From this description it will be easily conceived that the attendance at all places of worship favoured with an evangelical ministry is astonishingly great. The exclamation of the prophet, when wrapt in visions of future days, is here actually realized-" Who are these that fly as a cloud and as doves to their windows?" On Sabbath days most of the churches and chapels, thus privileged, are filled with pious and attentive worshippers. Some of these places, though calculated to hold from one thousand to four thousand hearers, are often crowded. At all the other public means of grace, such as prayer-meetings, and week evening lectures, the same interesting appearances in a corresponding proportion present themselves; to say nothing of those which refer less directly to the great objects of the Christian ministry, such as Church, Bible Class, leaders' meetings, singing, Sunday-school teachers, and Missionary meetings. Some general idea of the attendance on these occasions may be formed from a jubilee meeting lately held at Kettering, in Jamaica, and which is thus described in the Baptist Herald:'-"We have this week to record one of the most delightful seasons of joy it has ever been our happiness to witness, the Jubilee of the Baptist Missionary Society, held at Kettering, in this parish. The vast numbers who attended appear universally to have participated in the pleasures of the day, and we have reason to believe that lasting impressions of good will be the result. When the living mass arose to hymn the praises of the Eternal, the scene was overpowering. The booth, which contained 30,000 super

288

BAPTISTS AT SPANISH TOWN.

ficial feet, being 200 feet long by 150 broad, was literally crammed, and had in it nearly nine thousand persons; sixteen hundred children passed through one of the avenues, singing sweetly, and were at the same time addressed in another part of the village, and a congregation of full two thousand were assembled to hear the truths of the Gospel in another; so that, excluding the number who were yet in the village of Duncan, there were thirteen thousand listening to the deeply interesting details of the mission."

The Baptist congregation at Spanish Town, one of the largest connected with Missionary Societies in Jamaica, averages on a Sabbath day two thousand hearers. A prayer-meeting, which has been held for a number of years between the hours of five and six o'clock on the Sabbath morning, has averaged five hundred attendants; as also the Monday evening prayer-meeting and the Thursday evening lecture. The number at Falmouth, under the pastoral care of the Rev. William Knibb, may be said to average two thousand on the Sabbath. At Montego Bay the congregation, recently under the care of the Rev. Thomas Burchell, is said to average on a Sabbath day about two thousand two hundred hearers. Occasionally one thousand people have been known to have been present at these places at an early Sabbath morning prayermeeting. The usual attendance at East Queenstreet, in Kingston, under the pastoral oversight of the Rev. Samuel Oughton, is estimated at two thousand five hundred, and seven hundred are present at the week-day evening services. Equal numbers are

NUMBER OF PREACHERS.

289

supposed to be in regular attendance at two of the Wesleyan chapels in Kingston, under the superintendence of the Rev. Jonathan Edmondson, chairman of the district. These places of worship, which will contain from two thousand five hundred to three thousand five hundred persons each, are often, during the ordinary ministrations of the Gospel, crowded to excess ; whilst on particular occasions, such as Missionary or Anti-Slavery Meetings, hundreds have been unable to find admission. In several of the country districts the congregations belonging to different religious bodies are equally flourishing, and some of them almost as large as those previously described. Among the most pleasing circumstances connected with this spirit of hearing is the fact that prayer-meetings are generally well attended, and are not only in many cases the most interesting, but frequently have they been found the most profitable, of all the public means of grace.

Instead of there being, as stated by the historian," Francis Hanson, in 1805, no "sectarian parsons" on the island, there are now about 120, exclusive of native assistants and catechists (amounting probably to an equal number), who are employed on the Sabbath in carrying on Divine worship at subordinate stations. Wesleyan missionaries, 31; Moravians, 12; Presbyterians, 12; London Missionaries, 11; Congregationalists from America, 5; Native Baptists, 14; Baptist Missionaries, 31. Total 116. The following statement exhibits the progressive increase of ministers of all denominations during a period of ten years, ending