Summary
The next day I occupied the pulpit in Knibb's chapel, and preached to a congregation of about six hundred persons. How much there was to remind me of the great and good man, whose voice had so often been heard within that sanctuary! It was built by his exertions, and stands on the site of the more humble structure which was destroyed by “white” rioters, excited to ungovernable rage in the Insurrection of 1831-2. It is a handsome edifice of brick, with stone facings. The interior is lofty, and the fittings are elegant and neat. The preacher stands in a small gallery projecting from the wall, and entered from a vestry behind. Immediately over him is a large marble tablet, commemorating the achievement of freedom. A bas-relief of Justice with her balance, her right hand resting on a sword at her side, adorns the upper part; and underneath are small medallion portraits of Granville Sharp, Wilberforce, Sturge, and Knibb. An inscription occupies the centre. Another bas-relief occupies the lower part, representing two negroes in the act of burying a chain and a whip, the emblems of the bondage from which they had escaped; a third holds the Book of God in his hands; while a mother is nursing joyously the child she can now call her own. It is a tasteful and well-executed monument.
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- The West IndiesTheir Social and Religious Condition, pp. 367 - 384Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2010First published in: 1862