Walters, John

Walters, John a Wesleyan Methodist missionary, was a native of South Wales. He was converted in his youth, was sent to the West Indies in 1830, and appointed to the island of Jamaica. On the death of William Wood (q.v.), May 24, 1835, he was sent from Spanish Town to St. Ann's Bay, to supply the place of the deceased, although he stated to the committee he had an invincible aversion to the place, owing to an impression he could not get rid of, that in a few weeks he himself would die there. With thin and pallid features the slender and delicate Walters startles the mourning people with the words, "Dear Christian friends, I am come this morning to preach Mr. Wood's funeral sermon, and I shall at the same time preach my own also." On that very day the yellow fever smites him, and in one week he passes away. Regard for the poor and sick, and fervent zeal for God, were traits in the character of the young and holy Walters. See Minutes of Wesleyan Conferences. (1836); Bleby, Romance without Fiction, or Sketches from the Portfolio of an Old Missionary (Lond. and N. Y. 16mo), 23 p. 459 sq.