The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1843-05-23 00:00:00

learning of the English tongue. If both could be done
of course it would be better • but suppose it should be
found by experiment that if? the children are educated
in the language of their fathers, and they cannot be made to
exhibit a proficiency in English ; then came the decision to
he made. And if it were made with regard to the children
themselves, he should let it be favourable to the English lan-
guage, which opened to them so much more sources of en-
joyment; but it had reference to their fathers and their
father's praise—(hear,) to any missionary prospect of useful-
ness to be derived from the exertions of these boys when
they grew into men, and availed themselves of the opportu-
nity of crossing the Atlantic to the continent of Africa—then
the language spoken by some tribe of Africa ought to be
taught in the schools of the West Indies. (Loud cheers.)
He would now at once advert to a topic which he thought of
very great consequence. He stood concerned when he heard
prophecy made a ground of encouragement in this or in any
other such case, because he considered precept the ground of
Christian duty, and not prophecy. They had long toiled in
this cause against those who quoted prophecy against them—
prophecy hard to be gainsaid—a prophecy which more than
answered the analogic argument derived from the future state
of this eternity, and made to bear upon a hope of the future
state of Africa for that solemn prophecy from him who might
be called the Second Father of Mankind, which seemed to
realize the end of the present dispensation declared Canaan
to be still accursed to slavery. (Hear, hear.) We knew that
the Canaanites were driven into Palestine before the victorious
sword of Joshua, and a remnant of them, after being expelled
by David, took up their abode in Africa: the Africans were their
descendants, arid the prophecy to which he referred was an
awful and a solemn one—" Cursed be Canaan ; a servant of
servants shall he he; blessed be the Lord God of them ; and
Canaan shall be his servant. God shall enlarge Japeth, and
he shall dwell in the tents of them ; and Canaan shall be his
servant." (Hear, hear, hear.) Still the solemn burden—
" Canaan a servant." (Hear, hear.) He knew it was writ-
ten in another prophecy, " Ethiopia shall soon stretch out her
hands tat() God. (Hear.) He knew that these prophe-
cies were also written of the coming of the Son of Man, and
a restitution of the Jewish people to their own land, a light
set up upon the earth, which should, indeed, forego and do
away with the curse which was only coeval with our dispen-
sation ; but during this dispensation he trembled when
any case of this kind was made to rest upon prophecy
as the basis of duty. In spite of this prophecy which marked
the race as a race, which marked the condition of the race,
considering them as a race, and which he believed indelibly
marked them during the present dispensation—in spite, he
said of this prophecy, precept supplied duty. And when our
Lord commanded the gospel to be preached to every creature,
he did not exclude Canaan—(cheers)—and when he describes
the elect who shall come from the four ends of tha earth at

the second advent, he does not except the Canaanites—nay
more, he includes them, because the elect body shall be con-
stituted of multitudes that no man can number, out of every
tribe and kindred, and people, and nation. (Great cheering.)
This was encouragement certainly; hut precept was the
basis of our duty. (Hear, hear.) It was our duty then,
notwithstanding this prophecy, to carry the gospel as far as
lay in us to every race ; and if feelings of kindliness arising
out of compunction for past unkindness, should quicken us
towards one race more than another, by all the powers of
such instincts of humanity, the African had a high claim
upon us. (Hear, hear.) He felt that none of those friends
and brethren present, who might take a different view of this
subject from the one he had expressed, would consider him
out of place, with the strong convictions he entertained
himself, in endeavouring to guard against such views of pro-
phecy as might embarrass the subject or expose the de-
fenders of it, or the believers of it, to an answer which would
be left itself unanswered. (Hear, hear, hear.) He thought,
in this point of view, that it did service to recognise not one
passage only, but the whole drift of what was written con-
cerning this unhappy race. (Hear.) He could not leave it,
however, without another reflection, for prophecy contained
deep and high moral instruction; and lie would specially ad-
dress this reflection to his young friends present, namely to
the source of the tremendous curse put, by the spirit of God,
into the mouth of Noah, and following the decendants of one of
his sons, even to the latest generations, was disrespect to his
father. (Hear, and applause.) It spoke loudly, with a
standing miracle, to every young person, to remember the
fifth commandment ; the sight of a son of Canaan proclaimed
to every intelligent reader of the Bible, the fearful conse-
quences of disrespect to parents. (Hear, hear, and great ap-
plause. Let children consider this, for they would find in
this prophecy, and in its results, a strong appeal to that high
duty to those who, next to God, were above them in the
world. (Hear, hear.) He would say another thing with re-
gard to one part of the speech of his rev. friend who had just
sat down (Mr. Hanson), concerning whom he scarcely knew
which most to admire, the Christian wisdom in the selec-
tion of his topics, and Christian feeling with which those
topics were discussed, of the propriety of the language with
which all his thoughts were clothed. (Applause.) One
point he (Mr. Hanson) touched upon which he (Mr. M'Neile)
thought deserved to be replaced before the consideration of
the meeting and strengthened. Mr. Hanson had reminded
them of the relation which the merchants of Liverpool bore
towarde the negroes of the West Indies, by whose labour and
toil many of them had accumulated wealth. The rev. gen-
tleman enlarged on this topic, making it the ground for an
eloquent appeal on behalf of this society, and he concluded
an able address by seconding the resolution, which was
unanimously carried.
A vote of thanks was then presented to the Venerable
Chancellor for his occupation of the chair ; who, in acknow-
ledgement, contrasted the present position of the coloured
population of the West ludies with their condition fifty years
ago, when the cruelties of the Middle Passage were unre-
strained. He fervently thanked God for the change, and to
Him rendered all the glory.
The Doxology, " Praise God from whom all blessings flowk.
was then sung, and the meeting separated about three o'cloc