250 THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND. 



sliown to me that is a slight matter but for the worthy 

 fashion iu whicli they seem to be uphohling the honour of 

 tlie good, ohl Churcli in the colonies. In Port of Spain I 

 heard and saw enough of their work to believe that they are 

 in nowise less active more active they cannot be than if 

 they were sea-port clergymen in England. The services were 

 performed thoroughly well; with a certain stateliness, which 

 is not only allowable but necessary, in a colony where the 

 majority of the congregation are coloured; but without the 

 least fopp)ery or extravagance. The very best sermon, perhaps, 

 for matter and manner, which I ever heard preached to unlet- 

 tered folk, was preached by a young clergyman a West 

 Indian born in the Great Church of Port of Spain ; and 

 he had no lack of hearers, and those attentive ones. The 

 Great Church was always a pleasant sight, with its crowded 

 congregation of every hue, all well dressed, and with the 

 universal AVest Indian look of comfort ; and it's noble span 

 of roof overhead, all cut from island timber another proof 

 of what the wood-carver may effect in the island hereafter. 

 Certainly distractions were frequent and troublesome, at 

 least to a new-comer. A large centipede would come out 

 and take a hurried turn round the Governor's seat ; or a 

 bat would settle in broad daylight in the curate's hood; or 

 one had to turn away one's eyes lest they should behold 

 not vanity, but the magnificent head of a Cabbage-palm just 



