but of a certain class among them, who are of considerable importance
in the missionary world, though there are not many of them. Taking the
Padre as a sample of his class, as I think we may--judging from the
accounts of them we meet with in books, it is curious to notice, how
the point in which their system is strongest is just that in which the
Protestant system is weakest, that is, in social training and
deportment. What a number of men go to India with the best intentions,
and set to work at once, flinging their doctrines at the natives before
they have learnt in the least to understand what the said natives'
minds are like, or how they work,--dropping at once upon their pet
prejudices, mortally offending them as a preliminary step towards
arguing with them; and in short, stroking the cat of society backwards
in the most conscientious manner. By the time they have accomplished
this satisfactory result, a man like our Cuban Padre, though he may
have argued but little and preached even less, would have a hundred
natives bound to him by strong personal attachment, and ready to accept
anything from him in the way of teaching.

We paid a regular round of visits to the Floridan settlers, and were
delighted with their pleasant simple ways. It is not much more than
thirty years since they left Florida, and many of the children born
since have learnt to speak English. The patches of cultivated land
round their cottages produce, with but little labour, enough vegetables
for their subsistence, and to sell, procuring clothing and such
luxuries as they care for. They seemed to live happily among
themselves, and to govern their little colony after the manner of the
Patriarchs.

Whether any social condition can be better for the black inhabitants of
the West Indies, than that of these settlers, I very much doubt. They