These churches, as has been seen, are entirely self-supporting. We have no means of ascertaining the exact amount raised for the support of their pastors. But we are certainly within the mark in setting it down at from £6,000 to £7,000 annually. From the date of Emancipation the churches have been eminently missionary churches, in the spirit which they have exemplified, and in the efforts which have been put forth. The AFRICAN MISSION of the parent Society was commenced in response to the earnest appeals of Jamaica Christians, who were no sooner set free from the bondage of slavery than they began to cry and pray for the salvation of their fatherland. At an early date they formed a Missionary Society of their own, the funds of which have shown a progressive increase in proportion to the numerical increase of the churches. In 1852 the income barely exceeded £300; in 1869 it was £1,270; in 1872 it was £1,737; in 1887 it was £2,695; and in 1890 it was £2,970. The operations of the Jamaica Baptist Missionary Society were at first confined to one or two home missionary stations in one parish, and partial provision of the current expenditure of Calabar College. It now not only contributes about £400 per annum to the latter, but its Home Mission agents are working in St. Elizabeth, Trelawny, St. Thomas in the East, and Portland; and its Foreign Missions in Cuba, Hayti, Costa Rica, and Honduras. It also sends an annual contribution to the funds of the English Society in aid of its Missions to Africa.

The churches have also their Day School and Sunday School societies. No missionary station is considered complete without its day school. According to the returns for 1890, there were 209 such schools in connection with our Jamaica Baptist congregations, the majority under Government inspection, receiving grants in aid for the secular education imparted, leaving the teacher and manager free to give religious instruction without dictation or hindrance. In no Baptist school is sectarian teaching allowed. The teaching is uniformly on the basis of the British and Foreign School Society.

According to the Sunday School Reports for 1890 there are, in connection with churches, 175 schools with 28,364 scholars and 2,499 teachers, showing an increase on the preceding year of 8 schools and 170 teachers.

The most important development of church life in our Baptist Mission was doubtless the establishment of

CALABAR COLLEGE

This was

for the education and training of a NATIVE MINISTRY. indeed a bold proceeding among a people of a barbarous race, just emerging from slavery, and speaks much for the faith and courage of its founders. By many not only was it judged to be inexpedient, but it was strongly deprecated and opposed. In the face of all the difficulties, however, which have been encountered, the project has been successful, and its strongest opponents have practically acknowledged its wisdom by copying its example.

The battle of freedom having been won, the men who had been foremost in achieving the victory, and those who became coworkers with them, considered how an agency could be provided to meet the spiritual wants of the churches they had gathered. It seemed vain to expect that ministers and teachers could be found in Great Britain in perpetuity to supply them; and it appeared most natural and Scriptural to look to the churches themselves to supply the need. The subject was submitted to the earnest consideration of the Committee of the Baptist Missionary Society in England. At length a property at Calabar, near Rio Bueno, on the north side of the island, was purchased, on which a mission house belonging to the church at Rio Bueno already stood. The purchase was effected and buildings for the accommodation of ten students, with the requisite out-offices, were erected at the cost of the Society out of the JUBILEE FUND of 1842; the Society also assuming the responsibility of appointing the president and providing his salary.

The first president was the Rev. Joshua Tinson, an able and scholarly man, who, along with the pastoral oversight of two important mission stations, had for some years done good educational work in Kingston by conducting a classical school, the benefits of which some of the most eminent men in the Colony were proud in after years to acknowledge. The College was opened in the month of October, 1843, with a complement of men, only a small proportion of whom were subsequently found suitable for ministerial work, although some

of these laboured for many years as efficient day-school teachers and assistant preachers. For seven years Mr. Tinson was spared to labour, and had the satisfaction of seeing the result of his ability and faithfulness in the usefulness of several who became efficient pastors of churches. In his fifty-seventh year, after thirty-five years' missionary service, he entered into rest.

In January, 1852, Mr. Tinson was succeeded by the writer of this sketch, then pastor of the church at Waltham Abbey. The new president had, from his earliest acquaintance with Christian Missions, cherished strong convictions with reference to native agency in carrying them forward; and in the strength of these convictions he entered on the sphere to which he believed God had called him. He sat down in the College library with FOUR STUDENTS, to whom two others were soon added. It was not long before he felt that the Society was hardly justified in keeping up the Institution for so small a number. It soon, however, became evident that the teacher's office was only second in importance to that of the minister's; and that the day schools of our mission stations were as much in need of the one as of the other. After the first year's residence, therefore, measures were taken for adding a normal school department to that of the theological. The missionaries in annual assembly favoured the movement, and eventually the addition was made. Subsequently the Institution on its enlarged basis was removed to Kingston. To effect the removal, and erect the buildings required, the president, during a visit to England in 1867-8, collected a fund amounting to £1,300 for the object. Other buildings have since been erected by funds voted by the Baptist Missionary Society. There are now the Students' Hall, comprising library with upwards of 2,000 volumes, and spacious classrooms, dining-room, rooms for study, and dormitories for the comfortable accommodation of from thirty to forty young men. During 1891 there were twenty-six normal school students and eight theological students in residence-making a total of thirty-four, instead of four with which the present president commenced his labours. There are also three residences-one for the president, one for the classical, and one for the normal school tutor. Since the College has been opened, about sixty ministers and about one hundred teachers have passed through it. Between twenty and thirty native

* Rev. D. J. East is the author of a work on Western Africa and other publications.