CnniSTMAS COMMUNION. 251 



outside tlie opposite ^villdoAV, with the black vultures trying 

 to sit ou the footstalks in a high wind, and slipping down, and 

 flopping up again, half the service through. But one soon 

 got accustomed to the strange sights ; though it w^as, to 

 say the least, somewhat startling to find, on Christmas Day, 

 the altar and pulpit decked with exquisite tropic ^ flowers ; 

 and eacli doorway arched over with a single pair of coco- 

 nut leaves, fifteen feet hiLrh. 



The Christmas Day Communion, too, was one not easily 

 to be forgotten. At least 250 persons, mostly coloured, many 

 as black as jet, attended ; and were, I must say for them, 

 most devout in manner. Pleasant it was to see the lame 

 proportion of men among them, many young white men of 

 the middle and upper class ; and still more pleasant, too, to 

 see that all hues and ranks knelt side by side without the 

 least distinction. One trio touched me deeply. An old lady 

 I know not who she was with the unmistakeable long, 

 delicate, once beautiful features of a high-bred West Indian of 

 the 'Ancien Et'gime," came and knelt reverently, feebly, sadly, 

 between two old Xegro women. One of them seemed her maid. 

 Both of them might have been once her slaves. Here at 

 least they were equals. True Equality tlie consecration of 

 humility, not the consecration of envy first ap})eared on earth 

 in the house of God, and at the altar of Christ : and I ques- 

 tion much whether it will linger long in any spot ou earth 



