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sun has set, and the darkness is fast thickening around us. twilight in this country, and it is unwholesome to be out after sunset, especially after heavy rain, when everything is dripping, and the wet mists are wandering about here and there seeking for something dry to rest on.

Old Brownsville comes at last. I do not yet see the house, for there is no village, -only the church and manse, the negroes' cabins nestling among the thickets, and scattered over the hills and valleys. My guide calls my attention to the spire of the church, which appears at some distance high above us, shooting above the trees, and athwart the evening sky. A steep climb, then round a corner, and we are at it. But where is the manse? There it is, no more than visible up on the hill on your right hand, two or three hundred yards off. Up this hill our horses almost skip for joy at getting home again; and halfway up, a slender, activelooking man meets me, whose face I am sure I never saw before, and yet I feel as if I knew it well. It is the face of a good man, whom having not seen I have learnt to love nevertheless, through a very happy medium that stood like a clear crystal, or rather like a bright lamp of love between us,-a most simple-minded, self-sacrificing, unworldly man, whom I honour and love none the less, but rather more, because he has an old-fashioned swallow-tailed coat on, and on his grey head a hat that seems to have passed through and suffered much in several Irish rebellions.

In a few seconds I stand under the portico at the door of the house. From the time I set foot on the island till the time I left it was about seven weeks. Four of these were spent at Brownsville, one was spent at Kingston waiting for the sailing of the return steamer, and the remaining two were spent mostly in the overland journey from Kingston to Brownsville and back.

Now that I had arrived at my destination, I had composure to look around me with an undisturbed and steady eye. I found myself nested in a paradise of verdant hills. It seemed as if the land had at one time been in a liquid state, and boiling mountains high, and the Almighty had commanded it to be still, and it stood still. There it stood fast,-great heaving billows keeping their heads up firm over the deep-sunk narrow vales between them, ever threatening to roll over as aves do into the intervening deep places, but never moving from the spot, and never changing their ancient forms. The richest of all soft, velvety, many-shaded green mantles covered them, feet, head, and shoulders; and this mantle, I understood, was always there, changing, except in hue, about as little as the hills did, from month to month and from year to year.

There is no plain surface seen from Brownsville, except the sea, which occupies a small section of the north-east horizon. Over this blue surface, open to view by a depression of the distant hills, you see a tiny white sail pass occasionally. It is a drogher, or coasting vessel, going to or from the harbour of Lucea, not far distant.

I was much impressed with the quiet and solitariness of my resting-place. No town or village is to be seen, for none is in existence near. You hear no sound of human toil whatever,-not even the noise of waggon or carriage wheels, for there is no road near wide enough or smooth enough for them to move on. There is neither bleating of sheep nor lowing of oxen; no singing bird among the branches, nor grasshopper chirruping beneath your feet. The only sound you hear is the crowing of the cock, or the sighing of the wind through the trees when it blows freshly, as it usually begins to do every day early in the forenoon.

If it happen to be the rainy season, the morning breeze becomes a gale about two o'clock, when the rain comes on, and then you have a mighty chorus rising from thousands of nature's wind and water instruments.

There is a sweet singing-bird called the nightingale, I believe, and plenty of grasshoppers too, but I did not see or hear one of them. Animal life is everywhere; but for the most part it seems mute, except when evening comes, and the cricket begins to make a noise similar to the whirring of a great many little wheels in rapid motion in every corner of the room. At the same time the fire-flies begin to dance outside, and the blinkies to give an intermittent glare, like modest little fairies that do not like to be seen too much.

Here on the hill is the manse, a wooden building of two storeys, resting on brick

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pillars a few feet from the ground; there is the church, two or three hundred yards down the hill; beside it is the schoolmaster's house; and farther down and sloping to the right is a deep glen, the home of many noisy streams and waterfalls. On the high ridges of the billowy landscape beyond you can see a cabin here and there peeping from a grove of bamboos or cocoa-nut trees. The negroes, I am told, usually build their cabins as far retired from view as possible, and near some of those trees whose high and sharp-pointed leaves are supposed to be an attraction to the lightning and a protection from it.

Hearing of my arrival, many of the black and brown people come to see me at the manse. They think it incumbent on them to pay visits of ceremony to the stranger,—not mere ceremony, for there are tears of kindness in their eyes, and many sincere benedictions for me on their tongues.

They seemed to be very simple in their manners, and to have plenty of time on their hands. They would come up and sit in some corner under the portico, not expecting to be spoken to for hours, and rather taking it as a pleasure if they should have the honour of waiting half a day, or even a whole one, on the minister's convenience. I speak of their expectations and habits rather than their experience, for I never kept them waiting a minute if I could help it. I did not think they were indolent more than the average of men, but they felt no pressure to haste, or much activity. With a little labour they could get a living for themselves and their families, and they had not much concern for means beyond that. Retired amongst the hills, apart from the centres of population and trade, the panic of mercantile fever had not stricken them; and if the lust of money-making existed, it was only in a half-hungry state. Generally they have a small plot of ground at a trifle of rent, and by a little bodily exercise on that, the generous earth yields them food convenient, in the shape of potatoes much larger than their heads. Their potato is a plant called yam, the root of which is the staple article of diet.

Some people call these negroes lazy, because they do not bustle about like your business men of Glasgow and Liverpool. This is not fair. Such a busy-ness is not desirable. Industry amongst us has become frantic, and we should not blame the tranquil lives of negroes because they are not stained with our vices. If father Sam would work harder, and bring his surplus produce to market, and drive a trade after the European fashion, he might grow rich and fat, sit in his arm-chair, lie on his sofa, wear his gold eye-glass, and read his Times every morning, and after all have much less humanity in him than he has at present. I do not think you could take the existing quietude out of his life without introducing something hurtful to him as a moral and religious being. It is quite certain that in Jamaica at least, those town negroes who have fallen into the white man's ways of industry are much inferior in character to those who live quiet lives of rural simplicity.

My first Sabbath evening was spent in Kingston; the next I was at Brownsville, and preached in the former part of the day. Here you see a negro congregation proper. In Kingston congregation there are very few blacks; most are brown, and to an unskilled eye a good many are white. They are nearly all black at Brownsville, and you see no fans waving there. The only thing like it is an occasional slap on the face with a pure white handkerchief. The dresses of both men and women are generally very simple, neat, and clean. The congregation stand at singing, and such singing I never heard matched anywhere,-very big heart in it, but very little music. They have not been trained to sing either in time or in tune; and, having usually very shrill voices, they sing or yell with all their might, before the Lord, in a method of their own, which a stranger will take a long time to make out. It is hardly possible for him at first to know what the words are which they sing, or what the tune is. They will sometimes rest on one syllable as if it were a whole line, or will creep along a line a third too slowly, and when done go over it twice again. However, it did one's heart good to hear the big black organ, of 600 or 700 pipes, play at all in the Lord's praises, though it was sadly out of tune, and a sorrow to one's flesh.

The Brownsville church is in the form of a cross, the pulpit in the centre of the broad end. In that pulpit, looking down on the crowd of black faces before and on either side of me, I felt my heart moved as I never did anywhere else. I

remembered the wrongs of these poor people,-all except the young people and children having once been slaves, treated then as mere cattle or mere machines, and little better since then by most white people,-education too good for them,-almost a crime to speak kindly to them. Somehow I felt full of compassion and brotherly kindness towards them; they looked up with so much interest and intelligence in their eyes and faces. It is true they had often heard of me, and I of them, and we were objects of great interest to one another. But, besides that, I thought I could see quite well that very many of them had genuine and very deep interest in the truth concerning Christ: They seemed to me evidently lovers of Jesus. I could see the eye grow wet at the mention of His name, and one and another would nod his head approvingly when the truth was spoken, and say, 'Yes, massa; quite right, massa,' in church or prayer meeting.

After a service of the usual length, there is an interval of five or ten minutes. Then the Sunday school meets; opened with prayer by some black elder or teacher, and composed of nearly the whole congregation, old and young,—a class of old men here, and of old women there. The young people are all able to read, more or less. I questioned some of them as to their Bible knowledge, and they answered as well as children of any congregational school might be expected to do in this country. When the class teaching is over, the minister addresses and catechises them on the lesson of the day, and the Scripture text for the day is repeated by individual classes collectively in turn. It strikes the ear of a stranger very much to hear a class of children repeat the text all at once, followed perhaps by a class of grown-up men, with their deep rough voices. The whole services last from about eleven till three o'clock, when the Sabbath school breaks up. Then the men mount their horses,-for many come on horseback,-and the women and children retire on foot. A negro woman's experience on horseback usually begins and ends with the ride to the minister's house and back on her wedding day.

(To be continued.)

THE LATE REV. DAVID FORREST, GLASGOW.

MR. FORREST was born on 5th June 1807, in the village of Broxburn, in Linlithgowshire, and was the sixth child of a large family.

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'Oh for

it above all gifts of earth.
my father's devotedness!' was one of
his last breathings on his deathbed.
It is not difficult, indeed, to see how a
nature so susceptible of all strong marks
of personality should have been moulded
by one thus near and dear, without
whose life it had not been.' In after
years, Mr. Forrest found no keener delight
than in spending his holidays at Brox-
burn. At such times he made diligent
rounds among the aborigines,-the
people of other days. That which many
would have reckoned a toil, he felt to be a
recreation. Without doubt he was moved
thereto by the memories of childhood
and youth, that to him were 'silver'd all
o'er with the thought of God.

His father, John Forrest, was a cooper there,-a poor man, but of a determined cast of character. No laird or farmer in all the neighbourhood was more respected. He was at the head of every public movement. But his chief joy was religion. More fervent in spirit' than diligent in business,' necessity seemed to be laid upon him to consecrate himself to God. He numbered among his friends John Brown of Longridge, and Ebenezer Brown of Inverkeithing, who in those days of foottravelling used to call in passing that he might convoy them a part of the way. Hard pressed by the world, he rose The only school which Mr. Forrest above it. Such a man could afford his ever attended was the village school. son few external advantages, partly Fortunately there was then a capable because they were beyond his power, teacher in Broxburn named Bell, to partly because he did not realize their whom children came from a wide cirtrue meaning. But he bequeathed one cuit. Young David naturally became legacy,-rich for all highest purposes a favourite with Mr. Bell, and derived of man, and for ever inalienable,-the from him much more than the usual legacy of a devout and earnest spirit. ratio of benefit. But, after all deAnd he who inherited that legacy prized ductions are made, the bulk of Mr.

Forrest's education was in a peculiar sense self-education. With beautiful enthusiasm we find him at his books before the summer sun had risen, and ready, when the hour for farm-labour came, to take his place with the rest. For several years he acted as schoolmaster at Avonbridge, near Bathgate, carrying on at the same time his own private work as a student. Only by extra toil, both manual and mental, was he enabled to attain his desire for the ministry. Thus early was he introduced to all those anxieties and disappointments which deprive youth of its elasticity and write the wrinkles of age. When his years were tender and his spirit was fresh, he was bowed under the weight of a daily oppression. Not that he ever dreamed of wavering in allegiance to the one fixed aim. But the scars of that conflict remained with him to the last. If the man cannot return to the sweet simplicity of the child,-if the thinker cannot see with the eyes of the illiterate ploughman,

either can he who has heard the groans of the dying, and whose soul has been wrought with many woes, know the old lightness of heart again. Such experience comes, but goes not.

After finishing his curriculum at Edinburgh University, Mr. Forrest entered the United Secession Hall. No hint is given of any precise point at which he dedicated himself to God. With such a training, it is not to be wondered at that he grew into grace. Mr. Forrest now became missionary to Dr. John Brown, of Broughton Place, who no doubt took to him more kindly on account of the friendship of their fathers. In this position he was introduced to all the sad world which lives unheeded in the lanes and hovels of our cities. The sight of these gives the lie direct to all empty idealisms. We are brought back from the pictures of fancy's own painting, to realities dark and deformed. Nothing is more necessary for young preachers than some slight initiation into the knowledge of man's degradation. It gives the requisite toning down to the glaring and flashing colours of hope. It brings us face to face with the true problem of life, and the nature of the Christian solution. But, on the other hand, too much familiarity with the grossest forms of wickedness damps our courage, and destroys the elevation

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that flows from ideals. In dwelling on the sorry havoc all around us, we forget to lift up our eyes to the hills. may indeed be questioned if the subject of our sketch did not suffer thus.

Mr. Forrest's ministerial life divides itself into two sections,-his ministry at Troon, and his ministry in Glasgow. Licensed in 1839, he received a call from the congregation of Troon, in Ayrshire, and was ordained there in 1840. The congregation had just been constituted, and, like every new undertaking, required more than ordinary effort and vigilance. Having, by dint of such application and self-denial, fitted himself for his sacred office, it may well be believed he was not listless in the performance of its duties. The services on Sabbath, and the special calls of illness and death, give but a meagre representation of his real work. Very much of his time was spent in private intercourse. He was all the better a pastor, that he was little felt to be one. The source of his influence was that marvellous charm of personality which after ages cannot bring to the test. We have often thought it strange that the one agent which during life contributes most effectually to comfort and happiness, should of all others most surely die with death. But so it is. There are men who cannot be described-who must be seen and known in order to be understood. Of these was Mr. Forrest. Not eloquent, or learned, or acute, he yet attracted those about him with a subtle and irresistible force. The style is the man,' says Buffon; and we may adopt the phrase with a wider range of meaning. It was his whole 'style' that drew one to Mr. Forrest. You saw in him not only breadth of balanced judgment, but a certain rare tenderness, and modesty still rarer. But all attempts to describe character are failures. You cannot communicate the incommunicable. There is the same difference between the reality and the description, as there is between the flexible features of the living and the rigid face of death. Mr. Forrest adhered to no special times in visiting. He went in and out among his people with the utmost freedom. Nor did the secret of his power lie in making things' pleasant all round.' He remembered warning as well as praise; but social life looks not so much to the

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doing of a thing as to the way in which it is done. There is a sweetness of manner which can beautify even rebuke. What in many men would have been resented, was received humbly from him. His nature flowed out upon children. In the house or on the street they never failed of a kind word from him. loved them for their open-hearted innocence, and they loved him for his gentleness. Perhaps, however, it was at the sick-bed that Mr. Forrest was most prized. There his character was seen in its strongest and fairest light. He was a pastor, not a preacher, and above all things else a Barnabas. His depth of humanity and wealth of Christian experience fitted him pre-eminently to be the comforter of the dying and the consoler of the bereaved. Few who have listened to his prayers can have forgotten how true to the heart they were, -how brimful of what the old divines called 'holy unction.'

In December 1848, Mr. Forrest married Elizabeth Weir,-one who, in the beautiful language of Scripture, did him 'good and not evil all the days of her life.'

For ten years he laboured in Troon, till his health failed. The congregation to whom in his strength he had been faithful, were in his weakness faithful to him. They persuaded him to try the effect of a sea-voyage; so in August 1851, Mr. Forrest set sail for America. He returned after a few months none the better for the change. The general depression both of mind and body from which he suffered at this period, may be traced almost directly to the excessive strain of his student course. Moreover, his constitution did not seem suited to the bitter air and boisterous winds of Troon. His duty, therefore, was plain. In 1852 he resigned his charge. One may understand with what mixture of feelings such a step would be taken. Gladness there would be at the relief from all sense of responsibility which lays leaden hands upon us in our moody moments; but surely sorrow-deep, dull sorrow-in being thus deprived, to all appearance for ever, of that which had been the long dream of youth and the source of infinite self-sacrifice.

Yet this sickness was not unto death. Recovery came, slow but real; and with recovery the question of his future work. After much wavering, he decided to com

mence missionary operations in the district of St. Rollox, Glasgow. It must have been trying to patience to begin life over again so completely. His ten years' service at Troon gives him no advantage. Here, as before, he must act the pioneer, and under much less favourable circumstances. The adherents of the denomination at Troon had been already erected into a congregation, and chiefly required consolidation; but the nucleus of the Glasgow congregation had yet to be found. Not only so; they had to be found in what was without exception the most unimpressionable district of the city. The mass of the inhabitants were professedly Roman Catholics, but really sunk so low as to have little more than Romish licence and intolerance. The Protestant section in the neighbourhood not being of the class who bear an active part in religious work, shrank from the difficulty of establishing and maintaining a regular church. At length, in 1856, a congregation was formed, and Mr. Forrest inducted pastor. Up to this time the meetings had been held in a rather ungainly hall. It was now determined to erect a suitable building. This determination, however, was not realized till 1861. In that year, the present St. Rollox United Presbyterian Church was opened, and it was emphatically the erection of Mr. Forrest. Seeing that the idea of responsibility in connection with the building pressed heavily on the minds of some of the members, and might even have the disastrous effect of driving them where such demands would not be made, he gave it plainly to be understood that he alone was accountable for the expenses incurred. And loyally he kept his word. No bazaar came to his assistance. Daily, weekly, monthly, he pled the good cause personally with gentlemen. Nor did he plead in vain. With the generous help of the late Mr. John Henderson of Park, about £1200 were collected,--a sum which fully defrayed the cost, and the church was entered on free of debt.

From 1861 till 1875, Mr. Forrest ministered in the church which he could, but would not, call his own. The same pastoral faithfulness, the same direct and individual interest, which had characterized his Troon ministry were manifest still. The first part of the week was devoted to visitation; and what visitation! Stairs narrow, long,

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