ONE Christian body has been specially conspicuous for its evangelical labors in Jamaica, and to that body George Liele and Moses Baker belonged. Other bodies of Christians have toiled nobly and with success, but those who were first in the field have held, and still hold, a foremost place, both as to numbers and as to the wide popularity and usefulness of many of their missionaries. Two things operated at the beginning of the century to make very desirable the presence of English brethren to take the oversight of the congregations raised by Liele and Baker and their helpers; one was, that these brethren were aged and toil-worn and had been reduced by persecutions and sufferings to an infirm condition; and the other was, that while for six years they had been silenced from preaching, the congregations had been scattered and disorganized. They felt, too, that abler men, with a better education than they had received, were needful for the consolidation and extension of the work. They appealed to England for help, and they did not appeal in vain.
The reports which reached England of the wonderful work of God by means of the poor, untrained African brethren, awakened in the minds of many Christians a deep interest in Jamaica. Prominent among such was Dr. Rippon.
Saint Lucia
A correspondence was kept up for some years between the African preachers and the doctors, and, at length, after years of praying and waiting, God graciously opened the, way; and from that time (1814) a noble train of earnest workers and successful laborers have gone forth, until in Jamaica of today the number of professed Christians, in proportion to population, is far larger than in Great Britain.
But the difficulties were immense. Speaking generally, the authorities were against them, and many of these failed not to make full use of the arbitrary laws then in force. Many of the proprietors of estates and their agents were grossly wicked, hated the light the missionaries sought to shed, and stuck at nothing in order to silence, crush, or expel them. The climate put an end to the labors and the sufferings of not a few of these zealous servants of God, at the very commencement of their course, while others labored only a few years, and were then called home. Similar difficulties have ever marked the early stages of missionary enterprise. It seems that it must be so, for the present, at least, and it may be permitted so that “the excellency of the power" of the gospel may be seen to be not of men but of God. Notwithstanding all difficulties, oppositions, and sufferings, the gospel proved “mighty through God “to the conversion and salvation of vast numbers.
Some of the proprietors, too, and others of the white population, were conspicuous for their kindness to the missionaries, if for no higher reason than that the gospel changed their slaves for the better whenever it was truly received.
The normal condition of the slaves was very low-indeed, they were ignorant, besotted, and many of them grossly immoral; indeed, they were almost or quite as bad as some of the whites, which is saying a great deal. But among the Jamaica slaves the gospel had in a gracious sense, a free course. They had no religious and self-righteous prejudices to give up, but were ready simply to receive the message of salvation and the gift of eternal life through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Truly in their case, in a marked degree, Watts's lines proved true:
“The gospel bids the dead revive;
Sinners obey the voice and live;
Dry bones are raised and clothed afresh,
And hearts of stone are turned to flesh."
The brethren who preached, did not preach, as too many do now, something about the gospel, but the gospel itself. They knew its power in their own hearts; they knew its adaptation to the case of all sinners, even the worst; and they preached in reliance on the promise of God to make His own word effectual "by the power of the Holy Spirit."
The simplicity and the reality of the African faith may be seen in the testimony of an English minister:" I was preaching at Plymouth, and a request was sent to the pulpit to this effect: ' The thanksgivings of this congregation to Almighty God are desired by the captain, passengers, and crew of the West India man, for their merciful deliverance from shipwreck during the late awful tempest.' The following day I went on board, and entered into conversation with the passengers, when a lady thus addressed me: Oh, sir! what an invaluable blessing must personal religion be! Never did I see it more exemplified than in my poor servant Ellen, during the storm. When we expected every wave to entomb us all, my mind was in a horrible state. I was afraid to die, but Ellen would come to me with all possible composure, “Never mind, missee, look to Jesus Christ. He made, He rule de sea." And when, sir, we neared the shore, and were at a loss to know where we were, fearing every minute to strike upon the rocks, poor Ellen said, with the same composure as before-" Don't be fear, missie; look to Jesus Christ, He de Rock. No shipwreck on dat Rock; He save to the utmost. Don't be fear, missie; look up to Jesus Christ."'
"Of course I wished to see this poor, though rich, African. She was called, and in the presence of the sailors the following conversation took place: “Well, Ellen, I am glad to find you know something of Jesus Christ.”
“Jesus Christ, massa! Oh, He be very good to my soul! Jesus Christ! Oh, He be very dear to me!
“How long is it since you first knew the Savior?'
“Why, massa, some time ago me hear Massa Kitching preach about the blessed Jesus. He say to we black people, “The blessed Jesus come down from the good world. He pity we poor sinners. We die or He die! He die, but we no die! He suffer on the cross. He spill precious blood for we poor sinners." Me feel me sinner; me cry; me pray to Jesus, and He save me by precious blood. He very good; He save me!'
"'And when did you see Mr. Kitching last?'
“Sir, the fever take him; he lie bed; he call we black peoples his children. He say, “Come round the bed, my children "; he den say, “My children, I go to God; meet me before God," and den he fall asleep.'
“Oh, then, Ellen, Mr. Kitchen is dead (he departed to his rest after about twelve months only of faithful service), is he?’
“Dead, sir? Oh, no! Massa Kitching no die; he fall asleep, and he sleep till the trumpet of the archangel wake him. Massa Kitching no die; he fall asleep! ' "
Would that all white people who profess to believe in Christ could give so good an account of their faith as this simple-hearted African girl.
The missionaries preached freedom from the law, from condemnation, and from the reigning power of sin, Satan, and the world, and a holy liberty of access to and converse with God as the privilege of all believers, of whatever color or speech. We can imagine in part what sweet notes these were to those who were in bondage to their fellow-man, and cruelly oppressed by their masters.
This yoke the greater part bore with meekness, but it was only natural that those, with greater force of character, should see the connection between spiritual liberty and social freedom, and sigh and long for the loosening of their chains. The oppressive laws gave the proprietors a wide latitude of power, and many of them were all too ready to use it to make the lives of their slaves "bitter with hard bondage." Slavery to their fellow-men, and some of whom were more like fiends than men, became more and more irksome to the blacks.
Wilberforce, Sharpe, and others in the senate, William Knibb and Thomas Burchell, Jamaica missionaries, in their letters home, and in their platform addresses in all parts of England, proclaimed the abomination of slavery, and claimed for their black brethren of Jamaica, that birthright of personal liberty which is the God-given heritage of all. Their trumpet notes sounded through the land, and their echo reverberated amid the hills and valleys of Jamaica; it became the voice of the Christian Church in the British Isles, the voice of the nation, the voice of the British Parliament, and the voice of God. The death knell of slavery was rung, and the slaves of the British West Indies were free!
Wisely it was planned that an edition of the New Testament should be prepared to place in the hands of the liberated Africans. Joyfully they received it; and among them for long that particular edition of the Scriptures was called “The 'Mancipation Book." Many are the incidents related in connection with it, but there is room for none here. Suffice it to say that it was the "'Mancipation Book" to very many. The Africans gave proof that they could be trusted with the liberty granted them; and if any had thoughts of running liberty into license, the powerful influence of the missionaries generally sufficed to restrain all those who were under it. The children of former slaves have shown themselves capable of the highest culture, not a few of them having become efficient pastors or missionaries to their African brethren.
The churches are nearly all self-supporting, and are mainly prosperous and happy. Besides this, a very considerable sum is raised every year for foreign missions, These blessings has the Holy Spirit poured upon the sons of Africa, in Jamaica, and from them have emanated earnest and prayerful efforts for their mother country, which shall yet know a gospel day, and rise from her degradation. R. S.