MI55I0NS OFT«£ United Presbyterian (jKURCIt Jamaica Old Calabar Kaffraria Rajputana Manchuria ./••a wmm mm fcW-l Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2016 https://archive.org/details/missionsofunitedOOunit ^Missions of the United ‘Presbyterian Church described in a Series of Stories I. The Story of the Jamaica Mission With Sketch of the Mission in Trinidad By GEORGE ROBSON, D.D. II. The Story of the Old Calabar Mission Br WILLIAM DICKIE, M.A. III. The Story of the Kaffraria Mission By WILLIAM J. SLOWAN IV. The Story of the Rajputana Mission By JOHN ROBSON, D.D. V. The Story of the Manchuria Mission By Mrs. DUNCAN M'LAREN (BMnburglj OFFICES OF UNITED PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH 1896 PRINTED BY MORRISON AND GIBB LIMITED EDINBURGH R&Q yb # / '5 J5 a /- 5 ” INTRODUCTION. — ♦ — There have now been published by the Foreign Mission Board the Stories of our five principal Missions. Written by different authors, four of whom had a personal acquaintance with the fields they wrote about, these Stories aim at giving in a popular form a sufficiently full account of each Mission. But the history of the missionary enterprise of our Church covers a somewhat wider range. The movement which gave birth to the Secession Church was essentially a spiritual movement. It sought the vindication and diffusion of the truth of the gospel. When the- Associate Presbytery had been constituted at Gairney Bridge on 5th December 1733, earnest calls for a supply of gospel preaching began to pour in from all parts of Scotland, as well as from England and Ireland ; and the Fathers of the Secession, while endeavouring to satisfy the requests of their countrymen at home, were also nobly alive to the spiritual needs of their country- men abroad. Before twenty years had passed, they had begun that missioning of ministers and licentiates to Pennsylvania, Few York, Nova Scotia, and Canada, which helped, in the early days of these colonies, to lay iii iv fiffrobuction the foundations of the Presbyterian Churches now flourishing there. The Relief Church had its origin in the noble stand made by Thomas Gillespie for evangelical truth and congregational rights against ecclesiastical intolerance. The “ Presbytery of Relief ” was constituted at Colins- hurgh on 22nd October 1861 ; and in seeking to carry the gospel into, destitute parts of Scotland, in sending ministers to the colonists across the Atlantic, and in furnishing missionaries to the Missionary Societies, the Relief Church, like the Secession, manifested the impulse of a missionary spirit. The Foreign Mission Revival, which took place in the end of last century, did not at first bear fruit in the way of church action. It gave birth to the Scottish (Edin- burgh) and the Glasgow Missionary Societies, and to numerous other missionary societies throughout the country, which were practically auxiliaries to these and to the London Missionary Society. It was through this free operation of the missionary spirit that the people received the training which prepared them for welcoming the principle of a Church mission. Then, when con- troversy on other questions rendered it difficult for members of different denominations to maintain cordial co-operation in the work of the Missionary Associations, the various Churches found it easy to take over the Missions in which they were specially interested. So the Missionary Societies in Scotland gave place at length to the better order of Missionary Churches. How our own Church entered on its various missions may here be briefly indicated. The movement for the abolition of slavery awoke concern in Christian hearts for the spiritual needs of the slaves in Jamaica. In 1835 JJnfrobuttion v the Secession Church sent its first missionaries to labour amongst them, alongside of the missionaries of the Scottish Missionary Society. So Jamaica became our first foreign mission field. As the emancipated negroes realised the blessings of the gospel, they became desirous of sending it to their kindred in Africa, from whom they had been torn away. Hence arose the Old Calabar Mission, founded by the Secession Church in 1846, with the cordial support of the Relief Church. In the following year the Secession and Relief Churches united under the name of the United Presbyterian Church, and immediately thereafter our Church took over the Jamaica Mission of the Scottish Missionary Society, amalgamating it with our own, and also the Kaffraria Mission of the Glasgow Missionary Society, which had been chiefly supported by the Relief Church. The Indian Mutiny of 1857 awoke the Christians of Britain from their apathy to the spiritual well-being of the heathen millions of that vast dependency ; and one result was the inaugura- tion in 1860 of our Rajputana Mission. A remarkable train of providences led to our beginning work in South China in 1862, and in 1872 in the northern province of Manchuria, where our China Mission was ultimately concentrated. The rise and progress of the work in each of these fields is the subject of a separate Story. But we have representatives also in other fields. The wonderful opening of Japan induced our Church to enter in, in 1873, along with other Churches and Societies, to plant the gospel in that promising land ; but the course of events has devolved upon other Churches the leading part in propagating it there. We still maintain our Mission in Japan, but it is in fields more exclusively our VI fntrobudioit own that we are called to seek the expansion of our missionary efforts. We also bear a limited, but welcome, share in Foreign Missions carried on by other Churches. The Rev. Dr. Laws is our representative in the Living- stonia Mission of the Free Church of Scotland ; and our obligation to seek the evangelisation of Israel is recog nised by our sustaining the Rev. John Soutar in the Galilee Mission of the Free Church, and one of the staff of the Aleppo Mission of the Presbyterian Church in England. We also provide an annual subsidy to the Irish Presbyterian Church for the carrying on of mission work in Spain, a field where we formerly laboured, but where we deemed it right to terminate our separate organisation. In each Story will be found the statistics of that particular Mission. Here it need only be said that, in all, “ we have a staff of 154 fully trained agents, of whom 70 are ordained European missionaries, 14 medical missionaries, 19 ordained native pastors, 12 European evangelists, and 39 Zenana missionaries; while under the superintendence of these agents there are 170 native evangelists, 383 native teachers, 121 native Zenana workers, and 45 other native helpers. In connection with our various Missions we have 109 congregations, with 175 out-stations at which services are regularly conducted, and at many of which congregations will soon be formed. These 109 congregations have an aggregate membership of 19,949, with 3644 candidates for admis- sion to the fellowship of the Church ” (Annual Report, April 1896). The history of our Foreign Missions furnishes striking evidence of the guidance of the Holy Spirit, as well as numerous illustrations of heroic devotion and noble girtrobuction vii service, and of Divine blessing upon the Church’s obedience to her Lord’s great command. The truth of this will be apparent to the attentive reader of the Story of each Mission. And it is earnestly hoped that the perusal of these Stories will call forth more fervent gratitude to God for what has been wrought in the past, and stimulate to more faithful service in praying and in giving, that the work may go forward from year to year to the greater glory of God. GEORGE ROBSON, Convener of the Home Committee of the Foreign Mission Board. Avgust 1896 {Missions of the United Presbyterian Church THE STORY OF OUR JAMAICA MISSION WITH Sketch of our Trinidad Mission GEORGE ROBSON, D.D. (Bitiitlnirrtlj OFFICES OF UNITED PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH 1894 MORRISON AND GIBB, PRINTERS, EDINBURGH. PREFACE The story of our Jamaica Mission lies within a larger story — a chapter of Divine Providence in respect of a section of the African race, the purpose of which is not yet unfolded. This conviction has shaped the subse- quent narrative. A true view of our mission enterprise in Jamaica requires not only a certain knowledge of the history of the island, and of the history of slavery and its still surviving influences, but also a continual outlook upon the material and social surroundings to which the progress of our mission work stands related. The length of the time and the width of the field to be covered have rendered it almost impossible to introduce into the narrative such particular illustrations and incidents as enliven the published biographies of Jamaican missionaries. But I have sought to tell the story so as to make it also in some measure a “ handbook ” to our Jamaica Mission. A grateful acknowledgment is due to the Rev. John Moore, B.D., Old Meldrum, who undertook the labour of preparing the chronological tables. G. R. CONTENTS CHAP. PAGE PART I THE STORY OF OUR JAMAICA MISSION PREFACE 5 L THE STORY OF THE COLONY DOWN TO THE PRESENT CENTURY 9 It. THE INTRODUCTION OF EARLIER MISSIONS . . 18 III. THE BEGINNINGS OF OUR MISSION . . . .25 (a) SCOTTISH MISSIONARY SOCIETY ... 25 (b) SECESSION CHURCH MISSION .... 31 IV. THE EMANCIPATION OF THE SLAVES ... 37 Y. FROM THE DATE OF EMANCIPATION TO THE FIRST SYNOD IN 1849 43 vi. from 1849 to 1866 58 vii. from 1866 to 1893 6S VIII. THE JAMAICA OF TO-DAY: ITS NATURAL ASPECTS AND PRODUCTS 80 IN. THE JAMAICA OF TO-DAY : ITS PEOPLE AND SOCIAL PROGRESS . 90 X. THE PRESENT POSITION AND PROSPECTS OF OUR JAMAICA MISSION' 98 8 Contents CHAP. PAGE PART II THE STORY OF OUR TRINIDAD MISSION I. THE STORY OF THE COLONY 104 II. ORIGIN AND EARLY HISTORY OF THE MISSION . . 107 III. THE SUBSEQUENT HISTORY AND PRESENT STATE OF THE MISSION 113 APPENDICES. 1. CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE OF THE JAMAICA MISSION . 118 2. CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE OF THE TRINIDAD MISSION . 133 3. QUINQUENNIAL TABLE OF STATISTICS OF JAMAICA MISSION 135 THE STORY OF OUR WEST INDIAN MISSION. PART I THE STORY OF OUR JAMAICA MISSION CHAPTER I STORY OF THE COLONY DOWN TO THE PRESENT CENTURY It was during liis second voyage to tlie New World, on 3rd May 1494, that Christopher Columbus Discovery. . discovered Jamaica. As he approached the north-eastern shore, and landed at St. Ann’s Bay, the splendour of the mountains and Name the ^ uxur ^ an ^ beauty of the scenery suggested to him the name of Santa Gloria. He found the island peopled by Caribs 1 of a gentle type and 1 The Caribs, who at this time peopled most of the West Indian islands, were of a light copper colour, and generally distinguished by a daring and independent spirit. A simple change of “ r ” to “ 1 ” converted the name Carib into the Spanish word for “dog,” and by that epithet the Spaniards usually described them. Hence the name “Caliban” in Shakespeare’s Tempest. 9 10 (L be ^tortr of our Sttlcst |ubiatt $tlissioir friendly temper, exhibiting a superior form of barbarous life. From them he learned that the native name was Xaymaica — “ land of woods and waters,” — a name so felicitous, as well as distinctive and euphonious, that it easily maintained its position both in Spanish and in English. Not less distinctive is the situation of Jamaica. From the promontory of Yucatan, in Central America, a chain of islands stretches eastwards, with Situation. a slightly southern inclination, for some 1500 miles, and then curves due south towards the mouth of the Orinoco, in South America. Cuba is the first and largest island of the chain, and lies just under the tropic of Cancer ; eastwards the islands gradually lessen in size ; while the part of the chain running south has the appearance of a breakwater of innumerable islets warding off the waves of the Atlantic from the enclosure of the Caribbean Sea. Within this enclosure, as if it were the guarded jewel of the sea, lies Jamaica, due south of Cuba and west of Hayti. 1 In shape its outline resembles a seal swimming due west. Having a length of 144 miles, and a breadth varying from 21 to 49 miles, it contains an area equal to rather less than a seventh of Scotland. For more than a century and a half Jamaica was held by the Spaniards, whose merciless treatment of the „ aborigines rapidly exterminated them, and English so induced the importation of slaves from colony. Africa to supply the needed labour. The Spaniards proudly claimed an exclusive right to all the lands of the Hew World ; and this right they sought to enforce in the West Indies, by perpetrating wholesale 1 Between 17° 43' and 18° 32' lat. N., and 76° 11' and 78° 20' long. W. j?toqi of ffjt Colonn bo ton fo fbe |)rrsrnt Crnlurg 11 atrocities upon English settlers in different islands. To put an end to such cruel arrogance, Cromwell despatched an expedition to the West Indies in 1655 ; its sole success was the capture of Jamaica. Three years later, the Spanish Governor who had surrendered the island made a strong attempt to recapture it, but the attempt was signally defeated, and the name of Runaway Bay, in St. Ann’s Parish — so called because from thence the defeated Spaniard fled in a canoe to Cuba — commemor- ates the disappearance of the Spanish power from the island. In 1661, Jamaica may be said to have been formally enrolled as a colony of England, as in that year General D’Oyley received from Charles II. a commission as Governor of the island, with provisions for consti- tuting the government, while a Royal proclamation declared the children of English subjects born in Jamaica to be “ free denizens of England.” The popu- lation of the island was then little more than 3000, the half of whom were slaves. Very soon after the establishment of English govern- ment, new settlers arrived. Out of many agricultural _ . . . industries then prosecuted, the cultivation of tory of the sugar rapidly assumed the lead, and yielded colony. large profits. From this time, until Canada and Australia began to loom into importance, Jamaica was prized as the richest of British colonies. The list of Governors contains some names of highest rank in the peerage, and others eminent in history. At first Port Royal was the residence of the Governor, but as early as 1664, Spanish Town became the seat of government. There, in January 1664, an Assembly was convened ; and from that time a Legislative Assembly has, with only brief intervals, continued to frame the laws of the colony and to watch over its interests. Collisions were 12 <£bc §tovjj of our ®tst fnbiau fission not infrequent between the Assembly and the higher powers. The rich and masterful colonists would not brook any curtailment of their privileges, and in their contentions with the Governor or appeals to the Crown they were generally successful. The history of the colony for at least a century and a half presents hardly one noble feature. It is little better than a history of the eager and in large measure unscrupulous pursuit of material wealth, and of the evils and conflicts which naturally followed. In the island itself, the getting of wealth through the cultivation of its fertile soil was polluted by the in- humanities of slavery. Immediately after Slavery. . J J the discovery of the New World, the demand for labour in its mines and plantations, of which the Western nations of Europe were rapidly taking posses- sion, gave an immense stimulus to the traffic in slaves from Africa. This traffic was at first promoted most actively by the Spaniards, but in 1562 Sir John Hawkins engaged English ships in it, and thereafter it became a recognised department of English commerce. At least four companies were formed in succession, each of which possessed under Royal charter the sole right to traffic with Africa, but they were unable to exclude other traders, and none survived for any length of time. The Revolution of 1688 threw the trade open, and from this time it flourished. In the year 1771 no fewer than 192 ships sailed from England for Africa (107 of these from Liverpool), with provision for the transport of 47,146 slaves. The entries show that from 1700 to 1786 the number of slaves imported into Jamaica alone was 610,000, or an average of 7000 a year. However considerate some of the planters may have been in their treatment of their slaves, it is undeniable Sdorg of the dtolong bofnir to the present (Ceuturj) 13 Troubles from slavery. that the mortality among the slaves was enormous ; immorality was universal ; and the oppres- sions practised by the masters provoked from time to time reckless revenges on the part of the slaves, and fomented continually the peril of wider disturbance. Slaves were always escaping into the mountainous parts of the island, where there were already alien bands, composed of the descendants of the mixed breed of Spaniards and blacks. These, known as the maroons, lived practically the life of freebooters, and at recurring intervals became so aggressive that regular military operations were resorted to for their suppression. Under an able leader called Cudjoe, the maroons proved so formidable, that Governor Edward Trelawney, in 1738, wisely solved the difficulty by arrang- ing a treaty with them, and settling them on lands assigned to them in different parts of the island. An outbreak of the Trelawney maroons in the end of the, century issued in 500 of them being deported to Sierra Leone. Of the various insurrections of the slaves during this century, the most serious took place in St. Mary’s Parish in 1760. It began in a midnight massacre of the whites on different estates, to the number of between thirty and forty, and ended after a brief struggle in the infliction of a merciless retribution. Three ringleaders were reserved for death by special torture : one was burned alive ; two others were hung in chains on Kingston Parade to die of starvation after eight or nine days. But the acquisition of wealth was pursued also in another direction. At the end of the long of*Port Royal S P^ land known as the Palisades, which encloses the magnificent harbour of Kings- ton, stands Port Royal, a favourable centre for com- 14 (Flic $torn of our <§lcst Nubian IWission mercial or naval operations. In the latter part of the seventeenth century it was celebrated as the finest town in the West Indies, the “wealthiest and wickedest” in the world. It had become the headquarters of a system of privateering which was no better than legal- ised piracy, and which brought to Port Royal not only the pillage gotten upon the seas, hut also the spoils of A STREET IN KINGSTON TO-DAY, WITH VIEW OF THE PALISADES IN THE DISTANCE. marauding expeditions to neighbouring shores. The inhabitants revelled accordingly in an ill-gotten wealth, far exceeding the gains brought to them by legitimate commerce. In 1692, in the climax of its pride and luxury, an awful earthquake all but annihilated the town : whole streets disappeared into the earth, nine- tenths of the buildings were destroyed, and 3000 £torg of tbc Colong bolon to % present Centnrg 15 of the inhabitants perished. Eleven years later, when beginning to recover from the disaster of the earthquake, it was laid in ruins by a fire, which spared only the royal forts and magazines ; and seventeen years later, when a second attempt to restore the town seemed about to succeed, a fearful hurricane swept many of the buildings into the sea, left only six mastless ships out of fifty that had been riding in the harbour, and finally reduced Port Royal to a mere dependency and naval defence of Kingston, which rose into existence upon the first destruction of the Port by the earthquake. But Port Royal was by no means the only sufferer. At various intervals, the whole island, or large portions of it, were devastated by hurricanes, earth- quakes, and tidal waves. In 1740 a huge tidal wave swept over the town of Savannah-la-Mar, and in an instant wiped out man, beast, and habitation, “ as a man wipeth a dish and turnetli it upside down.” Catastrophes like these mingle in the story of human avarice and crime like signals of Divine judgment. Jamaica has also been menaced by the storms of war, and the names of several of England’s naval heroes are Threatened associated with the defence of the coveted invasions of colony. An invasion by the French fleet the island. under Du Casse, in 1694, projected in the interests of the exiled Stuart dynasty, was ultimately defeated by the colonial militia. In 1702 occurred the famous sea-fight in which the same French admiral was engaged for five days by Admiral Benbow, but escaped on the eve of capitulation in consequence of the cowardice of two of the English captains, while the gallant Benbow returned to Port Royal to die of his wounds. When France in 1778 became the ally of the United States in the War of Independence, the French 16 ®Ijf $torn of our ®Icst fitbtmi fission fleet captured some of the West Indian possessions, but did not attack Jamaica. Spain joined France in this alliance, and the Governor of Jamaica forthwith des- patched a successful but resultless expedition against the Spanish citadel in Nicaragua ; in a subordinate command in this expedition Lord Nelson began his naval career. Three years later, Admiral Rodney won his peerage by the great victory which shattered the French fleet when on its way to effect a junction with the Spanish fleet, preparatory to the invasion of Jamaica. More than twenty years afterwards, the French and Spanish fleets again threatened Jamaica, but Lord Nelson chased them ° :Y from their course ; and in the following year, 1806, A dmir al Duckworth routed the French fleet off St. Domingo, and brought the captured prizes to Port Royal. The hold of Britain upon this lucrative colony was thus, although often menaced, successfully maintained. During the eighteenth century Jamaica had steadily grown in importance and wealth. Towards its close the , fortunes of the planters were probably at At the begin- .. 1 1 J ning of the their zenith. A remunerative market was century 1111 °P en t° them ; the supply of slaves was plentiful. In the island there were upwards of 300,000. So prosperous was the island, that in 1798 the colonists voluntarily subscribed a million sterling to aid the mother-country in the war against France. But the prosperity of the planters was linked to many evils. The frequent wars between the powers holding possessions in the West Indies occasioned a baleful revival of privateering, piracy, and other lawless- ness, familiarising that region with ghastly crimes and organised plunder. 1 In the island the sugar trade was 1 This period i.s vividly portrayed in Michael Scott’s novels, Tom Cringle’s Log and The Cruise of the Midge. §torg of tbc Colong irotou to tlje present Crnlurg 17 king. Tlie paradise of capital was the inferno of labour. Religion was visible only in occasional formalities ; profanity and immorality abounded. The slaves were kept in brutish ignorance, doubly victimised by their own heathen superstitions and by the vices of their owners. There appeared, however, omens of impending change. In 1 808 the African slave trade was abolished. The wars occurring immediately thereafter closed the market to the planters,, and together with the devas- tating storms which 'swept the island at this time occasioned much financial distress, while there was much suffering among the slaves. Already, too, the mother-country had begun to interpose between the planters and their slaves- in the interests of humanity. 2 CHAPTER II THE INTRODUCTION OF EARLIER MISSIONS During all this time the provision made for religion in connection with the Church of England was absolutely „ . , destitute of a missionary character. The Establish- commission of Charles II., appointing meiit. Colonel D’Oyley first Governor, instructed him, amongst other things, “ to discourage vice and debauchery, and to encourage ministers, that Chris- tianity, according to the Church of England, might have due reverence and exercise.” Twenty years later, the Jamaica Assembly passed an Act fixing the salaries of the rectors for each of the fifteen parishes. Towards the close of the eighteenth century the salaries were augumented, and made payable out of the public treasury instead of from parochial assessments ; at the same time it was made a legal requirement — the anti- slavery agitation had begun at home — that the clergy should “ instruct all free persons of colour, and slaves who might he willing to he baptized and informed in the tenets of the Christian religion.” Even at this time, however, several of the parishes were still wholly destitute of churches. Many of the rectors notoriously degraded their sacred office. In general, they winked at the vices of the whites, and utterly ignored the religious needs of the blacks. Occasionally the slaves were marshalled, without instruction or explanation, 18 ®jj£ |ntrob«ttion of (Karlin: fissions 19 before the verandah of the “great house,” when a wholesale sprinkling with water imparted to them a meaningless baptism. The State provision for religion was not of a kind fitted to advance it. Nothing was further from the real aims of the colonial Government than the evangelisation of the thousands of African heathen under its care. The Moravians were the first to recognise in the natives of Jamaica a field for gospel labour. The very first of the magnificent series of Moravian TheMora- missions was to the slaves in the Danish vians. island of St. Thomas in 1732. While entering other fields in various parts of the world, they still pushed forward their work in the West Indies, and in 1754 they sent Zechariah Caries and two others to Jamaica to preach the gospel on the Bogue Estate in St. Elizabeth. It was a hard task. The very existence of slavery rendered the situation inherently difficult, while all the contentions on which slavery rested con- fronted the missionaries with active opposition. But in the patience of faith they opened additional stations, and laboured according to their opportunities. The next Europeans to enter Jamaica as a field for gospel labour were the Wesley ans. Dr. Thomas Coke, the devoted associate of the Wesleys and ieyar^ eS ' the “ flying angel” of Wesleyanism, sailed in 1786 to settle three missionaries hi Nova Scotia ; but, being driven by stress of weather to Antigua, Dr. Coke was led in the providence of God to begin the Wesleyan mission to the West Indies. In 1789 he visited Jamaica, and prepared the way for the first Wesleyan missionary, the Rev. William Hammett; 20 (The j$torg of our fullest Jirbrau fission and by two subsequent visits, in 1792 and 1793, in both of which lie travelled across the island, he laid the foundations of an extended work. The headquarters of the mission being in Kingston, the Wesleyan mission- A SUGAR ESTATE. aries were more directly exposed to public notice than the Moravians in the west. The fear and anger excited among the planters by their labours, and by other similar labours occurring at this time, occasioned the ®lje |utvoiJucfion of Earlier fissions 21 most determined measures for tlieir suppression. An Act was passed in tlie Assembly in 1802, making it illegal to preach to the slaves. All religious services by unauthorised persons, or at unauthorised times, were prohibited. John Williams of Morant Bay, a free man of colour, was sentenced to a month’s imprisonment with hard labour for praying and singing hymns. Several of the regular ministers also suffered imprison- ment for conducting religious services. The Wesleyan chapel, built on the Parade at Kingston, was closed by the town authorities, and worship prohibited from 1807 to 1815. So intense was the antagonism to every movement which recognised the claims of the coloured population to civil and religious equality with the whites ! Even before the Wesleyans entered Jamaica, a humble negro, who had been bimself a slave, came from America to carry the gospel to his The Baptists. J ° 1 kinsmen in bondage. This was George Lisle. His former master, a British officer, was one of a few who about this time liberated all their slaves. Lisle, while earning his living as a carrier, developed gifts as a preacher, and was appointed pastor of a coloured congregation of Baptists in the United States ; but he resigned his charge, that, along with one or two others “ like himself in spirit and training,” he might convey the solace of the gospel to the Jamaican slaves. He had large audiences, and a brick chapel was built for him in Kingston ; but he was soon charged with seditious practices, and thrown in chains into prison. A native barber, named Moses Baker, took up the work. Sincere and devoted, he soon acquired great influence among his followers ; but he was silenced, and his work disorganised, by the prohibitory legislation already oo (The Shorn of our ®cst fnbkm fission referred to. Unhappily, the crude ideas and imperfect knowledge of these uneducated Native Baptists tended to disparage the written Word, introduced not a few superstitious forms into the Christianity they taught, and led to practices that at the time and for long afterwards exercised a very injurious influence. Baker corresponded with Dr. Bylands of Bristol, one of the band of Christian men who were carrying forward the anti-slavery agitation, and earnestly urged on him the sending of a preacher from England. At length, in 1814, the Baptist Missionary Society sent out the Bev. John Bowe, who found, however, no liberty to disseminate the gospel except through quiet labour in a day-school, and died two years afterwards, just when liberty to preach was on the point of being conceded. He was followed by others, who extended their labours in all directions through the island. Together with the Wesleyans, the Baptist missionaries had to bear the brunt of the antipathy and persecution directed by the propertied classes against those tvho aimed at the liberation of the slaves. The very ignor- ance of the slaves, and their impatient excitability, rendered it oftentimes peculiarly difficult to appear as their champions. But the task was fulfilled loyally, and for the most part judiciously. Most prominent in this connection was the Bev. William Knibb, 1 who upheld the cause of the slave, not always with discretion, but with a fearless courage, publicity, and persistency, which frequently exposed him to serious peril, but won for him in the end widespread recognition. 1 Mr. Knibb landed in Kingston in 1825, to succeed his brother as a teacher. He shortly afterwards became a minister, and died in 1845, in the forty-second year of his age. His funeral, on the day after his death, was attended by upwards of 8000 persons. . ' CHAPTER III THE BEGINNINGS OF OUR MISSION Our present mission had a twofold origin : first, in the mission of the Scottish Missionary Society; and secondly, in the mission of the Secession Church. The enthusiasm inaugurated by the departure of William Carey for India gave birth in Scotland to Scottish missionary societies in Glasgow and Edin- missionary burgh, the latter of which assumed the SOCIETY ° name of the Scottish Missionary Society. Founded in 1796, it sent out Peter Greig in the following year to Sierra Leone, the Rev. Henry Brunton in 1802 to Tartary, and the Rev. Donald Mitchell in 1822 to India. Hor was it unmindful of the obliga- tions of Scottish Christianity towards the enslaved children of Africa in Jamaica. As early as 1800 it sent out the Rev. Joseph Bethune and two catechists to Kingston, but Mr. Bethune First mission unsuccessful. and one of the catechists died within a few weeks of a malignant fever then raging, and the other catechist found his efforts so completely hindered by the legislative enactments already referred to, that he accepted a post as a teacher. Even after legislative hindrances were removed, there were serious difficulties in the way. Ko freedom of access could be had to the 26 fljc Utorg of ouv (lOlcst fitbian HUssion slaves without the consent of the planter, no measures organised for their benefit without his approval. The planters generally regarded the missionaries as pestilent agitators. The situation was aggravated by the absenteeism of many of the proprietors. The immense fortunes acquired in Jamaica could be much more pleasantly enjoyed at home. Accordingly a large pro- portion of the estates were under the management of attorneys and overseers, who felt none of the exemplary obligations of proprietorship, and sought only to please their principals by the amount of the annual profit. Such absenteeism was, of course, generally detrimental to the interests of the slaves. But indirectly it gave rise to the Presbyterian mission. Amongst the slave- owners were some to whom the ownership A new mission , proposed. °f slaves was involuntary and unwelcome. Their estates had come to them by inherit- ance, and in the position to which they had succeeded they desired to promote the welfare of the human beings who were in law their property. Direct acts of emancipation by individual proprietors entailed results which made them shrink from such a policy. Some owners resident in Scotland, notably the well-known family of the Stirlings of Keir, approached the Scottish Missionary Society in 1823 with a proposal that the Society should send out missionaries to the slaves on their estates, and that they, the owners, should bear half the expense. The proposal was cordially accepted, and the Rev. George Blyth was appointed a missionary to the slaves. Three years before, Mr. Blyth had entered on mission work in Tartary, but he had been compelled to abandon his post in consequence of re- ceiving an Imperial order to that effect, and had returned home with the view of proceeding to India, ®be Ihgumiiigs of our |$[tssicrn 27 when the call to go to Jamaica was placed in his hands. Mr. Blyth landed in the island in February 1824. The editor of a colonial paper advised the magistrates to send him back to Scotland by the ship Rev^G S Biytu° ™ which h e had come out, if they wished to preserve the ' island from assassination and bloodshed ; but by the attorneys of the gentlemen who were co-operating in the mission he was courteously HAMPDEN CHURCH (FRONT VIEW), SHOWING ENTRANCE TO GALLERY. received, finding an open door and an ample field. The estates of Hampden and Dundee, in the parish of Tre- lawney, on the undulating plains which lie at a slight elevation inward from the towns of Montego Bay and Falmouth, became the centre of his work ; and at length, on 23rd June 1828, there was opened for worship, on a site granted by A. Stirling, Esq. of Iveir, on his estate of Hampden, a commodious and substantial 28 «E be ^torj) of ouv Sliest Inbuilt mission stone church, erected through the liberality of Mr. Stirling, Mr. Stothert, proprietor of Dundee, and other proprietors, together with aid from Scotland. The various prayer meetings throughout the district were now formed into a congre- The first con- gregation. gation, and on the following Sabbath 70 persons, the majority of them slaves, sat down at the Lord’s Table, Mrs. Blytli assisting her husband in the HAMI'DEN CHURCH ('SIDE VIEW), SHOWING ENTRANCE TO AREA . 1 distribution of the elements. This was the first foundation of the Presbyterian Church in Jamaica. Already in the previous year two other missionaries had reached the island. The Rev. James Watson began work at Lucea, a town beautifully situated at the head of a lovely bay towards the western extremity 1 It will be noticed that we have selected for illustrations the church of the first congregation in each Presbytery. (L be ^rginnings of our fission 29 of the northern shore. 1 He speedily extended the work other stations Gbeenisland, a seaside town still farther begun by the west, of which the Rev. John Simpson Society. became in 1831 the first minister. Mr. Watson’s companion, the Rev. John Chamberlain, went eastward to Port Maria, and after two years’ labour formed a congregation there, which in two years more LUCE A CHURCH. erected a handsome church. One of the resident proprietors, who had shown himself friendly to mission 1 When he was put ashore, a complete stranger, on the beach, the first person he accosted was a little coloured girl whom he found playing there. She joined his Sabbath school as soon as it was begun, and early became a member of his congregation. When I visited Lucea in 1S90 she was still hale and well, universally esteemed, and by none more than Mr. Risk Thomson, our missionary there, as one who gave herself to prayers for the work of God in the congregation. 30 CIk Sdorg of oui' SScst |ubimi UTissiou work among the slaves, was Mr. Barrett, who owned the Cinnamon Hill and Cornwall Estates to the east of Montego Bay. When the Rev. Hope M. Waddell arrived in the island in 1829, he visited various places offering an opening for work, and, to the great joy of Mrs. Barrett, an earnest Christian lady, gave the preference to these estates, and was accommodated in PORT MARIA CHURCH. the Estate residence at Cornwall. Three years later, the Rev. John Cowan began work at Carronhall, and in the same year, 1832, these six brethren formed themselves into the Jamaica Mission Pres- bytery. At home the operations of the Scottish Missionary ®bc IjSeghutMgs of our ^fission 31 THE SECESSION CHURCH. Society were not receiving the support they merited. The income was declining. That it was only an Edinburgh society, while Glasgow had its separate missionary society, was a source of weakness ; and not less so was the fact that in adopting an undenominational basis, after the example of the London Missionary Society, it lacked the true adjustment to the conditions of Church life in Scotland. Men of insight were perceiving that the Church itself was the true missionary society, and that the organisation of the Presbyterian Church, especially in its freedom from State restriction, was peculiarly favourable to the prosecution of foreign missions. The propriety of engaging in foreign missions had for some time been discussed in the Secession Church ; and at „ , length, on 15th September 1831. at a meeting foreign mis- of Synod addressed by the Rev. George sion- Blyth, the Church resolved to enter on a foreign mission. In the following April the Synod instituted its Canadian Mission, 1 but delayed from one half-year to another 2 * * the selection of a held among a different race. The Jamaica Mission Presbytery, how- ever, sent home a strong appeal to the Synod to send out a mission which should co-operate with their own in meeting the rapidly increasing and clamant openings Resolves on a for tlie g 0S P el - A second time a missionary mission to from Jamaica, the Rev. Hope M. Waddell, Jamaica. pleaded the cause before the Synod ; and on the same day, 10th September 1834, the Synod 1 Previously to this, and from an early period, ministers and probationers had been sent out to supply the spiritual needs of our countrymen in the United States and in Nova Scotia, and also one or two to Canada. - The Synod then met half-yearly, in April and September. 32 a be %tonr of our Safest fnirrau fission resolved to send at least two missionaries to the . West Indies. The Rev. James Paterson, who had for sixteen years been minister of Anchtergaven, hut was only thirty-six years of age, a man of considerable talent, devoted zeal, and most amiable disposition, at once offered himself for the work. The second to be appointed was Mr. William Niven, probationer, who was ordained to mission service by the Presbytery of Forfar. 1 They landed in Jamaica in March 1835. While they were -on the outward voyage, the congre- gation of Broughton Place, Edinburgh, undertook the Arrival of support of Mr. Paterson as their missionary Messrs. Pater- in the foreign field. At first lie laboured son and Niven. f or n p ie mor Jhs, with great acceptance, in Montego Bay^ where Mr. Blyth had for two years been preparing the way. But there were large districts in the island where the gospel had never been preached, and seeing that the Montego Bay district was not so entirely destitute, Mr. Paterson felt that- he must go where the need was greatest. He crossed the island to the estate of Cocoa Walk, on the wooded slopes of Manchester, above the southern shore. The proprietor, who was resident hr England, had authorised the attorney to grant the _ , . , “ great house ” to a missionary for residence NewBroughtonor church; or both. In the district there station. wag a } ar g e population, to whom the gospel was utterly unknown; and there, under a spreading plum-tree, the site of which is marked as a historic spot, Mr. Paterson began to preach to them the glad tidings of great joy. Instruction in Christian truth, education, 1 It is a little remarkable that both these missionaries were taken away in the very midst of their usefulness by sudden death, the one killed by an accident on land, the other drowned in a hurricane at sea. 33 ®Ije §rgimuttgs of our pissiou and training in worship and other duties had to be begun from the very foundations amongst the hundreds desirous of a better life. After one year and ten months, on 30th October 1837, a congregation was formed by the reception of 54 out of the candidates’ class into church membership; and on the following Sabbath, 5th November, the Lord’s Supper was for the first time dispensed among them. In the following January the NEW ‘BROUGHTON CHTJB.CH. foundation-stone of a church was laid ; and to the new station was given the name of New Broughton. Mr. William Niven settled at Morgan’s Bridge, which occupies a central position in the south-western part of the island. Around him was a population The first con- r r gregation of of between four and five thousand souls, con- the new nected with thirteen sugar estates and three or four pens (stock farms), and entirely destitute of any religious ordinances beyond the reading of the 3 34 S’torji of our (fitcsi Nubian Ulission Church of England service on one of the estates once a fortnight by a neighbouring teacher. The earnest preaching and incessant labours of Mr. Niven resulted in the early formation of a class of candidates ; and on 2nd April 1837 a congregation was formed by the admission of 27 to church membership, and the congregation commemorated together the Lord’s death. This was the first missionary congregation of the Secession Church which had been gathered out of Stirling. Other mis sionaries follow. heathen ignorance and vice. A church was afterwards built at Stirling Park, in the immediate neighbourhood of Morgan’s Bridge ; hence the station received the name of Stirling. Possibly the name was adopted the more readily that the Presbytery of Stirling and Falkirk had undertaken to support Mr. Niven as their missionary in Jamaica. Within less than a year after the arrival of these two missionaries in the island, they were followed by the Bev. Peter Anderson, who was sent out by Regent Place congregation, Glasgow. He found a promising opening in Nassau, an estate in one of the beautiful valleys which run among the hills ” inland from Falmouth, but, being required ere long to quit that estate, he purchased a permanent location for the mission in the neighbouring pen of Bellevue, where a substantial stone church was after- wards erected by Regent Place congregation. A year later (January 1837), the accomplished and saintly William Jameson arrived on the field, as the missionary agent of Rose Street congregation, Edinburgh. He was attracted by its spiritual destitution to Goshen, a secluded place among the hills, where the parishes of St. Ann and St. Mary march. On the Sabbath after his arrival there, he preached in the boiling-house of the ®be beginnings of our fission 35 Estate works to an audience of over five hundred, many of whom came round him at the close, saying, “ Tank you, massa, good massa. We soon he able to read good book now, since minister come.” In the same year the Rev. James Niven arrived. He took up the work at Flowerliill, an out-station which had been started by his brother in connection with Stirling, and by adding to it a new work at Cross Paths he laid the foundations of two congregations, which were afterwards united into one at Friendship, where Lord Holland had offered ground for a church and school. It will be noticed that Mr. Paterson was the only missionary of the Secession Church who broke ground Co-operation in a re 8' ion entirely distinct from that between the occupied by the missionaries of the Scottish two missions. g oc i e ty . the others settled down in fields alongside of the latter. There was the friendliest co- operation between them. All the missionaries of the Scottish Society were, in fact, ordained ministers of the Secession Church. Already, in January 1836, the Jamaica Mission Presbytery was reconstituted on a basis which united the ordained members of both missions in the sacred work of organising and building up the newly-founded Presbyterian Church of Jamaica. What was the moral condition of the island in those years when slavery was drawing to its close ? The people were immersed in gross ignorance ; marriage was almost unknown, even among the whites, at least in the country districts ; the Sabbath was converted into a day of traffic ; the grinding routine of slavery was relieved at “ Crop-over ” and Christmas-time by boisterous revels, such as the masquerading John Connu processions, and the “ sets ” of “ Reds ” and “ Blues ” that paraded about 36 ®Ijc Sforg of our lllcst |nbum fission in tawdry finery and witli clamorous din, as well as by dances too often associated with licentiousness ; deceit was cultivated as the natural weapon of the oppressed ; pilfering was universal ; and the debasing superstitions of Africa were taught and practised in secret, although the fear of punishment hid them from the eye of over- seer and owner. “ In all valuable knowledge the people were little superior to the beasts ; in practice they were the followers of the father of lies.” CHAPTER IV THE EMANCIPATION OF THE SLAVES Since the latter part of tlie seventeenth century all that was best in Britain had been turning against slavery. The poet Cowper voiced the sentiment that was to shape the future. In 1772, Lord Mansfield pronounced the famous judgment in the case of the negro Somerset, brought before the court by the interposition of Gran- ville Sharp, that as soon as a slave set foot in England he was free. In that judgment lay the anoipaUon! 8 erm of universal emancipation. The Friends were the first to form an associa- tion for the liberation of the negroes. In 1788, Thomas Clarkson carried oft' the prize at Cambridge University for a Latin dissertation on the unlawfulness of the slave trade ; a still better fruit of his study of the question was the solemn devotion of his life to the work of bringing the slave trade to an end. Two years later a committee was formed, and William Wilberforce under- took the Parliamentary conduct of the movement, which issued in 1 808 in the abolition of the slave trade. After this it became evident that the evils of slavery could only be ended by the abolition of slavery itself. In 1821, Wilberforce asked Sir Thomas Fowell Buxton to undertake the conduct of this new movement. When 37 38 ®ljc Storn of our Most fnbinn ftlission the latter proposed a measure of gradual abolition, Canning carried against him a series of The Canning resolutions. resolutions recommending the colonial legis- latures to adopt ameliorative measures. Called upon to give effect to these resolutions, the Jamaica Assembly denied the right of Parliament to interfere in the internal affairs of the island. While pretending to amend the slave trade, they repeatedly attempted to secure the passing of a clause rendering it illegal to receive payments of any kind for imparting The Jamaica induction t° slaves ; and when this pro- Assembiy vision was as often vetoed by the Governor, defiant. and a despatch was at length presented to the Assembly pointing out the utter inadequacy of the pretended ameliorations, the Assembly became openly defiant. The excitement created among the planters and their sympathisers by the struggle against the advancing forces of emancipation could not escape the notice of the slaves. Reports circulated that their freedom was decreed by the king, but the planters were conspiring to withhold it. They decided accordingly to strike a blow for themselves. When the Christmas holidays of 1831 — the date fixed upon — arrived, only a few whites here and there had become suspicious of a plot. It seems clear that at first nothing more was intended than a wholesale strike against working as slaves without pay. There was no purpose of bloodshed, The insurrec- tion of 1831. and in reality only about a dozen whites lost their lives in the course of the insurrec- tion. But the slaves were resolved to destroy what was to them the machinery of slavery. The signal was given in the firing of the Estate of Kensington ; and on that night, the 28tli December, Mr. Blyth counted 39 (Emancipation of tlje Zlatas sixteen Estate works lighting up the sky with the fires which laid them in ruins. Throughout half the island there was a general rising of the slaves. At once the whole island was placed, under martial law. The militia furnished sufficient local defence against any advance of the ill -armed and ill - organised bands of slaves; and General Sir Willoughby Cotton, promptly taking the field with regular troops, soon dispersed the miserable insurgents. Some fled to the mountains ; the greater part went back to their estates and sur- rendered themselves ; some hundreds were put to death by the executioner, and others flogged. The property destroyed by the slaves in this rising was estimated at £667,000; and the British Parliament granted a loan of £200,000 to enable the planters to replenish their estates. But on the estates where the Presbyterian missionaries had made their influence felt, no injury was wrought, and the church members attended faithfully to their work. It was long, however, before this latter fact was realised. The alarmed and resentful planters roundly „ .. charged the missionaries with having Reaction ° ° against the fomented the outbreak. That they were missionaries. n0 £ arres t e d at the very outset was due not less to the esteem in which they were held by several of the magistrates, than to their own, as a rule, judicious conduct. But the Rev. Mr. Watson was forced to do military duty, and Mr. Knibb was only saved from being summarily court- mar tialled by the interposition of influential friends. All of them had to suffer many things wrongfully. After the insurrection was suppressed, the disbanded militia, aided and countenanced by white people generally, vented their animosity by demolishing Baptist and Wesleyan chapels 40 iljt Storn of our fittest fwbimt $fTissioir in several of the parishes. Two attempts to burn Hampden Church were happily frustrated. A Colonial Church Union was also formed, for the purpose of expelling all “sectarian” missionaries from The Colonial ^he i s ^ an( ^- An attempt to bribe the Church Presbyterian missionaries into joining it, Union. by proposing to establish Scotch kirks in every parish as a branch of the Island Church Establish - VIEW OF EUCEA FROM THE WEST. ment, signally failed. Forthwith the “ Unionists ” (as they were called) began a series of persecutions and outrages, directed against missionaries and all who sympathised with them, which threw the free coloured population into angry opposition, and was fast fomenting a civil war. They closed the church at Port Maria; for weeks Mr. Watson of Lucea could not venture out of his house ; the missionary at Greenisland was dragged ©mancipation of the flatus 41 before tbe magistrates on false charges, and threatened with assault. At this crisis Earl Mulgrave arrived as Governor. He proclaimed the Union as an unlawful institution, and publicly cashiered all officers and magistrates who were members of it, thus effectually dissolving it. In the most marked manner he counte- nanced and encouraged the labours of the missionaries. . . On the other hand, an attempt was made aries vindi- among the friends of the slaves at home to cated. inculpate the Presbyterian missionaries as being generally too favourable to the planters ; but the secretary of the Scottish Missionary Society, Dr. William Brown, published a triumphant vindication of the attitude they had preserved. It was, of course, now perfectly clear that no hope could be entertained of ameliorative measures from the colonial Legislature. The passing of the Reform Bill of 1832 gave Great Britain a new Parliament; and in 1833 the ministry of Earl Grey carried the Bill abolishing slavery. It provided that, from Emancipation. lsfc Au § ust 1834 > a11 children under six should be free, while the rest of the slaves should enter on a six - years’ apprenticeship, during which they should work three-fourtlis of their time for their masters, and at the end of which they should be free. At the same time, a sum of twenty millions was voted to compensate the slave-owners for the loss of what had hitherto been legal property. On the appointed date the planters prophesied a pandemonium, which should foreshadow the coming ruin of the island. The missionaries, on the other hand, laboured hard to prepare the ignorant and excited multitudes for the approaching change. In reality the day was celebrated chiefly as a sacred jubilee ; throughout the island there 42 (l lie Ufora of our ®lest Inbinu Mission was hardly a disturbance. But the system of apprentice- si lip proved a failure. The difficulties created by a transition stage became increasingly burdensome, and the Jamaica Assembly was driven to terminate the apprenticeship two years earlier than had been at first Emancipation i n t en< fed. The jubilee which had celebrated Day, 1st August the ending of slavery was eclipsed by the 1838- jubilee which inaugurated the universal enjoyment of freedom. Where there were churches, they were filled with grateful worshippers, who kneeled before God as at the stroke of midnight they entered into liberty. On the mountain-tops they welcomed with shouts of praise the rising of the sun that shone on a free people. Again in the forenoon they crowded the churches at services of thanksgiving. Thereafter many of them, with a fine courtesy, paid their respects to their former masters and overseers. The total number of slaves set free in Jamaica was 311,071 ; the compensation paid to their former owners was £5,853,975. CHAPTER Y PROM THE DATE OF EMANCIPATION TO THE FIRST SYNOD IN 1849 The Act of Emancipation undoubtedly created a situa- tion full of confusion, uncertainty, and peril. It fell to Sir Charles Metcalfe to lay the foundation Effects of J emancipation, of the new order of things, and his statue in the Square at Kingston commemorates the ability and integrity with which he filled the office of Governor. The dispensation of justice had to be reorganised ; the rights of the Dissenting Churches legalised ; the currency remodelled ; and retrenchment effected in the administration of the now greatly impoverished island. For a time it seemed as if a national act of righteousness were to issue in the ruin of the island and the misery of the people. Between 1832 and 1848 no fewer than 653 sugar and 456 coffee plantations were abandoned, and their works broken up. A large proportion of the compensation money paid to the slave-owners had gone to those who held mortgages on their properties. The planters, in their resentment at emancipation, had prophesied the ruin of the estates from want of labourers, and many of them, in the words of the Royal Commission of 1884, “did their best to fulfil their own prophecy.” The freed slaves were driven off the properties on which they 43 44 ®l)c Storjr of our ®Ec$t fitbimr HUssicw had resided, and their dwellings pulled down • wages were tampered with, and withheld on the slightest pretexts ; leases of ground for cultivation were refused, except on tyrannical terms. On the other hand, the negroes generally expected that emancipation was itself to bring them an amelioration of their condition which could only he secured through patient industry and well-doing ; and many of them were utterly regardless of the debt due by the labourer to the interests of an accepted employer. Where a better spirit prevailed on both sides, the advantages of emancipation were at once apparent. It was a hard task which lay before our mission. The idea which originated the mission, that of giving The task the G° s P e l t° the slaves, still continued, before our although the slaves were now free, to dominate its policy and shape its endeavours. For the emancipated people were still enslaved in ignor- ance and superstition ; they were habituated to deceit and dishonesty, and given over to immorality, with hardly any sprinkling of' family life among them. “ W e were a wild people,” was the graphic testimony of a converted negro woman at Goshen. “ Mr. Jameson -found we wandering and stumbling amid crags and gullies in the woods, blind, and with no man to care for our souls.” Taking them in the mass, they were simply a pagan people, whose contact with English civilisation had been of a kind which taught them nothing but its vices and its hypocrisies. The social unsettlement aggravated the difficulties of the situation. The missionaries sought to grapple with these difficulties in different ways. Mr. Free villages. . ^ Blyth founded the village of Goodwill, by which he kept the people near their church and place of 45 (front 1834 to 1849 worship. But many of the best of the slaves, who had saved a little money, preferred to seek provision grounds of their own, which could be bought cheaply in the high mountains. Mr. Waddell bought a run of New settle- moun tain land in the wild and picturesque merits. 1 highlands some eighteen miles from Corn- wall, already partly occupied by free people of colour, and, dividing it amongst a number of his people, founded the station of Mount Horeb.' A similar movement of his people led him to found the still remoter station of Lamb’s Kiver (now known as Mount Hermon), near the German colony of Seaford. While in the north the extension of the mission was brought about by local migrations, in the south it was effected by aggressive movements. The Secession 1 ° f Dunfermline Presbytery sent out in 1839 Church the Rev. William Scott, who began work at mission. Hillside, laying the foundation of the present charge of Ebenezer. Mr. Aird, one of several catechists sent out at this time, was stationed at Mile Gully, and there gathered the original nucleus of the' congregation of Mount Olivet. A new station was also opened at Victoria Town, which was described at the time as “ the key to the parish of Vere, perhaps the darkest, most neglected, and wicked locality in Jamaica.” In the east Mr. William Anderson gathered a. congregation at Rosehill, where he was labouring as catechist and teacher, and also began work at Pliillipsburg, now Cedar Valley. In the west there were also new extensions. The Presbytery of Stirling in 1840 sent out Mr. Hugh Goldie as catechist to aid the Rev, W. Niven. Mr. Goldie was stationed at Negril, and formed there in 1844 a little church of five converts. In 1843 the Scottish Missionary Society sent out the 46 ®Ijt ^toni of our Sliest §nimnt fission Rev. Warrand Carlile, a minister of the Cliurcli of Scotland. Although he was at the time Brownsville. . ° iorty-six years of age, Ins offer of service, prompted by a vision of the Lord directing him to Jamaica — a field of which he had not been thinking — was of such a kind that the directors of the Society gladly accepted it ; and his honoured name closes the list of missionaries sent out by that Society. On his arrival in Jamaica he accepted an invitation to Cascade, a beautiful location high among the mountain valleys inland from Lucea, where Mr. Watson had already done much preparatory work. Very soon after Mr. Carlile settled there, a good congregation was formed, and the station was called Brownsville, after Dr. William Brown, son of Dr. John Brown of Haddington, and for many years the Secretary of the Scottish Missionary Society. By a remarkable leading of Providence the mission was carried to Grand Cayman, a low and reef-girt island which lies 130 miles north-west of Jamaica, GrandCayman. and is inhabited by the tail and well-built descendants of buccaneers of former days, with a certain commingling of negro blood and colour. In January of 1845 the ship in which Mr. Waddell had sailed for home was wrecked on that island, and he had perforce to stay there over two Sabbaths, on both of which he preached to the people. In the spring of the same year the ship in which Mr. W. Niven was going home called at the island on a Sabbath to take in turtle. On the heart of each the spectacle of this isolated population of 1500 souls, without a single missionary or teacher of any kind, and living in the practice of open and secret wickedness, made a profound impression. Mr. Niven obtained leave when at home to begin a mission there ; cfrom 1834 to 1849 47 and when, on liis return to Jamaica, the question was Beginning of P ut in the Presbytery, “Who will go?” the mission the Rev. W. Elmslie, who had been first thera catechist and afterwards ordained missionary at Greenisland, rose and offered for the lonely outpost. The Rev. W. Niven accompanied him thither in 1846, and introduced him to his charge ; hut on the return voyage the schooner ( The Wave) foundered in an awful hurricane. Mr. Niven and all on board andMrsfmven. were drowned; and shortly afterwards his young widow, prostrated by the sore be- reavement, died in childbed. 1 But it was not only in occupying new ground that progress was manifested. Individual instances of trans- Progress in formed character and fervent piety gladdened other direc- the eyes of the labourers ; the gradual work- ing of the new leaven was also apparent, although too subtle and variable to he easily defined ; at the several stations congregations were steadily growing. There were also some notable beginnings of future developments. Native catechists began to be employed, the first of whom, George M'Lachlan, who had formerly been a slave, deserves to be held in remembrance for his intelligent and earnest piety and active zeal. The training of native youths to be teachers and catechists was also inaugurated. The proprietor of Bonham Spring mansion - house, near Goshen, offered it rent-free to Mr. Jameson for this purpose, and Mr. George Millar was sent out in 1841 to begin the new seminary. Shortly afterwards, however, he removed it to Montego Bay as a more 1 Full details of this whole paragraph relating to Grand Cayman are given in the Record for February 1847. Native catechists. Montego Bay Academy. 48 ®Ije Utorjr of our West ftrbimt Ulissioit suitable centre, and there it proved a wellspring of enlightening influence. To have been trained in the Montego Bay Academy came to be regarded as almost in itself a certificate of superior qualifications and character. But most notable of all was the earnest desire amongst the converted children of Africa that their kindred in the land of their birth should hear the glad , . . tidings of salvation. And from the day the The desire to 0 J _ send the gospel sun of freedom rose on Jamaica, the idea to Africa. had been cherished by friends of Africa that Jamaica would furnish agents for its evangelisation. In 1839, Mr. Waddell organised in his congregation at Cornwall a missionary society, in which 230 members contributed in monthly gifts ,£66 the first year, and more in some later years. In other congregations a similar enthusiasm was evoked. For two years the project was before the Presbytery. In 1841 they passed resolutions in favour of it, but these resolutions met with a chilling reception at home. Despite this discouragement, the brethren in Jamaica, having mean- while received inviting assurances directly from Old Calabar, resolved to proceed in the way of organising a new society to undertake this mission. Mr. Waddell accepted the commission to go home to found this „ . . «... society, with a view to thereafter becoming Origin of the J ’ ° mission to Old its first missionary. For this purpose he Caiahar, resigned his connection with the Scottish Missionary Society. After he arrived in Scotland, however, the Secession Church agreed to institute the mission, and appointed him to lead the way. But the progress manifested in Jamaica was shadowed by darker experiences. Incessant difficulties tried the faith and courage of the missionaries and hampered 4 VIEW OF MONTEGO BAY Jfrom 1834 fo 1849 51 their labours ; the soil in which they had to work was saturated with the evil influences of the experiences. P ast i while financial distress and social priva- tions created cares that could not he avoided. In 1842 an outbreak of Myalism swept through many parishes like a contagion. Myalism may be described Myalism aS ^ ie ^f ric an superstition of exorcism, which seeks the expulsion of evil spirits and the breaking of evil spells ; while Obeahism (although the name is now often used generically as inclusive of Myalism), its malignant counterpart, seeks the infliction of evil through occult incantations, rites, and charms. Large gatherings of the negroes assembled at one place after another to drive out the Obeah with frenzied dances and singing, amid an excitement that often threw the principal performers into paroxysms ; while the grossest delusions were inculcated as mystic truths, and deeds of darkness enhanced the demoralising influence of the orgies. These superstitious rites were sometimes grotesquely combined with the singing of Christian hymns and the use of Christian prayers. These outbreaks almost defied for the time the efforts of the missionaries who attempted to prevent or over- come them. They were not, however, a transient epidemic. They were rather the outcome of hereditary superstition, to which the abolition of slavery gave freedom of action, and which has beleaguered mission work down to the present day. From time to time this superstition has received a fresh quickening from the location in Jamaica of settlements of “Africans” i.e. captives rescued from slavers by British men-of-war, and planted down in selected spots. 1 These recent 1 I visited a settlement near Brownsville of “Africans ” from the Congo, the adults of which had not more than one or two words of English. 52 Or §tonr of our ®cs( fitbitm fission comers from Africa were regarded as specially skilled in Obealiism. There were also many deaths among the missionaries. In 1841 fever of an unusual type prevailed, to which four of the mission staff succumbed, while others Deaths. who recovered were obliged to take furlough home. A deep impression was made by the sudden removal of the Rev. James Paterson. On 23rd January 1843 he left his home in Cocoa Walk to attend a meeting Death of Presbytery. The Rev. Dr. Robson of the Rev j. Wellington Street Church, Glasgow, who Pateison. was then on a visit to the island to recruit his health, and whose sister had been Mr. Paterson’s first wife, accompanied him in the gig. Their conversa- tion turned on the leadings of God’s providence and on the hopes of His children. Dr. Robson quoted to him the words of Rowland Hill’s favourite hymn — “ And when I’m to die, Receive me, I’ll cry; For Jesus has loved me, I cannot tell why. But this I do find, we two are so joined, He’ll not be in glory and leave me behind.” At Mr. Paterson’s request he again repeated the hymn. Immediately afterwards they came to a descent ; as they went down the hill the horse broke into a gallop, and Mr. Paterson lost control of it ; at the foot of the hill, a watercourse crossing the road gave the gig a severe jolt, which threw them both out of their seats ; Dr. Robson fell again into the gig, but Mr. Paterson, who had been holding the reins, fell on his head upon the road, and lay there motionless ; the horse ran on for about half a mile before it could be checked, and when Dr. Robson descended from the gig and ran back to where Mr. Paterson was lying, he found his friend drum 1834 to 1849 53 dead. So quickly, as in a moment, was tlie first missionary of the Secession Church caught up out of his abundant labours to be Avith Christ. The deaths of Mr. and Mrs. "William Niven in 1846, already referred to, were folloAved by others. BetAveen August 1848 and January 1849 no feAver Old Calabar than six deaths occurred m the mission staff, and the Mission Board took occasion to issue an address calling to special prayer and renewed effort in view of this great mortality. There were: also several departures for the neiv field in Old Calabar. Mr. and Mrs. Edgerley and Mr. Edivard Miller folloived Mr. and Mrs. Waddell later in the same year ; the Bev. William Jameson in the year following ; Mr. and Mrs. Goldie, Mr. and Mrs. Newhall, Mr. Henry Hamilton, and others, a year later ; and again, in the folloAving year (1848), Mr. William Anderson. The depletions occa- sioned by these deaths and departures Avere not made up by the number of neAv missionaries avIio arrived. Tavo congregations, however, were added, both hi 1848. The congregation at Montego Bay, originally connected Avith the Church of Scotland, and und 1 Kfngston which a 4 the Disruption adhered to the Free Church, cast in its lot with the Jamaica Church. At Kingston there was a congregation which adhered to the Church of Scotland. Mr. T. F. Callender, a probationer of the Secession Church, who had come to the island to seek relief from pulmonary complaint, and Avho was a most acceptable preacher, was invited to become its pastor. As the stipend was paid by a Government grant, his principles prevented him from complying Avith the request ; but a friendly arrangement Avas come to, by which Mr. Callender, after being ordained as a missionary by the Jamaica 54 ®I,c Iborg of our West fubian Ifissioit Presbytery, gave a twelve-months’ supply to the vacant congregation, until a new minister arrived from Scotland. The congregation was greatly benefited in every way by Mr. Callender’s earnest labours, and the arrangement terminated amid mutual good-will. Mr. Callender then opened a new station in Kingston, which had at the time a population of 40,000, not a fourth of whom were connected with any place of worship. There were the fairest prospects of success, but the disease from which Mr. Callender suffered had made insidious progress, and he only lived to dispense the first communion to his infant congregation of 50 members. In 1847 the union of the Secession and Relief Churches constituted the United Presbyterian Church. One of the first results was the taking over tw^mi^sions 6 the ^fissions of the Scottish Missionary Society by the United Church. This step was very welcome to all the missionaries in Jamaica. From the beginning they had co-operated as brethren ; all the ordained agents of the Society were ministers of the Secession Church, with the exception of the Rev. Warrand Carlile, who belonged to the Free Church, and he too cordially accepted the new relationship. Following upon this union, the Presbytery resolved to extend the advantages of Presbyterianism by constitut- ing itself into a Synod, with four Presbyteries. The first Synod met at Falmouth on 9th January The first Synod. . J , 1849, and was opened with a sermon by the Rev. Dr. King of Greyfriars Church, Glasgow, who was then on a visit to the island. At that time there were under the charge of the Synod 17 ordained missionaries, 5 catechists having charge of congrega- tions, 5 European catechists and teachers employed under missionaries, 4 female teachers and more than 55 VIEW IN KINGSTON, SHOWING ST. ANDREW’S CHURCH. Jrom 1834 to 1849 57 12 native teachers, upwards of 4000 communicants, and 2000 children receiving education in day schools connected with the mission. It is interesting to note how the four Presbyteries rise like after-monuments of the pioneer enterprise which laid the foundations of the mission, byteri^ PfeS Mr. Blyth began work in Hampden, and round that station circles the Northern Presbytery. Mr. Watson landed in faith at Lucea, and from Lucea radiates the Western Presbytery. Mr. Chamberlain moved eastwards to Port Maria, and inland from Port Maria branched out the Eastern Presbytery, which in 1891 was divided into two, the North-Eastern, and the South-Eastern having its seat in Kingston. Mr. Paterson planted the gospel at New Broughton, and from that root the Southern Presbytery has grown upwards like a palm. CHAPTER VI prom 1849 to 1866 'I' hr lines of our mission work had now been definitely and deeply laid ; what was needed was to carry the work steadfastly forward. And this was done, despite the restrictive and retarding influences of prolonged vacancies and frequent changes. Our mission had to pass through times of trial, but in the midst of them it received a signal baptism of blessing. In 1850 an awful visitation of cholera fell like a scourge upon the island. Beginning in the unclean village of Port Royal, and devastating it, the cholera disease spread through every parish, until it had almost literally decimated the popula- tion, one in thirteen throughout the whole island falling a victim to the malady. The preventive and remedial measures energetically employed by the missionaries saved many lives. Such a period of solemn anxiety and fear naturally awoke a widespread spiritual concern, which, despite its transitory character in multitudes of cases, produced a large number of converts. In this way the scourge was turned into a blessing. From our mission staff, during the period now under review, the shadow of death was seldom absent. In one instance the stroke which bereaved the mission was made more vivid by its tragic surroundings. The Rev. 68 Jrcmt 1849 to 1866 59 David Wingate, of Stirling, was returning to tlie island, Death of Mr w itli lais newly-married wife, in the splendid and Mrs. new steamer Amazon , which was making Wmgate. h er maiden voyage, with fifty passengers and a numerous crew. Two days after leaving Southampton, on 4th January 1852, the steamer was found to be on fire ; all efforts to subdue the fire failed, and a scene of horror ensued ; the flames swept the ship from stem to stern, and many perished in them. Of the boats which were attempted to be launched, only the lifeboat, with twenty-one persons, got safely away ; in one which was swamped in the launching, and whose occupants were drowned, were the missionary and his bride. Eesignations also thinned the ranks of the missionaries. The Rev. George Blyth, the pioneer of the mission, after twenty-seven years’ labour in the island, resigned his charge, and returned in 1851 to Scotland, where he died in 1866. In 1854 the Rev. John Cowan, after twenty-two years’ faithful labour at Carronhall, became incapacitated for further service, and retired to Scotland. And in 1857 that distin- guished scholar, the Rev. Alexander Robb, after two years’ labour at Goshen, left Jamaica for work in Old Calabar. The vacant places, however, were filled by new arrivals, and four of the famous “ Seven ” of toe staff nS t0 1^57 1 were located in Jamaica and Grand Cayman. The working of several of the stations was also facilitated by the ordination of cate- 1 Considerable enthusiasm was awakened at home in 1857 by the appointment of seven new missionaries, who appeared together on public platforms at missionary meetings in Edinburgh and Glasgow. GO tty J$targ of out $ubuw usstoit native ministry, cliists who liad gained for themselves a good degree. 1 Three of these were natives. The propriety of training a native ministry had long been recognised, but not till 1851 was the first definite Trainin°- of a provision made for it, in the appointment of the Rev. Alexander Renton, formerly of Hull, a man of exceptional culture and beautiful character, as theological tutor at Montego Bay Academy, where the general work of the Academy and of the mission also engaged a share of his energies. But it was afterwards judged that the special training of the theological students might be carried on more economically and with equal advantage in connection with one of the stations, and in 1858 Mr. Renton removed with the students to Mount Olivet. In the previous year two native students and one American were licensed on completing their curriculum, the first- fruits of a regularly-trained native ministry ; one of them was the Rev. James Robertson, who died last August at Mount Carmel. About that time, also, two new stations were opened in the Western Presbytery; and the congregation of Falmouth, which had been in the same position as was formerly the Montego Bay congregation, joined itself to the mission under the Northern Presbytery. At this juncture there occurred a great religious awakening throughout the island. It began among the Moravian churches in Manchester, and extended rapidly among all denomina- tions. The leading features of the revival were strong 1 It may be noted here that some of our ablest and most successful missionaries, like William Anderson, Hugh Goldie, and James Ballantine, went out at first as catechists. Extensions. The revival of 1860 . FALMOUTH MARKET. Jrom 1849 to 1866 63 convictions of sin accompanied with open confession, and followed by acts of repentance, such as restitution for past wrongs and reconciliation of existing quarrels. People were struck down, and remained for hours, or even days, in deepest distress on account of sin. The joy which came through trusting in the Saviour bore instant fruit in prayer and effort for the conversion of others. In many of the less evangelised parts of Jamaica the revival movement went to seed, leaving few permanent fruits, sometimes even doing harm. But wherever it was directed with judgment and the people were intelligently taught, it left behind results of great importance and abiding character. Thus the Rev. Warrand Carlile testified, a year after the revival, that the membership of his congregation had increased from 300 to 542, and the income from £140 to £250 ; while two years later he declared that the revival com- menced a new era in the history of his congregation. Other missionaries bore similar testimonies ; and the church returns for the year showed a total increase of 1500 communicants. But these glad experiences did not continue long. Sometimes a tree which in one year has yielded an exceptional wealth of fruit stands almost ^ j t ™ e of barren for a few seasons thereafter ; so did it seem to be as regards the progress of the mission when once the fruits of the revival had been amalgamated into the ordinary life of the Church. Perhaps a truer view would be that God had graciously quickened and confirmed His people for passing through a period of disheartening adversity and trouble. Por now there followed a period of great distress among the peasantry. A prolonged drought, the raising of prices through the American war, and increased import duties, 64 tiThc Utorg of out <®tcst fnbimt HUssion entailed serious hardships. Dr. Underhill, the Secretary of the Baptist Missionary Society, called the attention of the Home Government -to the sufferings of the people, and the Government, by publishing the letter in Jamaica, made the matter a public ques- tion there. For some time previously there had been considerable political controversy, the Im- perial Government being desirous of fostering the Troubles brewing. NATIVE WOMEN WASHING CLOTHES. principle of representative constitutional government in the Assembly, while the majority of the Assembly desired to maintain the sole responsibility of the Governor. In more than one direction relations were strained. The labouring population were continually irritated by petty acts of oppression and injustice on the part of the planters, especially in the payment of wages. Petitions to the Governor only elicited the recom- Jrom 1849 to 1866 65 mendation to give their labour steadily and continually wherever it was wanted. In these circumstances the descendants of Africans throughout the island were called upon, by a resolution adopted at a public meeting in Kingston, to form themselves into societies to procm’e the redress of their grievances. In this agitation George William Gordon took a prominent part. Gordon W ' Once a slave, and freed by his father, to whom he afterwards -showed ' the most filial kindness, Mr. Gordon became one of the largest landed proprietors in the island, and a member of the Assembly and several local Boards. His talents, Christian character, and urbanity commanded wide respect. There can be no doubt that Gordon’s words and actions did much to foment the animosity of the negroes against the whites ; there can be as little doubt that in the agitation he himself contemplated only constitutional methods. But the ends proposed to the African population, and the The Morant a PP ea l s made to them, fomented in certain Bay insurrec- quarters a determination to resort to illegal tion- violence. In St. Thomas-in-the-East, the parish in the island least under missionary influence, on 11th October 1865, a roughly-armed and imperfectly- organised mob entered the Square in Morant Bay to begin the war on the propertied classes. The forces of order on the spot were overpowered ; the court-house attacked and fired ; the Custos and others murdered : in all, eighteen were killed and thirty-one wounded by the insurgents. The conspiracy was purely local, but fears of its having wider ramifications exaggerated the danger, and volunteer companies were improvised in every parish. As a matter of fact, the rebellion was checked and hemmed in within three days, and crushed within a week. But the conduct of the authorities and of the S 66 ff'bc Sdorn of our wife si fivbimt Ulission military was repreliensibly severe. Four hundred and fifty rebels were killed in quelling the rebellion ; after TT . .. .. order was restored, 350 more were put to action of the death. A thousand native dwellings were Government. W antonly destroyed by burning. The punish- ments inflicted were excessive and cruel ; and a flagrant violation of law and order took place in the treatment of Mr. Gordon. He had been ill at his villa during these days, hut, learning that a warrant had been issued against him, he rode in with a friend to the Government offices in Kingston. There he was at once arrested, and illegally conveyed away by sea into the proclaimed district, that he might he subjected to trial, not by ordinary law, hut by court-martial. After being subjected to incredibly brutal indignities, he was summarily hanged. The indignation evoked by these proceedings obliged an investigation by a Royal Commission from England, and as the result, the Governor, Mr. Eyre, was recalled. The insurrection was significant, and not less its results. The interests of the coloured population rose into prominence as a principal aim in the feTeiiion° f ^ f u t ure government of the island. The con- tempt for negro life and the wanton use of force, which were a legacy of slavery, received a stern check in the Report of the Royal Commission. The Legislative Assembly, which for more than two hundred years had represented the colonists of Jamaica, wisely enacted its own abolition. 1 The survivals of slave- 1 The panic awakened hy the Morant Bay rising and the resentment against the native Baptists were so great, that the Governor actually introduced a measure into the Assembly, which would have had the effect of strangling the mission work of all Churches except the Episcopal, the Church of Scotland, and the Roman Catholic. It was too extravagant to be proceeded with. Jfrorn 1849 to 1866 67 holding days in the spirit and methods of administra- tion were now doomed. A new era began, in which the good of the people as a whole and without distinction of race became the end of the Government. What was the position of the mission at this period of time? In brief, it numbered 24 congregations, with 4738 members and 470 candidates; the contribu- tions for all purposes amounting to £ 2558 , being an average of 10s. 8d. per head. CHAPTER YII from 1866 to 1893 In October 1866 tlie new Governor, Sir John Peter Grant, inaugurated the new form of government, under which the Legislative Council consisted The Govern- exc i us ively of the nominees of the Crown. Improvements were introduced in various directions, which tended to equalise privileges and to benefit all classes. In 1869 the Episcopal Church was disestablished, a proceeding which resulted in a re- organisation and quickening of the Church, to its own increase and prosperity, and to the marked advantage of religion in the island. The cause of education also received great attention. The same policy of gradually extending measures of public benefit and local improve- ment was carried forward by the subsequent Governors, Sir Anthony Musgrave, and Sir Henry W. Norman, who in 1884 introduced into the Council representative members chosen by the people. The present Governor, Sir H. A. Blake, promoted in 1890 an Exhibition, which did much to attract attention to the products and capabilities of Jamaica, and to enlighten the native population as to the cultivation of the resources within their reach. It is, of course, impossible to trace minutely the history of our mission throughout the island during 68 Jrom 1866 to 1893 69 this long period. Every reader can easily understand liow the work presents year after year the Our mission. . ; , . ,. , same general features of continuous and earnest labour, darkened perhaps by local hindrances and trials, or brightened by special evidences of the work of the Spirit, but on the whole always tending towards a better future. It must suffice here to outline the more prominent occurrences and developments. The depression which prevailed throughout the island at the beginning of this period was so great, that the missionaries recorded their thankfulness at ness tatl ° nari ' see i n g the Church even holding its ground, while its stability was recognised at home as gratifying and hopeful. But at home there was also dissatisfaction that the bright hopes awakened by the revival of 1860 had not found a more satisfactory fulfilment, in a larger measure of self-support and inde- pendence on the part of the Jamaican Church. It seemed to be still absorbing a larger proportion of the missionary income of the Church at home than might have been expected. As yet not a single congregation had become self-supporting. Accordingly, the Rev. Dr. Hamilton MacGill, the Foreign Mission Secretary, and Mr. J. H. Young, Glasgow, an able, liberal, and generous- fen^ouf 011 hearted member of the Board, went out as deputies to visit the mission in the winter of 1870-71. While inquiring minutely into all the affairs of the mission, they sought to make their visit one of encouragement and help, and brought home a report which showed that much of the dissatisfaction which had been expressed was occasioned by an imperfect understanding of the conditions of life among the people, and of the progress which had actually been 70 Uc Sforji of our <®cst |ub'uuv |$li&sion achieved. At the same time they sought to develop in the Jamaican congregations a spirit of reliance on their own resources, and in general to stimulate action towards the goal of self-support. The visit of the deputies was followed by a very marked improvement in the contributions of the people, to which, however, the great improvement in the material condition of the island, beginning in 1870, no doubt largely co-operated. VIEW OF NATIVE DWELLINGS Some ninety miles from Jamaica, and visible from its northern shore on a specially clear day, lies the island of Cuba, having eight times the area the Cubans J 9»ni8/iC8»j blit 16SS tllcin tiir66 times its population. The revolution of 1868 in Spain had been followed by several political risings in Cuba, and at the time Dr. MacGill and Mr. J. H. Young visited Jamaica there were a large number of Cuban refugees in Kingston. About the same time the Rev. «#rom 1866 to 1893 71 Ramon Montsalvatge, a well-accredited Spanish ex-priest, arrived from South America, and our church in Kingston was freely granted him for work amongst the Cubans. For a long time the idea of carrying the gospel to Cuba and other islands of the West Indies had been present to the minds of some of our missionaries, and now there seemed a hope of a beginning in such work at their own doors. Encouraged by Mr. J. H. Young, the Jamaica Church resolved to undertake the support of this work among the Cubans, and entered with enthusiasm and liberality upon the undertaking. At first there was good success. But after three or four years this foreign element in the population of Kingston dwindled away, and the mission came to a natural end. More recently the idea of a mission to Cuba has been revived in the Jamaica Church, and earnestly advocated, but has not yet taken practical shape. Prior to the departure of the deputies for Jamaica, the resolution had been taken to close the Montego Bay Closing of Academy, and to this resolution the deputies Montego Bay gave effect. During the twenty-five years Academy. ex j s t; ence the Academy had rendered valuable service. Five hundred and sixty-three public scholars had reaped its benefits through the payment of fees; while 108 missionary students had been enrolled, of whom rather more than a half afterwards entered the service of the mission, chiefly as teachers, but four as pastors. In 1855, the Governor, Sir Henry Barkly, in a despatch to the Colonial Secretary, said : “ By far the most creditable institution in the island is the Presbyterian Academy, principally intended for train- ing young men to the ministry or the scholastic profession.” It still held a foremost place, and was accomplishing excellent work ; there were 24 mis- 72 0% it tag of our ®est fnbitm $jpssimt sionary students and 56 public scholars in attendance. But the expense to the Home Church, amounting to nearly ,£500 a year, appeared to call for some more economical scheme. Very much at the instigation of the deputies, the Governor founded a Queen’s College in Spanish Town, with the view of imparting the higher education preparatory to a theological training ; but this scheme proved ultimately a failure. Mr. G. B. Alexander, who had been in charge of the Academy, was inducted as missionary at Ebenezer in at Ebenezer. 18/1 > and lfc was arranged, as a temporary measure, that he should there have eight students under tutorial training, with a view to their becoming teachers, or entering on a theological course when a theological professor should be appointed. In several respects the change to Ebenezer was found beneficial to the students, and the arrangement was prolonged until Mr. Alexander returned home on furlough in 1876, when this work came to an end. The subsequent history of the mission has confirmed the opinion that the closing of the Montego Bay Academy by the Foreign Mission Board was a mistake. The saving effected was limited and only temporary ; while the supply of well-trained and reliable teachers, as well as of native candidates for the ministry, received an unfortunate check. After the death of the Rev. Alexander Renton in 1863, the Rev. Adam Thomson, of Montego Bay, was appointed theological tutor, and carried on nwining Cal the wor ^ the Academy was closed, when the two students under his care com- pleted their curriculum, and there were no new entrants. At length, in 1876, the Rev. Dr. Alexander Robb, who had returned to Scotland from Old Calabar’, was sent Jrom 1866 to 1893 73 out as theological professor, the hall being located in premises in Kingston, purchased and adapted for the purpose ; and the Rev. John Simpson, who had now retired from the charge of Port Maria, being associated with Professor Robb in the work. The supply of students, however, did not prove equal to the hopes which prompted these arrangements, nor to the cost involved in them; and at length, in 1888, at a point when the hall became literally empty, Dr. Robb resigned his office, and went to join his family in Australia. Thereafter the training of students for the ministry has been entrusted to the Revs. G. B. Alexander, M.A., of Ebenezer, and R. Johnston, B.D., of New Broughton, the arrangement being that the students spend two years under each, Mr. Alexander conducting the preparatory course, and Mr. Johnston the more purely theological and practical training. There are at present four students. It has already been stated that the years following the visit of Dr. MacGill and Mr. J. IT. Young were years of material improvement in the island, and of progress in church life. Shortly afterwards (in 1875-76), the Rev. Mr. Tayloe, from England, visited the island, and conducted evangelistic services in many districts, with a consecrated fervour and ceaseless energy which brought him to an early grave. Not a few of our stations received marked quickening through his labours, and his name is still a hallowed memory to very many whom he led to Christ. The brightening symptoms encouraged the hope of some more definite steps towards a larger on 880 Cl