HERE LYETH YE BODY OF
FERDINANDO PALEOLOGOS
DESCENDED FROM YE IMPERIAL LYNE
OF YE LAST CHRISTIAN
EMPERORS OF GREECE
CHURCHWARDEN OF THIS PARISH
1655-1656
VESTRYMAN TWENTY YEARS
DIED OCTOBER 3, 1678.

Just think of it! The last descendant of Constantine, the last scion
of the proud Emperors of Byzantium, commemorated as vestryman and
churchwarden of a country parish in a little, unknown island in the
Caribbean, only then settled for seventy-three years! Could any
preacher quote a more striking instance of "_sic transit gloria
mundi_"?

Codrington College, not far from St. John's church, is rather a
surprise. Few people would expect to come across a little piece of
Oxford in a tropical island, or to find a college building over two
hundred years old in Barbados, complete with hall and chapel. The
facade of Codrington is modelled on either Queen's or the New
Buildings at Magdalen, Oxford, and the college is affiliated to Durham
University. Originally intended as a place of education for the sons
of white planters it is now wholly given over to coloured students.
It can certainly claim the note of the unexpected, and the quiet
eighteenth-century dignity of its architecture is enhanced by the
broad lake which fronts it, and by the exceedingly pretty tropical
park in which it stands. Codrington boasts some splendid specimens of