‘The strategic importance of the Euphrates valley railway’ [‎17] (162/204)

17
dren from Montego Bay and selling them in Cuba,
was screened from all punishment by their wire
pullers, because he was a Baptist, the Wesleyans, and
Moravians, have devoted their attention to improving
the morals and manners of their congregations, and
many a cleanly, well dressed assembly of worship
pers, whose homes are comparatively well built and
neat, attest the benefit of their ministrations.
I do not however include all the Baptist ministers
in this indictment, there are a good many who have
kept clear of politics, and have consequently been
useful; but the general tendency of their body has
been to act as politicians assailing the established
order of things.
Voluntaryism hitherto has been successful chiefly
in English or American towns, where the population
is dense, and generally well off. In Jamaica the
conditions are reversed, the population is scattered,
anything but frugal, and there are few rich men who
generally live up to their means. With, I think,
barely one-third more clergy, the quondam establish
ment will have to collect nearly three times the
income the Wesleyans extract from their flocks,
already trained to give by years of the voluntary
system, and the power, no Church which in any way
claims to be national can exert, of refusing the com
munion to those who have neglected to pay their
monthly stipend.
One would suppose that the Jews who abound in
the colonv, are rather interested in the disestablish-
J '
ment of a Church for which they pay taxes but derive