THE CHURCH IN THE WEST INDIES.
[To THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR," I
Sm„—One whom I am privileged to call my friend, the Bishop of Jamaica, wrote to me some time since to call my attention to certain misstatements of Mr. J. A. Fronde, in his "English in the West Indies," with regard to the work of the Church of England in Jamaica. I tried to get hold of the book, but till last week failed to see it. I must confess that though the Bishop had prepared me, I was very much astonished. I was in Jamaica in 1872, and have since then kept up a corre- spondence with the island, especially with the Rev. H. H. Kelburn, Vicar of St. George's, Kingston.
When I visited Jamaica, though I found the Church some- what despondent on account of the recent Disestablishment, and, in some respects owing, as it seemed to me, to the evils which had brought about Disestablishment, less vigorous than the sister Church in British Guiana, yet one thing I should never have dreamed that any one would assert, —i.e., that the Church was not holding influence over the blacks. Nothing struck me more than the light which these West Indian Churches threw on the life of the early Church. I could there for once join in the wish of the Commination Service that godly discipline might be restored again. For instead of the dead-weight of indifference which presses so heavily on one in England, I found an earnestness to belong to some communion, and our Church was not in the background. What one did find was just the condition of the early Church, zealous membership conjoined with a laxity of life calling for repression. What one finds in England is laxity of life without zealous membership.
Mr. Froude doubts whether the clergy baptise any but white children. The number of whites in the island is stated by the Bishop to be about 13,000. The number of baptisms is shown by the Bishop's charge delivered before the issue of Mr. Froude's book, to be 6,349 annually (out of a total of births, 21,000), on an average of seven years, and this is defective owing to the failure of returns from some churches. Taking the census returns as the basis, the Bishop shows that there is reason to believe that out of a population of 580,804, some 205,941 are attendants, more or less regular, at the Church services, and this would agree with the baptismal returns. In each case the Church seems to claim the allegiance of one- third of the population.
I trust you may see fit to insert this letter. Other parts of the West Indies have protested (S. P. G. Report, p. 120) against Mr. Froude's remarks. Jamaica, which raises an average of 220,000 a year to the Church, and has accumulated 255,000 in endowments since Disestablishment, shows practical proof of
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