TO THE CONGREGATIONS OF ST. JOHN'S AND ST. PAUL'S, IN THE ISLAND OF ST. CROIX. MY DEAR FRIENDS, Since I resigned my duties as your Pastor, it has been my anxious wish to place among you such a memorial as should in some way enable me still to contribute to the advancement of spiritual interests, which it has already been my happiness to aid, my responsible duty to watch over, and ever must be my fervent prayer to find carried on "unto the perfect day." At the same time I am glad of this opportunity for publicly identifying myself with a deeply interesting isolated branch of the Church, which, from its peculiar situation, had frequently been deprived of the services of resident ministers; while my appointment among you at such a time, must be associated with still more pleasing recollections, as having been the link which first brought you into that close contact with your mother-Church of England, which now affords you the advantages of Episcopal attentions; so far as the courtesy of a Foreign Government could be expected to recognise the authority, and admit the exercise, of English Episcopacy among its subjects. But I can scarcely advert to this circumstance without venturing to allude to distinguished individuals, who will participate in these pleasing recollections, from the part they have respectively taken in these arrangements. On looking back to the first step which led to my appointment, it is with a vivid remembrance of the lively interest excited in the breast of the first Archdeacon of Antigua, the present Bishop of Barbadoes, by the fact that, though he found you "as sheep having no shepherd," it was not as those who had "wandered through all the mountains," or strayed into other pastures; but were feeding within your own fences, as well as circumstances could enable you, by keeping up your Sabbath-assembling together with the assistance of respectable lay readers— while thus your case clearly proved that the simple use of the liturgy, as far as it could be so used, must, by the great truths which it embodies, and the fervent devotion which it breathes, very much contribute to the preservation of "order and steadfastness of faith in Christ." And while I know that Bishop Coleridge, as the first who afforded you Episcopal privileges, will advert to his visits among you |