on an occasion like this, to look back on the history of this Mission, and ask, Are you satisfied with the results, and do they justify the large expenditure of funds and of strength you have devoted to it? Since the first missionary arrived in Jamaica, some thirty years ago, the Society has spent on Jamaica more than £130,000. Upwards of fifty missionaries have been sent forth, eighteen of whom have fallen martyrs to our cause in the high places of the field. A large expenditure when viewed in the bulk; and yet but small. We gave six millions to redeem Jamaica from slavery, and we can hardly grudge £130,000 to bring her to God. Two hundred thousand pounds a-year for ever is the price of Jamaica emancipation, and £5000 a-year, for thirty years, is our gift to an fobject immeasurably nobler, and which has been attended with such blessed results. And let us mark these results. In 1830 there were in trust sixteen properties in Jamaica in connexion with our missions. In 1840 there were thirty more, or forty-six in all. Now, in 1847, there are forty-nine more, or ninetyfive in all. These properties include sixtythree chapels, twenty-four school-houses, fifty nine dwelling-houses for ministers, and 516 acres of land; and the whole has cost not less, certainly, than £130,000, exclusive of nearly £20,000 worth of property destroyed by the whites in the time of the rebellion. Here, then, is one result. If our missionaries had had no hand in emancipation, had conferred no blessing upon the people in the form of instruction or temporal comfort; if no souls had been converted to God, there is yet, at this moment, property set apart for the religious training of the people, and thus set apart through our instrumentality, that cost as much as all our contributions. If nothing spiritual had ensued, still it is there, to become in the hand of God the means of the future instruction and the salvation of the race. It must be confessed that the style of these buildings is not all we might wish.

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"Up to his courts with joys unknown, The holy tribes repair." So admirably are those localities chosen along the roads and coasts, that more than one military authority has said, that if the sur veyor-general were commanded to select the best military posts in the island, either in the interior or on the coast, he would certainly fix upon the sites which have been purchased for chapels or houses by baptist missionaries. Nearly every chapel, let me add too, has its minister's house and school; many a minister's house its ten acres of land. I say again that a nobler boon was never given to any island by any society in the missionary history of the church; and you are recompensed in chapels alone for all you have given. You are aware that it was one object of our visit to place this property on a more satisfactory footing. According to most of the deeds, which were framed in the days of slavery, or before churches were formed, the appointment of the pastor was with the Committee. This appointment will now be given to the people;

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