"The darkness is past, and the true light now shineth." LONDON: JOHN SNOW, PATERNOSTER ROW. MDCCCXLIII. PREFAC E. THE author of the following pages, having been incapacitated for more active labours by protracted personal affliction, formed the resolution of employing the leisure which was afforded him in writing a work on JAMAICA, which he ventures to hope will in some measure supply a desideratum long felt and acknowledged by the conductors and supporters of our various missionary societies. None but the invalided missionary knows the bitterness of those feelings which fill the heart, when compelled by sickness to leave behind him his scene of arduous but happy toil, and to re-visit his native shores under circumstances which preclude the possibility of engaging in active exertion for the promotion of that cause to which he has consecrated his life. In these feelings, which not all the sympathy and kindness of friends can wholly remove, the writer has largely shared. But should it be found that the present effort of his pen has in some measure supplied PREFACE. THE author of the following pages, having been incapacitated for more active labours by protracted personal affliction, formed the resolution of employing the leisure which was afforded him in writing a work on JAMAICA, which he ventures to hope will in some measure supply a desideratum long felt and acknowledged by the conductors and supporters of our various missionary societies. None but the invalided missionary knows the bitterness of those feelings which fill the heart, when compelled by sickness to leave behind him his scene of arduous but happy toil, and to re-visit his native shores under circumstances which preclude the possibility of engaging in active exertion for the promotion of that cause to which he has consecrated his life. In these feelings, which not all the sympathy and kindness of friends can wholly remove, the writer has largely shared. But should it be found that the present effort of his pen has in some measure supplied |