# Africa's Redemption

Philadelphia: W.S. Martien, page Title
AFRICA'S REDEMPTION.
A DISCOURSE ON
AFRICAN COLONIZATION.
AFRICA'S REDEMPTION.
A DISCOURSE ON
AFRICAN COLONIZATION
IN ITS MISSIONARY ASPECTS,
AND IN ITS RELATION TO SLAVERY AND ABOLITION.
preached on sabbath morning, july 4th, 1852, in the seventh pres-
byterian church, penn square, philadelphia.
by
WILLIAM HENRY RUFFNER,
PASTOR.
Ethiopia shall soon stretch out her hands unto God.—Psalm lxviii. 31.
PHILADELPHIA:
WILLIAM R. MARTIEN.
1852
Philadelphia, July 5th, 1852.
Rev. William H. Ruffner,
Dear Sir:—The undersigned, members of your church and congregation, having listened with great satisfaction and interest to the discourse preached by you on the morning of Sabbath the 4th inst. and believing that the cause which it advocates will be promoted by its being more largely disseminated, we would respectfully ask a copy for publication.
We are, Dear Sir,
Very respectfully and truly yours, &c.
Philadelphia, October 4, 1852.
Gentlemen:—My long delay in rendering a formal reply to your communication of July 5th, has not been the result of a low appreciation of what is due to you personally, or to your kind and complimentary request. It has been occasioned, first by the undecided state of my mind as to allowing the discourse to be published, and then by a number of circumstances personal to myself, which prevented my preparing a legible copy for the printer.
Thanking you for your attention and your patience, I place the manuscript at your disposal, with the hope that, under the Divine blessing, some good may accrue to a noble cause from its publication.
With sentiments of high regard for each one of you,
I am, gentlemen, your sincere friend and pastor,
WILLIAM HENRY RUFFNER.
To Messrs. F. A. Bokee,
AFRICA'S REDEMPTION.
Ethiopia shall soon stretch out her hands unto God.—Psalm Ixviii. 31.
Many persons now live who well remember the contest, in England, concerning the duty of attempting the work of evangelizing the world. But since the day when John Foster laid his heavy hand on Sydney Smith, the question has been virtually settled. Christianity was then born into a higher, purer, freer mode of existence than the cold obstruction in which it lay before. English piety then demonstrated that English power had a nobler mission to heathen nations than that of plunder, war, and oppression. American Christianity, enjoying a freedom unknown since the days of Constantine, not only admits her whole duty to the heathen world, but is dealing with the largest ideas, and probably, in the evolution of God's Providence, is destined to achieve the mightiest results in the restoration of ruined man, of all the nations of Christendom. The judgment, conscience, and affections of Christian people in our land are fairly won in favour of universal missions. They need only to be stimulated and guided. ​Of all foreign missionary fields, there is no one so calculated to stir the American heart as Africa. Africa is at the lowest degree in the scale of civilization, and America is fast rising to the highest a vast ocean rolls between them, they know but little of each other, have less present intercommunication than most other nations, yet how intimate, how wonderful the conjunction between these extremes of civilization! That negro-slavery is an anomaly in American civilization, can hardly be denied, but that it is an anomaly in the world's progress, no considerate mind will affirm. Potiphar bought Joseph of the Ishmaelites and made him his slave, but there was then instituted a relation, intimate and interesting, and pregnant with vast and beneficent results. American Christians are compelled to be cautious in speaking on this theme, and have directed their efforts more to some other portion of heathendom than to Africa; but beneath this external reserve there is a tender and lively interest in all that pertains to the negro and the negro's fatherland, which will gradually work itself out into the grandest manifestations.
It is not my intention to speak of the whole of the continent of Africa, but only of that portion which lies south of the Great Desert. The northern division of the continent, inhabited by Moors, and fronting on the Mediterranean Sea, has had a very different history, and will have a very different future, from the central and southern divisions. The central and western region is by far the most ​important part of the country, is the one with which we as a nation have had and will have most to do, and which will occupy our attention chiefly on this occasion. It now contains a vast population, probably four times as great as the United States; but its capabilities are so unbounded that it may sustain a very much larger number of inhabitants. Its soil is not surpassed, if equalled, in the world. Its immense vegetation grows unchecked throughout the year. The tropical fruits which are brought to us as luxuries, and many, which cannot be transported, there abound in the utmost profusion. How would we be charmed to stand among its groves of orange, olive, banana and palm. How delighted to behold, hanging around us in the most lavish abundance, the lemon, pine-apple, mango, plantain, lime, and pomegranate. How impressed to walk among her gigantic forest-trees, interlaced with vines, and sheltering the mightiest animals that tread the earth. There are found dye-woods, ship-timber, and timber for cabinet and common building purposes in great variety, and of great excellence. Many of our condiments and articles belonging to our Materia Medica are now brought from there, and may be procured in any quantity Almost all the productions comprised in the departments of horticulture, farming, and planting, grow there with astonishing exuberance. The face of the country is diversified, much of it being hilly and mountainous. It is well watered, abounds in valuable minerals, including gold and iron, has no epidemic diseases, and not a great many of any ​kind, and according to Dr. Lugenbeel, it has a pleasant climate, and one which is healthy to the African race. Its waters, too, afford an abundance of fish. In a word, it contains the elements of comfort and wealth in boundless profusion.
Excepting a small proportion of Arabs, who crossed the Great Desert during the middle ages and settled among them, this region is inhabited by the pure negro race. This race, although very degraded, probably possesses much higher capabilities than are usually ascribed to it. It is, perhaps, injudicious in the friends of the negro, to contend for an intellectual equality between the white and black races. Diversities in this particular are common over the whole earth among nations of the same race, as well as among those of different races. No doubt the Africans are nearly equal to the Chinese, and superior to some branches of the races considered superior to theirs, as for example the twenty-five millions of Russian serfs. But the mind of man is modified by circumstances, as well as his body. And the intellect of the negro has suffered from the protracted disadvantages under which he has laboured. No one, however, can assign any limit to the improvement which may be effected under suitable culture; and there can be no reasonable doubt that the negro has abundant capacity for all the ordinary affairs of human life, including self-government, and may attain to as high a degree of civilization as any other race. There are indeed some features in the negro character of peculiar interest, Of all ​others he is the kindest, brightest, gayest, and most inclined to religion. He has eloquence, grace, and wit, a gorgeous fancy and a most touching pathos. As the sun declines in Africa, the stupid Dutch boor of the south lights his pipe and sits down in moody silence; the saturnine Moor of the north whets his knife and thirsts for blood; whilst the negro leaps, and sings, and dances, and plays upon his musical instrument. The whole country is a scene of the most joyous merriment. Nor are the Africans destitute of regular governments. They have rulers, law, and subordination, and, considering the isolation which has characterized their history, we see some favourable features in their condition, calculated to surprise us.
But still their moral degradation is very great. They are suffering under the usual woes attendant upon an absence of correct religious knowledge. Mr. Moffatt thinks he found some tribes in southern Africa, who had no idea of a Supreme Being, or indeed of any supernatural power whatever. But this is not wholly true of the natives of central and western Africa. Some of them have been converted by the Moors to the Mohammedan faith. But the mass of them are governed by an abject superstition, which we may call Devil-worship. To their god, who resembles our idea of Satan, they frequently offer human sacrifices, especially on occasions like the ratification of a treaty, or the death of a king. It is recorded that upon the occasion of the death of one of the kings of the Aikims, his ​people sacrificed his prime minister, three hundred and thirty-six of his wives, and upwards of a thousand of his slaves. The symbol of their divinity they always wear about the neck, in the form of a bit of wood, horn, or other common material. They call it the fetiche, and place the utmost reliance on its power to protect them from all harm.
Cannibalism is not uncommon. There is one tribe widely scattered over the country, whose food is said to be human flesh, and human bodies are hung up for sale in their shambles. Their prisoners of war are fattened, killed, and eaten, or sold to the butchers.
But the grand source of Africa's woes, is that inhuman traffic in her own people, which the civilized world unite in denouncing, and which several nations, the United States included, have united in endeavouring to suppress. This is the cause of the fearful state of society which there exists. This is the secret of their incessant wars. The Africans, in their wars, are not stimulated by revenge, like our Indians, nor hurried by the impulse of wanton cruelty, like the Moors of the desert; nor are they prompted by ambition and a desire to extend their dominions, like many more civilized nations, "but they go out to battle in order to steal and to sell one another, and they exult in victory in proportion to the trophies of human victims." I cannot undertake here to depict the horrors attendant upon this accursed traffic. It is not merely the terrific midnight assault, the violent seizure, and the murder of ​the useless; not merely the pain of endless separation between the captive and all he holds dear; not merely the miseries of the passage across, and the perpetual servitude brought upon him and his posterity, but it is all these evils combined, and aggravated by circumstances, heart-rending beyond description. In spite of all the vigilance of the armed squadrons watching the coast, it was calculated, a few years ago, that near half a million of Africans were annually transported from Africa to Brazil and Cuba, chiefly, and sold as slaves; and it is an error to suppose that this trade has been suppressed.
In estimating our duty to Africa, a large item in the calculation should be the fact that Christian nations are responsible for this wretched state of things. The Governments now indeed declare the slave-trade to be piracy, but the time was when none frowned upon it, and the most of them encouraged it. What language can express the stringency of that obligation which rests upon those nations, not only to suppress the traffic at every needed cost, but to indemnify Africa for the awful evils and incalculable wrongs they have inflicted upon her! The sending of vessels to guard the coast may be considered an admission of this obligation. But the small results which have followed this effort ought to show the governments, who send these vessels, that they are wrongly applying their means. The profits to the slavers are so enormous, that they can afford to lose two-thirds of their vessels, and still derive a handsome ​profit, and the vast extent of sea-coast, east as well as west, affords them great facilities for escaping. The African people must be changed before this trade can be annihilated. Had the same money which has been required to sustain these costly squadrons, been expended in purchasing territory along the coast, and in settling it with Christianized negroes, far more would have been accomplished already, and the foundation been laid for its final extermination, so far as the influence of such colonies could be made to extend.
We speak confidently upon this subject, because the history and present condition of Liberia have demonstrated the superiority of Christian colonization over all other modes of suppressing this trade. The territory purchased by the Liberians, was the theatre of probably the most active scenes such as have been described. They own over four hundred miles of coast, with average depth of thirty miles, and from this region and much of the adjacent territory, the slave-trade has been wholly banished; and the very tribes which were once foremost in the business, have been transformed into peaceful subjects of law, and industrious followers of legitimate pursuits. The natives were not compelled to fly before the colonists like our Indians, but were allowed to remain, and become partial citizens of the Republic. It is supposed that there are now about one hundred thousand natives within its limits, and that two hundred thousand more have entered into covenant ​with the authorities of Liberia to abandon the slave-trade for ever. In many ways these people are coming under the influence of the true religion, are learning the arts of civilized life, and having their attention directed to the abundant sources of wealth, which exist around them in the vegetable and mineral products of the country
A great encouragement to missionary effort among these people is found in the absence of all organized system in their religion. The world does not present another instance of a people so free from fixed religious ideas and practices. Their few incoherent superstitious and idolatrous practices have little that is defined or formidable, compared with the magnificent system of the Chinese theology, supported by the prestige of antiquity and venerated names, and interwoven through the texture of an elaborately constructed empire. Nor is it to be compared with the subtle and ingenious system of the Hindus, perpetuated and rendered imposing by its philosophic mien, its voluminous commentaries, its cunning and numerous priesthood, and the barbaric splendour of its public ceremonies. Nor has it any Grand Lama, any Prophet of God, any Incas, any altars, any temples, any sacred books, any oracles, any demigods, any nymphs or naiads, any system of caste, or, indeed, (with the few exceptions mentioned) any associations or prepossessions, any old authoritative errors or deep-rooted prejudices, which would oppose the formidable barriers so commonly frowning upon and discouraging the Christian missionary in other ​heathen countries. Let the missionary dissolve (as he may easily do) the charm attached to the fetiche, and the poor African has no other resource. He is then ready for a change. Many of them have imbibed the vagaries of Mohammed, and can we doubt the easy triumph of Christianity?
In discussing methods of propagating Christianity among heathen people, the question is sometimes agitated, whether the best mode is not always to establish in their midst Christian communities, where would be exhibited the practical influences of Christianity in promoting man's well-being, for the life which now is, as well as that which is to come. The Moravians have usually pursued this system, and with signal success. It is very certain that the same system is not equally appropriate for all countries. The ordinary system will not do for the part of Africa under consideration. This assertion is verified by history, and (as it seems to me) by common sense. Numerous and energetic efforts have been made within the last three hundred years, by both Protestants and Roman Catholics, to introduce the gospel into this region. But the same sad and brief history has characterized them all. They were but a series of disasters and deaths. The bones of devoted missionaries are strewed along the coast from the Senegal to the Bight of Benin. Up to the date of Colonization all such efforts failed, and left no vestige behind. The people regarded the white missionaries as the Aztecs did the Spaniards who invaded their country, as a different race of beings, with ​whom they could have nothing in common, and soon the missionaries sunk under the influence of the climate, and their labours perished with them. Although, since the settlement of Liberia, the climate seems less malignant in its effects upon the white man, yet nothing seems more clearly indicated by Providence than that Africa is not to be Christianized by the direct labours of the white race. Even were there no colonization of coloured people in the country, it would be better to employ coloured missionaries than white ones. Rev. Mr. Pinney has shown, by a calculation made several years ago, that the average missionary life of white missionaries in Africa has been less than two and a half years, whilst that of coloured missionaries, even from this country, has been ten or twelve times as long. Of late, however, the fatality among the white missionaries has not been so great.
I fully sympathize with the profound impression which is constantly taking a wider and deeper hold upon the American mind, and is extending among the intelligent people of Great Britain, that the mighty and glorious work of regenerating this continent, has, in the scheme of God's providence, been assigned to her own long exiled sons, who are to return, not like the prodigal son, weary, worn, and wretched, but like Jacob coming out from Padan-Aram, all laden with riches and full of hope. Surely there can be no means so well adapted to the end as this. When the intelligent American born negro touches African soil, he must feel ​somewhat as Nehemiah did when returning from captivity to Jerusalem, and like the Roman of old, he must feel ready to fall upon his face and kiss his mother earth; and in meeting his native brother, he can but acknowledge, with a mournful tenderness, the tie which binds them together. They clasp their hands, eye meets eye, heart responds to heart. One in colour, one in taste, one in temperament, one in origin, now one in residence, one in interest, must they not be one in faith and hope, and through eternity, one and inseparable. Already they dwell together in love, and the work of deliverance is rapidly progressing. The Hottentot retires before the white colonist of the south, the Moor was driven out by the Spaniard, the aborigines of America could not be induced to remain with the whites, but the native of Africa dwells side by side with the Liberian, lives in his family, imbibes his habits and opinions, submits to his laws, sits down with him in the house of God, and in every way shows that he feels the Liberian to be his brother. The demonstration is already complete. Whilst every effort to introduce Christianity by the ordinary system has failed, every effort to introduce it by negro colonization has succeeded. Every such colony still exists, and wherever its jurisdiction extends, has banished piracy and the slave-trade, established constitutional civil government, trial by jury, and the reign of law, introduced the usage and comforts of civilized life, and imparted them to many of the nations, established schools, built houses of worship, ​gathered churches, and maintained the preaching of the Gospel, protected missionaries and seen native converts received into Christian communion. Not a colony has been attempted without leading to these results. Take the three colonies of Cape Palmas, (the Maryland colony) Liberia proper, and Sierra Leone, the British colony, (formed of slaves who fled to the British during our Revolutionary war) and within their bounds you find considerably upwards of 100 missionaries and assistant missionaries, many of them of African descent, and some of them native Africans, now successfully labouring in the regeneration of Africa: and we see as the true fruit of their labours something like 15,000 regular communicants in Christian churches, a much larger number regular attendants upon the preaching of the Gospel, and many tens of thousands of natives perfectly accessible to Christian influences. All this has been done since the settlement of Sierra Leone in 1787, and most of it since the settlement of Liberia, in 1822. The results of the other system after a trial of more than 300 years, are certainly very small, although we have not the exact statistics. Whatever general views we have as to the best mode of conducting Christian missions, and whatever view we may take of colonization in its other aspects, one practical conclusion of incalculable value has undoubtedly been reached, viz. that the establishment and sustenance of colonies of Christian negroes in the country is the best, if not the only practicable mode of advancing the ​civilization and Christianization of Africa. In fact, something akin to this is the ultimate hope of all foreign missions. It is not expected that missionaries will ever directly Christianize any country. Their aim is to form Christian nuclei in the shape of little native communities, whose influence will be the means of enlightening and converting the rest. African colonization differs from this in only one respect, which gives a great advantage. Instead of awaiting the slow process of teaching and elevating a portion of the savage nations, in order that they may become teachers and civilizers of others, colonization begins where the missionary leaves off, with a Christianized community, not strictly of natives, but of people of the same race, who will naturally exert as potent and favourable an influence on their African brethren as if they were all born on the soil. There are some pregnant indications in recent evolutions of the providence of God, which seem to indicate that the efficacious principle of colonization is to be largely applied in the world's conversion. California and Australia, as well as Liberia, are just now fields in which these remarkable indications are displayed. Had the discoveries of gold in these countries been made in the last century, no such sensations could have agitated the world as is now agitating it. Nations were then too isolated, and ignorant of each other. No such commingling of races and nations could then have taken place as we now behold in the gold regions, and more than this, the countries containing the hidden treasure were ​not then in possession of truly Christian governments. These two great centres of attraction lying on opposite sides of the globe, are drawing together great numbers of people from a variety of lands, civilized and uncivilized, where they are destined to come under Christian influences. The design of Providence is not yet sufficiently manifest, for us to say how far these remarkable movements are destined to contribute to the ends under consideration, but that they will be powerfully effective, none can doubt; and mark you, so far as they are effective, it will be by the return of Christianized Pagans to their own countries.
These discoveries of hid treasures are not yet ended. I feel prepared to hazard the opinion that the progress of African colonization is to be vastly accelerated by discoveries which shall appeal to the same acquisitive passion which is so rapidly peopling California and Australia. It was meet that the first founders of the Liberian nation should be men who were actuated by nobler motives than those appealing to their cupidity Like the Puritans of New England, the pioneers of Liberian greatness were men of high principle, who sought a free home, and like the Puritans, they laid the foundations of their government in solid strength. But the high motives which influenced the majority of the Liberian settlers are not such as influence the majority of men. Now that the community is established in all its essential elements of prosperity, it is prepared to receive those who can be attracted ​only by inducements inferior to those which attracted the original settlers. Multitudes will be moved by the love of money, who will not be moved by the desire for freedom, social equality, and high moral elevation. Liberia now appeals to the latter motive, and to some extent to the former. Certainly the offerings of fortune are now much more promising to the negro in Liberia, than in any other portion of the world; and already have we had intimations that somewhere within that region there are to be laid open sources of wealth as tempting as those of California. Undoubtedly vast deposits of gold lie imbedded in Western Africa; and when exposed, they will be (in a manner) exclusively for the negro. Even Anglo-Saxon enterprise must succumb before the pestilential air of Africa. What use God means to make of the gold of Africa in the furtherance of his cause on earth, no man knoweth, but supposing the news come to America, that on the Western coast of Africa mines of gold, richer than those of California, have been discovered, how quickly would be dissipated the fierce opposition of the masses of our free coloured people to African colonization. Thousands who are incapable of being influenced by higher motives, would hasten to the diggings as fast as sails and steam could carry them; and this influence would be permanent. Suddenly a great Christian nation of coloured people would appear on the coast, and out of this, perhaps venial cupidity, would grow the most blessed results to that benighted continent. Let those who are ​skeptical as to the practicability of ever removing large numbers of the coloured population from this country to Africa, consider, in the light of European immigration to the United States, and the mighty rush of people to Australia and California, how easily similar motives would empty this land of the free black population. And wherever the negro goes from America, he will be accompanied, in some form or other, by a pure Christianity, and to a great extent by its resulting civilization. As long as America remains enlightened and civilized, she will not permit the negro colonies, who have gone out from her bosom, to sink far below the level of her own attainments. I have great faith in the self-sustaining powers of the improved negro race, but however faithless one may be as to this point, who can suppose the people of the United States to be so recreant to the peculiar relations they sustain to the race, as ever to withdraw their fostering care, or even to fail in affording the most liberal encouragement to all communities formed on the coast of Africa by negroes who have gone out from this country; and who could imagine anything but the most active possible co-operation of the Christian public, in elevating and saving the whole native population! We are the providentially designated guardians of Africa, and as soon might we expect the conscientious parent to see ignorance, degradation, and ruin fasten upon his son without using every effort to save him, as to see America allow the decadence of Liberia, as long as it was possible to save her. However strangely the ​words of Pitt may have sounded in the British Parliament, forty years ago, they now seem only the language of obvious truth. "We may live, (said he) to behold the natives of Africa engaged in the calm occupations of industry, and the pursuits of just and legitimate commerce. We may behold the beams of science and philosophy breaking in upon that land, which in some happy period, at still later times, may blaze with their full lustre, and joining their influence to that of pure religion, may illuminate and invigorate the most distant extremities of that vast continent."
Let us now revert to the influence of Liberia on the native Africans, as exhibiting the mode in which Christian settlements of coloured people are calculated to accomplish the results of which I have been speaking.
The natives, who are interspersed among the Liberians, and who come in great numbers from the interior, for the purposes of trade, have before their eyes a small, but prosperous and completely organized nation, composed of people of their own colour. They see the land under culture and yielding, with an exuberance such as they have never seen, a great variety of valuable products. Well ordered farms, producing rice, corn, sugar-cane, cassada, cotton, sweet potatoes, coffee, &c. meet their eyes in many parts of the country. They see twenty towns composed of well built houses, mostly of stone, brick, and frame, often painted and handsomely furnished. They see steam mills on their ​rivers, and ships in their harbours, some of them built by the Liberians. Many striking attractions are presented in Monrovia, the capital—a town having twelve hundred inhabitants, regular streets, excellent dwellings, large and costly public buildings, including churches, a fort, and a light-house, a harbour rarely empty of vessels, an armed and organized militia, mechanical trades, stores filled with manufactures of different kinds, and many other things, which, however common in civilized countries, are strange and wonderful to the natives of Africa. Doubtless many of them, looking upon Monrovia for the first time, have felt like exclaiming as the African prince Balla did, when he came in sight of the city of Baltimore, "Man no make all dis. God make him." As their observations continue, they see the people living in peace, order, happiness, and prosperity, under a republican form of government. They see crime punished, industry rewarded, property and life protected, education and religion prevailing, and altogether an air of comfort and improvement, and a tone of social and moral life, such as they have never dreamed of, much less witnessed, among people of their own race.
Beholding all this, and mingling freely with the Liberians, we can easily imagine the impression which would be made upon a shrewd, inquisitive, imitative people like the Africans. And on examination, we find that the results on the natives have been fully as great as the most sanguine friends of the cause anticipated. From the first settlement of ​the country the impression made upon the native mind, has been decided. Prince Balla was a special envoy, sent by a native king to make observations in America. The proposition made to him by the king, is reported in these words: "Balla, 'spose you go to 'merica. You got my eyes, you got my mout, you got my ears. You see, you 'peak, you hear for me. What you see, I see: what you 'peak, I 'peak: what you hear, I hear. Den if all these things we hear be true, we all be 'mericans, have 'merica book, be good like dem."
Liberia is exerting upon Africa an influence somewhat similar to that exerted by this country on Europe, yet much greater in proportion, and vast good is done by special missionary effort. There are a large number of native children in the schools, where they commonly evince quickness of mind and a desire to learn. Already a large number of natives have learned to speak the English language, are regular attendants upon church, and many of them are hopeful converts to the Christian religion. The rights of citizenship are extended to all native Africans residing within the limits of the Republic, as soon as they manifest sufficient interest and intelligence; and already several of them are justices of the peace. And it is a very interesting fact, that the entire Baptist mission is under the exclusive direction of native converts. There are always native boys anxious to be taken into Liberian families as servants, in order that they may have an opportunity of acquiring an English education. A ​number of African kings have sent their sons from several hundred miles in the interior to be placed in the families of the colonists. These return to their homes imbued with new and noble ideas of life and religion. And the interchange of commodities is a powerful incidental means of enlightenment, and these effects will continue to multiply in an increasing ratio. President Roberts states, that in a tour which he made some years ago, extending about three hundred miles inland, he found manifest traces of Liberian influence extending through the entire distance. There were persons in every place where he stopped who could speak the English language. The chiefs of the tribes, through which he passed, evinced the utmost eagerness to have schools established among them, offering to erect buildings and support institutions, where their children might be taught the arts of civilization and the truths of the Christian religion. Some of the native settlements in Liberia, composed of re-captured slaves from the slave ships, have been wonderfully assimilated to those of the citizens; and in various seasons of revival, large numbers of natives have been subjects of grace. I am satisfied, after pretty extensive reading upon the subject, that such an eagerness to learn, and such a sincere readiness to embrace Christianity, has not been evinced by any other heathen people since the era of modern missions. It is amazing that the Christian world has been so feebly impressed by the remarkable reception which Christianity has met with in Western Africa. Consider the stolid ​indifference of the American Indians, the supercilious contempt of the Chinese, the firm bigotry of the people of India and Hindoostan, the bloody rage of the South Sea Islanders, and the various other forms of opposition met with in most other portions of the heathen world, and contrast them with the eager, grateful, beseeching attitude of the Africans, arid you cannot fail to receive the impression that there the Gospel of Christ is destined to achieve its speediest and most remarkable triumphs. It would indeed seem that the Spirit of God had rode on the crest of the wave of immigration, and had swept away before the advancing tide every barrier of opposition which sin had erected against the truth of the Son of God. If American Christians heed not these wonderful beckonings of Providence, if they sustain not this Christian enterprise with a vigour and liberality corresponding to this crying demand for the Gospel, surely the curse of Meroz will rest upon their souls. Brethren, brethren, from the dark shades of Africa, ten thousand brother voices come to our ears in sad and sorrowing tones, wailing out their griefs, and praying us for light and life, through Jesus Christ. Let the pathetic sound thrill and melt our hearts, and soon let the breezes which sweep from the sea through her scented groves bear our gladdening response. It is God's Spirit that has aroused them to a sense of their woes, and turned their hearts unto the Saviour of all men. He has answered almost before we called. Let the Christians of this land come up to the help of the ​Lord, and soon those mango groves will resound with hymns to Christ, soon the light of life flashing free throughout that land will wake into life a multitude of Christian nations, and the descending sun of Africa will look, not upon senseless mirth and revelry, but upon the ascending incense of thankful worship, and upon all the tokens of a happy, thriving, and elevated population.
It should not be supposed, that in these remarks I am pretending to present all the varied and valuable aspects of African Colonization. Its advantages in furnishing the only solution to the problem of negro emancipation, in securing the desirable separation of the white and coloured races, in tending to allay the most fearful of all the excitements which have threatened our national existence, in conferring incalculable blessings upon the emigrants, by delivering them from hopeless thraldom here, and by establishing them in the land of their fathers, midst plenty, freedom, knowledge, and religion, and midst openings tempting them to the noblest endeavour; its advantages in developing for the benefit of the world, and especially of our own country, the unimagined riches of Africa—advantages, which it is astonishing our Government has not hastened to secure, as she might so easily have done—these, and other kindred views of the subject, so suggestive and enticing, must be passed over almost in silence, as somewhat inappropriate to this day and place, and as by far too copious for our time. But this is less to be regretted as our periodicals and newspapers are ​industriously scattering light upon this subject, and that too from sources where, awhile ago, the cause experienced opposition and misrepresentation.
Viewing this project of African colonization in all its antecedents, connections, and consequences, we cannot place it second to any other of human devising. Consider the perplexing problem which it so beautifully solves, consider the gigantic and varied features of the scheme itself, the probable magnitude of its many most desirable results, and the glory and blessing attendant on every step in its onward progress, and where can be found an unfolding of Providence so stupendous and beneficent! Must there not be a remarkable impressiveness in the scheme, to have rallied to its support such friends as it has at home and abroad. I know of no benevolent scheme which has ever enlisted in its behalf so large and dignified an array of piety, talent, wealth, cultivation and high position as this. All the enlightened religious bodies of the country, the most of our State Legislatures, in all sections, and of all parties, (except the Abolitionist) Presidents of the United States, (I believe all of them since the foundation of the Society) our leading philanthropists, our most distinguished statesmen and divines, the great majority of our newspapers and reviews, literary, commercial, political, and religious, have sanctioned and sustained this cause in all proper modes, and on all proper occasions. Men of all creeds in politics and religion, men in all localities and all interests, see in this many-sided scheme, something ​which commends it to their judgment, their hearts, and their purses. Indeed it might have been enough to say that in the religious world, it had Archibald Alexander for its historian, and in the political world, Henry Clay for its devoted head for many long years. Both may be placed among its founders, as they were its fast and efficient friends through their long lives. It has been but a brief space since Alexander was called away, full of years, labours and honours, and left a name not soon to fade from the annals of the great and good. And now Clay too has gone. Yes, by that sad event, which has touched the deepest fountains of national feeling, an event which will awake the sympathies of the civilized world, and I may say, which was so nobly and feelingly honoured by the people of Philadelphia, not only did the world lose a great political teacher, the nation an unrivalled statesman and orator, the realms of genius a peerless star, the ranks of social life a man of outgushing feeling, and amazing powers of fascination, but this great cause of colonization lost its oldest, firmest, most devoted, and influential friend, who has by his death left vacant the presidential chair of the Society. It were difficult to say which State has more loved and cherished colonization, Virginia or Kentucky—but they are mother and daughter; the one gave Henry Clay a cradle, and the other a tomb. The Virginians who laboured with him in the early period of this cause—such as Madison, Marshall, Monroe, Thornton, Randolph, and Alexander—have mostly gone before him to the ​grave. Charles Fenton Mercer, like Clay, a Virginian by birth, and a Kentuckian by adoption, still lives in a green and vigorous old age, and deserves immortal honour as being among the first (possibly the very first) to suggest, propagate, and devote himself to this scheme of wisdom and benevolence; but soon the projectors of this mighty enterprise will all be numbered with the dead.
Thus pass away the mighty and the excellent, but their names and labours remain, and under God's providence every good cause moves on to its destiny Few as are the remaining spirits who conceived and first embodied the idea of African colonization, the cause itself continues, not only in all its pristine freshness, but gathering strength with each revolving year, realizing already many of its splendid designs, shining like the dawn of a glorious day on the edge of a vast and benighted continent, bidding fair to indemnify that wretched race of more than one hundred and fifty millions of people, for all the wrongs and untold miseries which it has suffered at the hands of its more enlightened brethren. A stupid and malevolent prejudice may sneer as it may at the apparent insignificance of the results thus far attained, but there stands Liberia, a free, sovereign, self-sustaining Republic, acknowledged as such by the first powers of Europe (although not by our Government, as it ought to be); there she stands full of hope, full of courage, and full of promise. Already has she looked serenely on the rise and fall of the ​blustering French Republic, evincing a rationality and capacity for self-government far surpassing the French people, and having a President in all respects superior to the coxcomb who rules the French nation. There she stands in her principles, in her spirit, in the moral elevation of her people, in the terms and tone of her declaration of independence, and I confidently add, in her prospects, a government more like our own than that of any other nation under heaven! Hence comes the special propriety of presenting this subject on the anniversary of our National Independence. Let this day be a trysting-point, where annually these solitary Republics shall blend their thoughts, and rejoice in their related happiness. In so doing we do not banish, but the more naturally recall, the memory of our noble history, and the more vividly realize our national blessings.
On the recurrence of this fourth day of July, the people of these United States, and least of all, those who dwell in sight of Independence Hall, cannot forget our glorious past, or fail to be grateful for our present position and prospects. May it ever be a day of unmingled rejoicing, and of devout gratitude to Almighty God, the arbiter of national as well as individual destiny It has this year fallen upon the Sabbath, and the pulpit is thus providentially allowed the opportunity to add its testimony in honour of the day Let it never be passed in silence—let the rushing car of mammon never reduce it to the level of other days. It is the ​Nation's Jubilee, let every heart rejoice, and every tongue sing aloud with joy It is the Nation's Sabbath, let the labourer rest, and the patriot refresh his soul: let the Nation's universal, undivided heart pour out its praises to the Almighty Father, and supplicate his continued favours. It is not a day for childish glee, still less for wild extravagance it is a day for solemn thoughts and sacred communings, and soul-stirring memories, and earnest, unceasing, supplications. But it is not a day for isolating ourselves from all thoughts of brother man. To appreciate our own condition, we must contrast it with that of others: and we are not worthy of our privileges if we do not sympathize with the down-trodden and with the uprising. Certainly of all others, this is not a day to repudiate the bond between us and Africa. The destinies of America and Africa are undoubtedly and indissolubly united. Four millions of Africa's sable sons are now chained to the car of American liberty, and as we are borne along our splendid course, we dare not forget our dusky brethren, whose worn and weary bodies are dragged along the track, and whose beseeching eyes are turned to us for deliverance. The Providence which bound them to us, is no longer mysterious. Africa's race was to be apprenticed out to learn liberty and religion America was the best master and the best teacher to be found on the earth: the apprenticeship will cease at the appointed time, the lesson will then have been taught and learned; and thus British rapacity will be overruled by ​American generosity and Christianity, and Africa redeemed.
People of the North, your piety and patriotism, your interest and good sense, combine to rally you, or the most of you, around all harmonizing measures, needed to tighten the bonds of our confederation, and you try hard to persuade yourselves that slavery is not such a bad thing after all. But in your inner heart you hate the institution of slavery, and you would not deserve to have such a day as this in your annals if you did not hate it. But it becomes you, in dealing with this subject, to seek the broadest and most comprehensive views, and above all, to be guided by an intelligent Christian love. There are ways of shaking a tree which only makes it drive its roots deeper into the earth. I feel confident in declaring that in principle and policy, the colonization movement furnishes a safe, and the only safe, guide. Attempting to act upon slavery in any other spirit, and on any other principles, is unwise, useless, and Utopian, aye, it is ruinous. The old fable here is just in place. The wind and sun vied with each other to strip the cloak from the traveller. The wind raged and stormed, but the traveller the more resolutely wrapped his cloak around him. As soon as the wind ceased its blowing, the sun came out with its smiling face and gentle beams, and the traveller laid off his cloak for his own comfort and convenience. Abolitionism is the wind, Colonization is the sun.
Abolitionism has never caused the honest emancipation of a single slave, has in no single particular ​bettered the condition of the slave, nor has it really elevated any portion of the negro race; it has sent no missionary, no Bible, no cup of cold water even, to the poor wretches over whom they shed their crocodile tears, but on the contrary, this satanic faction has exasperated many a benevolent master, who was inclined to emancipate his slaves, and thus secured their perpetual bondage; it has taken the Bible and all other books out of the hands of the slave, by causing laws to be passed, in self-defence, which forbids him to learn to read; has forced the master to tighten the rein and watch his servant with a cold and jealous eye, has curtailed his legal liberty in all respects, and at the same time, has made the poor bondsman restless and wretched from the vague hope of emancipation; has caused countless murders and many insurrections, in which the negro always was the greater sufferer without gaining the slightest advantage; has led to many attempts at escape which ended in the negro's punishment and worse enslavement; has kept many innocent hearts in the most distressing state of alarm. It has curtailed, indeed, almost annihilated free discussion of the subject in the South; it has rallied thousands to the support of slavery, who else would have been labouring for its extermination, indeed, it is clearly responsible for the present existence of slavery in Maryland, Kentucky, and Virginia: it has inspired the free black population with hopes never to be realized, (as Mr. Birney himself is now forced to admit) and made them more despised by the ​sober part of the community, in proportion as they have chafed against the bars of their deepening degradation.
Such are some of the crimes of abolitionism, but these are not all, nor the worst. It is responsible for all the turmoil and trepidation attending the passage and the several enforcements of the Fugitive Slave Law. What do I say? Abolitionism is responsible for the Fugitive Slave Law itself. The law sprang out of the monster's own loins, and now it gnashes its teeth upon its own progeny It was abolitionism that forced the law into existence: if the former had not existed, the latter would not have been needed. There would have been few fugitives to catch, and still fewer owners who would have cared to take the trouble to catch them, had they been let alone. And more than this, abolitionism with all its prating about American liberty, is the greatest foe American liberty has to contend against. It is not only a one-idea party, but it is a party demented about an abstraction, without the slightest reference to the modifications which every principle undergoes in practical, and especially in complicated, application. And consequently its spirit is the most turbulent, explosive, disorganizing, and hence reactionary, of all others. Even Abolitionists are compelled to admit that abstractions are often wholly reversed in practice. You may hear one of them arguing that free trade, as an abstract doctrine, is the true law of international exchanges, whilst the circumstances of a particular nation may ​totally reverse the doctrine and make the tariff a propriety. You may hear another arguing that whilst "thou shalt not kill" is the true law in morals and religion, yet killing may become a propriety, an imperative duty, in certain circumstances. And so of innumerable other principles, and less or more of all principles, certainly of all belonging to terrestrial relations. And yet these men seize hold of the abstraction that "all men being free and equal, and having certain inalienable rights, the holding of a man in bondage is a sin and a shame," and try to run it like a red-hot ploughshare through society, in utter defiance of all attending and modifying circumstances; and they would rip up, run over, and plough under, the very foundations of every structure, sacred, civil, and social, as savagely and remorselessly as a madman gashes the bodies of the members of his own family. Such a spirit, if allowed to become dominant, would transform this earth into a slaughter-house, and drive the race of man to such a pitch of infatuated wretchedness as never has been reached in the most disastrous times. From the character of its results, so far as felt, you easily perceive its virulent and dissolving tendency. Behold the sectional animosities it has called into being, and the fierce, unbrotherly feelings, words, and acts, of which it has been the author. Its hot temper scalds whatever it touches. Look into its newspapers, and you find such a satanic rage as is evinced in no other quarter, except the fountainhead, enter its meetings, and see the ravings and ​frothings of its orators; see its clerical advocates sparkling with fire—ministers of the meek and gentle Jesus, "breathing out threatenings and slaughter" against their fellow-men, multitudes of them their fellow Christians. See its demoniacal workings in our national councils, the bad passions which it stirs up, the disgraceful scenes which it occasions, and the chasm of destruction to the verge of which it has so often dragged the nation.
And still the catalogue of its crimes is not ended. It is the source and front, the active vanguard of infidelity. It runs its fiery abstraction into the leaves of the Bible with as daring a recklessness as into the frame-work of society If on the rack, the Bible testify not to their one idea, it must be burnt like a witch—it is evil-possessed. Almost any thorough abolitionist will say, "If the Bible sanctions slavery, down with the Bible." His human reason undertakes to judge God, contradict him, defy him, and dethrone him. That is abolitionism, and nothing less or more! Many good Christian men act with the party without seeing what others see, that pure abolitionism is but a fierce and arrogant form of rationalistic infidelity, and that really it is now doing more to spread abroad and infuse into the popular mind at the North, a Christ-hating, God-defying tone and temper, than any other evil influence that is at work in the land. In a word, here are the results at which the leaders of this party manifestly point. The slave being essentially his own man, he may and should not only lay every sort of tax ​upon his master's property as indemnity, but also demand, and if necessary, coerce his freedom. The plain meaning of this principle is, that there should be a general insurrection among the slaves in the South, in which they should murder all men, women, and children, who do not at once sanction their claims. Secondly, that form of society in which slavery can reside in peace, must be radically wrong. Therefore the structure must be torn down, as an old-fashioned, rickety building is torn down in a fashionable street, and an entire reconstruction of the edifice be made on free and socialistic principles. Thirdly, the political confederation which can recognize and tolerate slavery as a legal institution, must be a rotten, disgraceful concern. Hence this American Union must be exploded. And fourthly, the religion which can even be suspected of sanctioning the monstrous iniquity must be devilish, and not divine. Therefore, the Bible is either uninspired, and a mass of mingled truth and error, or it is one gigantic scheme of imposition: or, at the least, Christianity as commonly held is a lie, and an incubus, and the sooner it is thrown off the better, and men be left to the glories of a natural religion, developed from the ultimate principle of Abolition liberty—which means, abolish God, abolish Christ, abolish the Church, abolish the ministry, abolish the government, abolish society, abolish the family, abolish penalties, abolish compromise, abolish decency; and revel in all the delights of their opposites, especially of anarchy and ​licentiousness, deification of man and defiance of God. And now, amidst all the smoke and carnage of a triumphant abolitionism, what good will accrue to the poor negro, either in America or in Africa. For his condition of present degradation, they promise him only a fate growing for ever darker, and deeper, and more appalling. Such is abolitionism displayed, according to my understanding of its principle, is spirit, and its tendency
And now for a moment refresh yourselves by contrasting with this anti-slavery madness, the calm, dignified, wise, efficient and beneficent proceedings, achievements and tendencies of African colonization. Its simple, fundamental aim, is the transfer of free coloured people to the coast of Africa, and to that aim it consistently and undeviatingly adheres. But yet, as was expected and desired, its influence is great and growing in many directions; and its actual effects thus far have been happy beyond all reasonable expectation. It has been the direct cause of delivering from bondage many thousands of slaves, (about one half of the whole number sent to Liberia, have been emancipated slaves); it has provided what Mr. Jefferson and other statesmen anxiously sought, a kind, safe and feasible mode of disposing of that large class of slaves, who are held in bondage only for the want of some such provision; it is causing thousands of masters to begin a quiet and gradual preparation for ultimately liberating their slaves, and thus helping to raise the intellectual and moral ​condition of the entire slave population, it has gently, though efficiently, promoted the general spirit of emancipation in the South: it alone makes emancipation a blessing to either race: it is now a star of hope to all true and rational lovers of negro freedom: it has soothed sectional animosities: it has united the body of the great and good in all sections of the Union, and has powerfully tended to neutralize and overcome the disorganizing tendencies of abolitionism. More and better than all, it has allied itself in the closest harmony with Christianity in its present and most catholic form, or rather, I should say, it is permeated thoroughly with the pure essence of our divine religion. Politicians, preachers, and the people generally, forget their sectional and sectarian feelings and interests under the benign influences of colonization. Christianity rules, directs, and accompanies this movement in all its parts. It were enough to say that it has, within twenty-five years, reared a Christian Republic on a distant coast, in the midst of heathen darkness. Already has it accomplished good, and only good: it has accomplished all that it set out to accomplish thus far. Its future is bright, it is radiant with the most glorious promise. How far it is to go in the actual lifting off of the chains of the enslaved, cannot now be affirmed, but certainly all the indications tend only to it as the high-way for the exode of the liberated captives.
If you will allow me to try your patience yet farther, I shall indulge in a few general thoughts on the ​interworking of these antagonistic principles in our nation, especially as it affects the condition and prospects of the negro race.
The God whose province it is to bring good out of evil, and whose administrative policy seems, in many of its aspects, to be a system of checks and balances, has made even abolitionism an incidental advantage, in some respects, to both colonization and emancipation, just in the way which those under the influence of the mania least expected. Had there been no abolition furor against the scheme of African colonization, it would doubtless have soon become popular with the free blacks who are much influenced by their cruel friends, and then the infant colony would have been overrun with emigrants, and been thrown into confusion by the unwieldy, incoherent mass put upon it. The colony has increased nearly as fast as was consistent with solidity and permanency. The hard and lasting woods are those which grow slowly The same cause prevented the slaveholders from liberating as fast as they would otherwise have done, which has been no disadvantage. It has had, too, a winnowing action upon emigration, tending to check the weak and ignorant, and unenterprising, and to send only those of a superior order, who were not to be daunted by passionate abuse and misrepresentation, nor by the inconveniences of the new country And it may be that God allowed the abolition party to rise up as a check to the general work of slave emancipation, to keep the slave where he was taken care of, until his home was ready for ​him to go into, but for this party, the fetters of the slave would have been flying in fragments in all directions. The South, if let alone, would spew out slavery in less than a generation. No one but a Southerner knows, or can know, how general is the antipathy of the Southern people to the institution. They know well that they are the chief sufferers in the matter, and they would gladly deliver themselves. But it is not human nature, certainly not American nature, to be lashed into anything. You may want to bestow a charity on the suffering, but your feelings would be very much changed, did a man undertake to whip you into the measure. Hence this meddlesome party may have been raised up like Pharaoh, just to keep these people in bondage for their ultimate good. Their country is not ready for them all, and they are not all ready for freedom. Meanwhile, colonization is shedding upon them an influence which must gradually elevate their condition whilst they remain in bondage, and thus prepare them for the day of deliverance. Its influence is exerted silently, and almost imperceptibly, and in the most persuasive and salutary manner; and gradually the colonization principles will triumph over the abolition, by making more friends, and by ultimately converting, purifying, and absorbing the abolition party itself.
Messrs. Greely and Birney are only the first fruits of the triumphs of colonization in winning its enemies. They will, and must resort to African emigration as the only hope for negro elevation. ​Meanwhile, colonization is silently lifting the entire coloured population in America. This it does by first calling a general and kindly attention to the condition of this population—whence grows an honest and inquisitive interest in their welfare. The public feelings, instead of being exasperated, are softened and tenderly enlisted by the way in which colonization presents the case of the negro. Then, along with the perception of the avoidable evils in the condition of this race among us, goes corresponding efforts for his relief and improvement. To this, no doubt, is to be attributed in considerable measure, the increasing interest which is felt in giving religious instruction to coloured people, and in some places in free States, in regularly educating them. And the reflex influence of the Liberian Republic is already powerfully felt for the good of the race here. Colonization has taken the negro from under his disabilities here, and placed him where he has developed to an intellectual and moral stature never reached before by his race, and now holds him up as the optical demonstration of what the negro may easily become. Whole nebula of phrenological speculations and scientific infidelities have thus been dissipated; and there, star-like, shines out the negro intellect, clear and bright. There, intelligence, freedom, and religion, flourish amongst the descendants of Ham—amidst the much maligned Ethiopian race. This exhibition must greatly affect the minds of philanthropists and slaveholders. "What right have we (will they argue) to allow these people to exist ​among us in such ignorance and degradation, when they have in them the germ of so fine a development. We must improve them, even if they are to stay among us—we dare not leave them as they are." Even at the North, the neglected negro will have efforts made in his behalf. The Liberians have schools, academies, and ere long will have colleges: why should we not provide schools, academies, and colleges for our coloured people at home why should we not have theological seminaries, normal schools, agricultural schools, for them, where the great leaders of the coloured race would be trained and sent forth! Such must be the reflex influence of Liberia upon America. North and South, the condition of the blacks will gradually improve, and as it improves so will they grow in fitness for freedom, and as they become intelligent and aspiring, will the free blacks of the north become dissatisfied with their disfranchised condition here, and be attracted to the coloured Republic beyond the ocean, where they may have scope for their utmost powers. And thus education, love of gold, (as before alluded to,) oppression, emancipation, Christian zeal, and even abolitionism, will conspire to empty our land of these aliens, and to lift Liberia to a noble elevation in the scale of nations.
There appears to my mind a tender and remarkable coincidence between the bondage of Africans in America, and the ancient bondage of the Jews in Egypt. Your own minds can easily trace the most obvious features of the comparison. The analogy. ​however, consists in more than the mere carrying away, the enslavement, and the rendition; it is destined to be carried out in the greatness of the work achieved by both alike in the world's progress. You at first may be incredulous, and so would an Egyptian have been incredulous, had one pointed to the degraded people they owned, and said that they were the most important people on earth. Imagine yourselves standing by an Egyptian brick-yard, seventeen hundred years before Christ, and looking upon the despised and oppressed Hebrews working in the mortar-beds, gathering straw, cutting and drying brick, with cruel task-masters standing over them, and ordering them hither and thither in the most supercilious tones. It would be hard for you to believe that that race were destined to return and possess the rich lands of their fathers, to build splendid cities, to have powerful armies, to have enlightened kings and prophets of God, and at last to give to the world a Saviour. But all this and far more came to pass. We do not expect another Messiah. But we have every reason to believe that the Africans will have their Moses and their Joshua, their David and their Isaiah, who, if not inspired, will yet be their God-sent teachers and deliverers. And there is scarcely a people living who promise to play so interesting and important a part in the world for the next century or two as these negroes, free and enslaved, whom we have in our country If they are to return to their land and to regenerate their race, with what a profound interest should we ​regard this commonly despised population; and how vigorously should we address ourselves to the work of teaching them who are to teach a vast and teeming continent. There is no time to be lost. The work moves on to its consummation. Individuals and legislatures are offering large means to send those who are willing to go. And it is hoped that ere long our general government, with its ocean steamers, its overflowing treasury, and its sense of obligation to Africa, will lay hold of this work and push it forward with all of its mighty energies. And I am not destitute of hope that England and Germany will yet remember, with suitable compunctions, whence came American slavery, who it was that brought this African race from their land to this; and that these memories will assist their general philanthropy and Christian zeal, and cause them to render us their powerful aid in this work. Indeed a great eleemosynary scheme like this, affecting so large a portion of the world's inhabitants, has all the proper elements of a world's charity Already has this cause found favour and received substantial aid in England, from both individuals and the government. France, England, and Prussia have all acknowledged Liberia as belonging to the family of nations. And why may we not entertain the hope, that, in time, all the Christian nations of the world will be assisting in some department of African regeneration, by means of colonization from America.
We at this moment have every indication of an ​increasing interest on the subject among the coloured people of our country, and an increasing disposition to emigrate. Indications of this are seen in every part of the land, north, south, east, and west. Neighbourhoods here and there are holding conventions, and sending delegations to Liberia, to report on the state of things there—and such delegations, I believe, have always reported favourably
But to recur, in conclusion, to the practical view of the subject. Not only is money needed for transferring the emigrants from America to Africa, and for sustaining educational and missionary efforts in and about the republic of Liberia, but the most immediate and vigorous efforts are needed to prepare the population here for the destiny that awaits them. Let not the work of emigration proceed faster than the work of home preparation, which is necessary to make emigration a blessing to Africa. Look around us and behold the sad and neglected condition of the mass of our coloured population. How can we expect or desire such people to be the teachers of Africa, to be the representatives of American republicanism and American Christianity. In many individual cases, may you find among us coloured men of intelligence and high moral character, but it is not so with the masses of them, and the reason is, that they have been a despised and shamefully neglected people.
Brethren, a thousand weighty motives call upon us to turn our kindly attention upon the African race. Let us not be guided by a fanatical zeal, but by a ​Christian philanthropy, which is wise, mild, and indomitable. The negro is our brother and our ward: and God will hold us responsible for his training and for his end, temporal and eternal. He may, by suitable effort, become a blessing and an ornament to the earth, and by God's mercy, an heir of eternal glory And, O, in the great and solemn day of the Lord, when we behold millions of Africa's redeemed children with, crowns on their heads and palms in their hands, falling into the line of God's sacramental host, how will our hearts swell with, joy to think that we were permitted to bear even the humblest part in sending Christ's religion to their shores, and scattering the darkness from their minds.
THE END.
This work was published before January 1, 1929, and is in the public domain worldwide because the author died at least 100 years ago.
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