The gospel to the Africans : a narrative of the life and labours of the Rev. William Jameson in Jamaica and Old Calabar

Preface

The docmnents from which this Vohime has been compiled, were read and arranged by the Reverend R. S. Scott, M.A., of Manchester, soon after Mr. Jameson's death, with the purpose of preparing a Memoir ; but for reasons which it is unnecessary to state, this purpose was not carried into effect. Mr, Scott, however, wrote a succinct narrative of Mr. Jameson's Life and Labours, which appeared in the Scottish Christian Journal. From that narrative the Author of tliis Memoir Las obtained valuable aid, which he begs thus gratefully to acknowledge.

These documents consist of Letters, Journals, and Reports, which were addressed to the Rose Street Missionary Society, and to the Secretary of the Mission Board of the United Presbyterian Church. Those addressed to the Rose Street Society were read at their meetings ; and interesting portions of them were printed in the Yearly Reports of the Rose Street Congregation. Large portions of those addressed to Dr. Somerville were given in various numbers of the Missionary Record ion 1847 and 1848. To have introduced these into this Volume would have increased its size beyond what was thought proper ; and it was not needful, inasmuch as the Record, with its stores of interesting missionary information, is, or should be, in the hands of every family in the United Presbyterian Church. Many of the most characteristic and touching letters in the Memoir were obtained from private friends.

The Author has not considered it necessaiy to give the documents in full, but has exercised his best judgment in selecting

Vlll

PEEFACE.

what appeared to be at once interesting and useful. Neither has he given those selections word for word. Mr. Jameson, like many other missionaries, wrote amid labours of an engrossing kind, and therefore hastily, pouring out liis thoughts and feelings with great rapidity. A little liberty has, therefore, been taken with the selections ; and, in a few cases, where two or more letters referred to the same subject, and one contained statements which were not found in another, these have been put together, making the narrative fuller. Repetition has, as much as possible, been avoided, but some instances of this may have escaped notice.

This Memoir is a contribution to the story of Emancipation — that never-to-be-forgotten passage in the history of Great Britain. Memoirs of West India missionaries are important, and invaluable in this connexion. The faithful men who were missioned by the churches to evangelize the victims of avarice and oppression have a right to be heard. ludeed, their evidence will one day be considered the only evidence that should be trusted.

The Portrait is considered to be a very good likeness. The Vignette, showing the mission burying-ground, and the wood-cuts, the first of which exhibits a splendid stretch of the Old Calabar river, as seen from Old Town, and the second, the scene from Creek Town Mission House, are very good representations of African scenery. They have been made from sketches taken on the spot by Mrs. Robb.

Annan, Dccemher 2, 1S61.

CHAPTER i. PAGE

His birth — Ancestry — Father— CliilcUiood's promise — Early sense of religion — The schoolboy— The student, at the University ; at the Divinity Hall— The city-missionary — The probationer — Prefers missionary work — At Firth. Called to Jamaica — Ordained — Married — The farewell soiree, ... 1

CHAPTER 11.

Leaves home — The voyage — First impressions of Jamaica — Country and people — Wanted at Green Island — Duty calls to Goshen — Bagnold's Yale — Origin of Goshen station — American Baptists— Dreams — Leaders — The new missionary in harness — Death of his father, 26

CHAPTEH III.

Mode and spirit of mission work — Pembroke Hall — Need of education — A prophetess — Visit to Kingston — Shed for meeting— The missionary calumniated — The shed opened— Birth of first-born — Godless Europeans, missionaries of the dexil — Liberated Africans — Take up house at Lucky Hill Pen— The Lord's table in a foreign land — Jamaica fog, and mortality among Europeans — Soul renewed— How far is the negro intellect inferior? — Scotch immigrants, 44

CHAPTER IV.

Emancipation — Feelings of the Emancipated — Sir Lionel Smith's tour of the Island — The 1st of August, 1838— Missionary Influence, salutary — Defence of Anglo-Ethiopia — Mr. Jameson an educator — Wages difficulty — New Church needed — Examination of Catechumens— Mr. Moir arrives — Rent difiiculty— Opposition — Birth of a Daughter — Conflicting views of Emancipation, 74

CHAPTER V.

The Jamaica Academy — Anglo-Ethiopia, a lever to raise Africa — Goshen congregation formed — Wonderful deliverance— No partisan— The negroes on strike— Teaching the difference between mine and thine — Massa and the people at loggerheads — Church formed— Sets about building— Munificence of proprietors — Mr. Barkly — Light of the dwelling extinguished — Particulars of Mrs. Jameson's death— Verses by Mrs. Jameson — Mr. Barkly lays the foundation-stone of the new church — Bonham Spring — Touching retrospect, 105

b

X

CONTENTS.

CHAPTEE VI.

PAGE

Incidents — The heavy tongue, but feeling heart — Scenes in the Session — Faithful discipline — Oppression and its results — The negro not a fool — Church building begun— Mr. Moir leaves— Chosen Theological Tutor— Rejects polluted gifts — Arrival of Miss Jameson — Building struggles — Negro's account of the Fall of Adam — The Lord's Supper at Goshen — ^Letters of black people, 136

CHAPTER YII.

Jamaica Presbyterj" meets at Goshen — The missionary dedication — Seasonable aid — The fatherless child sings himself into Canaan — Vindication of the African Mission — Church discipline — Mr. Donaldson arrives— Miss . Mary Jameson — Battle against the casta of colour — The Divinity Students — Death of the Rev. James Paterson— Review of 1842 — Church completed and dedicated — Mr. Donaldson's departure and death — All ours is God's

— Review of 1843 — Heartless corrupters, 169

CHAPTER VIII.

Painful controversy — Can a European Missionary depend solely on a negro church? — Reluctance of Preachers to engage in foreign service — Rebelling against discipline — Report of 1844 — The African Mission — Clifton — Illness of Mr. M' Gilchrist— The Missionary sick— Last Goshen Report, . . . 197

CHAPTER IX.

The Mission to Old Calabar — Mr. Jameson called to join it — ^Accepts the call — Appeals to the preachers — Finds a substitute— Farewell to Goshen — At home— Ordination of Rev. John Campbell, 227

CHAPTER X.

Voyage to Old Calabar — Arrival — Fernando Po — Duke Town — Creek Town — Preaches through interpreters— Opens school — Calabar marketing and house-keeping— Egbo Institution — Linguistic talents needed by a foreign missionary— Death of Eyamba— King Eyo Honesty — The Warree returns from Jamaica— Closing labours— Illness— Death, 253

MEMOIR OF REV. WILLIAM JAMESOK

CHAPTER I.

His birth — Ancestry— Father— Childliood's promise — Early sense of religion — The schoolboy— The student, at the University ; at the Divinity Hall — The city-missionary — The probationer — Prefers missionary work — ^At Firth. Called to Jamaica — Ordained — Married — The farewell soii-ee.

The subject of tliis Memoir lived so loving and useful a life that lie was greatly missed when lie died. He was missed in every sphere through Vv^hich his course led him : in Orkney, in Jamaica, in Old Calabar, in the circle of his friends. In each he was greatly loved and leaned- on ; and severe was the wrench that affection suffered when he was taken away.

The best improvement that survivors in the field of labour and of conflict can make of the death of an honoured and zealous servant of God, is to believe and work like him. William J ameson, being dead, yet speaketh to missionaries ; to those still living whom he taught publicly, and from house to house ; and, not less, to all who may become acquainted with his singularly affectionate, pious, and devoted character.

He was born at Methven, in Perthshire, on the 27 th of December 1807. As he came of a godly race — of men honoured in the history of the cause of God in Scotland, a few notices of some of his ancestors will, we doubt not, interest the reader. Margaret Pringle, his mother, was a daughter of the Kev. Dr.

MEMOIR OF EEV. WILLIAM JAMESON.

Pringle of Perth and Jane MoncriefF, one of the children of the Kev. Alexander Moncrieff of Culfargie, minister of the parish of Abernethy. His father, the Eev. John Jameson of Methven, was the son of the Eev. William Jameson of Kilwinning and Mary Wilson, youngest daughter of the Eev. William Wilson, minister in Perth. He was thus a great-grandson, by the mother's side, of one, and, by the father's side, of another of the honoured fathers of the first Secession. The late Eev. Dr. John Brown of Edinburgh, whose name will be long fragrant in the Church of Jesus Christ, once said, in his own emphatic and kindly manner, to the only daughter of the subject of this Memoir : " Your father is in heaven, your grandfather is in heaven, your great-grandfathers are in heaven, and your great-great-grandfathers are in heaven ; see that you lose not your honourable inheritance."

In the published " Eemains of the late Eev. John Jameson of Methven," there is a passage like the above. In a letter to his son Alexander, 12th March 1830, referring to the Memoir of the Eev. William Wilson, A.M., by the Eev. Andrew Terrier, and which had been newly published, he says : "It would do you good to have the Memoir by you, and to read in it daily, how one with whom you are so nearly connected lived with God. He prayed much, and much for his children, and we who are his children's children, have come into his prayers. My dear A., when the Memoir is put into the bookseller's window, let some one who knows, have to point to you, with honourable respect, saying, ' And there goes one of his descendants, and, by the grace of God, not unlike him.' In Glasgow, your own grandfather preached Christ ; and your great-grandfather and his father were men of God, and witnesses for his cause. I did not know, before perusing this Memoir, that we were connected, by Mr. Wilson's mother, with Mr. James Guthrie, who suffered martyrdom, in the reign of Charles il, at the cross of Edinburgh. Our little family is compassed about with a cloud of witnesses."

The father of William Wilson was Gilbert Wilson, who possessed a small estate near East Kilbride, in Lanarkshire.

A^'CESTEY^

Being a zealous Presbyterian, he \\'as persecuted during the reign of the second Charles. The authorities deprived him of his heritable property, and sold his moveables at the cross of Glasgow. Mearns Muir, an extensive moorland in that district, was his hiding-place for a vdiole winter. At length, he escaped to Holland, Avhere he found an asylum, until he returned with the Prince of Orange in 1688. His estate was not restored to him ; but, as some compensation for his losses, he was, at length, appointed comptroller of the customs at Greenock. Such was "William Yvllson s father.

His mother, Isabella Eamsay, was the eldest daughter of Mr. Ramsay of Shielhill, a gentleman of property, near Kirriemuir in Forfarshire. Mr. Eamsay was an Episcopalian, and a keen supporter of the Stuart dynasty. ]\Iiss Eamsay was Mrs. Guthrie's niece : and while on a vi>it to her aunt, she became pious, and joined herself to the Presbyterians. Being disowned, in consequence, by her father, she found a shelter under Mr. Guthrie's roof, until her marriage with Gilbert Wilson. When her son William was prosecuting his studies for the ministry, her brother, who had succeeded to Shielhill, offered to leave it to her and her son, provided the latter would become an Episcopalian. This condition not being accepted, Shielhill was left to a younger sister and her heirs. Father, mother, and son, all thus suffered for conscience' sake ; and the last had a further tasting of the same cup when, along with ivloncrieff of Culfargie, the Erskines, and others, he had to give up his living in the Church of Scotland, through the violence of a faithless and unchristian majority. They were animated with the spirit that had breathed in the martyrs and heroes of the Scottish Covenant.

The wife of William Wilson— one of the great-grandmothers of the subject of this memoir — was a lineal descendant of George Jamesone of Aberdeen, the " Yandyke of Scotland,'' " the &st inhabitant of Great Britain, the works of whose brush could stand comparison with foreign painters."

The Eev. W^illiam Jameson of Kilwinning, when a preacher, in 1762, was appointed by the Secession Synod to proceed

MEMOIR OF EEV. WILLIAM JAMESON.

as a missionary to America ; but as the congregation of Kilwinning desired him for their minister, the Synod, at its next meeting, released him from his missionary appointment.

The memory of the Kev. Dr. Pringle is still fragrant in the city of Perth, where, for a period of sixty-two years, he was minister of the North Secession Church. He died in 1839, in the eighty-seventh year of his age, retaining his faculties fresh, and keeping up with a progressive generation to the last.

The Rev. John Jameson, father of the subject of this Memoir, was a man whom to know was to love and esteem. In his Memoir of the late Dr. John Brown, Dr. Cairns speaks of Mr. Jameson as a " man of tme genius, and the fragments of whose mind show an originality and brilliancy not often reached in the finished productions of others." The Rev. George GilfiUan also WTites of him in terms of the most generous appreciation. He says that he " was a man of various moods, as many men of genius are ; but, unlike some of that class, he w^as, in all his moods, amiable." "Jameson was indeed a singular composite. He was in intellect and genius a man, in simplicity and unconsciousness a child, and in affection a woman." " Even more than a man of genius, he was a man of heart, and of a heart that had been cradled and cultivated in the school of many sorrows." Of his "letters," he says that they "are, in pathos, in beauty, and in originality, inferior to none in the language." And of his sennon on " True Fame," that "it told with prodigious power, and constitutes, next, perhaps, to a sermon on Elijah, by Dr. Ferrier, the best printed discourse by any one minister of the United Presbyterian Church. The introduction is musical as the liquid lapse of the Earn itself, and several other parts are highly energetic." And of the subject of this Memoir, " Jameson's beloved son, William," that he was his father's "picture in appearance and fac-simile in disposition."

" The seed of the righteous is blessed." They are indeed blessed when, in answer to the prayers of pious parents, God converts them in early youth ; and when these parents are

EARLY DAYS.

afFectionately wise in training tliem for nobly doing their life'.s work. Such parents as Mr. Jameson of Methven and his excellent vrife, could not but exert a most benign influence on their children. In their case, grace has run in the line, and they have every one chosen the God of their fathers to be their ov\m God, and been identified with the Saviour's public cause.

William Jameson was pious from his childhood. On the evenicg of the day on which he left Methven to sail for Jamaica, while the lessened circle sat together sorrowful at the departure of one so greatly beloved by them all, his good father said, " Well, my children, I got William from the Lord ; from the hour of his birth I gave him to the Lord ; and I never had cause to regret either the receiving or the giving."

The following incidents show the budding of an early piety which, at length, expanded into the fragrance and fruitfulness of maturity. He was about three years of age, when, one day, his father led him out of doors during a thunderstorm, to see what he would think of it. They soon heard a very loud peal ; and William, grasping his father s hand in his, said, pointing upwards, " Stop, papa, stop ! God is playing a tune on the clouds."

When he was about four years of age, a brother was born, who died in two weeks. He was named Adam.. After the infant's death, his mother overheard William praying very earnestly, and weeping out, " Lord, I thank thee for Adam, though Adam is dead."

On another occasion, when he wanted money for some of his own purposes, his mother heard him in his little closet praying for coppers. The word struck her, and she asked him when he came out, why he used that word. Blushing deeply, he said, " Mother, money was too big a word for me. I wanted only pence." He was then about six years old.

When he was about twelve years old, one Saturday evening before the Lord's Supper, his sister Jane and he were sitting together. He spoke to her about the badness of her heart, and mourned that his own was so hard with respect to God

MEMOIR OF REV. WILLIAM JAMESON.

and eternity. Among other things, he said, "This heart of mine is very cold and dead. 1 have been fighting to bring it under the influence of the Word of God ; but to-night, that blessed word makes no more impression on it than a piece of small cord would make on a lump of hard, thick, tarry rope." Then, lifting up his tearful eyes to heaven, he implored the Lord to have pity on his heart, to subdue it to himself, and to fill it with love to Jesus Christ.

The following incident shows the existence, in the boy, of the kind and generous disposition which made it a pleasure for the man to spend, and toil, and suffer for others. When he was at Methven school, on one occasion the master thought it to be his duty to punish a few of the girls for being late. One of these was the constant companion of the young Jamesons, and a relative of the family. When she was about, in her turn, to "hold out" her hand, William started from his seat, ran up to the master, and said, " Sir, do give me the punishment, and let her oft*." The little girl for whom he so kindly offered himself as a substitute, afterwards became his wife, and the partner of his missionary labours till her early death at Goshen.

After attending school at Methven, he was sent to the Perth Academy, where he remained till July 1823. He then returned to Methven, and spent a year under the eye of his father, preparing for the University, which he entered in November 1824, in his sixteenth year. During that period he opened an evening class, at the desire of several young men who wished to improve themselves in general and religious knowledge, and in this work he spent two hours each night. The meetings of this class were happy meetings, both for the teacher and for the learners. Six or seven of these young men became preachers or teachers, and filled important situations in different parts of the country with credit and advantage. Mr. Jameson studied four sessions at the University of Edinburgh, punctual, conscientious, and diligent in his work, and with characteristic ardour seeking such academical acquirements as become a minister of the Word of God.

COLLEGE LIFE.

In 1828, he entered the Divinity Hall of the United Associate Synod, which was then under the care of Drs. Mitchell and Dick. After his second session at the Divinity Hall, in October 1829, he became an agent of the Perth City Mission tUl July 1831, when the connexion ceased, as he and his friends thought it proper that, since the period approached when he would become a licentiate, his time should be whoUy given to study.

In one of the reports of the Perth City Mission (March 1831), the Committee say that they have reason to bless God, that, while their other agent has been so frequently changed, ]\Ir. Jameson has been permanent, and still continues the zealous and indefatigable agent of the Society. Of Mr. Jameson, as he is present, the Committee cannot speak with freedom, as delicacy forbids this. Yet the Committee will earnestly pray that he may be strengthened for, and preserved in, his many arduous duties ; and that, while it pleases God to favour the Society with his valuable services, the consolations of the gospel may abound, more and more, to his own souL"

In 1832, the Committee reported that " it was with extreme regret that they parted with this gentleman. They feel justified in saying that his labours were abimdantly characterized by a humble and devoted spirit, and they are justified in adding, nay, they would be culpable in withholding, their testimony to the success with which it has pleased God to crown those labours. They see, in his case, realized the fulfilment of the gracious assurance of the Divine Being — an assurance which will be fulfilled in the experience of all his humble, persevering, devoted servants, if not in this, at all events, in another world — ' Them that honour me I will honour.' "

The missionary visited, for four hours daily, except on Saturdays ; held three meetings weekly : and, on Fridays, visited the sick. Mr. Jameson's service was not mere taskwork. It was conscientious ; and was, obviously, a labour of love. It was the laboiu" of one who was anxious to do good

MEMOIR OF EEV. WILLIAM JAMESON.

to souls, and wlio was earnest in Ms blessed Master s work. Two cases in which he was honoured to bring souls to the Saviour, are thus narrated in the Missionary Record of the United Preshyterian Churchy for January 1848 : — ''An old woman was greatly opposed to his visits, and, at last, became so annoyed at his perseverance, that, one day, when she heard his foot on the stair, she threw a stool at him, and, in the act of turning round to get away, fell and hurt her knee. He raised her up, helped her into the house, and got a medical man to put her knee to rights. A bad swelling came on, which, ' in eighteen months, cut her off. He saw her every week, and, during that time^ the poor woman came to herself, and was brought to the Saviour. She expressed, at almost every visit, her thankfulness that he had been led to her door, notwithstanding her anxiety to keep him away, and blessed the Lord for the accident which, though producing death to her body, had, she said, wrought life in her soul. The other case was that of a man who led a very bad life, and had, by his vicious habits, brought his family to want. Mr. Jameson was anxious to get hold of this man, but was for a long time unsuccessful, as he invariably bolted his door when he was aware that Mr. Jameson was near the house. One day, however, he noticed this man's door open, and, looking in, saw that he was laid upon his bed. His complaint was inflammation of the lungs. The man listened attentively to what he said to him, declared that he was sorry for the way he had treated him, and asked him to return soon. Mr. Jameson visited him frequently, conversed and prayed with him ; and his instructions were blessed. This man, who was formerly a terror to the neighbourhood, became meek as a lamb, and delighted to hear about Christ and his salvation. Being obliged to leave home for two weeks, Mr. Jameson hastened, the morning after his return, to this man's house. The door was standing open, the bed-curtains all thrown up, and the neighbours assembled in the room. He entered softly, and found him near his end. The people informed him that the dying man had longed greatly for his return in order that

LICENSE TO PREACH.

he might tell him what the Lord had done for his soul. He waited to see the issue. In a few moments, the man oj^ened his eyes, and looking up, as if he beheld his Saviour, sang audibly, ' Thou fairer art than sons of men,' and immediately expired."

The interval between the sessions of 1831 and 1832 was spent with his father at Methven. This must have been a season of profit and progress. Hallowed intercourse with such a parent, and continuous study in a quiet rural town, where there was comparatively little to distract attention and consume time, could not fail to enlarge and perfect his views of divine truth, and fit him for the work of the ministry. His father w^as peculiarly fond of studying the Hebrew Scriptures. A portion was read and pondered every morning ; and he frequently came down into the family circle with a face radiating delight and satisfaction at the ever fresh and cheering views which he was obtaining of the Word of God, — views which he used to say were conveyed to him by the ministry of angels. To enjoy daily the discourse of such a father was an inestimable boon to the student and to the future missionary.

In September 1833, Mr. Jameson was licensed to preach the gospel, by the United Associate Presbytery of Perth, and placed upon the list of probationers. He continued doing the work of a probationer for upwards of two years.

During the period w^hen he was a preacher, Mr. Jameson was sent to supply at Tunly Chapel, and, while living there, he wrote to his aunt. Miss Mary Pringle, a letter of which the following is an extract : —

" I am working at Tunly with this encouragement, at least, that it is the work of God, and that his word does not return unto him void. The population are extremely ignorant, careless, and depraved. ... A religious Scotchman who comes to such a part of the country as this, sacrifices much, whatever he may gain in a temporal point of view. ... I love the classes ; a number of the pupils are making considerable progress. I preach twice at the chapel on Sabbath, and

MEMOIR OF REV. WILLIAM JAMESON.

have commenced a preaching station in a small village, on my way home on the Sabbath evening. . . . My lodgings are very comfortable. I have a snug parlour and bed-room, with a most excellent feather-bed. To my breakfast, I have toast and coffee ; to my dinner, roast or boil ; but I am starved for want o' kail. My landlady makes a kind of soup she calls broth, but they are no kail. If I don't live well it is my own fault."

Dr. Newlands, of Perth, in a letter written 17 th November 1835, says : ^' When I was last in company with Mr. Ellis of Saltcoats, I asked him, in the course of conversation, why Mr. William Jameson had not had appointments in the central districts of our church. Mr. Ellis replied that Mr. Jameson had always been appointed to the missionary districts, in compliance with his own special request, as affording scope for that species of labour which was most congenial to his mind. I have reason to believe that his mind has been turned to missionary service from the commencement of his studies, and that a call to any congregation in this country would interfere with plans of usefulness which have been ardently cherished." It is, however, said that one of the vacant churches in the denomination had resolved to call Mr. Jameson, and was deterred from doing so by learning that he was bent on foreign service, rather than on the pastoral work at home. His father, writing (29th January 1836), says — I know my son's intentions to be, and to have been, for a long time favourably turned to the West Indies." Missionary work, both at home and abroad, he specially liked. He desired rather to gather a little flock in some heathen wilderness into the fold of the G-ood Shepherd, than to be employed in tending a flock already gathered. He has been known to exchange an appointment to a vacant congregation, even when he had reason to believe that he was favourably regarded by it, for one at an obscure missionary station. And, therefore, he readily agreed to take charge of a station of this kind at Firth, a parish lying between Kirkwall and Stromness, a piece of outfield which the Presbytery of Orkney were trying to cultivate. The station was supported by the Secession Church in Kirkwall, under the pastoral care of

LIFE AT FIRTH.

Dr. Paterson. The Orkney Presbytery appointed Mr. Jameson to labour in this field for three months. At the end of that time, he had gained the hearts of the people ; and he agreed, at, their request, made with the Presbytery's consent, to remain with them during the winter of 1835-36. When there was a prospect of Mr. Jameson's departure, and Firth was asked to give him up to Jamaica, Dr. Paterson wrote (2d March 1836) : "It is true, from my own strong desire, and from the universal desire of my congregation, to retain Mr. Jameson as our missionary, I shall comply with reluctance (with the request to give him up) ; but, in the circumstances of the case, I do not see what else I can do. I am happy to be able to say, that in getting him, I think your congregation will get an excellent and very devoted missionary. The people of our station are exceedingly attached to him, and I see that his leaving them will be a great stroke ; but I must admit that Jamaica has, in some respects, preferable claims."