forget one such occasion. An aged couple had completed the fiftieth year of their married life, and they resolved to celebrate it as a jubilee. It was my privilege to preside at that family festival. There sat side by side the venerable sire and the faithful companion of his lengthened pilgrimage, and there, on this side and on that, their children and their children's children, to the number of more than forty souls. Oh! it was a goodly sight. Many of that family band were one with their parents in Christ Jesus; and it was a touching thing to listen to the glowing and affectionate congratulations of children and of grandchildren addressed to the venerable pair, and to hear the warm words of Christian faith and love in which the old man made his acknowledgments, and gave them his blessing. I shall never, never cease to remember that Family jubilee.

And many of you, dear brethren, will ever have in remembrance a jubilee you were engaged in celebrating some two-and-twenty years ago—the Jubilee of the Baptist Missionary Society. "Ah!" you say,

"that was a jubilee." You have still in joyful recollection that glorious gathering at Kettering-the inspiring genius of which was your own now sainted pastor, William Knibb*—when tens of thousands assembled to testify how great things the Lord had done for you; when all seemed eager to pour of their substance into the treasury of the Lord; and when more than £2,000 were raised as an offering for the cause of God. None of you who shared in the joyful celebrations of that time will ever forget the Jubilee of the English Baptist Missionary Society.

And now, in the course of God's good providence, we are in the midst of another Jubilee-the Jubilee of the * This discourse was delivered in the Baptist Chapel, Falmouth, Jamaica, February, 1864.

Baptist Mission in Jamaica. Fifty years ago, February gone, the first Baptist Missionary set his foot on these shores; and who, in looking back upon these years, has not felt that there is a force of reason and propriety in observing this fiftieth year as a year of jubilee?

I. Commencement of the work by Black Men from America.-How remarkable the manner in which the Baptist mission in Jamaica was begun! Christian missionaries from England were not the first to commence the work. When John Rowe landed in 1814, George Liele, and George Lewis, and George Gibbs, and Moses Bakermen of your own colour, and your own descent-black men, who had received the gospel in America—had already been engaged in preaching it; and God had given many seals to their ministry and souls for their hire. These good and holy men were to the Baptist Mission what John the Baptist was to the Mission of Christ-they were the voice of one crying in the wilderness," Prepare ye the way of the Lord; make straight in the desert a highway for our God." And, accordingly, when the first Baptist Missionaries arrived they found a people already prepared to hail their coming, to welcome their message, and to co-operate with them in their ministry.

II. Eminent gifts of the Fathers and Founders of the Mission. How eminently gifted the men whom God raised up as the fathers and founders of the Baptist churches of this land! Never, perhaps, were delicate tact and prudent management, combined with uncompromising fidelity and dauntless courage, in greater demand, than in the commencement of the work of God in this very town.

1. John Rowe.-Yet, how singularly did these qualities unite in your first missionary pastor, John Rowe, so as at length to put his enemies to silence, and to obtain a legal licence for the public worship of God, and a free proclamation of the glad tidings which he came to preach.

2. James Coultart.-No missionary of the cross ever, perhaps, entered on his work under circumstances of greater encouragement than did James Coultart in Kingston. Yet the difficulties he had to encounter were such as few men would have been adapted to meet. Crowds of people flocked around him, calling themselves Baptists-many had already made a Christian profession; but their notions of Christianity were very often associated with the most absurd superstitions, partly from the imperfect character of the teaching under which they had been brought. To separate the precious from the vile, to correct what was erroneous, to instruct the ignorant, to humble without offending the conceit and pride of the self-sufficient, and out of these elements to form a Church according to the principles of the New Testament of our Lord Jesus Christ— this needed a man of consummate wisdom and discrimination; a man of Christ-like considerateness and tenderness, with inflexible firmness, and an ability to organize and to rule and govern, which few men possess. Yet how wonderfully were these qualities associated in the character of Mr. Coultart!

3. Thomas Burchell.-How stupendous the work to which again Mr. Burchell was called! At one time he was the only Baptist missionary from Falmouth to Savana-laMar. How surprising the physical endurance, how unwearied the zeal, how ardent the love to Christ and to souls, which there must have been to prompt any one man to cover such a space with his evangelistic labours, and to traverse the whole distance, east and west, to declare the unsearchable riches of Christ! and what strength of purpose, what breadth of plan, what far-stretching benevolence, what practical skill do we see in the building operations of Mr. Burchell's missionary life! How few Christian labourers have been instrumental in the erec

tion of so many places of Christian worship, at once so substantial and so spacious! We may look with admiration on that beautiful marble obelisk which his loving people have erected at Mount Carey to his memory; but by far his grander monument are those noble houses of prayer which stand open every Lord's Day at Montego Bay, at Mount Carey, at Shortwood, and at Bethel Town.

4. William Knibb.-And what of your own William Knibb? He was your own faithful and devoted pastor, and you loved him. He built for you this holy and beautiful house.* He was honoured of God, not only to gather a great multitude here into the faith and hope of the gospel, but to plant Christian churches at Waldensia, and Refuge, and Kettering, and to sound forth the word of God through the lengths and breadths of this parish of Trelawny, to say nothing of his abounding labours beyond."

But God raised him up for a special work; and how wonderful the endowments which He gave him for it! He was ordained of God to fight the battle of Negro freedom. Some preceded him in that holy war. His beloved brother Burchell and others stood side by side with him, and aided in the conflict; but William Knibb led the noble army of emancipation on to victory. Who that knew him will ever forget his holy indignation against oppression and wrong; his manly compassion and tearful sympathy with the down-trodden and afflicted; his inflexible resolution to snap the fetters of the enslaved, and to bid the oppressed go free; or that overpowering and impassioned eloquence which, flowing out of the fulness of his heart, bore all before it with resistless force? He was a God-made man, eminently gifted of God Himself for the work which God had given him to do. *Falmouth Baptist Chapel.

+ The whole Island of Jamaica is divided into but twenty parishes, which are consequently districts of considerable extent.

5. Joshua Tinson.-There is one other name, dear to the memory of all, which must not be passed over. How special and important was the missionary vocation of Joshua Tinson' It was his, as the first tutor of your institution at Calabar, to lay the foundations of an educated native ministry in the land. And how well did God qualify him for his work! His previous life was in many respects a preparation for it. In Kingston, the superior intelligence of some who attended his ministry was a stimulus to study and mental cultivation which few other stations would have afforded. For some years, also, his varied acquirements found useful application in a select school; and there are gentlemen in this colony of high social position, among them the present Speaker of the House of Assembly, who have done honour to Mr. Tinson's memory by testifying to their deep indebtedness to him as the instructor of their early youth. As President of your training institution how hopefully did he struggle through the difficulties and discouragements of a new and untried experiment. How cheerfully did he bear up under a weight of personal affliction, which, but for the power of an unwavering faith in God, must have depressed him to the dust! With what fatherly care did he watch over the interests of the young men committed to his charge; and how tenderly did he endear himself to them by the gentleness of his manners and the amiability of his disposition, as well as by the plodding, persevering earnestness with which he sought to aid them in their preparation for the work of Christ. As long as Calabar stands, the name of Joshua Tinson will never cease to be revered among the fathers and founders of the Baptist mission in this land.

We might go on to speak of many others whose labours have been the means of planting large and