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 LIBERIA'S OFFERING 
 
 Mkmw, gmmw, tit. 
 
 & 
 
 REV. EDWARD W. BLYDEN 
 
 NEW-YORK : 
 
 JOHN A. GRAY, PRINTER, STEREOTYPER, AND BINDER, 
 
 FIRE-PROOF BUILDINGS, 
 
 CORNER OP FRANKFORT AND JACOB STREETS. 
 18 62. 
 
3 ^ 
 
 
HOPE FOR AFRICA: 
 
 A DISCOURSE 
 
 DELIVERED IN THE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH, SEVENTH AVENUE, NEW-YORK, 
 
 JULY 21, 1861. 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 The contents of this volume will have nothing of the interest 
 connected with travels or descriptive scenery. They are chiefly 
 essays prepared for special occasions, expressive of the Author's 
 views of the rights, duties, and hopes of the African race. 
 
 This small contritmtion to the literary wealth of Liberia, has 
 been made in the hope of thus attracting to the Liberia College, 
 in Avhich the Author is a Professor, the favor of some who may 
 have leisure and curiosity to examine it. 
 
 The prospect of Africa's future civilization, and of her taking 
 rank among the advanced countries of the world, thus vindicating 
 the oneness of origin from the first Adam, and of interest in the 
 second Adam, may well stimulate all her children to the boldest 
 efforts. 
 
 The Author in putting forth this small volume, feels assured that 
 he has been actuated more by a desire to contribute something to 
 the credit of the African race,' to which he entirely belongs, and oi 
 the Republic of Liberia, with which, from choice, after twelve 
 years' residence, he is fully identified, than by any vanity of ap- 
 pearing as an author. At the earnest suggestion of friends, to 
 whose judgment he reluctantly defers, he introduces "Liberia's 
 Offering " with the' following brief 
 
 gfopapfjkal Slufclj. 
 
 My native place is St. Thomas, one of the Danish "West-India 
 Islands, where I was born August 3, 1832. I was blest with the 
 care of pious parents. To the influence of my excellent and de- 
 voted mother, who is still alive, more than to any other earthly 
 cause, can I trace whatever literary tastes and religious aspirations 
 I possess. 
 
 In 1842, my father removed his family to Porto Cabello, Vene- 
 zuela, and remained two years, returning to St. Thomas, in 1844. 
 "While residing in Venezuela, I learned to speak the Spanish 
 language. 
 
11 
 
 On my return to St. Thomas, I was apprenticed to the tailoring 
 business, with a provision allowing me to attend school in the 
 morning and the shop in the afternoon, and so continued for five 
 years. 
 
 In 1845, Rev. John P. Knox, now pastor of a Presbyterian 
 Church at Newtown, Long Island, came to St. Thomas and took 
 charge of the Reformed Dutch Church. With others of my com- 
 panions I became a member of a Bible-class under his instruction, 
 and thus was formed a friendship which was of great benefit to 
 me, and gave a turn to all my life. I was fond of composition 
 and often indulged myself in attempts in that way. I was accus- 
 tomed to take copious notes of his sermons, which especially at- 
 tracted his attention, and led him to encourage me to prepare for 
 the ministry, after I had formally joined his church, in which I 
 had been baptized and brought up. 
 
 In 1850, when Mrs. Knox was about to return to the United 
 States he encouraged me to come also, with the hope of securing 
 for me admission to one of the colleges in this country. I found, 
 however, the deep-seated prejudice against my race, exercising so 
 controlling an influence in the institutions of learning, that admis- 
 sion to them was almost impossible. 
 
 Discouraged by the difficulties in my path, I proposed to return 
 to ^ ' ff homas, and abandon the hope of an education, when I re- 
 ceived from Mrs. Knox a letter so full of interest in my welfare, 
 and so urgent that I should still strive to become fitted for useful- 
 ness in the Christian ministry, and render my fife useful to Africa, 
 that I relinquished my purpose of returning to my parents. I 
 decided to accept of the offer of the New-York Colonization So- 
 ciety to furnish me a passage to Liberia, in hopes to enjoy the ad- 
 vantages of the Alexander High School, then beginning its noble 
 work, at Monrovia, the capital of the Republic. 
 
 By the Liberia packet from Baltimore, December 21, 1850, 1 
 was safely conveyed to the continent of my fathers and my race, 
 reaching Monrovia, January 26, 1851. Arriving in Liberia, an 
 entire stranger, without a single letter of introduction, I was re- 
 ceived with great kindness by the people. Especially do I re- 
 member the cordial welcome and hospitable treatment extended 
 to me by Mr. B. V. R. James and his family. 
 
 After a slight acclimation, I was, by the kindness of the Presby- 
 terian Missionary Board, accepted as a student in the Alexander 
 High School under charge of Rev. David A. Wilson, who care- 
 
Ill 
 
 fully instructed me and others of my class-mates in Latin and 
 Greek, as well as the usual lessons in Geography and Mathemat- 
 ics. The Hebrew language, not being embraced in the course of 
 studies in the Alexander High School, I took up the study of it 
 myself, and devoted for some time all my leisure hours to it ; being 
 anxious to read the entire Scriptures in the original languages, es- 
 pecially those passages of the Old Testament which have refer- 
 ence to the African race. 
 
 Three years after my admission to the school, during a visit for 
 his health which Mr. Wilson made to the United States, I was 
 placed in charge of some of the classes. While thus engaged in 
 my first efforts at teaching, I was appointed by President Roberts, 
 Editor of- the Liberia Herald, which, without allowing it to inter- 
 fere with my duties in the school, I conducted for one year. 
 
 After the return of Mr. Wilson, I continued to assist him from 
 time to time as his health seemed to require it; and, in 1858, on 
 his retirement, on account of the illness of his family, I was placed 
 in full charge of the Alexander High School, where I continued 
 teaching until 1861, when I was elected Professor of Greek and 
 Latin in Liberia College. 
 
 It was under the ministry of Rev. Mr. Knox in St. Thomas, 
 that I made a profession of religion. Ever looking forward to the 
 ministry, I was finally, after the usual examinations, licensed and 
 ordained by the Presbytery of West-Africa, in the year 1858. 
 
 In the early part of 1861, in order to recruit my impaired 
 health, I made a visit to England and Scotland ; thence I went to 
 Canada, visited Niagara Falls, and spent a few weeks in the 
 United States. While in England I was privileged to form the 
 personal acquaintance of Lord Brougham, to whom I had the 
 honor of presenting a walking-cane on behalf of the young men 
 of Liberia ; of Right Honorable W. E. Gladstone, and Rev. Henry 
 Melvill, Principal of East-India College. With these gentlemen 
 I had previously been in correspondence from Liberia. I was also 
 shown great hospitality and kindness by Samuel Gurney, Esq., 
 M.P., Gerard Ralston, Esq., and Thomas Hodgkin, M.D., of 
 London, and by Rev. Drs. Guthrie and Johnston, of Edinburgh. 
 By the last-named gentleman I had the honor of being presented 
 to the United Presbyterian Synod, then in session in Edinburgh, 
 at the same time that Rev. Dr. George B. Cheever of New-York 
 City was introduced. 
 
 The Presbytery of West-Africa dm*ing their session, December, 
 
1860, elected me their Commissioner to the General Assembly of 
 the Presbyterian Church, (O. S.,) in the United States, which met 
 in the city of Philadelphia, in May, 1861, but my delay in Europe 
 prevented my enjoying the privilege of being the first black repre- 
 sentative from Africa in that distinguished body. 
 
 Returning to Liberia in the autumn of the year, I was induced 
 to accept the appointment from the Government, as Commissioner 
 to the descendants of Africa in the United States and the West- 
 Indies, to give information of Liberia, and invite them to a home 
 in that country. In the prosecution of this mission, I arrived in 
 this country, via England, in the month of May last. 
 
 The reader will see in this brief record, the kind leadings of 
 that Providence which, from an obscure condition, in a distant 
 island, has taken me on to my present position, without any special 
 merit of my own. Friends and helpers have arisen in all my 
 path, to all of whom I am a debtor for unmerited kindness, and 
 whom I shall not cease to remember with gratitude while life lasts- 
 
 I ought not to close without adding a few words about my home 
 in Africa. After twelve years' residence there, I have this summer 
 made a filial visit to my aged mother, to feel once more her warm 
 embrace. I found a most cordial welcome and unexjjected honors 
 among my former friends. The JVeio - York Colonization Journal 
 for October makes the following note of my visit to St. Thomas : 
 
 HONORED AT HIS HOME. 
 
 We learn that Professor Blyden, of the Liberia College, who is a native 
 of St. Thomas, and, after an absence of twelve years in Liberia, has this 
 summer been to visit his mother and friends, was received with very great 
 respect and kindness. He filled the pulpit of the Dutch Church at St. 
 Thomas, frequently, and always had crowded audiences. 
 
 His official character as a Commissioner of Liberia, to make known the 
 advantages for honor and usefulness which that Republic presented, en- 
 hanced the interest with which his modest circular, setting forth with 
 brevity the facts in the case, was received. Hundreds there and in the 
 Tortugas Islands expressed a desire to emigrate to Liberia, to participate 
 in its privileges, and partake of its noble duties toward Africa. A few 
 were so much in earnest as to start at once. We proposed to quote sev- 
 eral articles from the St. Thomas Tidende, but the papers have been bor- 
 rowed and not returned in time. The young men of St. Thomas made a 
 fund, and publicly presented Mr. Blyden with a tangible evidence of their 
 regard, in the form of a silver flower-vase and plate, and other useful ar- 
 ticles, of which we find the following brief notice in the Tidende, August 
 23d: 
 
TESTIMONIAL TO REV. E. W. BLYDEN. 
 
 " TVe learn that on the evening of the twenty-second instant, a deputation 
 of gentlemen waited on Rev. Edward TV. Blyden, at his residence, and 
 presented to him, on hehalf of a large number of his fellow-townsmen, a 
 very valuable testimonial, accompanied with a beautifully written address, 
 expressive of the great pleasure which his visit to his native land has gen- 
 erally afforded, and of the warm appreciation felt by his countrymen of his 
 efforts in the sacred cause of Africa's evangelization and regeneration. TVe 
 trust that the presence in our town of the reverend gentleman may act as 
 a stimulus upon his former associates and acquaintances, urging them to 
 attempt great things for the outraged land with whose interests he has 
 identified himself, and which is now attracting so largely the attention of 
 the civilized world. It is gratifying to us to know that our little Island 
 has furnished one to take a part in the great work of opening Africa to 
 civilization, to which savans and philanthropists are hastening from Europe 
 and America to devote themselves." 
 
 A society was formed called the " St. Thomas Liberia Association," 
 composed of the most prominent men of the island, who at once raised a 
 fund and forwarded to the United States fifty dollars, to purchase maps, 
 books, and periodicals concerning Liberia. It must be most gratifying to 
 Professor Blyden to receive such tokens of hearty good-will and high ap- 
 preciation from the people of his early home. 
 
 My heart is in Liberia, and longs for the welfare of Africa, An 
 African nationality is the great desire of my soul. I believe na- 
 tionality to be an ordinance of nature ; and no people can rise to 
 an influential position among the nations without a distinct and 
 efficient nationality. Cosmopolitism has never effected any thing, 
 and never will, perhaps, till the millennium. God has " made of 
 one blood all nations of men," but he has also " determined the 
 bounds of their habitation." 
 
 Liberia is a beautiful tropical country, teeming with the rich 
 fruits of a perpetual summer, with mountains and valleys, and 
 rivers and brooks, " well-watered every where as the garden of 
 the Lord." In all these respects she can scarcely be surpassed. 
 
 Her civil, political, religious and social advantages, however, are 
 her chief attraction. No community can have more .perfect reli- 
 gious liberty. Republican government is nowhere more thor- 
 oughly carried out, No social disadvantage is felt by any descend- 
 ant of Africa on account of color. The moment a colored man 
 from America lands in Liberia, he finds the galling chains of caste 
 falling from his soul, and he can stand erect, and feel and realize 
 that he is indeed a man. 
 
 For myself and children I desire no wider field of labor and no 
 greater privileges than I enjoy in that country. And could my 
 
VI 
 
 voice reach every descendant of Africa in America, I would say 
 to him : " Come away from the land of caste and oppression, to 
 the freedom of our young Republic !" Come help us build up a 
 Nationality in Africa. 
 
 The reader, I trust, will pardon the seeming egotism of this 
 narrative, inseparable from the very nature of the composition, 
 and be lenient to this " Offering " from Liberia. 
 
 Edward W. Bltdeu. 
 
 New-York, October 21, 1862. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 1. HOPE FOR AFRICA, . .... I 4 
 
 2. VINDICATION OF THE AFRICAN RACE, 31 
 
 8. THE CALL OF PROVIDENCE, ETC., 67 
 
 4. INAUGURAL ADDRESS AT THE INAUGURATION OF LIBERIA 
 
 COLLEGE, 7 95 
 
 5. EULOGY ON REV. JOHN DAY, 127 
 
 6. A CHAPTER IN THE HISTORY OF THE AFRICAN SLAVE-TRADE, 151 
 
HOPE FOE AFRICA. 
 
 " Ethiopia shall soon stretch out her hands unto God." — Psalm 68 : 31. 
 
 The continent of Africa occupies an important geo- 
 graphical position. It lies between two great oceans 
 — the highways of the principal portions of commerce. 
 It contains twelve millions of square miles, with a pop- 
 ulation of one hundred and sixty millions. But, not- 
 withstanding its physical and relative importance, it 
 has lain, until a comparatively recent period, shrouded 
 from the view of the inhabitants of other portions of 
 the earth. 
 
 While the spirit of adventure has opened up the 
 most uninviting parts of Europe ; while Asia, with its 
 impenetrable jungle and ferocious animals, has been 
 traversed from one end to the other ; while the ancient 
 and mighty forests of America have fallen before the 
 power of enterprise and the charm of civilization — the 
 highest peak of the Rocky Mountains scaled, the Andes 
 and the Cordilleras measured ; while the distant isles 
 of the sea have been visited and occupied by intelli- 
 gence, industry, and enterprise; while the cold and 
 barren, and almost inaccessible regions of the earth 
 have been approached and explored as far as human 
 beings are found — Africa, lying in the very pathway 
 of commerce, offering as many inducements to the 
 seekers after scientific knowledge as any other land, 
 presenting as numerous objects for the labors of the 
 
6 Liberia's offering. 
 
 philanthropist as any other country, has been passed 
 by by the traveler and the philanthropist, and the 
 civilized world has been left to entertain at best but 
 the most vague and unsatisfactory conjectures as to the 
 character of the country, and the condition of its in- 
 habitants. 
 
 To the majority of civilized and enlightened men, 
 Africa is hardly ever made a subject of earnest thought. 
 Various interests of more immediate concern crowd out 
 thoughts of a land which is spoken of, perhaps, only 
 when instances of degradation, ignorance, and super- 
 stition are referred to. The other portion of the civil- 
 ized world, who think and speak of Africa, are divided 
 in their views and feelings with regard to that land, and 
 in the motives which actuate them to be at all interest- 
 ed. Some regard it as a place with which a lucrative 
 trade may be " driven ;" where the articles of commerce, 
 palm-oil, cam-wood, ivory, and other rare productions 
 may be obtained. These speak of Africa only in con- 
 nection with these things. All their interests in the 
 land are of a commercial nature. Others, with souls 
 more sordid and hearts more avaricious, who are never 
 once troubled by any sentiment of humanity, are in- 
 terested in Africa only as a scene for plunder and car- 
 nage. From these, Africa has had the most frequent 
 and the most constant visits, during the last three cen- 
 turies. They have spread all along the coast of that 
 peninsula — formerly the abode of peace and plenty, of 
 industry and love — "arrows, firebrands, and death." 
 In their pursuit of blood — "not beasts' but human 
 gore" — they have scattered desolation, and misery, 
 and degradation into all parts of the land whither they 
 have had access ; so that not unfrequently has it occur- 
 red that some unfortunate and lonely sufferer, standiug 
 
Liberia's offering. 7 
 
 amid a scene of desolation, having escaped the cruel 
 chase of the slaver, whose ruthless hands have borne 
 away his relatives and acquaintances, has earnestly 
 cursed civilization, and has solemnly prayed, as he has 
 stood surveying the melancholy relics of his home, that 
 an insurmountable and impenetrable barrier — some 
 wall of mountain height — might be erected between 
 his country and all civilized nations. 
 
 Only a few, very few, have regarded Africa as a land 
 inhabited by human beings, children of the same com- 
 mon Eather, travelers to the same judgment-seat of 
 Christ, and heirs of the same awful immortality. These 
 few have endeavored to hold up that land as the object 
 of the sympathy, the labors, and the prayers of the 
 Christian world. They have held her up as the victim 
 of unfortunate circumstances, which have operated 
 against her progress, and prevented her from keeping 
 pace, in the march of human improvement, with other 
 and more favored portions of the earth. These few 
 have endeavored, and are now endeavoring to awaken 
 a deeper interest in that land. Through their noble 
 efforts, that forgotten country is becoming better 
 known. Its inhabitants are receiving more of the 
 sympathy of the enlightened portion of mankind; and 
 efforts are making to introduce among them the bless- 
 ings of civilization and Christianity — to accelerate the 
 day when " Ethiopia shall stretch out her hands unto 
 God." 
 
 But there are adversaries. There are those who have 
 no sympathy to bestow upon the African. His com- 
 plexion and hair furnish to them conclusive reasons why 
 he should be excluded from their benevolence. They 
 wish nothing to do with him. Their charities, when 
 the negro is mentioned, immediately contract. Their 
 
8 libeeia's offeeing. 
 
 Christian love is ample enough to embrace all Europe, 
 and other countries inhabited by the Caucasian, but it 
 can go no further. Upon other branches of the human 
 family they look down with arrogance and contempt. 
 And such persons may be found in enlightened coun- 
 tries, professing Christianity, and priding themselves on 
 their civilization and culture. But do not such feelings 
 prove them to be connected rather closely with those 
 remote ages when the extent of one's clan or tribe or 
 district formed the limit of all his benevolent oper- 
 ations? Does not their conduct constantly remind 
 those who meet them of their intimate relations with 
 the barbarous past ? Are they not sadly deficient of 
 that magnanimous and noble liberality which Christ- 
 ianity seeks to inspire, when it declares that of " one 
 blood God hath made all the nations of the earth" ? 
 
 There are others, who believe, or affect to believe, 
 that this people are doomed to degradation and serv- 
 itude ; that the malediction uttered by Noah — evidently 
 against the descendants of Canaan, and which has long 
 since received its fulfillment — follows the African race ; 
 and that therefore all efforts to elevate them will be un- 
 availing. Yet some of these persons profess to believe 
 in the regenerating and elevating power of the Gospel. 
 They will declaim long and loudly, upon the efficiency 
 of Christianity to redeem and dignify man — to spread, 
 wherever it goes, light and liberty, and the blessings of 
 an exalted civilization. But, in their minds, Africa 
 seems to form an exception. The promises in the Bible 
 of the universal prevalence of righteousness and truth, 
 are not far-reaching enough to affect her case. The 
 ignorance, degradation, and misery of the land are so 
 deep and revolting, as to baffle the recuperative power 
 of the Gospel. 
 
LIBERIA'S OFFERING. 
 
 But the Lord, whose ways are not as our ways, and 
 whose thoughts are not as our thoughts, has declared 
 that the earth shall he filled with his knowledge, as the 
 waters cover the sea. Glorious truth ! The salvation 
 which Christ \has purchased for us is a " common salva- 
 tion." It is confined neither to countries nor races. It 
 knows no limits. All complexions, all classes and con- ' 
 ditions are equally within the sphere of its operation. 
 " Go ye into all the world," said the Divine Author of 
 the salvation, "and preach the Gospel to every crea- 
 ture." -Jts applicability is universal. All the accessible 
 dominions of the world may be blessed by it. It w T ill 
 rectify all disorder, banish every vice, loose every bond, 
 and having eradicated the causes of all the sins and sor- 
 rows and sufferings of the human family, it will spread 
 righteousness and truth, harmony and peace, liberty 
 and love, over the whole face of this sin-stricken globe. 
 These are the glorious and wide-spread results which 
 Christianity promises to achieve. And who will dare 
 to say that Africa will not participate in these general 
 blessings ? Who will dare to affirm that Africa will 
 remain in her gloom, when the glory of the Lord shall 
 have filled the whole earth % 
 
 But if these promises be considered too general, there 
 are passages in the word of God, there are promises 
 and types which have special reference to Africa. 
 " Behold Philistia and Tyre, with Ethiopia ; this man 
 was born there. The labor of Egypt, and merchandise 
 of Ethiopia and of the Sabeans, men of stature, shall 
 come over unto thee, and they shall be thine." And 
 the words of the text : " Princes shall come out of 
 Egypt. Ethiopia shall soon stretch out her hands unto 
 God." No one that remembers the reference in the 
 Scripture to the skin of the Ethiopian, will doubt that 
 
10 LIBERIA'S OFFERING. 
 
 these prophecies belong to the negro. We see the 
 eunuch of Candace, queen of the Ethiopians, going on 
 his way rejoicing, "because believing in Jesus ; and we 
 seem to have a pledge of Africa's evangelization. 
 When the wicked Herod was plotting the murder of 
 the infant Redeemer of mankind, an angel appeared 
 to Joseph in a dream, and said, " Arise, and take the 
 young child and his mother, and flee into the land of 
 Egypt" — into the land of Egypt, est Africa. Africa, in 
 the providence of God, according to the declarations of 
 prophecy, was the land chosen to shelter the Saviour 
 of the world. If, in the hour of his danger, Africa was 
 the chosen asylum from the cruelty of his royal enemy ; 
 if, in the hour of his affliction, he sought a refuge in 
 that land, will he not now, in the day of her trial and 
 her affliction, remember her ? Was not his flight to, 
 and sojourn in that land, a token of his favor ? Driven 
 from Asia, the land of his birth, from among his own 
 people, that land, now down-trodden, gave him wel- 
 come. And if it be true that to as many as received 
 him, he gave power to become the sons of God, may 
 not Africa, though she did not then receive him in that 
 higher and more spiritual sense, expect to share in the 
 privilege of becoming a child of God ? Will he not 
 yet, in his might, as King of kings, and Lord of lords, 
 gird on his sword, and ride through that land, conquer- 
 ing and to conquer ? Will he not overturn, as he is 
 already beginning to do, and overturn and overturn, 
 until he establish his kingdom there ? Yes ; we take 
 it, that as he suffered in Africa, in the days of his hu- 
 miliation, he will yet reign in that land in his glory. 
 
 But there is an ampler prophecy still — a more ex- 
 press type : " Let us go," to quote the language of Mr. 
 Melvill, " and look on the Redeemer as he toils towards 
 
Liberia's offering. 11 
 
 Calvary. Who is it that, in the ordering of Provi- 
 dence, has been appointed to carry his cross ? A Cyre- 
 nian, an African. As Africa had something to do with 
 his earlier days, so she has to do with his final hours. 
 'And as they came ont, they found a man of Cyrene, 
 Simon by name : him they compelled to bear his cross.' 
 We read the prophecy ; we apprehend the type. Not 
 without meaning was one of the sons of Africa selected 
 to bear the cross after Christ, and thus to fill a post to 
 which the martyrs and confessors of every age of Christ- 
 ianity have counted it their highest honor to succeed. 
 It was as though to tell us that even Africa shall yet 
 be brought to the discipleship of Jesus. Europe gave 
 not this type of the Gentile world submitting to Christ. 
 Asia was not permitted to own the favored individual. 
 America, as yet unknown to the rest of the earth, might 
 not send the representative of heathenism. Africa is 
 the privileged country ; an African follows Jesus. Oh ! 
 the darkness of many generations seems scattered ; and 
 I rejoice in the assurance that the land of slaves shall 
 be the home of freedom, the land of misery the home 
 of happiness, the land of idolatry the home of Christ- 
 ianity."* 
 
 Some have been inclined to regard Africa as a 
 doomed land, on account of the protracted night which 
 has hung over it. Empires have arisen and fallen ; the 
 arts and sciences have been born, fostered, grown up to 
 strength and maturity! in other lands, while Africa re- 
 mains in its primitive simplicity and barbarism, con- 
 tributing nothing to the well-being of mankind. From 
 this fact, it has been argued that there is a natural and 
 invincible incapacity for improvement in the race, for- 
 bidding all hope of their ever becoming a power in the 
 
 * Melvill's Sermons, vol. ii. 1850. 
 
12 LIBERIA'S OFFERING. 
 
 world. TMs were a correct inference, if it could be 
 shown that Africans have had eqnal facilities for im- 
 provement with those races which have made such 
 rapid strides in civilization, or if it could be shown 
 that any people precisely in their circumstances have 
 made any marked advancement. The negro has been 
 inhabiting a country by whose physical peculiarities he 
 has been deprived of the intercourse of the civilized 
 and enlightened world. 
 
 This land, for wise purposes doubtless, is rendered 
 inaccessible to foreigners, by fevers produced by the ex- 
 halations arising from the marshy alluvial lands, which 
 border all the intertropical regions ; it has, therefore, 
 been shut out for the most part, from the means of im- 
 provement. Men talk selfishly and scornfully of the 
 long-continued barbarism and degradation of Africa, as 
 if civilization were indigenous to any country ; as if 
 the soil and climate of some countries could give exist- 
 ence, and vitality, and growth to the arts and sciences. 
 If this were the case, we should despair of Africa's ever 
 rising from her abject condition. But all the teachings 
 of general and particular history, all individual and 
 national experience are opposed to such an idea. No 
 nation has ever been found, which, by its own unaided 
 efforts, by some powerful inward impulse, has arisen 
 from barbarism and degradation to civilization and re- 
 spectability. It is very true that the circumstances of 
 some nations or communities have been more favorable 
 than those of others, for receiving and retaining and im- 
 proving upon the elements of civilization. But there 
 is nothing in race or blood, in color or hair, that im- 
 parts susceptibility of improvement to one people over 
 another. Knowledge, which lies at the basis of all 
 human progress, came from heaven. It must be ac- 
 
Liberia's offeeing. 13 
 
 quired ; it is not innate. The mind left to itself from 
 infancy, without the means of culture, remains, if not 
 blank, yet destitute of all those ideas which constitute 
 a man civilized. If it be strong and vigorous, it will, 
 instead of rising in the scale of virtue and civilization, 
 make deeper and more awful plunges into barbarism. 
 The richness of the uncultivated soil shows itself in the 
 rankness and luxuriance of the weeds which it pro- 
 duces. The soil, then, must be cultivated, if we expect 
 to reap a harvest of any value. So with the mind. 
 The intellectual plow and rake must be used, and the 
 good seed introduced. Knowledge must be imparted. 
 As one man learns it from another, so nation learns it 
 from nation. Civilization is handed from one people 
 to another, its great fountain and source being the great 
 God of the universe. 
 
 Those nations that are foremost in civilization and 
 science were once in abject degradation. No one in 
 the days of Caesar or Tacitus could ever have predicted 
 that the barbarism and savage wildness of the Germans 
 would give place to the learning, refinement, and cul- 
 ture which that people now exhibit. When Cicero pro- 
 nounced the Britons unfit for slaves, on account of their 
 stupidity, who would have ventured to afiirm, without 
 appearing to insult the understanding of men, that that 
 people would become one of the leading powers of the 
 earth ? " Nothing," says Mr. Macaulay, " in the early 
 existence of Britain, indicated the greatness which she 
 was destined to attain." Now, I would ask, if it be 
 true that there is innate ability in certain races to rise 
 in the scale of civilization ; and if that ability, as some 
 would intimate, exists in those which have already 
 risen, why did the Britons, when Greece and Eome 
 flourished in all their grandeur, remain insignificant and 
 
14 LIBERIA'S OFFERING. 
 
 unknown ? Why was not that self-civilizing power ex- 
 hibited "by* them, which many now look for in the Afri- 
 cans? Nor are Africans the only people that have 
 remained stationary in these latter days of multiplied 
 facilities for improvement. There are many tribes in 
 whose veins courses the renowned Caucasian blood, 
 sunk to-day in a degradation as deep, and in an ignor- 
 ance as profound as any tribe in Africa. If civilization 
 is inborn in the Caucasian, as some affirm ; if it is indi- 
 genous to all the countries which he inhabits, why are 
 the tribes to which we have referred, no further ad- 
 vanced? Ought not every land which Caucasians 
 inhabit, to be in a high state of civilization? But 
 many are far from such a state. Look at the regions 
 of Siberia, of Lapland. Look at the peasantry of 
 many of the countries of Europe. Why are they so 
 far down in the scale of civilization ? And look at 
 those countries in the south of Europe, Turkey, Greece, 
 Italy, Spain, and Portugal, which formerly flourished, 
 and contained within themselves all the learning and 
 wisdom that existed in the world. They have sadly 
 degenerated. They are comparatively insignificant. 
 Why did not their Caucasian nature, if it did not urge 
 them onward to higher attainments, keep them in the 
 same leading positions among the nations ? The an- 
 swer is at hand. Their natures remain the same. 
 Their soil and climate are the same. Demosthenes and 
 Cicero, Alexander and Csesar, saw no serener sky, they 
 felt no more genial breezes than their degenerate pos- 
 terity. The sun shines with the same power and 
 glory; the moon moves on with the same soft and 
 silvery sweetness ; the stars are as beautiful and bright 
 as when Homer and Virgil felt their inspiration. 
 What, then, causes the difference ? The moral circum- 
 
LIBERIA'S OFFERING. 15 
 
 stances of the people a/re changed. The circumstances 
 that have surrounded them for several centuries have 
 been of a character to retard their progress. 
 
 Men, are to a certain extent, the creatures of the cir- 
 cumstances in which they live. Very often, what they 
 achieve depends less upon their personal qualities 
 than upon surrounding influences. The African forms 
 no exception to this rale. Between him and other 
 men there is not that difference which some have la- 
 bored to establish. There is, indeed, no essential dif- 
 ference-between any two men. Men, however, have 
 drawn formidable lines of separation between them- 
 selves and others, who, happening not to have been 
 blessed with the same propitious circumstances, have 
 not risen to the same intellectual or social standing. 
 How true the words of the poet ! — 
 
 " Alas ! what differs more than man from man ? 
 And whence this difference ? Whence but from himself ? 
 For see the universal race endowed 
 With the same upright form."* 
 
 The African, then, is in the rear of the European, not 
 because of any essential difference existing in their 
 nature, but only on account of differing circumstances. 
 In consequence of various influences to which I have 
 already adverted, rendering the coast of his native land 
 unhealthy to foreigners, civilization and Christianity, 
 with their concomitant blessings, have not been gene- 
 rally introduced. 
 
 Until very recently, the country was not known be- 
 yond its maritime frontiers. And in keeping with the 
 general disposition to exaggerate the good or evil quali- 
 ties of what is unknown, various stories were put in cir- 
 culation with regard to this land — stories which had 
 
 * Wordsworth. 
 
16 Liberia's offering. 
 
 the effect to beget indifference on the part of some, and 
 actual dread of penetrating the country on the part #f 
 others. Some of these stories of wonders in the inte- 
 rior, and frightful appearances on the coast, arose in 
 remote antiquity, and are to this day current among 
 the ignorant. Eecent explorations show that many of 
 those horrible things had no reality but in the preju- 
 dices of their inventors. Perhaps the most ancient and 
 most amusing stories told of this land, are those by 
 Hanno, the Carthaginian commander, who went on a 
 voyage of colonization and discovery along the Atlantic 
 coast, about five hundred years before the Christian 
 era. He says in his report : " We passed a country 
 burning with fires and perfumes, and streams of fire 
 supplied from it fell into the sea. The country was 
 impassable on account of the heat. We sailed quickly 
 thence, being much terrified ; and passing on for four 
 days, we discovered at night a country full of fire. In 
 the middle was a lofty fire larger than the rest, which 
 seemed to touch the stars." This surpasses even those 
 terrible pictures which children, in their florid imagin- 
 ations, are accustomed to draw of that land. 
 
 All these stories of the physical character of the 
 country, blended with exaggerated statements of the 
 moral degradation of its inhabitants, have tended to 
 keep away enterprise and civilization from Africa. 
 Men have been willing barely to tolerate a trade with 
 the outskirts of the country ; and they would not even 
 do this, were it not for the lucrativeness of the trade. 
 And it has been the policy of African traders, though 
 they know that many of the tales in circulation about 
 Africa are devoid of foundation, to assist in giving 
 them currency, in order to keep away competition. 
 Can any wonder, in view of these circumstances, that 
 
libeeia's offering. 17 
 
 Africa still lags behind in the march of human im- 
 provement ? 
 
 And when, with these things, we take into consider- 
 ation the regular and thoroughly organized efforts 
 which have been put forth to keep back the African ; 
 when we think of the numerous obstacles which have 
 been thrown into the way of his advancement by the 
 avarice and wickedness of men, do we not rather won- 
 der that he is no lower down in barbarism % Do we 
 not rather wonder that any portion of this people 
 should have made progress in civilization, in literature, 
 and in science ? 
 
 Shall we here tell you of the sufferings which the 
 slave-trade has entailed upon them ? Shall we tell you 
 of their sorrows in the countries of their captivity? 
 Oh ! we would not harrow up the feelings of this 
 audience with tales of woe. We would but refer to 
 slavery and the slave-trade. Those names alone are suf- 
 ficient to call up emotions of sympathy wherever there 
 exist the feelings of humanity. The wrongs of the Afri- 
 can fill the darkest page of human history. To recount 
 the barbarities which the Christian nations of Europe 
 and of America have inflicted, and are now inflicting 
 upon the negro, " would fill volumes, and they should 
 be written with tears instead of ink, and on sack-cloth 
 instead of parchment." We refer not merely to those 
 physical annoyances, and diabolical tortures, and de- 
 basing usages, to which, in the countries of their exile, 
 they have been subjected, but also to those deeper 
 wrongs whose tendency has been to dwarf the soul, to 
 emasculate the mind. You have perhaps read the nar- 
 rative of African sufferings ; but painfully intense as 
 they are, they are only the outside — they are only the 
 visible. There are a thousand little evils which can 
 2 
 
18 Liberia's offering. 
 
 never be expressed. There is a sorrow of the heart, 
 with which the stranger can not intermeddle. There 
 are secret agonies known only to God, which are far 
 more acute than any external tortures. Oh ! it is not 
 the smiting of the back, until the earth is crimsoned 
 with streams of blood ; it is not the pursuing of human 
 beings with blood-hounds ; it is not the amputation of 
 the limbs ; it is not even the killing of the body ; it is 
 not these that are the keenest sufferings that a people 
 can undergo. Oh ! no ; these affect only the outward 
 man, and may leave untouched the majestic mind. 
 But those inflictions which tend to contract and de- 
 stroy the mind ; those cruelties which benumb the sen- 
 sibility of the soul, those influences which chill and 
 arrest the currency of the heart's affections — these are 
 the awful instruments of real suffering and degrada- 
 tion ; and these have been made to operate upon the 
 African. 
 
 But mark the providence of God in the case of this 
 people. The very means which, to all human appear- 
 ance, seemed calculated to crush them out from the 
 earth, have been converted into means of blessing. In 
 the countries of their exile, they have come under the 
 influences of Christianity, from which they were de- 
 barred in their own country, by physical circumstances. 
 They have been almost miraculously preserved. It may 
 be said of them as of the Israelites in Egypt : " The 
 more they afflicted them, the more they multiplied and 
 grew." They have grown despite affliction, both nu- 
 merically and intellectually; their national life has been 
 remarkably intense ; they still retain in undiminished 
 vigor their integrity as a people. 
 
 And, as if in fulfillment of a Divine plan, some are 
 beginning to return to their fatherland from the house 
 
Liberia's offerixg. 19 
 
 of their bitter pilgrimage, laden with the blessings of 
 Christianity and civilization, and are successfully intro- 
 ducing them among their benighted brethren. Liberia, 
 the region of Africa which these pioneers inhabit, insig- 
 nificant though it may be among the nations of the 
 earth, is an important spot on that continent. It is a 
 center whence is beginning to radiate to different points 
 of that land the light of Christianity. There are fif- 
 teen thousand civilized and Christianized Africans striv^ 
 ing to accomplish the twofold work of establishing and 
 maintaining an independent nationality, and of intro- 
 ducing the Gospel among untold millions of unevan. 
 gelized and barbarous men. Their residence on that 
 coast of only thirty years has already brought to pass 
 important and salutary revolutions in the condition of 
 that portion of Africa. 
 
 Liberia has resisted the influence of heathenism. 
 She has stood her ground against the encroachments 
 of a superstition which, considering the general charac- 
 ter of her citizens, she was but little prepared to meet. 
 She has completely, in all her feebleness, annihilated 
 the slave-trade along seven hundred miles of coast. 
 Before the establishment of that little Eepublic, the 
 tribes in all the extent of country now within our 
 jurisdiction, and under our influence, were perpetually 
 harassed by the incursions of those monsters in human 
 form, the slave-traders. They could feel secure at no 
 time. War ! war ! war ! and carnage were continually 
 the cry, and eveiy nook and corner was made to trem- 
 ble. Young and old, male and female, fell victims to 
 the heartless marauders. Those who escaped did so 
 only by fleeing from the neighborhood of the slave- 
 hunters to the thickets and swamps — to the milder and 
 safer neighborhood of leopards and boa constrictors. 
 
20 libebia's offeking. 
 
 But, blessed "be God, a different state of tilings now 
 exists. 
 
 When, forty years ago, the small band of eighty 
 colored persons settled on Cape Mesnrado, far away, 
 near five thousand miles across the sea from the place 
 of their birth, in a strange and insalubrious climate, 
 surrounded by hostile tribes and other unpropitious 
 influences, owning only a few acres of land, no one 
 would have supposed that in less than forty years, in 
 the lifetime of some of the first settlers, that people 
 would so enlarge and spread themselves, so extend 
 their influences as to possess over fifty thousand square 
 miles of territory, holding under their jurisdiction over 
 two hundred thousand souls. Tribes which, when they 
 first landed on those shores, could easily have over- 
 whelmed them and swept them into the sea, they now 
 compel to cease intercourse with the slave-trader, to 
 forget their mutual feuds in obedience to Christian law, 
 and to cease from wars and bloodshed. They induce 
 them, instead of the sword, to use the plowshare, and 
 instead of the spear, the praning-hook. And this influ- 
 ence is growing. Liberia is known and respected for 
 hundreds of miles in the interior ; and by the contact 
 which is every day occurring between traders and tran- 
 sient visitors from the far interior and the civilized 
 Liberians, our influence is going out in all directions, 
 and a great work is being accomplished in this part of 
 Africa. 
 
 But you may ask for positive advancement in the 
 Republic of Liberia. You may point me to the prog- 
 ress of this country ; you may point me to the physical 
 revolutions which Anglo-Saxon genius has produced 
 over all this land ; you may bid me look at the various 
 appliances of civilization, and you may ask : Can Libe- 
 ria show any thing like these ? 
 
Liberia's offering. 21 . 
 
 In reply, I raiglit point you to numerous physical 
 changes in Liberia. I might point you to numerous 
 instances of decided improvement in the physical aspect 
 of that portion of Africa. But I now choose to refer 
 you to the moral work that has been accomplished. I 
 point you to barbarism encroached upon and overcome ; 
 to carnage and bloodshed arrested; to peace produced 
 among belligerents ; to confidence and security, comfort 
 and happiness restored; to lawful traffic taking the 
 place of unlawful ; and I ask whether the triumphs of 
 love over hatred ; the triumphs of peace over war ; the 
 triumphs of humanity over barbarism and outrage ; the 
 triumphs of Christianity over heathenism, be not enti- 
 tled to at least as much respect as the triumph of phys- 
 ical agencies over the face of nature % I do not know 
 of any other place in the world where fifteen thousand 
 persons are doing so important a work as those fifteen 
 thousand Liberians. Oh ! that they may have the wis- 
 dom to comprehend the responsibility of their position, 
 and the grace to discharge the duties it involves ! 
 
 The land is gradually opening. The portals which 
 have been kept closed through all the historic ages by 
 the repulsive inhospitality of nature, are yielding to 
 the enterprise, the greed of trade, and the missionary 
 zeal of the nineteenth century. Barth in the east and 
 north, Livingstone in the south, have brought before 
 the world treasures of information with regard to that 
 land. Seymour and Sinis* citizens of Liberia, on the 
 west have rendered valuable service. Explorations in 
 various sections of the country are now going on. 
 From almost every point of the compass expeditions 
 are proceeding to the interior of the continent. Soon 
 
 * The last two are names but little known, but not undeserving of mention, if 
 adventure, and endurance, and suffering for the sake of enlarging the sphere of 
 human knowledge, entitle any to be numbered among the benefactors of mankind. 
 
22 Liberia's offering. 
 
 the mysteries of tlie land will be unfolded to the gaze 
 and contemplation of an astonished world. These are 
 the preliminaries to that great event which is predicted 
 in the text : " Ethiopia shall soon stretch forth her 
 hands unto God." 
 
 We have endeavored carefully to examine this glori- 
 ous and oft-cited passage in the original Hebrew ; and 
 it has occurred to us that the passage might have been 
 literally rendered : " Ethiopia shall suddenly stretch out 
 her hands unto God." The idea contained in the verb 
 taritz, rendered, " shall soon stretch out" does not seem 
 to refer so much to the time as to the manner of the 
 action predicted. The first meaning of the verb is to 
 run; so it is rendered in Psalm 119:32, "I will run 
 in the way of thy commandments ;" and in Jeremiah 
 
 23 : 31, "I have not sent these prophets, yet they ran" 
 etc. In the Hiphil form, the form which occurs in the 
 text, the verb means to cause to run ; or to lead on 
 hastily, to do a thing quickly before the occurrence of 
 any obstacle; hence, suddenly. Gesenius, the distin- 
 guished German philologist, translates the passage: 
 Ethiopia shall let her hands make haste to God." 
 
 If, then, the idea is, that Ethiopia shall suddenly be 
 redeemed, is there not furnished a rebuke to those who, 
 because Africa has lain so long in darkness and gloom, 
 and because of the unpromising aspect of her present 
 moral condition, give themselves up to despair, and 
 fancy that there will never be the inauguration of bet- 
 ter times \ Why should men at any time venture 
 unqualified opinions on matters in which the intellect- 
 ual vision is necessarily bounded, and with regard to 
 which experience so abundantly shows they can not 
 arrive at conclusions altogether free from error, however 
 extensive the induction upon which they base their 
 
Liberia's offering. 23 
 
 reasonings ? The problem of African disenthrallment 
 and elevation is beyond the power of human ingenuity 
 to solve. Nothing short of Omniscience could so lay 
 down the premises for reasoning upon this important 
 subject, as to secure a result entirely free from error. 
 Can the most acute and far-reaching mind indicate the 
 antecedents and concomitants of that remarkable period 
 when a nation shall be born in a day ? We may now 
 be upon the very eve of events which are to usher in* 
 the redemption of Africa. The time, yea, the set time 
 to favor Africa may be just about to break upon us in 
 all its glory. And it may be that centuries form the 
 interval which lies between us and the desired consum- 
 mation. We can not tell; though from the signs of 
 the times we feel justified in taking a hopeful rather 
 than a desponding view. 
 
 The success which has already attended the efforts 
 to civilize and Christianize that dark land gives encour- 
 aging promise of a glorious future. 
 
 "Within the last twenty-five years more than one hundred Christian 
 churches have been organized in that country, and upwards of fifteen thou- 
 sand hopeful converts have been gathered into those churches. Nearly two 
 hundred schools are in full operation in connection with these various mis- 
 sions, and not less than sixteen thousand native youths are receiving a 
 Christian training in those schools at the present moment. More than 
 twenty different dialects have been studied out and reduced to writing, into 
 many of which large portions of sacred Scripture, as well as other religious 
 books, have been translated, printed, and circulated among the people ; and 
 we are, no doubt, in the bounds of truth and probability, when it is assumed 
 that some knowledge of the Christian salvation has been brought by direct 
 and indirect means within the reach of at least five millions of immortal 
 beings, who had never before heard of the blessed name of the Saviour. 
 
 " Bright Christian lights now begin to blaze up at intervals, along a fine 
 of sea-coast of more than three thousand miles, where unbroken night for- 
 merly reigned. The everlasting Gospel is now preached in Kumasi and 
 Abomi, the capitals respectively of Ashantee and Dahomey, two of the most 
 barbarous kingdoms on the face of the earth. Christian missions are now 
 being established all over the kingdom of Yoruba, a land once wholly given 
 
2-i LIBEEIA'S OFFEBING-. 
 
 up to the slave-trade and bloodshed. Along the banks of the far interior 
 Niger, where the bones of the great African traveler have slumbered for 
 half a century, Christian lights are springing up in the track of the explor- 
 ing expedition. At Old Calabar, a place renowned in former times not 
 only for being one of the chief seats of the foreign slave-trade, but for the 
 unparalleled cruelties and barbarities of its people, the Gospel is not only 
 preached, but the Spirit of God is poured out upon that debased people. 
 The Gospel has recently been proclaimed by our own (Presbyterian) mis- 
 sionaries from Corisco, on the hights of the Sierra del Crystal Mountains, to 
 a people who had not only never before heard it, but who themselves were 
 unknown to the Christian world until within a few years past. When all 
 these things are taken into consideration, every discerning mind must see 
 at once that a footing of immense advantage has already been acquired > 
 and if present measures, with such modifications as may be suggested by 
 experience, are followed up, in dependence upon Divine aid, the time is not 
 far distant when the light of the Gospel shall reach the darkest and most 
 remote corner of that great continent."* 
 
 There is a strong probability that the |)rogress of 
 truth in Africa will be rapid and sudden. The mis- 
 sionary does not encounter there, as in Asia, any for- 
 midable superstition to be battered down. Though 
 the people acknowledge the existence of good and bad 
 spirits, they have no system of religion protected by 
 the sanction of a hoary antiquity ; so that the work of 
 evangelization need not be commenced by the slow 
 process of undermining ancient and venerable systems 
 of belief. The missionary's hardest work is to check 
 the downward currency of the affections, to beget 
 thoughtfulness on the subject of religion, to instill 
 ideas of religion into the mind. His work is more 
 constructive than destructive. He has nothing to 
 demolish; he has only to arrange his materials, and 
 proceed to build. 
 
 We look for great things in Africa during the next 
 iive-and-twenty years. Why should it be thought a 
 thing impossible for that moral desert to bloom and 
 blossom as the rose % Why should it be regarded as 
 
 * Princeton Review, July, 1858. 
 
Liberia's offering. 25 
 
 # 
 impossible for tlie moral night which lias so long rested 
 upon that land to give place to a glorious day ? If the 
 Lord has declared that Ethiopia shall suddenly stretch 
 forth her hands unto God, why should we be inclined 
 to limit him in his power ? Is there any thing too hard 
 for the Lord ? If he be Almighty, if he can create at 
 all, if he can bring a single atom of matter from the 
 abyss of nothingness into existence, then what can he 
 not do ? He only speaks, and it is done ; he commands, 
 and it stands fast ; he spake, and the confusion of chaos 
 was hushed, and the world — the beautiful cosmos — 
 came forth with all its symmetry and grandeur. Then 
 why should there be any thing impossible in the doc- 
 trine that Ethiopia — -benighted and outraged Ethiopia 
 — shall suddenly stretch out her hands unto God? 
 Why should it be thought impossible for him to bring 
 order out of the moral and intellectual chaos of that 
 land ? 
 
 If the men who are skeptical as to the rapid evan- 
 gelization and civilization of Africa could only catch 
 the hum of the missionary schools scattered in various 
 portions of that land ; could they only hear the earnest 
 appeals of leading men among various tribes for Christ- 
 ianity and its teachings ; could they hear, as we hear, 
 who live on that barbarous coast, the mui'mmings of 
 the fountains of the great deep of ignorance and super- 
 stition, which are breaking up all around us ; could 
 they hear the noise, which we hear, of the rattling of 
 dry bones strewed over that immense valley, they 
 would cease to doubt ; they would recognize, as we do, 
 the promising future before us ; they would see that a 
 day of life and joy is rapidly dawning upon Africa, 
 and that there is a strong probability that He whose 
 right it is to reign will suddenly come and take pos- 
 
26 LIBERIA'S OFFERING. 
 
 session of that land. It need not imply any pretension 
 to prophetic insight for us to declare that we live in 
 the shadows of remarkable events in the history of 
 Africa — events whose consequences will be of trans- 
 cendent importance and unending interest, not only to 
 that down-trodden land, but to the whole human race. 
 Oh ! that the Christian Church throughout the world 
 would be fervent in prayer and diligent in labor, that 
 the day may be hastened when " Ethiopia shall stretch 
 forth her hands unto God !" 
 
 Have the black men of the United States no part to 
 take in this work ? There lies the land of your fathers, 
 in its natural beauty and glory — a country well- watered 
 every where as the garden of the Lord — a country of 
 hills and valleys, of rivers and brooks, of fields and 
 plains. 
 
 " Every prospect pleases 
 And only man is vile." 
 
 There it lies also in its spiritual desolation — millions 
 of your brethren in the most awful destitution. Have 
 you, O ye children of Africa ! no tear to shed, no sym- 
 pathy to bestow, no effort to put forth for your gray- 
 haired parent in sorrow and affliction ; for your breth- 
 ren who have not, as you have, enjoyed the blessings 
 of civilization and Christianity ? Are you ashamed of 
 Africa because she has been plundered and rifled by 
 wicked men? Do you turn your backs upon your 
 mother because she is not high among the nations? 
 Are you neglecting her with the hope of elevating 
 yourselves in this country ? Oh ! remember that 
 Europeans can not carry on the work so much need- 
 ed in that land, and which experience proves that you 
 are so well fitted to achieve. This all-important work 
 is yours. "White men go there ; they wither and 
 
LIBERIA'S OFFERING. 27 
 
 die. You were brought away by the permission of 
 Providence, doubtless, that you might be prepared and 
 fitted to return and instruct your brethren. If you 
 turn away from the work to which Providence evident- 
 ly calls you, with the selfish hope of elevating yoiu- 
 selves in this country, beware lest the calamities come 
 upon you which are threatened to those who neglect to 
 honor their parents. I give it as my most serious con- 
 viction, that there will be no real prosperity among the 
 Africans in this land, no proper respect shown them by 
 the dominant race, so long as they persist, as a mass, in 
 ignoring the claims of Africa upon them. All their 
 efforts at self-elevation here which shall leave Africa 
 out of the question, will be as " sowing to the wind." 
 
 It is gratifying to find, however, that there has been, 
 during the last few years, a decided change for the bet- 
 ter in the feelings of many toward Africa. Formerly, 
 those who rose up among the colored people of this 
 country to plead for African civilization by her own 
 descendants, were denounced as traitors, and were often 
 in danger of being stoned as enemies to the peace and 
 prosperity of their brethren. But now some of the 
 leading men among you are taking large views of duty, 
 and no longer consider it a mark of weakness to plead 
 for the evangelization of millions of souls by their 
 brethren in this land. They no longer consider it dis- 
 graceful to urge colored men of intelligence and enter- 
 prise to turn their attention to Africa. 
 
 It has pleased Almighty God, in late years, as I have 
 endeavored to show, to make interesting openings for 
 the introduction of. the Gospel into that land. Scores 
 of doors which, a few years ago, were strongly bolted, 
 are now, by the Divine agency, thrown open before 
 the Church. Broad entrances are proffered the Gospel 
 
28 LIBERIA'S OFFERING. 
 
 . 
 
 of Christ. Will not black men who have so freely 
 received, hasten to give the waters of life to the perish- 
 ing millions ? A call is to-day made npon you from 
 your "benighted brethren. Are you prepared to spurn 
 it ? Have you no response for this Macedonian call ? 
 I entreat you, by all the blessings you have enjoyed, by 
 all the blessings you now enjoy, by all the blessings 
 you hope to enjoy, remember Africa. I beseech you by 
 the dire necessities of our people ; by their long night 
 of sorrow and suffering ; by the cries louder than thun- 
 der, that are wafted from the far interior, upon every 
 wind that blows ; by the encouraging prospects before 
 us; by all the promises of God — men and brethren, 
 come over and help us — help " Ethiopia to stretch forth 
 her hands unto God." 
 
VINDICATION OF THE AFRICAN RACE ; 
 
 BEING A 
 
 BRIEF EX^]XO]Sr^L.TIOISr OF THE .A^G-TTMiKISrTS 
 
 IN FAVOR OF 
 
 AFRICAN INFERIORITY. 
 
 (First published in Liberia in August, 1857.) 
 
" Mislike me not for my complexion, 
 The shadowed livery of the burnished sun, 
 To whom I am a neighbor, and near bred ; 
 Bring me the fairest creature northern born, 
 Where Bfccebus' fire scarce thaws the icicles, 
 And let us make incisions . . . 
 To prove whose blood is reddest, his or mine." 
 
 — Shakspeare. 
 
 " Alas ! what differs more than man from man ? 
 
 And whence that difference? whence but from himself? 
 
 For see the universal Race endowed 
 
 With the same upright form." 
 
 — Wordsworth. 
 
NOAH'S MALEDICTION* 
 
 " " Opinionum commenta dieB delet, naturae judicia confirmat." 
 
 The African race, in consequence of its peculiar phy- 
 sical characteristics, and the circumstances unfavorable 
 to its progress in human improvement, "by which, for 
 more than two thousand years, it has been surrounded, 
 has been generally and variously misrepresented and 
 traduced. For centuries, has this race engaged the at- 
 tention of the enlightened and scientific among other 
 races. Its complexion and hair have furnished difficult 
 ethnological problems; and the fact that it has for a 
 long time stood at the very bottom of civilization, and 
 has seemed to be in the rear of every other people, sub- 
 jected in its own land, and in all other lands, to the 
 most degrading oppression, has suggested to some the 
 idea, that it is naturally and irrecoverably, an inferior 
 race, and that some secret and inevitable, though inex- 
 plicable, influence operates upon it. 
 
 Various theories have been started as furnishing sat- 
 isfactory explanation of the oauses operating upon this 
 unfortunate race. Of these, none has been more strenu- 
 ously urged by the opposers of the race than that which 
 refers its condition to a malediction recorded in Genesis 
 9 : 25, 26, 27. They who support this theory take the 
 ground that the curse was denounced against Ham, the 
 progenitor of the African race, and all his posterity ; 
 
 * Genesis 9 : 25, 26, 27. 
 
32 libeeia's offering. 
 
 affirming tliat the general condition, character and capa- 
 bilities of Africans point them out as the subjects of the 
 malediction. Thus, by an argument a posteriori, not- 
 withstanding the reading of the passage and other cir- 
 cumstances plainly indicate that the curse was uttered 
 against Canaan, the youngest son of Ham, they infer 
 that it was uttered against Ham and all his posterity, 
 simply because, on other grounds they can not, or will 
 not, account for the condition of the African race. 
 They prove the application of the curse from the condi- 
 tion of the race, and then argue the necessity of that 
 condition from the application of the curse. Does not 
 such reasoning marvelously involve what logicians call 
 the argumentum in orhem f 
 
 Before proceeding to notice the justness of that inter- 
 pretation of Noah's malediction, which refers it to the 
 African race, it may be proper to remark, that sucS an 
 interpretation of that passage of Scripture was not in- 
 sisted upon until the commencement of the unhallowed 
 traffic in African slaves ; in which traffic, at its begin- 
 ning, nearly all the nations of Christendom participated. 
 The more conscientious among those who engaged in 
 the trade, not being able to divest themselves of re- 
 sponsibility in thus robbing of their rights beings, 
 whose claims to humanity they could not disprove, 
 " wrested " this passage of Scripture in justification of 
 their proceedings ; affirming that the race was doomed 
 to slavery, and that themselves were only instruments 
 in verifying the prediction of its doom. The Church, 
 also, countenanced these unjust proceedings, by giving 
 the weight of its sanction to the erroneous, but design- 
 ing construction put upon that passage of the word of 
 God; a passage evidently recorded to encourage and 
 justify the Israelites in their invasion of the land of 
 
Liberia's offering. 33 
 
 Canaan, and destruction of the Canaanites — a people, 
 whom their own iniquities, and those of their ancestors, 
 had rendered fit vessels of the wrath and righteous 
 retribution of heaven. When we say that the Church 
 countenanced these proceedings, Ave do not mean that it 
 did this of design, or with any view of deriving gain 
 from the avarice of slave-traders. It being no doubt 
 the prevalent opinion of the times, influential organs of 
 the Church, not regarding it as any point of importance, 
 requiring more extensive investigations, coincided with 
 the popular view, that they might not, by insisting 
 upon a point of apparently minor importance, offend 
 the prejudices of the multitude and thus injure their 
 influence."" Men, whose characters were otherwise irre- 
 proachable, were induced by the habits of thought then 
 prevailing, and by the supposed convenience of slave 
 labor, to purchase the African captives brought to their 
 shores. Some even of the most eminent divines were 
 so far implicated in the error, that they, with perfect 
 ease of conscience, held negroes in bondage. The dis- 
 tinguished William Penn, Rev. George Whitefield, of 
 world-wide celebrity, President Edwards, author of 
 several standard works in Theology, were dctveliolders. 
 But this " minor " point grew to such magnitude, and 
 in its influence was so injurious, that both clergymen 
 and laymen came forward and opposed the enslavement 
 of Africans, as " contrary to the laws of God, and as 
 outraging every principle of justice recognized among 
 men ;" insisting that " God hath made of one blood all 
 the nations of the earth ;" and that if the Gospel were 
 
 * There are some in the Church who believe it right to accommodate the teach- 
 ings of the Bible to the opinions and circumstances of men, when such accommoda- 
 tion does not involve a palpable violation of any clearly revealed principle ; while 
 others maintain that the " whole counsel of God," both expressed and implied., 
 should be " declared," independently of the prejudices and opinions of men. 
 3 
 
34: LIBERIA'S OFFEEING. 
 
 universally and rightly appealed to, no other bond 
 would be known among men, but that of Christian 
 brotherhood." 
 
 But the common interpretation of the curse under 
 consideration is still extant among some divines, par- 
 ticularly in America, and is used by them to justify 
 that system of enormous iniquity, which of certain sec- 
 tions of that country is denominated the " peculiar in- 
 stitution." They contend that it is fruitless to endeavor 
 to elevate the African ; for he is doomed to perpetual 
 servitude, and is, therefore, fitted for no other condi- 
 tion* Hence, one of them did not hesitate to affirm 
 that he felt a conscientious reluctance to offer a single 
 prayer, if by that prayer all the slaves in the Union 
 would be set free. 
 
 It does not, however, admit of dispute, that the au- 
 thority of divines of acknowledged ability, on either 
 side of the question, is not to be despised ; and it is 
 rather a dangerous thing for a mere neophyte, hardly 
 yet froni the schools, to differ where learned and vener- 
 able doctors agree. But the question as to the true ap- 
 plication of the curse must, after all, be decided, not by 
 authority, but by the weight of argument in support of 
 the positions assumed. Therefore, while yielding what 
 
 * Being in the city of New-York on the Thanksgiving Day of 1850, we were in- 
 vited by Rev. J. B. Pinney to attend divine services at one of the most popular and 
 influential churches in that city. The pastor, a D.D. of eminent learning and abil- 
 ity, preached a political discourse having reference to the Fugitive Slave Law, then 
 recently enacted. In the course of his sermon, which was in justification of the 
 law, the minister took a view of the condition and character of the colored people 
 in the United States, in which he made an assertion to the effect, that the efforts of 
 those who were endeavoring to elevate Africans in America were, and always would 
 be, fruitless. " The decree," he remarked, " has gone forth, and we can not re- 
 verse it." "Cursed be Canaan, a servant of servants shall he be unto his breth- 
 ren." That was the first of our hearing such weight given to that interpretation 
 and application of Noah's malediction ; and though not over eighteen years old, we 
 experienced, as it were, an intuitive revulsion of mind never to be forgotten. 
 
Liberia's offering. * 35 
 
 we conceive to be a reasonable submission to authority, 
 we venture to differ most decidedly from the " doctors." 
 But in differing from them, we are prepared to make 
 proper allowance. They have doubtless been " brought 
 up to their opinions" upon this subject ; and, regarding 
 the whole matter as of inconsiderable importance, they 
 do not exert themselves to make further investigations 
 in reference to it. It is a fact that when men maintain 
 views inherited from their ancestors, and which accord 
 with their inclinations, they never allow the possibility 
 of their being wrong to trouble them ; and they care 
 not to inquire into the grounds of such views, lest such 
 inquiry lead to a detection of their error, and consequent 
 mortification of their pride. They love their opinions, 
 of whatever nature they are, and they cleave to them, 
 acting on the principle : " My opinions, may they al- 
 ways be right ; but my opinions, right or wrong." 
 
 But let us see from the reading of Genesis 9 : 25, 26, 
 27, and from certain historical circumstances, whether 
 that is a fair interpretation which applies that prophecy 
 to the African race : 
 
 " And Noah awoke from his wine, and knew what his younger son had 
 done unto him. And he said : ' Cursed be Canaan ; a servant of servants 
 shall he be unto his brethren.' And he said : ' Blessed be the Lord God of 
 Shem ; and Canaan shall be his servant. God shall enlarge Japheth, and 
 he shall dwell in the tents of Shem ; and Canaan shall be his servant.' " 
 
 Now it seems to us that the most natural inference 
 which a candid reader would make from this passage 
 is, that the curse was denounced against Ham in that 
 branch of his posterity which descended from Canaan. 
 To establish the hypothesis that the curse includes all 
 the posterity of Ham, it appears to us necessary that 
 one of three things be proved to have been the fact. 
 First. It must be proved that the curse was pronounced 
 
 •' 
 
36 LIBERIA'S OFFERING. 
 
 upon Ham himself; or, secondly, that it was pro- 
 nounced upon each of his sons individually ; or, third- 
 ly, if pronounced upon Canaan, that he was the only 
 offspring of Ham. But we know that no one of these 
 was the fact : whence the inference is obvious. The 
 question we now propose to consider is not whether it 
 is agreeable to our ideas of justice that the offender, 
 Ham, should escape, and the punishment be inflicted 
 upon one of his sons ; but whether there exist any just 
 grounds, apart from the reading of our version, for the 
 conclusion that the malediction was uttered against 
 Canaan, and was restricted in its influence to his pos- 
 terity. 
 
 It is said that " Noah awoke from his wine, and knew 
 what his younger son had done unto him." Hebraists 
 tell us that the word rendered younger often means, in 
 the original, little, and may be so rendered here. Some 
 of the Jewish commentators on this passage say that 
 Canaan, the little son, or grandson of Noah, first discov- 
 ered his father's nakedness, and told it to his father 
 Ham, who informed Shem and Japheth. When Noah 
 awoke, knowing what his younger, or little, son had 
 done unto him, he said : " Cursed be Canaan, a servant 
 of servants shall he be unto his brethren." Other He- 
 brew scholars, wishing to disprove the explanation of 
 the Rabbins, and thus include Ham, with all his pos- 
 terity under the curse, tell us that the prophecy is writ- 
 ten in Hebrew verse, and, according to the usual licenses 
 in poetical composition, is elliptical : that for the com- 
 pletion of the sentence, Ham the father of must be sup- 
 plied in every instance before the word Canaan ; and 
 that this phrase has been supplied in some of the Greek 
 copies of the Old Testament. With this addition, the 
 sentence would stand, " Cursed be Ham the father of 
 
Liberia's offering. 37 
 
 Canaan" etc., according to which reading, Ham would 
 really be the subject of the malediction. 
 
 But they supply this ellipsis, because, rejecting the 
 hypothesis of the Rabbins, and supposing, as the read- 
 ing of our version implies, that it was Ham who dis- 
 covered the nakedness of Noah, they contend that it 
 would have been unjust to have punished Canaan for 
 the iniquity of his father. But would there have been 
 any thing more unjust in this, than in other instances in 
 which God has visited the iniquity of the fathers upon 
 their impjenitent children % Does not Jehovah speak of 
 himself as " visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon 
 the children unto the third and fourth generation of 
 them that hate him " ? The dying patriarch Jacob, pre- 
 dicting the future condition of his sons, declared to 
 Reuben his first-born, whose crime he particularized, 
 " Unstable as water, thou shalt not excel ;" of Simeon 
 and Levi, in consequence of their sins, he said : " I will 
 divide them in Jacob, and scatter them in Israel." 
 (Genesis 49.) But these curses were intended to fall 
 with their full weight, not upon the persons of Reuben, 
 Simeon, and Levi, but upon their posterity. Witness 
 the case of Ahab, whose accumulated and aggravated 
 iniquities incensed the God of Israel against him. The 
 sacred historian informs us that, after the prophet had 
 threatened him with the judgments of God for his 
 transgressions, he showed signs of repentance, where- 
 upon the word of the Lord came to Elijah the Tishbite, 
 saying : " Seest thou how Ahab humbleth himself be- 
 fore me ? because he humbleth himself before me, I will 
 not bring the evil in his days : but in his son's days will 
 I bring the evil upon his house." (1 Kings 21 : 28, 29.) 
 
 The Jews in the time of our Saviour, seem to have 
 regarded it as a common principle in the Divine opera- 
 
38 LIBERIA'S OFFERING. 
 
 tions to visit tlie iniquity of parents upon their child- 
 ren ; hence, their question with reference to the man 
 " blind from his birth." (John 9.) But even if this 
 principle were not manifest in the Divine dealings, 
 would it be any more unjust in the " Judge of all the 
 earth," to punish Canaan for the iniquity of his father, 
 than to proscribe Esau from his rights and privileges 
 before he was born ; and, therefore, before, as the Apos- 
 tle says, he had done either good or evil ? There are, 
 however, grounds within the reach of careful investiga- 
 tion, not incompatible with the nature and attributes of 
 God, upon which a satisfactory disposition may be 
 made of these apparent difficulties. 
 
 But a rejection of the ellipsis contended for by some ? 
 is not essential to the maintaining of our position, for if 
 we admit the ellipsis, it does not appear why the 
 patriarch should have designated Ham, who had several 
 sons, as the father of Canaan any more than as the 
 father of any other of his sons, unless it be that the in- 
 dividual is mentioned in connection with Ham, whom 
 the curse is intended to affect, and to whom it was re- 
 stricted. " Canaan alone in his descendants is cursed, 
 and Ham only in that branch of his posterity."* The 
 curse upon Canaan was properly a curse upon the Ca- 
 naanites. (rod, foreseeing the wickedness of this peo- 
 ple, commissioned Noah to pronounce a curse upon 
 them, and to devote them to servitude and misery, 
 which their common vices and iniquities would deserve. 
 And this account was plainly written by Moses, for the 
 encouragement of the Israelites, to support and animate 
 them in their expedition against a people who, by their 
 sins, had forfeited the divine protection, and were des- 
 tined to slavery from the days of Noah.f " It follows," 
 
 * Richard "Watson, 
 f Bishop Newton's Dissertations on the Prophecies. 
 
LIBERIA'S OFFERING. 39 
 
 says Richard Watson, " that the subjugation of the Ca- 
 naanitish races fulfills the prophecy." 
 
 Let us now notice the events that transpired after 
 the curse, and as recorded in sacred and profane history. 
 The descendants of Canaan peopled that region of coun- 
 try extending along the eastern coast of the Mediter- 
 ranean. The posterity of Cush, the eldest son of Hani, 
 it is agreed, spread over a great portion of Southern 
 Asia, and first peopled the countries to the south of 
 Egypt, Nubia and Abyssinia, and parts further to the 
 south ^and west ; Mizraini, the second son of Ham, is 
 said to have been the father of the Egyptians. A few 
 hundred years after the utterance of Noah's malediction, 
 we find Jehovah himself uttering a prediction, strangely 
 at variance with the malediction, if the hypothesis that 
 it included Ham and all his posterity be correct. 
 
 God said to Abraham, the father of the Jewish na- 
 tion, who were descendants of Shem : " Know of a 
 surety that thy seed shall be a stranger in a land that 
 is not theirs (in Egypt) and shall serve them ; and 
 they (the posterity of Ham) shall afflict them four hun- 
 dred years." (Genesis 15.) Eveiy one knows the 
 severe bondage which the Israelites endured in Egypt 
 under the Egyptians. The Egyptians were the de- 
 scendants of Ham ; the Jews, the descendants of Shem ; 
 the Jews were in servitude to the Egyptians, therefore 
 Shem was the servant of Ham — a palpable reversion of 
 the malediction, if it be true that it included all the 
 posterity of Ham. 
 
 Again : Shishak, King of Egypt, a descendant of 
 Ham, subdued Rehoboam, King of Judah, a descendant 
 of Shem, (1 Kings 14 : 25.) It is said that Sesostris, 
 King of Egypt, conquered a great part of Europe and 
 Asia. Here are instances of Ham's prevailing over both 
 
40 libeeia's offeeing. 
 
 Shem and Japheth. For a long time after the emanci- 
 pation of the Israelites from Egypt, and even after they 
 had established themselves and gotten a name in Ca- 
 naan, the Egyptians exercised a considerable influence 
 over their affairs, both political and religions. Even 
 down to the days of King Solomon was this Egyptian 
 influence felt among the Jews, and King Solomon, the 
 wisest of monarchs, was so affected by it, as to violate 
 the commands of God, in order to obey its dictates. (1 
 Kings 10 : 28, 29 ; Deut. 17 : 16.) In all this does 
 Shem appear to be ruling Ham % ~No ; it was not the 
 intention of the malediction that either Mizraim or 
 Cush, whose descendants peopled Africa, should be a 
 servant of servants to Shem ; but it did intend that the 
 descendants of Canaan, whom it distinctly mentions, 
 should be so related to Shem ; and hence, when the 
 cup of iniquity of the Canaanites was full, when, by 
 their own wickedness, they had merited subjugation 
 and extirpation, God brought forth the people whom 
 he designed as the executors of his judgments, from 
 Egyptian bondage, and led them into Canaan ; and, as 
 a guarantee to them (for they were ignorant and timid 
 emancipated slaves) that they should overcome the 
 " giants, the sons of Anak, in whose sight they were as 
 grasshoppers,"* he directed Moses to record the male- 
 diction : " Cursed be Canaan, a servant of servants shall 
 he be unto his brethren." 
 
 The poor Israelites, full of the mental and physical 
 effects of slavery, doubtless approached the confines of 
 the Canaanites, with tremulous steps, in view of con- 
 flicts with a formidable people, for which they, mere 
 slaves, or the offspring of slaves, felt entirely unpre- 
 pared. But as they thus trembled, their minds were 
 
 * Numbers 13 : 33. 
 
LIBERIA'S OFFERING. 41 
 
 directed to the prediction : " A servant of servants 
 shall Canaan be unto his brethren." Not a servant of 
 princes ; not a servant of warriors ; but a servant of 
 servants — of persons precisely in their condition. How 
 peculiarly adapted to them was such a prophecy at that 
 time ! How encouraging, as, " on the borders of the 
 Jordan, they 
 
 " lingered, shivering, 
 
 And feared to launch away." 
 
 They are animated ; they cross the Jordan ; city after 
 city of the Canaanites falls before them; tribe after 
 tribe is subdued ; until, obtaining possession of the 
 whole land, they reduce the Canaanites either to 
 slavery or extermination. Thus was the prediction of 
 Noah fulfilled. Shem, himself a servant, makes a serv- 
 ant of Canaan, literally verifying the prophecy : " A 
 servant of servants shall he be unto his brethren." In 
 mercy, then, to the Jews of old, was this prophecy 
 recorded, and not to afford grounds to prejudiced and 
 avaricious men for enslaving a people to whom it has 
 no more reference than it has to the descendants of 
 Japheth. 
 
 The fact that, in modern times, Africans have been 
 extensively enslaved by other races, is no argument in 
 favor of the hypothesis, which makes them subjects of 
 the malediction ; for other peoples, in other parts of 
 the world, have also been and are now enslaved.* 
 
 * A Constantinople correspondent of the London Morning Chronicle wrote to 
 that paper, in 1854, as follows: 
 
 " When I last wrote, I forgot to inclose you the Imperial firmans issued by the 
 Sultan for the suppression of the slave-trade. They read very well, and would 
 tend to persuade strangers that this traffic is really on the point of being put a 
 stop to. The promulgation and execution of a law are two very different thiDgs 
 in Turkey. The public slave-market of Constantinople has ceased to exist for some 
 years, but the slave-trade has not diminished. The same number are bought and 
 sold ad libitum. The only difference is, that the slave-merchant has his private 
 
42 LIBERIA'S OFFERING. 
 
 There are other causes than the curse pronounced upon 
 Canaan, to which the enslavement of Africans may be 
 and should be referred. 
 
 REASONS FOR THE PRESENT CONDITION OF AFRICANS. 
 
 The affairs of nations, as of individuals, it must be 
 admitted, are constantly beneath the immediate observ- 
 ation and control of Jehovah, who " doeth according to 
 his will in the army of heaven and among the inhabit- 
 ants of the earth." His name, as proclaimed by him- 
 self, is, " The Lord Gtod, merciful and gracious, long- 
 suffering, AND ABUNDANT IN GOODNESS AND TRUTH 
 KEEPING MERCY FOR THOUSANDS, FORGrVLNG INIQUITY 
 AND TRANSGRESSION AND SIN, AND THAT WILL BY NO 
 
 means clear the guilty." In the case of no other 
 people has the Almighty more clearly manifested this 
 sublime character, in every feature of it, than in the 
 case of Africans. He will by no means clear the guilty. 
 Even in those upon whom he has set his love will he 
 not tolerate transgression. Does Jacob, the Israel of 
 God, commit sin? Notice his subsequent years, and 
 see in their numerous and painful vicissitudes, in his 
 frequent anxieties, fears and distresses — evidences of 
 (rod's displeasure — castigations for his iniquities. Wit- 
 ness the sin of David, and his subsequent sufferings. 
 Mark also the case of Solomon and others ; all of which 
 
 dwelling. The promulgation of the firman may have some slight influence, but it 
 will be very slight ; and it is, therefore, as well to say so, and expose how dust is 
 thrown into the eyes of the European public. ... As regards the sale and pur- 
 chase of slaves in Circassia, the desire and ambition of a Circassian girl is to be 
 sold at Constantinople. She has a chance if she is beautiful, of becoming Sultana, 
 or one of the Sultanas, or at least she flatters herself that her good looks will open 
 to her the harem of some opulent Pacha. It must not be disguised that our 
 endeavors to suppress the Circassian slave-trade, though no doubt meritorious, and 
 founded on motives of philanthropy, will be regarded in a very different light by 
 the Circassians, and gain us many an enemy amongst them." 
 
Liberia's offering. 43 
 
 testify to tlie fact that suffering is consequent upon sin. 
 Indeed, there is no truth more clearly taught in the 
 book of divine revelation, and none more abundantly 
 attested in the history and experience of man, than 
 that punishment is inseparable from crime. God has 
 so arranged things ; he has so established the laws both 
 of the physical and moral world, that they can not be 
 violated with impunity. If the violator of the moral 
 law appear not outwardly to suffer, yet he can not 
 effectually shut out from his heart that deep remorse, 
 and those mental distresses which have torment, and 
 which are said to be the forebodings of the "womi 
 that never dies." And this connection of punishment 
 with crime has been noticed by observing and reflect- 
 ing men of all ages and countries, whether possessing 
 the light of revelation or not. Notice the words of 
 Horace :* 
 
 " Raro antecedentem scelestum 
 Deseruit pede Poena claudo." 
 
 These lines imply that though the " execution of sen- 
 tence against an evil work " may be delayed, yet it will 
 certainly overtake the criminal. Punishment is repre- 
 sented as " slow of foot," yet steadily pursuing the 
 offender. And this law of the moral world is not con- 
 fined to cases of individuals. Nations sometimes in- 
 fringe this law, and as nations they suffer. Illustra- 
 tions of this fact are numerous in the world's history • 
 from the eating of 
 
 " The fruit 
 
 Of that forbidden tree, whose mortal taste 
 Brought death into the world, and all our woe," 
 
 down to the present time. Witness the destruction of 
 the cities of the plain of Sodom ; the extennination of 
 
 * Another Roman writer says: " Sera tamen tacitis pcena venit pedib-us." 
 
44 libeeia's offering. 
 
 tlte nations of Canaan ; the wholesale submersion and 
 extirpation of the Egyptians in the Red Sea ; the dis- 
 persion and denationalization of the Israelites ; the 
 diminished and diminishing numbers of the Indians of 
 North- America ; and lastly, the enslavement of Afri- 
 cans — all the effects of sin. 
 
 For thousands of years has Africa been without a 
 knowledge of God. While the Egyptians excelled all 
 other nations in their acquaintance with and cultivation 
 of the arts and sciences, they were destitute of the true 
 wisdom. They, as well as other Africans, evidently, at 
 one time, possessed a knowledge of the true God, but 
 they neglected it ; and in this consists their crime, that 
 when they knew God, " they glorified him not as God, 
 neither were thankful ; they did not like to retain God 
 in their knowledge ;" therefore " God gave them over to 
 a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not 
 convenient ;" and they fell into all that enormity and 
 blackness of crime which the Apostle so graphically 
 depicts in the first chapter of Romans. And if such 
 was their character in the Apostle's days — two thou- 
 sand years ago — what must it be now when we con- 
 sider that human nature left to itself never ameliorates, 
 but grows worse and worse. "What an awful picture 
 of depravity and wickedness must present itself to the 
 pure eye of Jehovah ! — depravity and wickedness 
 which, brought on by the voluntary acts of the fathers, 
 have been copied and improved upon by the children. 
 
 Now the Judge of all the earth would have done no 
 injustice to the Africans had he left them to pursue the 
 course of wickedness entered upon by their fathers, and 
 persevered in by themselves, until, filling up the cup 
 of their iniquity, they had rendered themselves fit ves- 
 sels of his wrath. But he determined otherwise with 
 
Liberia's offering. 45 
 
 respect to this portion of the descendants of Ham ; and 
 even while iniquity, like a dense cloud, "blackened 
 their moral atmosphere, He, the " Lord God, merciful 
 and gracious, long-suffering and abundant in goodness 
 and truth," gave promises with reference to their wicked 
 land. " Princes shall come out of Egypt ; Ethiopia 
 shall soon stretch out her hands unto God." (Psalm 
 68:31.) " From beyond the rivers of Ethiopia my 
 suppliants, even the daughter of my dispersed, shall 
 bring mine offering." (Zeph. 3 : 10.) 
 
 But Ethiopia is guilty. The guilt of centuries over- 
 spreads the whole land, so aggravated and horrible that 
 there can be no communication between its inhabitants 
 and the King of kings. No one of the countless mul- 
 titudes is seeking for God ; no one is asking after his 
 Maker. The Almighty, therefore, in keeping with his 
 character of " by no means clearing the guilty," deter- 
 mines to teach the inhabitants of this dark land " right- 
 eousness" by first sending his "judgments" among 
 them. He suffers them to be earned into captivity in 
 fulfillment of a prophecy recorded in Isaiah 18 : 1, 2 : 
 " Woe to the land shadowing with wings, which is 
 beyond the rivers of Ethiopia : that sendeth ambassa- 
 dors by the sea, even in vessels of bulrushes upon the 
 waters. Go, ye swift messengers, to a nation scattered 
 and peeled, to a people terrible from their beginning 
 hitherto ; a nation meted out and trodden down, whose 
 land the rivers have spoiled." For years has He, in his 
 sovereign justice, permitted the cruel traffic in African 
 slaves to be perpetrated with the utmost cruelty on the 
 part of the traders, and unprecedented suffering on the 
 part of the poor African ; so that in numerous instances 
 death has seemed preferable to life. And even at this 
 moment poor Africans are groaning beneath intolera- 
 
46 LIBERIA'S OFFERING. 
 
 ble burdens either of physical maltreatment or of 
 mental depression and degradation. Agreeably to the 
 prophecy, we are, indeed, " a nation scattered and peeled, 
 meted out and trodden down," reaping, however, the 
 fruits of our own doings. 
 
 But in the chapter in Isaiah just quoted, there is a 
 glorious promise to the scattered people — a promise 
 like shining borders to a black and threatening cloud. 
 Mark the passage, verse seventh, " In that time," the 
 time of their enthrallment, "shall the present be 
 brought unto the Lord of hosts of a people scattered 
 and peeled, and from a people terrible from their begin- 
 ning- hitherto ; a nation meted out and trodden under 
 foot, whose land the rivers have spoiled, to the place of 
 the name of the Lord of hosts, the mount of Zion."* 
 Are not these prophecies coming to pass? Are not 
 Africans " meted out and trodden down," though they 
 are bringing " presents unto the Lord of hosts," in the 
 land of their captivity ? Yes, it is matter of thankful- 
 ness that, in the land of their oppression, and in the 
 very depths of their affliction, the Most High, who " is 
 no respecter of persons," has condescended to visit this 
 people, and despite the efforts of their oppressors to 
 debar them from the light of science, Grod has revealed 
 unto them the " true Light ;" while they have been driv- 
 en away from the streams of earthly learning, they have 
 been welcomed to the very fountain of Knowledge, 
 whence they have had large and "liberal" draughts, 
 without upbraidings. The Holy Spirit has discovered 
 to them their guilt as transgressors of the divine law, 
 and has led them, burdened with the load of sin, to 
 the foot of the same cross to which others resort, where 
 
 * Such an application of this prophecy is objected to by some, but no satisfac- 
 tory reason is assigned why it should not be so applied. 
 
Liberia's offering. 47 
 
 they have found pardon and peace in believing. They 
 have been clothed with the same robe of the Redeem- 
 er's righteousness with which others are clothed, and 
 the same " songs of praises " have been put into their 
 mouths ; they have received the same unerring " testi- 
 mony " that they are the children of God, and they 
 enjoy the same comfortable assurance that if their 
 earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, they 
 have a building of God, an house not made with hands, 
 eternal in the heavens. (2 Cor. 5 : 1.) Are not these 
 blessings a glorious compensation for our afflictions? 
 Are they not the " rememberings of mercy in the midst 
 of deserved wrath," for which it becomes us to feel 
 unfeignedly thankful ? Yes, there is an inward " peace," 
 a "joy unspeakable," which outward circumstances can 
 not aifect. There is a " liberty unsung by poets, which 
 all the powers of earth and hell confederate can not 
 take away." Such "peace," such "joy," such "liberty," 
 many a plantation-slave enjoys. 
 
 " The oppressor holds 
 
 His body bound, but knows not what a range 
 His spirit takes, unconscious of a chain ; 
 And that to bind Mm is a vain attempt, 
 Whom God delights in, and in whom he dwells." 
 
 Whenever we feel or hear of the oppressions, which 
 men of another race inflict upon us, and the miseries to 
 which they arrogantly subject us, it is natural for feel- 
 ings of indignation to arise within us against those who 
 are the immediate cause of such sufferings ; since we 
 know that they, to gratify pride, prejudice, or malignity, 
 afflict us; not designing good, but evil. But when, 
 upon reflection, we look upon all evils as under the 
 control of God, going no further than he permits them 
 to go ; and when we consider what have been our de- 
 
48 libeeia's offeking. 
 
 merits as a people, and that, notwithstanding their 
 enormity, God has been merciful to ns, we can not but 
 be grateful. " He has not dealt with us after our sins, 
 neither rewarded us according to our iniquities." He 
 has not dealt so with any nation. "Witness his dealings 
 with the Canaanites. He suffered the cup of their ini- 
 quity to become full, and then caused them to drink 
 the very dregs thereof, consigning them to the " black- 
 ness of darkness forever." Witness the fearful judg- 
 ments which have befallen the North- American Indians. 
 They have not suffered slavery, but their iniquities 
 have been more severely visited than those of the Afri- 
 cans. They have melted away under the retributive 
 visitations of the Judge of all the earth, leaving no 
 name behind them ; perishing in their iniquities with- 
 out the blessings of the Gospel. But our case has been 
 different. Carried away from home to a distant land, 
 and subjected to a slavery of the most cruel kind, we 
 have survived. We still retain our distinct character 
 as a people, so that it may be said of us, as of the Is- 
 raelites in Egypt : " The more they afflicted them the 
 more they multiplied and grew." (Exodus 1 : 12.) 
 And may not this fact, so mysterious to many, be solved 
 by the consideration that that all-wise and merciful 
 Providence, which has watched over us in all our afflic- 
 tions, preserves us for a glorious future destiny ? There 
 is now a prospect that, like the Jews, we shall return 
 from our grievous bondage to the land given to our 
 fathers. A small number have already returned — the 
 precursors of a powerful exodus — bearing with them 
 spoils infinitely richer than Egyptian treasure, even the 
 blessings of civilization and of the Christian religion. 
 But we return not as the executors of God's wrath. 
 No ; we bear no such fearful message to Africa. We 
 
Liberia's offering. 49 
 
 come as tlie almoners of Heaven's blessings, not to ex- 
 terminate tlie inhabitants of the land, but to root up 
 and destroy their iniquities. We come to demolish the 
 kingdom of Satan, and to establish that kingdom which 
 consists in righteousness and peace and " joy in the Holy 
 Ghost:" subjection to whose Sovereign elevates and 
 dignifies human nature ; conferring a liberty, 
 
 " which persecution, fraud, 
 
 Oppressions, prisons, have no power to bind ; 
 Which whoso tastes can he enslaved no more — 
 'Tis liberty of heart, derived from heaven." 
 
 But let it not for one moment be supposed that, because 
 we hold that our oppressions and afflictions are under 
 the immediate permission of God, therefore we justify 
 our oppressors in their cruel treatment of us. By no 
 means. "We hold that all men, with respect to each 
 other, are born equally free, having the same " inalien- 
 able right to life, liberty, and property ;" and that they 
 who, by reason of superior power, assumed authority, 
 or for any other cause deprive their fellow-men of those 
 rights, are robbers, in the strictest sense of that word, 
 and, as such, are guilty and fearfully responsible to the 
 " Judge of all the Earth." We indorse the sentiment 
 of Wordsworth, that 
 
 " Our life is turned 
 Out of its course, whenever Man is made 
 An offering, or a sacrifice, a tool, 
 Or implement, a passive thing employed 
 As a brute mean, without acknowledgment 
 Of common right cr interest in the end." 
 
 They who urge the malediction of Noah, to justify 
 themselves in metamorphosing a whole race of men into 
 " offerings," " sacrifices," " tools," " implements," are 
 
50 Liberia's offering. 
 
 ■under a fatal hallucination which, unless they discover 
 it in time for repentance, will sink them " deeper than 
 the grave." They have made themselves the executors 
 of God's judgments, and that not from a desire to glori- 
 fy him, but to indulge a criminal avarice, which is 
 gratified only by the very life-blood of the African. 
 An American divine,* who hates oppression with a 
 perfect hatred, used the following strong language, on 
 this subject, in a discourse preached in New- York City, 
 October 20, 1856 : 
 
 "You pretend to be, by charter from Heaven, the ministers of God's 
 vengeance against a whole continent of men — a whole race of mankind — 
 whom, in the execution of that vengeance, you are to hold and sell as your 
 property. You are the trustees of this will of Jehovah, the executors of 
 this inheritance of wrath, and as such you are to be paid for your trouble in 
 proving the instrument, and carrying its details into operation, by assuming 
 the objects of the curse as your property. Where is the sentence in which 
 God ever appointed you, the Anglo-Saxon race, you, the mixture of all races 
 under heaven ; you, who can not tell whether the blood of Shem, Ham, or 
 Japheth mingles in your veins ; you, the asserters of a right to traffic in 
 human flesh ; you, worse than the Jews, by this very claim more degraded, 
 more debased in your moral principles, than the lowest tribes of Jews ever 
 swept for their sins from the Promised Land; where is the sentence in 
 which God ever appointed you, four thousand years after Noah and his 
 children had gone to their graves in peace, to be the executors of Noah's 
 will, with the whole inheritance given to you as your property, for your 
 profit, the reward of your faithfulness in fulfilling God's curse ? Where is 
 the designation of the race whom you pounce upon by this mighty forgery, 
 and where the designation of the race commissioned to pounce upon them ? 
 You might as well go to Russia and take the subjects of the Czar. You 
 might as well go to England and take your cousins of the sea-girt isle, the 
 descendants of your own great-grandfathers. You have no more claim upon 
 the Africans than you have upon the Aborigines of the Rocky Moun- 
 tains." 
 
 The assumptions of some of the Anglo-Saxons with 
 reference to the African race, are surely unwarrantable. 
 They stultify history, sacred and profane, and set up 
 
 * Rev. George B. Cheever, D.D. 
 
libeeia's offering. 51 
 
 theological and philosophical theories in opposition to 
 common-sense, to carry their point. But " the days of 
 arbitrary authority are numbered, and, even in matters 
 of theology, men will think and decide as free and ra- 
 tional beings." 
 
 INTELLECTUAL OBTTJSENESS, 
 
 as a result of Noah's malediction, has been attributed 
 to the African race, as a whole — a traducement which, 
 in consequence of the unfavorable circumstances of the 
 race, has gained considerable currency. But when and 
 where has this been tested and proved ? Does it find 
 proof in the case of James McCune Smith, the learned 
 and scientific colored physician of New- York? Is it 
 established in the case of Frederick Douglass, formerly 
 a slave, now a celebrated orator and editor \ Where 
 has it been demonstrated ? In the cases of Daniel A. 
 Payne, the African theologian and poet, of Cincinnati, 
 and of J. M. Whitfield, poet and editor, of Buffalo ? 
 Does the remarkable Miss Frances Watkins, the poetic 
 genius, of Baltimore, afford an illustration ? Is there 
 furnished an instance in the celebrated Miss Elizabeth 
 Greenfield, the musical genius of the United States, and 
 the successful rival of Jenny Lind? We might ask 
 similar questions with respect to numerous other Afri- 
 cans, but time would fail us.* 
 
 * The Eev. John Leighton Wilson, possessed of an extensive experience of 
 African character in its barbarous and untutored state, records the following testi- 
 mony : " Some of the best specimens of oratory may be heard in these African as- 
 semblies. Their popular speakers show almost as much skill in the use of happy 
 illustrations, striking analogies, pointed argument, historical details, biting irony, as 
 any set of public speakers in the world ; and for ease, grace, and naturalness of 
 manner, they are perhaps unsurpassed." — Western Africa, p. 132. 
 
 The Veys, though not numerous or powerful, have recently invented an alpha- 
 bet for writing their own language, and are enjoying the blessings of a written sys- 
 
52 libeeia's offering. 
 
 They who circulate the slander of negro intellectual 
 obtuseness, can produce no cases that would fairly and 
 satisfactorily establish their aspersion. They are our 
 oppressors, and, taking us in the midst of our oppres- 
 sion, they fancy they see proofs of their dogma. They 
 find what they regard as moral demonstrations of it, in 
 the cases of " Sambo," and " Juba," and " Topsy," all 
 of corn-field birth, rearing, and notoriety. The induc- 
 tive method of reasoning is not tolerated in their logic 
 with reference to our race. Arguments in our favor 
 which would be regarded as conclusive in regard to any 
 other race, are unceremoniously discarded. Isolated 
 cases the most unfavorable are taken as fair specimens 
 of the character of the whole race. The intellectual 
 and moral character of the African in freedom is infer- 
 
 tem, for which they are entirely indebted to their own ingenuity and enterprise. 
 This is, undoubtedly, one of the most remarkable achievements of this or any other 
 age, and is itself enough to silence forever the cavils and sneers of those who think 
 so contemptuously of the intellectual endowments of the African race. The charac- 
 ters used in this system are all new, and were invented by the people themselves 
 within the last twenty years. — Ibid. p. 95. 
 
 The Negro and the Needle. — It is not generally known that for the origin of 
 the needle manufacture we are indebted to the negro. The earliest record of 
 needle-making in England is in the year 1545, in the reign of Henry VIII., and it 
 is supposed that this useful branch of industry was introduced by a Moor from 
 Spain. The historian Stowe tells us that needles were sold in Cheapside and other 
 busy streets in London in the reign of Queen Mary, and were at that time made by 
 a Spanish negro, who refused to discover the secret of his art. Another authority 
 states that the art of making steel needles was lost at the negro's death, but was 
 afterwards revived by a German in 1566. Probably these facts may account for 
 the crest of the needle-makers' coat-of-arms being the head of a negro. — American 
 Paper. 
 
 Mr. Aaron Roberts, a colored man in Philadelphia, has invented a valuable aid 
 to the fire department. It is constructed on the principle of a telescope, occupying 
 a very small space when closed, but capable of being extended to a hight of some 
 sixty feet, by means of concealed cogs. Above this is a branch-pipe, made flexible, 
 and worked in any direction by chains reaching the ground. The machine can be 
 run into a narrow alley, and by attaching a hose to a fire-plug, the water will be 
 forced to the top, and thence directed at the pleasure of the operator. Safety is 
 thus afforded to the firemen, and instant application may be made to any part of a 
 burning building. — The National Magazine, August, 1S56. 
 
Liberia's offering. 53 
 
 red from what it is in slavery, as though the two con- 
 ditions were exactly similar ; or as thongh the African 
 were not, as other men, influenced by circumstances ; so 
 that if the black man, in the midst of cruel oppressions, 
 of which for centuries he has been the subject, gives 
 evidence of the legitimate influences of such oppres- 
 sions, and does not come forward, though fettered in 
 mind and body, and astonish the world by inventions 
 and discoveries, it follows, according to their reasoning, 
 that, in a condition free and untrammeled, he will be 
 both mentally and physically the same ; he is, there- 
 fore, set down as belonging to an inferior order of 
 beings, fitted only for servitude — liberty and slavery in 
 their effects upon him, are synonymous and convertible 
 terms. In judging of Anglo-Saxons, one set of princi- 
 ples is applied ; in judging of Africans, another. 
 
 It can not be truly anirmed that inferences proceeding 
 on such assumptions wait for refutation ; but those who 
 avail themselves of them follow prejudice more than 
 judgment. And so strongly does their prejudice against 
 the African bias their minds, that we often find even 
 the profoundest of them indulging in such one-sided 
 argument. John C. Calhoun, of South - Carolina, is 
 lauded to the sides by some, on account of his wonder- 
 ful powers of induction : and he was, doubtless, on 
 many subjects, a powerful inductive reasoner ; yet every 
 one knows the bold and unblushing sophistry which 
 he employed with reference to the African race.* 
 
 Let the candid among the enemies of our race, take, 
 
 * The writer was refused admittance to a literary institution in the United 
 States, on the ground that the faculty had failed to realize their expectations in one 
 or two colored persons whom they had educated. The inductive reasoning here 
 employed was, of course, most conclusive. Some colored persons abuse their edu- 
 cation, therefore all colored persons should be excluded from institutions of learn- 
 ing. The minor proposition is made to contain the major. Excellent logic ! 
 
54 Liberia's offering. 
 
 as far as they know, all the cases of Africans, who have 
 enjoyed any opportunities of intellectual development 
 and improvement, and see if the majority have not pro- 
 fitably availed themselves of those opportunities ; or 
 take an African of ordinary mind, and a Caucasian of 
 like capacity, place them both under the same instruc- 
 tions, with equal privileges, and we hazard nothing by 
 saying that the Caucasian will not excel the African, if, 
 indeed, he keep pace with him. This has been tested, 
 and the result has turned out in favor of the African. 
 If, then, under given circumstances, the Caucasian will 
 arrive at a certain point of intellectual improvement, 
 and under the same circumstances, as the facts of a fail' 
 induction show, the African will attain to the same 
 point, where is the absolute superiority of the Cauca- 
 sian ? Where is the peculiar mental obtuseness of the 
 African ? Where ? 
 
 " I have often wondered," says our excellent President Benson,* "from 
 whence sprang the silly aspersion of ' the incapacity of the colored race for 
 self-government.' I have frequently taxed my mind for a discovery of the 
 instances upon which the stigma is based. With the exception of our own, 
 Hayti, I believe, is the only professed colored civilized and independent 
 government. It is true, that unfortunate country has been repeatedly con- 
 vulsed by revolutions and dethronements ; but these have neither been re- 
 stricted nor peculiar to her history ; similar causes have produced similar 
 effects among other nations, not of African descent, but purely Caucasian. 
 The South- American States, almost without exception, have been equally 
 prolific of civil wars and revolutions ; in fact, we can trace them even into 
 highly civilized Europe, and as not unfrequently occurring among some of 
 the most refined nations of that enlightened continent ; nor would proud 
 Albion have been exempted from them, for so long a space as that which 
 has succeeded the seventeenth, century, if the Protestant faith, which con- 
 stitutes the basis of that righteousness which exalts a nation, had not taken 
 so deep root in that country. And if I mistake not, the same cause is to be 
 assigned for the almost unparalleled success with which the confederate 
 States of North-America have been crowned, .... and for lack of 
 which, Hayti, in common with some other governments, to which allusion 
 
 * Inaugural Address, January 7th, 1856. 
 
LIBERIA'S OFFERING. 55 
 
 has been made, failed in demonstrating an equal capacity for self-govern- 
 ment ; and surely the civil wars of Hayti are no more an argument (if as 
 much so) against the capacity of the colored race for self-government, than 
 the multiplied revolutions of the other governments alluded to, are against 
 that of the Caucasian race." 
 
 AFRICAN PHYSIOGNOMY. 
 
 The physiognomical character of Africans is also 
 urged as an argument in favor of the servile destiny of 
 the race. This being the popular opinion, the greatest 
 unfairness is generally practiced in the representations 
 which Caucasian naturalists and ethnologists make of 
 African features. This may appear a small matter, but 
 we do not deem it altogether unworthy of notice. No 
 matter how men, in their public opinions, may ridicule 
 as absurd arguments thus founded, yet, in their private 
 feelings, they are to a great extent influenced by them. 
 We have observed that, generally in Geographies or 
 books on ethnography, the heads given as proper speci- 
 mens of the African are pictures of some degraded 
 slaves of poor physical development ; while to repre- 
 sent the Caucasian race, the head of some philosopher, 
 or of some very beautiful female is presented as a fair 
 specimen of that whole race. They give " the highest 
 type of the European and the lowest type of the negro." 
 Now we say this is unjust. That there are irregulari- 
 ties in the African features, is no reason that in repre- 
 senting them the very worst should be taken as speci- 
 mens. This is done, however, to cany out the idea of 
 phrenological inferiority to the other races, at least to 
 the Anglo-Saxon race. Hence, whenever any one of 
 this doomed people gives evidence of superior ability 
 and talents, the disposition is to deny his connection 
 with the genuine negro. No candid and unprejudiced 
 mind can read with patience the unwarrantable de- 
 
56 Liberia's offering. 
 
 scription furnished by Mr. Bowen, an American mis- 
 sionary adventurer on this coast, of what he calls " the 
 true or typical negro."* It is a pandering to prejudices 
 entirely unpardonable in one of his profession, whose 
 object should be to eradicate, and not to foster the seed 
 of error. And nothing is more instinctively ridiculous 
 than his labored but resultless endeavor to prove that 
 all the interior native tribes of regular and agreeable 
 features, and of favorable mental characteristics, are the 
 descendants of Europeans. If such are the results of 
 his philosophical and scientific investigations, it would 
 have been more creditable to his reputation, and of less 
 disservice to the cause of truth, to have confined himself 
 to the regions of common-sense. 
 
 But the intellectual character of a race can not fairly 
 be argued from the physical appearance of some of its 
 individuals. The external appearance is not always 
 the index of the intellectual man. Notwithstanding 
 the claims and pretensions of phrenology, the old adage 
 should not be neglected : " Judge not of things by their 
 outward appearance."f All scientific writers on the 
 
 * Bowen's Central Africa, chapter xxiii. pp. 280, 281. , 
 
 f " It was once said that ' No good thing can come out of Nazareth ;' and it is 
 now thought that the mere color of the African places him under the general ban 
 of nations, and renders preposterous and absurd the idea that this race could ever 
 have occupied a position of dignity, or contributed to the general advancement of 
 the world. If external aspect (and the assumption admits of triumphant vindica- 
 tion) is considered a mere accident of being, how can it render nugatory all contra- 
 vening evidence ? If so, then reason is a cheat, and Bacon and Newton were 
 sophists ! Why the African is black, I know not, nor do I pause to inquire, any 
 more than why you are white. One is as great a mystery to me as the other. It 
 may be the effect of climate and condition ; or, what is much more likely, it may 
 be a merciful arrangement of heaven and nature, to prepare them for residence and 
 suffering in the hot intertropical regions assigned them as the bounds of their hab- 
 itation. I do not profess to be an adept in the science of climatology, nor can I 
 fathom the deep designs of Providence. I leave both to be comprehended and 
 explained by others. But certainly, if the mere extrinsic circumstance, the adven- 
 titious adjunct of color is to expel the African from the pale of humanity, of which 
 
libeeia's offeking. 57 
 
 subject refer the physical character of Africans to the 
 climate in which they reside, and their peculiar mode 
 and custom of life. In proportion as a people is ele- 
 vated, or its mode of life cultivated, the features im- 
 prove, and the whole outward appearance changes ; for 
 it is a fact that the degree of the civilization and cul- 
 ture of a people is a fair standard by which to judge 
 of the physical character of that people. A proper 
 education improves the body as well as the mind. 
 Who will undertake to say that the features of the 
 Britons, in the days of Julius Csesar, were as regular as 
 those of the present inhabitants of England? Give 
 Africans the same amount of culture, from generation 
 to generation, which Europeans have enjoyed, and their 
 features will assume the same proportion and symme- 
 try. 
 
 In visiting the native towns interior to Liberia, we 
 have seen, though on a small scale, striking illustrations 
 of this fact. Among the inhabitants of those towns, 
 we could invariably distinguish the free man from the 
 slave. There was about the former a dignity of ap- 
 pearance, an openness of countenance, an independence 
 of air, a firmness of step, which indicated the absence 
 of oppression; while in the latter there was a depres- 
 sion of countenance, a general deformity of appearance, 
 and an awkwardness of gait which seemed to say : 
 " That man is a slave." And it is, for the most 
 part, among the latter class of persons that the slave- 
 trade has found its victims, it being rarely the case that 
 free persons are sold to slave-traders. This will partly 
 account for the general deformity of appearance of the 
 
 we deem ourselves such fair specimens, the decision reflects but too injuriously upon 
 the magnanimity of earth and the justice of heaven!" — Posthumous Works of Rev. 
 Henry B. Bascom, D.D., LL.D., one of the Bishops of the M. E. Church, South. 
 
58 libeeia's offering. 
 
 Africans in the Western hemisphere ; going from one 
 form of slavery into another immeasurably more severe, 
 it was impossible that either themselves or their de- 
 scendants should improve physically. Dr. Prichard, in 
 his researches into the Physical History of Man, relates 
 on the authority of Dr. S. S. Smith, of the negroes set- 
 tled in the Southern districts of the United States of 
 America, that the field-slaves, who live on the planta- 
 tions, and retain pretty nearly the rude manners of 
 their African progenitors, preserve, in the third genera- 
 tion, much of their original structure, though their fea- 
 tures are not so strongly marked as those of imported 
 slaves. But the domestic servants of the same race, 
 who are treated with lenity, and whose condition is 
 little different from that of the lower class of white 
 people, in the third generation have the nose raised, 
 the mouth and lips of moderate size, the eyes lively 
 and sparkling, and often the whole composition of the 
 features extremely agreeable.* 
 
 AFRICAN INHERENT LOVE OF SLAVERY. 
 
 Another ground of argument with some in favor of 
 the application of Noah's malediction to Africans, and 
 their consequent inferiority to the other races, is the 
 preference for slavery which some emancipated slaves 
 have shown, either refusing to be set at liberty or 
 returning into bondage after having been liberated. 
 But they forget that this is by no means unusual, nor 
 peculiar to the African race. The effect of slavery is 
 to render the mind congenial to itself. Slavery begets 
 in the slave adaptation and attachment to slavery. It 
 is a principle of the human mind to love that to which 
 
 * Watson's Theological Dictionary. 
 
LIBERIA'S OFFERING. 59 
 
 long familiarity has accustomed it, particularly if it lias 
 been led by any means to believe that the object to 
 which it is accustomed is productive of benefit. How 
 many of the emancipated Israelites would not have 
 returned into Egyptian bondage had they possessed 
 the power and opportunity of so doing ? Notwith- 
 standing the manifold and wonderful exhibitions of 
 divine power which attended their exodus from that 
 house of bondage, they were, on the least appearance 
 of trouble, anxious to return. When they wanted 
 bread, listen to their language : " And the children of 
 Israel said, ' Would to God we had died by the hand 
 of the Lord in the land of Egypt, when we sat by 
 the flesh-pots, and when we did eat bread to the full.' " 
 (Exodus 16 : 3.) When they wanted water, they mur- 
 mured against Moses their leader, saying : " Wherefore 
 is this that thou hast brought us up out of Egypt to 
 Mil us and our children and our cattle with thirst?" 
 (Exodus 17 : 3.) And, as has been already intimated, 
 even after they had settled in Canaan, and the Lord 
 had extirpated some, and subdued the rest of their 
 enemies, yet they looked to Egypt as their home ; and 
 they regarded the Egyptians as superior to themselves 
 even down to the time of Jeremiah. Solomon in all 
 his glory, could not content himself without the daugh- 
 ter of the king of Egypt, for whom he built a splendid 
 palace. (1 Kings 3:1; 7:8.) When, in the days of 
 the prophet Jeremiah, the king of Babylon invaded the 
 land of Judah, a great many of the Jews, contrary to 
 the remonstrances of the prophet, retired into Egypt, 
 as if to their common home, saying in answer to the 
 advice of the prophet : " No ; but we will go into the 
 land of Egypt, where we shall see no war, nor hear the 
 
60 Liberia's offering. 
 
 sound of the trumpet, nor have hunger of bread, and 
 there will we dwell." 
 
 Again, when permission was given to the Jews in 
 Babylon to return to Judea from their captivity, and 
 rebuild the temple of the Lord, did they all return ? 
 By no means. They had become so wedded to Baby- 
 lonish habits and modes of life that, though there was 
 so great an inducement to their returning home as the 
 rebuilding of the temple — the "glory of Israel" — yet 
 they would not return. They preferred remaining in 
 the land of their captivity to building up a home for 
 themselves and reestablishing their nationality. 
 
 In view of these facts, then, in the case of a people 
 chosen of Grod, and blessed above all other peoples in 
 point of religious privileges, shall it be thought won- 
 derful if the same things occur in the case of Africans, 
 a people scattered and peeled, meted out and trodden 
 down? The words of Cowper are universally and 
 incontrovertibly true : 
 
 "All constraint, 
 
 Except what wisdom lays on evil men, 
 
 Is evil ; hurts the faculties ; impedes 
 
 Their progress in the road of science ; blinds 
 
 The eyesight of discovery ; and begets 
 
 In those who suffer it, a sordid mind, 
 
 Bestial, a meager intellect, unfit 
 
 To be the tenant of man's noble form." 
 
 Cases are not wanting of colored persons fleeing from 
 American bondage to Liberia, who, meeting a few 
 difficulties, and unused to the task of self-reliance, wish 
 to return and live their former life of ease and freedom 
 from care. Some do return, and bear back evil reports 
 of this good land. These cases are painful, but they 
 are not surprising ; they are illustrations of the invari- 
 able effects of slavery. Nor is it to be wondered at 
 
Liberia's offering. 61 
 
 that even in Liberia, an African government, free, sove- 
 reign, and independent, there should be, as Bishop 
 Scott alleges, "a degree of deference shown to white 
 men that is not shown to colored." This will be the 
 case in every African community for a long time, even 
 after the entire abolition of slavery in the Western 
 world. This reverence of the oppressed for the op- 
 pressor, as we have just seen in the case of the Israel- 
 ites, is not easily shaken oif. Such is the influence of 
 the latter upon the former, that their voice on any 
 question has the effect to hush into the profoundest 
 silence the least murmur of dissent on the part of the 
 former. 
 
 It is, however, incumbent upon the intelligent among 
 the African race, to discountenance as much as possible 
 this servile feeling, and to use every means to crush it 
 wherever it appears, for its influence on the mind and 
 morals and general progress of the race is fearfully 
 injurious. 
 
 influence of the current aspersions upon our- 
 selves, AND OUR DUTY. 
 
 If an ignorant man be calmnniated, and that calum- 
 ny be founded upon facts of Theology, Science, or Phi- 
 losophy, branches of learning with which he is, of 
 course, utterly unacquainted, it will not be surprising 
 if that man, even with the facts of his own conscious- 
 ness before him, contradictory of such calumny, should 
 believe it, and shape his course of conduct in accord- 
 ance with its dicta. So has it been, generally speaking, 
 with the African race. We have been under those 
 whose interest it was to give credit, importance, and 
 circulation to the current aspersions against our race : 
 and who, having all the influence over us which educa- 
 
62 libeeia's offering. 
 
 tion, wealth, and power can confer, have succeeded too 
 well in working in the minds of many the belief that 
 we are a people accursed, and that, in consequence, we 
 are in every respect inferior to them, and never can, by 
 any combination of fortuitous circumstances, rise to 
 perfect equality with them. Hence we see many ignor- 
 ant and unfortunate persons of color under the poison- 
 ing influence of this inculcated belief, who make no 
 effort towards improvement, believing that their state 
 has been fixed by an irreversible decree — a state of 
 unconditional inferiority to the Caucasian. There is 
 among such persons a constant distrust of each other ; 
 a disposition to repose with greater confidence in per- 
 sons of another race; a want of faith in any thing 
 remarkable done or projected by their own people. 
 Galileans themselves, they doubt their own capacity 
 for the production of " any good thing," and for no 
 other reason than that it is currently reported that 
 " no good thing can come out of Galilee." 
 
 It is earnestly to be hoped that in the republic of 
 Liberia no such feeling will exist. Nothing can be 
 more detrimental to our progress. It will act like an 
 incubus upon our energies. Let us, when our brethren 
 come among us from the land of bondage, poisoned 
 with the opinion of the inferiority of the African race, 
 endeavor as soon as possible to eradicate the notion. 
 And let us teach our children from their infancy — 
 for they need to be taught — that no curse except that 
 which every day follows the impenitent, hangs upon 
 us ; that it is the force of circumstances, induced, as we 
 have endeavored to show, by our iniquities, that keeps 
 us down ; and that we have as much right as any other 
 people to strive to rise to the very zenith of national 
 glory. " Already has the auspicious day of the national 
 
Liberia's offering. 63 
 
 glory of our race begun to dawn ; it lias been divinely 
 and mysteriously brought about ; it is the work of 
 Almighty Grod, and marvelous in our eyes ; and this 
 has emboldened me to say that if this government 
 unswervingly pursue a course of sound policy founded 
 on religion and virtue, we shall not, we can not, we 
 will not fail of success ; for we shall then clearly com- 
 prehend the force of the expression, l How shall those 
 be cursed whom God hath not cursed?' or, in other 
 words, ;the impossibility will appear of keeping any 
 nation or people buried in everlasting degradation and 
 contempt for whose exaltation the arm of Omnipotence 
 is manifestly stretched forth."* 
 
 The position of the people of Liberia invests them 
 with peculiar ability for doing good in behalf of the 
 down-trodden race to which they belong. If they 
 properly use that ability, they may exert no inconsider- 
 able influence in bringing about the universal disen- 
 thrallment and elevation of Africans. They should 
 not, in order to benefit their enslaved brethren, " render 
 evil for evil" to their oppressors. Such a course is 
 productive of no good ; it is a plan of procedure that 
 finds no sympathy in these enlightened days ; it is a 
 progeny of the dark ages. These are times when, by 
 argumentation and demonstration, the moral sensibilities 
 of men must be appealed to. Physical inconveniences, 
 employed for the purpose of correcting moral evils, 
 have no true reformatory effect. Men must be led, not 
 driven. No desirable effect can be produced by reiter- 
 ating doleful complaints and harsh vituperations against 
 men on account of their prejudices. But a great deal 
 is accomplished by furnishing practical demonstrations 
 that such prejudices are destitute of foundation. And 
 
 * Message of President Benson, December 4th, 1854. 
 
64 LIBERIA'S OFFERING. 
 
 this is the work of the people of Liberia in particular, 
 and of colored men in general. We must prove to onr 
 oppressors that we are men, possessed of like suscepti- 
 bilities with themselves ; by seeking after those attri- 
 butes which give dignity to a state ; by cultivating 
 those virtues which shed lustre upon individuals and 
 communities ; by pursuing whatever is magnificent in 
 enterprise, whatever is lovely and of good report in 
 civilization, whatever is exalted in morals, and what- 
 ever is exemplary in piety. Then shall we prove that 
 we. do possess "rights which white people are bound to 
 respect," the decision of an enlightened Chief-Justice 
 to the contrary notwithstanding. But so long as we 
 contentedly remain at the foot of the ladder at whose 
 top our oppressors stand, it is unreasonable, it is absiud 
 to call upon them to recognize us as equals in every 
 respect ; and it is worse than absurdity to abuse and 
 vilify them for their opinions and prejudices with 
 respect to us. We must make our way to the position 
 which they occupy. And having overstepped the in- 
 terval which has so long separated us from them, and 
 standing with them on the same summit, we shall be 
 welcomed as equals. Then will Shem, Ham, and Ja- 
 pheth dwell together as brethren, in " liberty, equality, 
 and fraternity." There will be no more slavery, for 
 Canaan, the " servant of servants," has been extermi* 
 nated. 
 
THE CALL OF PKOYIDENCE 
 
 TO THE 
 
 A DISOOUESE 
 
 DELIVEEED TO COLOEED CONGEEGATIONS IN THE CITIES OE NEW- 
 
 TOEK, PHILADELPHIA, BALTIMOEE, HAEEISBTJEGH, ETC., 
 
 DTJKING THE SUMMEE OP 1862. 
 
THE CALL OF PROVIDENCE 
 
 §mm&mt$ of §tfwa fa gjuwtfa. 
 
 " Behold, the Lord thy God hath set the land before thee : go up and possess 
 it, as the Lord God of thy fathers hath said unto thee ; fear not, neither be discour- 
 aged." — Deuteronomy 1 : 21. 
 
 Among the descendants of Africa in this country the 
 persuasion seems to prevail, though not now to the 
 same extent as formerly, that they owe no special duty 
 to the land of their forefathers; that their ancestors 
 having been brought to this country against their will, 
 and themselves having been born in the land, they are 
 in duty bound to remain here and give their attention 
 exclusively to the acquiring for themselves, and perpet- 
 uating to their posterity, social and political rights, not- 
 withstanding the urgency of the call which their father- 
 land, by its forlorn and degraded moral condition, 
 makes upon them for their assistance. 
 
 All other people feel a pride in their ancestral land, 
 and do every thing in their power to create for it, if it 
 has not already, an honorable name. But many of the 
 descendants of Africa, on the contrary, speak disparag- 
 ingly of their country; are ashamed to acknowledge 
 any connection with that land, and would turn indig- 
 nantly upon any who would bid them go up and take 
 possession of the land of their fathers. 
 
68 Liberia's offering. 
 
 It is a sad feature in the residence of Africans in this 
 country, that it has begotten in them a forgetfulness of 
 Africa — a want of sympathy with her in her moral and 
 intellectual desolation, and a clinging to the land which 
 for centuries has been the scene of their thralldom. A 
 shrewd European observer* of American society, says 
 of the negro in this country, that he " makes a thou- 
 sand fruitless efforts to insinuate himself among men 
 who repulse him ; he conforms to the taste of his op- 
 pressors, adopts their opinions, and hopes by imitating 
 them to form a part of their community. Having been 
 told from infancy that his race is naturally inferior to 
 that of the whites, he assents to the proposition, and is 
 ashamed of his own nature. In each of his features he 
 discovers a trace of slavery, and, if it were in his power, 
 he would willingly rid himself of every thing that 
 makes him what he is." 
 
 It can not be denied that some very important ad- 
 vantages have accrued to the black man from his de- 
 portation to this land, but it has been at the expense of 
 his manhood. Our nature in this country is not the 
 same as it appears among the lordly natives of the in- 
 terior of Africa, who have never felt the trammels of a 
 foreign yoke. We have been dragged into depths of 
 degradation. We have been taught a cringing servil- 
 ity. We have been drilled into contentment with the 
 most undignified circumstances. Our finer sensibilities 
 have been blunted. There has been an almost utter 
 extinction of all that delicacy of feeling and sentiment 
 which adorns character. The temperament of our souls 
 has become harder or coarser, so that we can walk forth 
 here, in this land of indignities, in ease and in compla- 
 cency, while our complexion furnishes ground for eve'ry 
 
 * De Tocqueville, Democracy in America. 
 
Liberia's offering. 69 
 
 species of social insult which an intolerant prejudice 
 may choose to inflict. 
 
 But a change is coming over us. The tendency of 
 events is directing the attention of the colored people 
 to some other scene, and Africa is beginning to receive 
 the attention, which has so long been turned away from 
 her ; and as she throws open her portals and shows the 
 inexhaustible means of comfort and independence with- 
 in, the black man begins to feel dissatisfied with the 
 annoyances by which he is here surrounded, and looks 
 with longing eyes to his fatherland. I venture to pre- 
 dict that, within a very brief period, that down-trodden 
 land instead of being regarded with prejudice and dis- 
 taste, will largely attract the attention and engage the 
 warmest interest of eveiy man of color. A few have 
 always sympathized with Africa, but it has been an in- 
 dolent and unmeaning sympathy — a sympathy which 
 put forth no effort, made no sacrifices, endured no self- 
 denial, braved no obloquy for the sake of advancing 
 African interests. But the scale is turning, and Africa 
 is becoming the all-absorbing topic. 
 
 It is my desire, on the present occasion, to endeavor 
 to set before you the work which, it is becoming more 
 and more apparent, devolves upon the black men of the 
 United States; and to guide my thoughts, I have 
 chosen the words of the text : " Behold, the Lord thy 
 God hath set the land before thee : go up and j>ossess 
 it, as the Lord God of thy fathers hath said unto thee ; 
 fear not, neither be discouraged." v 
 
 You will at once perceive that I do not believe that 
 the work to be done by black men is in this country. 
 I believe that their field of operation is in some other 
 and distant scene. Their work is far nobler and loftier 
 than that which they are now doing in this country. 
 
70 LIBERIA'S OFFERING. 
 
 It is theirs to betake themselves to injured Africa, and 
 bless those outraged shores, and quiet those distracted 
 families with the blessings of Christianity and civiliza- 
 tion. It is theirs to bear with them to that land the 
 arts of industry and peace, and counteract the influence 
 of those horrid abominations which an inhuman avarice 
 has introduced — to roll back the appalling cloud of ig- 
 norance and superstition which overspreads the land, 
 and to rear on those shores an asylum of liberty for the 
 down-trodden sons of Africa wherever found. This is 
 the work to which Providence is obviously calling the 
 black men of this country. 
 
 I am aware that some, against all experience, are 
 hoping for the day when they will enjoy equal social 
 and political rights in this land. "We do not blame 
 them for so believing and trusting. But we would re- 
 mind them that there is a faith against reason, against 
 experience, which consists in believing or pretending to 
 believe very important propositions upon very slender 
 proofs, and in maintaining opinions without any proper 
 grounds. It ought to be clear to every thinking and 
 impartial mind, that there can never occur in this coun- 
 try an equality, social or political, between whites and 
 blacks. The whites have for a long time had the ad- 
 vantage. All the affairs of the country are in their 
 hands. They make and administer the laws; they 
 teach the schools ; here, in the North, they ply all the 
 trades, they own all the stores, they have possession of 
 all the banks, they own all the ships and navigate 
 them; they are the printers, proprietors, and editors of 
 the leading newspapers, and they shape public opinion. 
 Having always had the lead, they have acquired an as- 
 cendency they will ever maintain. The blacks have 
 very few or no agencies in operation to counteract the 
 ascendant influence of the Europeans. And instead of 
 
Liberia's offering. 71 
 
 employing what little they have by a unity of effort to 
 alleviate their condition, they turn all their power 
 against themselves by their endless jealousies, and 
 rivalries, and competition ; every one who is able to 
 " pass " being emulous of a place among Europeans or 
 Indians. This is the effect of their circumstances. It 
 is the influence of the dominant class upon. them. It 
 argues no essential inferiority in them — no more than 
 the disadvantages of the Israelites in Egypt argued 
 their essential inferiority to the Egyptians. They are 
 the weaker class overshadowed and depressed by the 
 stronger. They are the feeble oak dwarfed by the 
 overspreadings of a large tree, having not the advan- 
 tage of rain, and sunshine, and fertilizing dews. 
 
 Before the weaker people (rod has set the land of 
 their forefathers, and bids them go up and possess it 
 without fear or discouragement. Before the tender 
 plant he sets an open field, where, in the unobstructed 
 air and sunshine, it may grow and flourish in all its na- 
 tive luxuriance. 
 
 There are two ways in which God speaks to men : 
 one is by his word and the other by his providence. 
 He has not sent any Moses, with signs and wonders, to 
 cause an exodus of the descendants of Africa to their 
 fatherland, yet he has loudly spoken to them as to their 
 duty in the matter. He has spoken by his providence. 
 First ; By suffering them to be brought here and placed 
 in circumstances where they could receive a training 
 fitting them for the work of civilizing and evangelizing 
 the land whence they were torn, and by preserving 
 them under the severest trials and afflictions. Secondly ; 
 By allowing them, notwithstanding all the services they 
 have rendered to this country, to be treated as strangers 
 and aliens, so as to cause them to have anguish of spir- 
 it, as was the case with the Jews in Egypt, and to 
 
72 libeeia's offering. 
 
 make them long for some refuge from their social and 
 civil deprivations. Thirdly; By bearing a portion of 
 them across the tempestuous seas back to Africa, by 
 preserving them through the process of acclimation, and 
 by establishing them in the land, despite the attempts 
 of misguided men to drive them away. Fourthly ; By 
 keeping their fatherland in reserve for them in their 
 absence. 
 
 The manner in which Africa has been kept from in- 
 vasion is truly astounding. Known for ages, it is yet 
 unknown. For centuries its inhabitants have been the 
 victims of the cupidity of foreigners. The country has 
 been rifled of its population. It has been left in some 
 portions almost wholly unoccupied, but it has remained 
 unmolested by foreigners. It has been very near the 
 crowded countries of the world, yet none has relieved 
 itself to any great extent of its overflowing population 
 by seizing upon its domains. Europe, from the North, 
 looks wishfully and with longing eyes across the narrow 
 straits of Gibraltar. Asia, with its teeming millions, is 
 connected with us by an isthmus wide enough to admit 
 of her throwing thousands into that country. But, 
 notwithstanding the known wealth of the resources of 
 the land, of which the report has gone into all the 
 earth, there is still a terrible vail between us and our 
 neighbors, the all-conquering Europeans, which they are 
 only now essaying to lift ; while the teeming millions 
 of Asia have not even attempted to leave their boun- 
 daries to penetrate our borders. Neither alluring vis- 
 ions of glorious conquests, nor brilliant hopes of rapid 
 enrichment, could induce them to invade the country. 
 It has been preserved alike from the boastful civiliza- 
 tion of Europe, and the effete and barbarous institutions 
 of Asia. We call it, then, a Providential interposition, 
 that while the owners of the soil have been abroad, 
 
Liberia's offering. 73 
 
 passing through the fearful ordeal of a most grinding 
 oppression, the land, though entirely unprotected, has 
 lain uninvaded. We regard it as a providential call to 
 Africans every where, to " go up and possess the land ;" 
 so that in a sense that is not merely constructive and 
 figurative, but truly literal, God says to the black men 
 of this country, with reference to Africa : " Behold, I 
 set the land before you, go up and possess it." 
 
 Of course it can not be expected that this subject of 
 the duty of colored men to go up and take possession 
 of their fatherland, will be at once clear to every mind. 
 Men look at objects from different points of view, and 
 form their opinions according to the points from which 
 they look, and are guided in their actions according to 
 the opinions they form. As I have already said, the 
 majority of exiled Africans do not seem to appreciate 
 the great privilege of going and taking possession of 
 the land. They seem to have lost all interest in that 
 land, and to prefer living in subordinate and inferior 
 positions in a strange land among oppressors, to encoun- 
 tering the risks involved in emigrating to a distant coun- 
 try. As I walk the streets of these cities, visit the hotels 
 go on board the steamboats, I am grieved to notice how 
 much intelligence, how much strength and energy is 
 frittered away in those trifling employments, which, if 
 thrown into Africa, might elevate the millions of that 
 land from their degradation, tribes at a time, and create 
 an African power which would command the respect of 
 the world, and place in the possession of Africans, its 
 rightful owners, the wealth which is now diverted to 
 other quarters. Most of the wealth that could be 
 drawn from that land, during the last six centuries, has 
 passed into the hands of Europeans, while many of 
 Africa's own sons, sufficiently intelligent to control those 
 
74 Liberia's offering. 
 
 immense resources, are sitting down in poverty and de- 
 pendence in the land of strangers — exiles when they 
 have so rich a domain from which they have never been 
 expatriated, but which is willing, nay, anxious to wel- 
 come them home again. 
 <r **~i We need some African power, some great center of 
 the race where our physical, pecuniary, and intellectual 
 strength may be collected. "We need some spot whence 
 such an influence may go forth in behalf of the race as 
 shall be felt by the nations. We are now so scattered 
 and divided that we can do nothing. The imposition 
 begun last year by a foreign power upon Hayti, and 
 which is still persisted in, fills every black man who 
 has heard of it with indignation, but we are not strong 
 enough to speak out effectually for that land. When 
 the same power attempted an outrage upon the Libe. 
 rians, there was no African power strong enough to 
 interpose. So long as we remain thus divided, we may 
 expect impositions. So long as we live simply by the 
 sufferance of the nations, we must expect to be subject 
 to their caprices. 
 
 Among the free portion of the descendants of Africa, 
 numbering about four or five millions, there is enough 
 talent, wealth, and enterprise, to form a respectable 
 nationality on the continent of Africa. For nigh three 
 hundred years their skill and industry have been ex- 
 pended in building up the southern countries of the 
 New World, the poor, frail constitution of the Cau- 
 casian not allowing him to endure the fatigue and toil 
 involved in such labors. Africans and their descend- 
 ants have been the laborers, and the mechanics, and the 
 artisans in the greater portion of this hemisphere. By 
 the results of their labor the European countries have 
 been sustained and enriched. All the cotton, coffee, 
 indigo, sugar, tobacco, etc., which have formed the most 
 
LIBERIA'S. OFFERING. 75 
 
 important articles of European commerce, have been 
 raised^ and prepared for market by the labor of the 
 black man. Dr. Palmer of New-Orleans, bears the 
 same testimony* And all this labor they have done, 
 for the most part not only without compensation, but 
 with abuse, and contempt, and insult, as their reward. 
 
 Now, while Europeans are looking to our father- 
 land with such eagerness of desire, and are hastening 
 to explore and take away its riches, ought not Africans 
 in the Western hemisphere to turn their regards thither 
 also ? We need to collect the scattered forces of the 
 race, and there is no rallying-ground more favorable 
 than Africa. There 
 
 " No pent-up Utica contracts our powers, 
 The whole boundless continent is ours." 
 
 Ours as a gift from the Almighty when he drove asun- 
 der the nations and assigned them their boundaries ; 
 and ours by peculiar physical adaptation. 
 
 An African nationality is our great need, and God 
 tells us by his providence that he has set the land 
 before us, and bids us go up and possess it. We shall 
 never receive the respect of other races until we estab- 
 lish a powerful nationality. We should not content 
 ourselves with living among other races, simply by their 
 permission or their endurance, as Africans live in this 
 country. We must build urj_negrp. states ; we must 
 establish and maintain the various institutions; we 
 must make and administer laws, erect and preserve 
 churches, and support the worship of God ; we must 
 
 * In the famous sermon of this distinguished divine on Slavery a Divine 
 Trust, he says : " The enriching commerce which has built the splendid cities and 
 marble palaces of England as well as of America, has been largely established upon 
 the products of Southern soil ; and the blooms upon Southern fields, gathered by 
 black hands, have fed the spindles and looms of Manchester and Birmingham not 
 less than of Lawrence and Lowell." 
 
76 LIBERIA'S OFFERING. 
 
 have governments ; we must have legislation of our 
 own ; we must build ships and navigate them ; we 
 must ply the trades, instruct the schools, control the 
 press, and thus aid in shaping the opinions and guiding 
 the destinies of mankind. Nationality is an ordinance 
 of Nature. The heart of every true negro yearns after 
 a distinct and separate nationality. 
 
 Impoverished, feeble, and alone, Liberia is striving to 
 establish and build up such a nationality in the home 
 of the race. Can any descendant of Africa turn con- 
 temptuously upon a scene where such efforts are making 1 
 Would not every right-thinking negro rather lift up 
 his voice and direct the attention of his brethren to that 
 land ? Liberia, with outstretched arms, earnestly invites 
 all to come. We call them forth out of all nations ; 
 we bid them take up their all and leave the countries 
 of their exile, as of old the Israelites went forth from 
 Egypt, taking with them their trades and their treas- 
 ures, their intelligence, their mastery of arts, their 
 knowledge of the sciences, their practical wisdom, and 
 every thing that will render them useful in building up 
 a nationality. We summon them from these States, 
 from the Canadas, from the East and West-Indies, from 
 South- America, from every where, to come and take 
 part with us in our great work. 
 
 But those whom we call are under the influence of 
 various opinions, having different and conflicting views 
 of their relations and duty to Africa, according to the 
 different stand-points they occupy. So it was with 
 another people who, like ourselves, were suffering from 
 the effects of protracted thralldom, when on the bor- 
 ders of the land to which God was leading them. 
 When Moses sent out spies to search the land of Ca- 
 naan, every man, on his return, seemed to be influenced 
 in his report by his peculiar temperament, previous 
 
Liberia's offering. 77 
 
 habits of thought, by the degree of his physical cour- 
 age, or by something peculiar in his point of observa- 
 tion. All agreed, indeed, that it was an exceedingly 
 rich land, " flowing with milk and honey," for they car- 
 ried with them on their return, a proof of its amazing 
 fertility. But a part, and a larger part, too, saw only 
 giants and walled towns, and barbarians and cannibals. 
 " Surely," said they, " it floweth with milk and honey. 
 Nevertheless the people be strong that dwell in the 
 land, and the cities are walled, and very great ; and 
 moreover we saw the children of Anak there. The 
 land through which we have gone to search it, is a land 
 that eateth up the inhabitants thereof; and all the peo- 
 ple that we saw in it are men of a great stature. And 
 there we saw the giants, the sons of Anak, which come 
 of the giants : and we were in our own sight as grass- 
 hoppers, and so we were in their sight." It was only a 
 small minority of that company that saw things in a 
 more favorable light. " Caleb stilled the people before 
 Moses, and said, Let us go up at once and possess it • 
 for we be well able to overcome it." (Numbers 13.) 
 
 In like manner there is division among the colored 
 people of this country with regard to Africa, that land 
 which the providence of God is bidding them go up 
 and possess. Spies sent from different sections of this 
 country by the colored people — and many a spy not 
 commissioned — have gone to that land, and have re- 
 turned and reported. Like the Hebrew spies, they 
 have put forth diverse views. Most believe Africa to 
 be a fertile and rich country, and an African nationality 
 a desirable thing. But some affirm that the land is not 
 fit to dwell in, for "it is a land that eateth up the 
 inhabitants thereof," notwithstanding the millions of 
 strong and vigorous aborigines who throng all parts 
 
78 libeeia's offeeing. 
 
 of tlie country, and the thousands of colonists who are 
 settled along the coast; some see in the inhabitants 
 incorrigible barbarism, degradation, and superstition, 
 and insuperable hostility to civilization ; others suggest 
 that the dangers and risks to be encountered, and the 
 self-denial to be endured, are too great for the slender 
 advantages which, as it appears to them, will accrue 
 from immigration. A few only report that the land is 
 open to us on every hand — that "every prospect 
 pleases," and that the natives are so tractable that it 
 would be a comparatively easy matter for civilized and 
 Christianized black men to secure all the land to 
 Christian law, liberty, and civilization. 
 
 I come to-day to defend the report of the minority. 
 The thousands of our own race, emigrants from this 
 country, settled for more than forty years in that land, 
 agree with the minority report. Dr. Barth, and other 
 travelers to the east and south-east of Liberia, indorse 
 the sentiment of the minority, and testify to the beau- 
 ty, and healthfalness, and productiveness of the country, 
 and to the mildness and hospitality of its inhabitants. 
 In Liberia we hear from natives, who are constantly 
 coming to our settlements from the far interior, of land 
 exuberantly fertile, of large, numerous, and wealthy 
 tribes, athletic and industrious ; not the descendants of 
 Europeans — according to Bowen's insane theory — but 
 black men, pure negroes, who live in large towns, culti- 
 vate the soil, and carry on extensive traffic, maintaining 
 amicable relations with each other and with men from 
 a distance. 
 
 The ideas that formerly prevailed of the interior of 
 Africa, which suited the purposes of poetry and sensa- 
 tion writing, have been proved entirely erroneous. 
 Poets may no longer sing with impunity of Africa : 
 
LIBERIA'S OFFERING. 79 
 
 "A region of drought, where no river glides, 
 Nor rippling brook with osiered sides ; 
 Where sedgy pool, nor bubbling fount, 
 Nor tree, nor cloud, nor misty mount, 
 Appears to refresh the aching eye, 
 But barren earth and the burning sky, 
 And the blank horizon round and round." 
 
 No ; missionary and scientific enterprises have disproved 
 such fallacies. The land possesses every possible in- 
 ducement. That extensive and beauteous domain 
 which Gpd has given us appeals to us and to black 
 men every where, by its many blissful and benignant 
 aspects ; by its flowery landscapes, its beautiful rivers, 
 its serene and peaceful skies ; by all that attractive and 
 perennial verdure which overspreads the hills and val- 
 leys ; by its every prospect lighted up by delightful 
 sunshine ; by all its natural charms, it calls upon us to 
 rescue it from the grasp of remorseless superstition, 
 and introduce the blessings of the Gospel. 
 
 But there are some among the intelligent colored 
 people of this country who, while they profess to have 
 great love for Africa, and tell us that their souls are 
 kindled when they hear of their fatherland, yet object 
 to going themselves, because, as they affirm, the black 
 man has a work to accomplish in this land — he has a 
 destiny to fulfill. He, the representative of Africa, like 
 the representatives from various parts of Europe, must 
 act his part in building up this great composite nation. 
 It is not difficult to see what the work of the black 
 man is in this land. The most inexperienced observer 
 may at once read his destiny. Look at the various 
 departments of society here in the free North ; look at 
 the different branches of industry, and see how the 
 black man is aiding to build up this nation. Look 
 at the hotels, the saloons, the steamboats, the barber- 
 
80 libeeia's offering. 
 
 shops, and see how successfully he is carrying out his 
 destiny ! And there is an extreme likelihood that such 
 are forever to be the exploits which he is destined to 
 achieve in this country until he merges his African 
 peculiarities in the Caucasian. 
 
 Others object to the climate of Africa, first, that it is 
 unhealthy, and secondly, that it is not favorable to in- 
 tellectual progress. To the first, we reply that it is 
 not more insalubrious than other new countries. Per- 
 sons going to Africa, who have not been broken down 
 as to their constitutions in this country, stand as fair a 
 chance of successful acclimation as in any other country 
 of large, unbroken forests and extensively uncleared 
 lands. In all new countries there are sufferings and 
 privations. All those countries which have grown up 
 during the last two centuries, in this hemisphere, have 
 had as a foundation the groans, and tears, and blood of 
 the pioneers. But what are the sufferings of pioneers, 
 compared with the greatness of the results they accom- 
 plish for succeeding generations? Scarcely any great 
 step in human progress is made without multitudes of 
 victims. Every revolution that has been effected, every 
 nationality that has been established, every country that 
 has been rescued from the abominations of savagism, 
 every colony that has been planted, has involved per- 
 plexities and sufferings to the generation who under- 
 took it. In the evangelization of Africa, in the erection 
 of African nationalities, we can expect no exceptions. 
 The man, then, who is not able to suffer and to die for 
 his fellows when necessity requires it, is not fit to be a 
 pioneer in this great work. 
 
 We believe, as we have said, that the establishment 
 
 of an African nationality in Africa is the great need of 
 
 , the African race ; and the men who have gone, or may 
 
Liberia's offering. 81 
 
 hereafter go to assist in laying the foundations of em- 
 pire, so far from "being dupes, or cowards, or traitors, as 
 some have ignorantly called them, are the truest heroes 
 of the race. They are the soldiers rushing first into 
 the breach — physicians who at the risk of their own 
 lives are first to explore an infectious disease. How 
 much more nobly do they act than those who have held 
 for years that it is nobler to sit here and patiently suf- 
 fer with our brethren ! Such sentimental inactivity 
 finds no respect in these days of rapid movement. The 
 world sees no merit in mere innocence. The man who 
 contents himself to sit down and exemplify the virtue 
 of patience and endurance will find no sympathy from 
 the busy, restless crowd that rush by him. Even the 
 " sick man " must get out of the way when he hears 
 the tramp of the approaching host, or be crushed by 
 the heedless and massive car of progress. Blind Bar- 
 tinieuses are silenced by the crowd. The world requires 
 active service; it respects only productive workers. 
 The days of hermits and monks have passed away. 
 Action — work, work — is the order of the day. Heroes 
 in the strife and struggle of humanity are the demand 
 of the age. 
 
 " They who would be free, themselves must strike the blow." 
 
 With regard to the objection founded upon the un- 
 favorableness of the climate to intellectual progress, I 
 have only to say, that proper moral agencies, when set 
 in operation, can not be overborne by physical causes. 
 " We continually behold lower laws held in restraint 
 by higher ; mechanic by dynamic ; chemical by vital ; 
 physical by moral."* It has not yet been proved that 
 with the proper influences, the tropics will not produce 
 
 * Dean Trench, quoted by Baden Powell in Essays and Reviews, 1861. 
 
 6 
 
82 LIBERIA'S OFFERING. 
 
 men of " cerebral activity." Those races which have 
 degenerated by a removal from the North to the trop- 
 ics did not possess the proper moral power. They had 
 in themselves the seed of degeneracy, and wonld have 
 degenerated any where. It was not Anglo-Saxon blood, 
 nor a temperate climate, that kept the first emigrants 
 to this land from falling into the same indolence and 
 inefficiency which have overtaken the European settlers 
 in South- America, bnt the Anglo-Saxon Bible — the 
 principles contained in that book, are the great conserv- 
 ative and elevating power. Man is the same, and the 
 human mind is the same, whether existing beneath 
 African suns or Arctic frosts. I can conceive of no dif- 
 ference. It is the moral influences brought to bear 
 upon the man that make the difference in his progress. 
 " High degrees of moral sentiment," says a distin- 
 guished American writer,* " control the unfavorable 
 influences of climate ; and some of our grandest exam- 
 ples of men and of races come from the equatorial re- 
 gions." Man is elevated by taking hold of that which 
 is higher than himself. Unless this is done, climate, 
 color, race, will avail nothing. 
 
 " unless above himself he can 
 
 Erect himself, how poor a thing is man !" 
 
 For my own part, I believe that the brilliant world of 
 the tropics, with its marvels of nature, must of neces- 
 sity give to mankind a new career of letters, and new 
 forms in the various arts, whenever the millions of men 
 at present uncultivated shall enjoy the advantages of 
 civilization. 
 
 0^ Africa will furnish a development of civilization 
 which the world has never yet witnessed. Its great 
 
 * R. W. Emerson, in the Atlantic Monthly, April, 1862. 
 
Liberia's offering. 83 
 
 peculiarity will be its moral element. The Gospel is 
 to achieve some of its most beautiful triumphs in that 
 land. " God shall enlarge Japheth, and he shall dwell 
 in the tents of Shem," was the blessing upon the Eu- 
 ropean and Asiatic races. Wonderfully have these 
 predictions been fulfilled. The all-conquering descend- 
 ants of Japheth have gone to eveiy clime, and have 
 planted themselves on almost every shore. By means 
 fail 1 and unfair, they have spread themselves, have 
 grown wealthy and powerful. They have been truly 
 " enlarged." God has " dwelt in the tents of Shem,'' 
 for so some understand the passage. The Messiah — 
 God manifest in the flesh — was of the tribe of Judah. 
 He was born and dwelt in the tents of Shem. The 
 promise to Ethiopia, or Ham, is like that to Shem, of a 
 spiritual kind. It refers not to physical strength, not 
 to large and extensive domains, not to foreign con- 
 quests, not to wide-spread domination, but to the pos- 
 session of spiritual qualities, to the elevation of the soul 
 heavenward, to spiritual aspirations and divine com- 
 munications. " Ethiopia shall stretch forth her hands 
 unto God." Blessed, glorious promise ! Our trust is 
 not to be in chariots or horses, not in our own skill or 
 power, but our help is to be in the name of the Lord. 
 And surely, in reviewing our history as a people, 
 whether we consider our preservation in the lands of 
 our exile, or the preservation of our fatherland from in- 
 vasion, we are compelled to exclaim : " Hitherto hath 
 the Lord helped us !" Let us, then, fear not the influ- 
 ences of climate. Let us go forth stretching out our 
 hands to God, and if it be as hot as Nebuchadnezzar's 
 furnace, there will be one in the midst like unto the 
 Son of God, counteracting its deleterious influences. 
 Behold, then, the Lord our God has set the land be- 
 
84 Liberia's offering. 
 
 fore us, with its burning climate, with its privations, 
 with its moral, intellectual, and political needs, and by 
 his providence he bids us go up and possess it without 
 fear or discouragement. Shall we go up at his bid- 
 ding ? If the black men of this country, through un- 
 belief or indolence, or for any other cause, fail to lay 
 hold of the blessings which God is proffering to them, 
 and neglect to accomplish the work which devolves 
 upon them, the work will be done, but others will be 
 brought in to do it, and to take possession of the 
 country. 
 
 For while the colored people here are tossed about by 
 various and conflicting opinions as to their duty to that 
 land, men are going thither from other quarters of the 
 globe. They are entering the land from various quar- 
 ters with various motives and designs, and may eventu- 
 ally so preoccupy the land as to cut us off from the fair 
 inheritance which lies before us, unless we go forth 
 without further delay and establish ourselves. 
 
 The enterprise and energy manifested by white men 
 who, with uncongenial constitutions, go from a distance 
 to endeavor to open up that land to the world, are' far 
 from creditable to the civilized and enlightened colored 
 men of the United States, when contrasted with their 
 indifference in the matter. A noble army of self-expa- 
 triated evangelists have gone to that land from Europe 
 and America ; and, while anxious to extend the bless- 
 ings of true religion, they have in no slight degree pro- 
 moted the cause of science and commerce. Many have 
 fallen, either from the effects of the climate or by the 
 hands of violence ;* still the interest in the land is by 
 
 * The names of John Ledyard, Frederick Horneman, Dr. Walter Oudney, Cap- 
 tain Clapperton, Major Denman, John Richardson, and Dr. Overweg occur in the 
 list of those who have fallen victims either to the climate or the hardships of their 
 pilgrimage. But a more melancholy enumeration may be made. Major Houghton 
 
Liberia's offering. 85 
 
 no means diminished. The enamored worshiper of 
 science, and the Christian philanthropist, are still la- 
 boring to solve the problem of African geography, and 
 to elevate its benighted tribes. They are not only dis- 
 closing to the world the mysteries of regions hitherto 
 unexplored, but tribes whose very existence had not 
 before been known to the civilized world have been 
 brought, through their instrumentality, into contact 
 with civilization and Christianity. They have discov- 
 ered in \ the distant portions of that land countries as 
 productive as any in Europe and America. They have 
 informed the world of bold and lofty mountains, ex- 
 tensive lakes, noble rivers, falls rivaling Niagara, so 
 that, as a result of their arduous, difficult, and philan- 
 thropic labors of exploration, the cause of Christianity, 
 ethnology, geography, and commerce has been, in a very 
 important degree, subserved. 
 
 Dr. Livingstone, the indefatigable African explorer, 
 who, it is estimated, has passed over not less than eleven 
 thousand miles of African ground, speaking of the mo- 
 tives which led him to those shores, and still keep him 
 there in spite of privations and severe afflictions, says : 
 
 " I expect to find for myself no large fortune in that country ; nor do I 
 expect to explore any large portions of a new country ; but I do hope to 
 find a pathway, by means of the river Zambesi, which may lead to high- 
 lands, where Europeans may form a settlement, and where, by opening up 
 communication and establishing commercial intercourse with the natives of 
 Africa, they may slowly, but not the less surely, impart to the people of 
 that country the knowledge and inestimable blessings of Christianity." 
 
 perished, or was murdered, in the basin of the Gambia. The truly admirable 
 Mungo Park was killed in an attack of the natives, at a difficult passage of the 
 Niger. The same fate befell Richard Lander in the lower course of the river. 
 Major Laing was foully slain in his tent at a halting-place in the Sahara. John 
 Davidson was assassinated soon after passing the fringe of the desert. Dr. Cowan 
 and Captain Donovan disappeared in the wilds of South-Africa. Dr. Vogel was 
 assassinated in the country about Lake Chad. — Leisure Hour. 
 
86 libeeia's offering. 
 
 The recently formed Oxford, Cambridge, and Dublin 
 Missionary Society state their object to be to spread 
 Christianity among the nntanght people of Central 
 Africa, " so to operate among them as by mere teaching 
 and influence to help to build up native Christian states." 
 The idea of building up " native Christian states " is a 
 very important one, and is exactly such an idea as 
 would be carried out if there were a large influx of 
 civilized blacks from abroad. 
 
 I am sorry to find that among some in this country, 
 the opinion prevails that in Liberia a distinction is 
 maintained between the colonists and the aborigines, so 
 that the latter are shut out from the social and political 
 privileges of the former. No candid person who has 
 read the laws of Liberia, or who has visited that coun- 
 try, can afiirni or believe such a thing. The idea no 
 doubt arises from the fact that the aborigines of a coun- 
 try generally suffer from the settling of colonists among 
 them. But the work of Liberia is somewhat different 
 from that of other colonies which have been planted on 
 foreign shores. The work achieved by other emigrants 
 has usually been — the enhancement of their own imme- 
 diate interests ; the increase of their physical comforts 
 and conveniences ; the enlargement of their borders by 
 the most speedy and available methods, without regard 
 to the effect such a course might have upon the aborig- 
 ines. Their interests sometimes coming into direct con- 
 tact with those of the owners of the soil, they have not 
 unfrequently, by their superior skill and power, reduced 
 the poor native to servitude or complete annihilation. 
 'The Israelites could live in peace in the land of Ca- 
 naan only by exterminating the indigenous inhabitants. 
 The colony that went out from Phenicia, and that laid 
 the foundations of empire on the northern shores of Af- 
 
Liberia's offering. 87 
 
 rica, at first paid a yearly tax to tlie natives ; with the 
 increasing wealth and power of Carthage, however, the 
 respective conditions of the Carthaginians and the na- 
 tives were changed, and the Phenician adventurers as- 
 sumed and maintained a dominion over the Libyans. 
 The colonies from Europe which landed at Plymouth 
 Rock, at Boston, and at Jamestown — which took posses- 
 sion of the West-India islands and of Mexico, treated 
 the aborigines in the same manner. The natives of 
 India, Australia, and New-Zealand are experiencing a 
 similar treatment under the overpowering and domineer- 
 ing rule of the Anglo-Saxons. Eagerness for gain and 
 the passion for territorial aggrandisement have appeared 
 to the colonists necessary to their growth and progress. 
 
 The work of Liberia, as I have said, is different and 
 far nobler. We, on the borders of our fatherland, can 
 not, as the framers of our Constitution wisely intimated, 
 allow ourselves to be influenced by " avaricious saccu- 
 lations," or by desires for " territorial aggrandisement." 
 Our work there is moral and intellectual as well as 
 physical. We have to work upon the people, as well 
 as upon the land — upon mind as well as upon matter. 
 Our prosperity depends as much upon the wholesome 
 and elevating influence we exert upon the native popu- 
 lation, as upon the progress we make in agriculture, 
 commerce, and manufacture. Indeed the conviction 
 prevails in Liberia among the thinking people that we 
 can make no important progress in these things without 
 the cooperation of the aborigines. We believe that no 
 policy can be more suicidal in Liberia than that which 
 would keep aloof from the natives around us. We 
 believe that our life and strength will be to elevate and 
 incorporate them among us as speedily as possible. 
 
 And, then, the aborigines are not a race alien from 
 
88 LIBERIA'S OFFERING. 
 
 the colonists. We are a part of theim When alien 
 and hostile races have come together, as we have just 
 seen, one has had to succumb to the other ; but when 
 different peoples of the same family have been brought 
 together, there has invariably been a fusion, and the 
 result has been an improved and powerful class. When 
 three branches of the great Teutonic family met on the 
 soil of England, they united. It is true that at first 
 there was a distinction of caste among them in conse- 
 quence of the superiority in every respect of the great 
 Norman people; but, as the others came up to their 
 level, the distinctions were quietly effaced, and Norman, 
 Saxon, and Dane easily amalgamated. Thus, " a people 
 inferior to none existing in the world was formed by 
 the mixture of three branches of the great Teutonic 
 family with each other and the aboriginal Britons."* 
 
 In America we see how readily persons from all parts 
 of Europe assimilate; but what great difficulty the 
 Negro, the Chinese, and the Indian experience! We 
 find here representatives from all the nations of Europe 
 easily blending with each other. But we find elements 
 that will not assimilate. The Negro, the Indian, and 
 the Chinese, who do not belong to the same family, 
 repel each other, and are repelled by the Europeans. 
 " The antagonistic elements are in contact, but refuse to 
 unite, and as yet no agent has been found sufficiently 
 potent to reduce them to unity." 
 
 But the case with Americo-Liberians and the abori- 
 gines is quite different. We are all descendants of 
 Africa. In Liberia there may be found persons of 
 almost every tribe in West- Africa, from Senegal to 
 Congo. And not only do we and the natives belong 
 to the same race, but we are also of the same family. 
 
 * Macaulay's History of England, vol. i. chap. 1. 
 
Liberia's offering. 89 
 
 The two peoples can no more be kept from assimilating 
 and blending than water can be kept from mingling 
 with its kindred elements. The policy of Liberia is to 
 diffuse among them as rapidly as possible the principles 
 of Christianity and civilization, to prepare them to take 
 an active part in the duties of the nationality which we 
 are endeavoring to erect. Whence, then, comes the 
 slander which represents Liberians as " maintaining a 
 distance from the aborigines — a constant and uniform 
 separation" % 
 
 To take part in the noble work in which they are 
 engaged on that coast, the government and people of 
 Liberia earnestly invite the descendants of Africa in 
 this country.* In all our feebleness, we have already 
 accomplished something ; but very little in comparison 
 of what has to be done. A beginning has been made, 
 however — a great deal of preparatory work accom- 
 plished. And if the intelligent and enterprising co- 
 lored people of this country would emigrate in large 
 numbers, an important work would be done in a short 
 time. And we know exactly the kind of work that 
 would be done. We know that where now stand un- 
 broken forests would spring up towns and villages, 
 with their schools and churches — that the natives 
 would be taught the arts of civilization — that their 
 energies would be properly directed — that their preju- 
 dices would disappear — that there would be a rapid 
 and important revulsion from the practices of heathen- 
 ism, and a radical change in their social condition — 
 
 * The Legislature of Liberia, at its last session, 1861-62, passed an Act 
 authorizing the appointment of Commissioners to "itinerate among and 
 lecture to the people of color in the United States of North-America, to 
 present to them the claims of Liberia, and its superior advantages as a 
 desirable home for persons of African descent." The President appointed 
 for this work, Professors Crummell and Blyden and J. D. Johnson, Esq. 
 
90 Liberia's offering. 
 
 that the glorious principles of a Christian civilization 
 would diffuse themselves throughout those benighted 
 communities. Oh ! that our people would take this 
 matter into serious consideration, and think of the 
 great privilege of kindling in the depths of the moral 
 and spiritual gloom of Africa a glorious light — of caus- 
 ing the wilderness and the solitary place to be glad — 
 the desert to bloom and blossom as the rose — and the 
 whole land to be converted into a garden of the Lord. 
 Liberia, then, appeals to the colored men of this 
 country for assistance in the noble work which she has 
 begun. She appeals to those who believe that the 
 descendants of Africa live in the serious neglect of their 
 duty if they fail to help to raise the land of their fore-^ 
 fathers from her degradation. She appeals to those \ 
 who believe that a well-established African nationality 
 is the most direct and efficient means of securing re- 
 spectability and independence for the African race. 
 She appeals to those who believe that a rich and fertile 
 country, like Africa, which has lain so long under the 
 cheerless gloom of ignorance, should not be left any 
 longer without the influence of Christian civilization — 
 to those who deem it a far more glorious work to save 
 extensive tracts of country from barbarism and con- 
 tinued degradation than to amass for themselves the 
 means of individual comfort and aggrandizement — to 
 those who believe that there was a providence in the 
 deportation of our forefathers from the land of their 
 birth, and that that same providence now points to a 
 work in Africa to be done by us their descendants. 
 Finally, Liberia appeals to all African patriots and 
 Christians — to all lovers of order and refinement — to 
 lovers of industry and enterprise — of peace, comfort, 
 and happiness — -to those who having felt the power of 
 
Liberia's offering. 91 
 
 the Gospel in opening up to them life and immortality, 
 are desirous that their benighted kindred should share 
 in the same blessings. " Behold, the Lord thy God 
 hath set the land before thee : go up and possess it, as 
 the Lord God of thy fathers hath said unto thee ; fear 
 not, neither be discouraged." 
 
INAUGURAL ADDRESS 
 
 INAUGURATION OF LIBERIA COLLEGE, 
 
 AT MONROVIA, 
 
 J^lSTTT^RY 23, 1863. 
 
INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 
 
 ■ Gentlemen of the Board of Trustees, and Respected 
 
 Audience : 
 
 An old and venerable custom, existing in countries 
 where colleges and universities have been long estab- 
 lished, requires that he who is entering upon the re- 
 sponsible office of Professor, should publicly express 
 the views which he entertains of the duties devolved 
 upon him, and the manner in which he will discharge 
 those duties. It is in accordance with this custom that 
 I appear before you to-day. 
 
 This is an auspicious day for Liberia, and for West- 
 Africa. The first College Edifice erected on this be- 
 nighted shore has been completed; and we, descend- 
 ants of Africa, are assembled to inaugurate it. Perhaps 
 this very day, one century ago, some of our forefathers 
 were being dragged to the hold of some miserable 
 slaver, to enter upon those horrible sufferings of the 
 "middle passage," preliminary to their introduction 
 into scenes and associations of deeper woe. To-day, 
 their descendants having escaped the fiery ordeal of 
 oppression and slavery, and having returned to their 
 ancestral home, are laying the foundation of intellectual 
 empire, upon the very soil whence their fathers were 
 torn, in their ignorance and degradation. Strange and 
 mysterious providence I 
 
96 Liberia's offering. 
 
 It is among the most fortunate circumstances, con- 
 nected with the founding of Liberia, that schools of a 
 high order, and now a college, should be established in 
 this early period of her history. It is impossible to 
 maintain our national independence, or grow in the ele- 
 ments of national prosperity, unless the people are gene- 
 rally imbued with a proper sense of their duties and 
 responsibilities, as citizens of a free government. £The 
 duties which devolve upon the citizens of Liberia, are 
 \s> as diversified and important as those which devolve 
 upon citizens of larger nations and communities ; and, 
 in order to discharge those duties faithfully and suc- 
 cessfully, we need all the fitness and qualification which 
 citizens of larger nations possess. /To say, as has been 
 too often said, by persons abroad and by persons here, 
 that the establishment of a college in Liberia at present 
 is premature, is to set aside the experience of older 
 countries, and to ignore the testimony which comes to 
 us from a hundred communities far in advance of us, 
 showing the indispensableness of institutions of a higher 
 order, to send down, through all the ramifications of 
 society, the streams of wholesome and elevating influ- 
 ence. 
 
 [I regard this, then, as an auspicious day for Liberia ; 
 hoping that there will be such a feeling of appreciation, 
 on the part of our people, of the importance of this In- 
 stitution, and such active cooperation with it, as shall 
 v render it useful as a means of building us up in all 
 
 those qualities which shall fit us for the discharge of 
 our various duties, and draw towards us the attention 
 and respect of the civilized world/ 
 
 The fear need not be entertained that a course of 
 study in this Institution will unfit men for the practical 
 duties of life, render them proud, and distant, and 
 
libeeia's offeeing. 97 
 
 haughty, and overbearing. Such is not the effect of a 
 true education. I am aware that there prevails with 
 some — and perhaps not entirely without foundation — 
 the opinion that the effect of superior education is to 
 innate men and render them impracticable. There 
 have been some among us who, not having trodden 
 even the threshold of the temple of knowledge, have 
 assumed an air of mysteriousness and profundity, in 
 order to impress the multitude with their intellectual 
 superiority and extraordinary importance. This is not, 
 however, the legitimate effect of true knowledge. They 
 are utter straugers to the genial influence of literature 
 upon the social sentiments, who suppose that men must 
 be distant, and haughty, and cold, in proportion as they 
 are profound. The man who has really ascended Par- 
 nassus, does not encounter there, as on some Alpine 
 summit, everlasting snows and ice, which chill and con- 
 tract the heart. No ; he finds himself in a warm and 
 delightful atmosphere, which expands the heart, quick- 
 ens the emotions, arouses the slumbering affections of 
 the soul, and fits him for communication and commu- 
 nion with other minds ; so that he experiences the \^" 
 greatest possible pleasure, in participating with others 
 the benefits he enjoys. He does not, when he ascends 
 the hill of science, find there luxuriant groves which 
 allure him into ease and inactivity, where, like Tityrus, 
 
 "Patulse recubans sub tegmine fagi r " 
 
 he might pass life away in quiet enjoyment. No ; he 
 has only reached a point from which he can contem- 
 plate the work to be done, and gather materials for car- 
 rying it on. 
 
 *- Every country has its peculiar circumstances and 
 characteristics. So has Liberia. From this fact, it has v " 
 often been argued that we need a peculiar kind of edu- 
 
98 libekia's offering. 
 
 cation ; not so much colleges and high schools, as other 
 means, which are more immediately and obviously con- 
 nected with our progress. But to this we reply, that 
 if we are a part of the human family, we have the same 
 intellectual needs that other men have, and they must 
 be supplied by the same means. It shows a painful ig- 
 norance of history, to consider the present state of 
 things in Liberia as new and unprecedented, in such a 
 sense as to render dispensable those most important and 
 fundamental means of improvement, which other coun- 
 tries have enjoyed. Mind is every where the same ; 
 and every where it receives character and formation 
 from the same elemental principles. If it have been 
 properly formed and have received a substantial charac- 
 ter, it will work out its own calling, solve its own pro- 
 blem, achieve its own destiny. 
 
 No country in the world needs, more than Liberia, 
 to have mind properly directed. We are here isolated 
 from the civilized world, and surrounded by a benighted 
 people, with whoni we are closely identified. And, in 
 these circumstances, we are making the experiment, 
 which, I venture to say, has never been made before, of 
 establishing and maintaining a popular government, 
 with a population, for the most part, of emancipated 
 slaves. The government is thrown into the hands of 
 the people, and they are called upon to give their 
 opinions upon all subjects which can affect us as a na- 
 tion; upon all the difficult subjects of finance, of legis- 
 lation, and the most intricate points of constitutional 
 law. Not only do they utter their opinions, but it is 
 their right and privilege to act upon these opinions ; 
 and they do act upon them — with what success, alas ! 
 we are too well aware. And in addition to these polit- 
 ical responsibilities, we have philanthropic duties to 
 
LIBERIA'S OFFERING. 99 
 
 perform towards our aboriginal brethren — duties which 
 require no little degree of intelligence and virtue. 
 
 De Tocqueville informs us that, before the colony 
 that landed at Plymouth was as old as Liberia, there 
 were laws enacted, establishing schools in every town- 
 ship, and obliging the inhabitants, under pain of heavy 
 fines, to support them. Schools of a superior kind 
 were founded in the same manner in the more pop- 
 ulous districts. The municipal authorities were bound 
 to enforce the sending of children to school by their 
 parents.* It is certainly a very remarkable fact, that, 
 in New-England, by the time the first child born in 
 the colony had reached a proper age for admission 
 to college, a college was established. They did not 
 wait to have all those preparations, which some have 
 fancied are necessary before Liberians can reap the 
 benefit of a college. We are informed that the forests 
 were yet standing ; the Indian was still the near neigh- 
 bor of the largest settlements ; the colonists were yet 
 dependent on the mother country for the very necessa- 
 ries of life ; and the very permanence of their settle- 
 ments was as yet undecided, when they were erecting 
 high schools and colleges. They did not regard it as 
 too early to provide for the thorough education of their 
 children. They had left their fatherland to seek an 
 asylum of liberty on those distant shores, and they well 
 knew that intelligence was indispensable to the enjoy- 
 ment and maintenance of true liberty. 
 
 The people of the South were no less eager to pro- 
 vide themselves with the means of education. The 
 colony of Virginia was still struggling against the difii- 
 ties and embarrassments incident to feeble settlements, 
 when the first efforts were made by the inhabitants to 
 
 * Democracy in America, vol. i. chap. 7. 
 
100 Liberia's offering. 
 
 establish, a college. As early as 1619, grants of land, 
 and liberal subscriptions, were obtained for the endow- 
 ment of the University of Henrico ; and we may form 
 some idea of the weak state of the colony, when we 
 learn that the University was destroyed by an Indian 
 massacre, and that the colony came very near being ex- 
 terminated. Before the close of that century, however, 
 the College of "William and Mary was in successful 
 operation.* 
 
 "Why then should not Liberia, after forty years' exist- 
 ence, having secured the confidence and respect of the 
 aboriginal tribes, enjoy the means of superior educa- 
 tion ? The name College, applied to this Institution, may 
 seem ambitious ; but it is not too early in our history 
 for us to aim at such institutions. Of course we can 
 not expect that it will at once fulfill all the conditions 
 of colleges in advanced countries ; but it may, in time, 
 as many American colleges have done, grow into an In- 
 stitution of respectability and extensive usefulness. 
 
 It can not be denied, that the studies which shall be 
 pursued in this Institution are of great utility to this 
 country just now. The college course will include all 
 those studies by which a people's mind and heart are 
 formed. "We shall have the study of language in the 
 most perfect forms in which it has ever been spoken by 
 man — a study which, as we shall endeavor to show, 
 aids greatly in the training and discipline of the mind. 
 
 We shall have the study of mathematics and physi- 
 cal science — which involves, of course, a study of the 
 laws of nature, and the acquirement of the essential 
 preliminary knowledge of all calculations, measure- 
 ments and observations, on the sea and on the land. 
 
 We shall have— r besides jurisprudence and interna- 
 
 * President Hale's Inaugural Address, Geneva College, 1836. 
 
Liberia's offering. 101 
 
 tional law — the study of intellectual and moral philo- 
 sophy, by which is gained a knowledge of the mind, and 
 the laws of thought, and of our duties to ourselves, to 
 our fellow-men, to society, and to God. 
 
 Will any one of the studies, which I have enumer- 
 ated, be superfluous in Liberia ? So far from it, the 
 course does not supply all our deficiencies. 
 
 But we need a practical education in Liberia. True ; 
 and so did the first settlers of North- America. And 
 does not the college course supply such an education ? 
 What is a practical education ? It is not simply pre- 
 paring a person specially for any one sphere of life. It 
 aims at practical results of a more important character 
 — at imparting not simply skill in keeping accounts — 
 in pleading at the bar — in surveying land — in navigat- 
 ing a vessel — but skill in exercising the intellect accu- 
 rately and readily, upon any subject brought before it. 
 The skill secured by a college education, is skill in the 
 use of the 'mind. 
 
 The influence of the colleges planted in New-England, 
 and elsewhere in the United States, in their early days, 
 was most remarkable. " The eloquence nurtured at 
 Harvard, rung like a trumpet-call, through town and 
 forest, to rouse the quiet inhabitants to the revolution- 
 ary struggle ; and the intelligence and learning which, 
 starting from her classic shades, had been diffused 
 through the whole community, had prepared all for 
 understanding and discussing the principles of that 
 liberty which belonged to them as men, and was guar- 
 anteed to them by the British constitution. Many of 
 the lofty spirits of those times were taught to reason, 
 and prepared to meet, in the discussion of the great 
 questions at issue, the ablest counselors of the old 
 world, and to maintain the cause of their country in 
 
102 libeeia's offeking. 
 
 the senate chamber — in these early institutions of learn- 
 ing. The success of that country in the struggle which 
 made her free, as well as in commerce and the arts, has 
 been owing to the unusual intelligence and virtue of 
 her people — virtue, which could not have existed with- 
 out intelligence, and was nourished by the same means 
 — and intelligence, derived from her higher seats of 
 learning, and diffused through her pulpits and her se- 
 condary schools, which, obtaining from the colleges 
 educated teachers, shone with a borrowed but most 
 salutary light upon the humblest cottages of the land." 
 As I remarked at the outset, the usage which brings 
 me before you to-day, enjoins upon the speaker a topic 
 which shall not be alien from the work in which he is 
 to be engaged in the Institution. Allow me, therefore, 
 to ask your kind attention, while I devote a portion of 
 time to the consideration of the subject of Language, 
 and to setting forth the value and utility of the Latin 
 and Greek languages, as means of education and cul- 
 ture. 
 
 I. Language is not natural to man. I mean that it 
 did not originate with man. In common with other 
 animals, man, as soon as he is born, can use the voice as 
 a medium of communication, but only in a succession of 
 cries ; he can not articulate ; he can not use language 
 until he is taught, or until he acquires it by imitation. 
 There is a diversity of opinion with regard to the origin 
 of language ; some supposing that the first man found 
 himself suddenly endowed with the ability to give ex- 
 pression to his thoughts by oral sounds ; while others 
 maintain that, like all other attainments of man, lan- 
 guage was made gradually. The latter opinion seems 
 the more reasonable. We can not, from all we know 
 of man, believe that this very important means of in- 
 
libeeia's offering. 103 
 
 tercourse witli his fellows — of conveying his thoughts, 
 feelings, and experiences, to distant generations, was 
 left to his invention, or to his precarious ingenuity. 
 Man, left to himself, has never discovered any means of 
 conveying his thoughts by articulate sounds. It is con- 
 clusively proved, that new-born babes, when left to 
 themselves, or exposed among beasts, ntter only sounds 
 in imitation of those beasts.* The most natural way 
 to man, of expressing his ideas, is by signs. This is the 
 universal language. This is the only way that deaf 
 mutes, who can not hear and imitate sounds, can con- 
 vey their own and receive the impressions of others. 
 Nearly all the travelers among the North-American 
 Indians agree that they have ever had a language of 
 signs, and can understand each other in this way, when 
 they are unable to comprehend each other's speech ; so 
 that individuals of two far-distant Indian tribes, who 
 understand not a word of each other's language, will 
 intelligibly converse together, and contract engage- 
 ments, without interpreters, " in such a surprising man- 
 ner as is scarcely credible." 
 
 The infinite variety of languages which now so much 
 impedes and incommodes the general intercourse of 
 nations is the result of direct divine interposition- 
 The whole earth, prior to the building of the tower of 
 Babel, was " of one language, and of one speech ;" but 
 during the erection of that ambitious structure, the Lord 
 " came down" and " confounded their lan^uao-e." Philo- 
 logists have classified the various languages in groups, 
 or families ; but they seem reducible to one primitive 
 idiom. " Every progress in the comparative study of 
 languages, brings to light new analogies in the structure 
 and in the grammatical forms and affinities of the roots 
 
 * Biiliotheca Sacra, vol. xviii. p. 775. 
 
10<± libeeia's offering. 
 
 and terms ; even the languages of the new continents do 
 not seem to Ibe excepted from this general resemblance." 
 A distinguished American philologist beautifully says : 
 " Nothing is found in the realms of speech, any more 
 than in those of nature, 'without father or mother.' 
 Here, as every where else, the maxim is true, ' Ex nihilo, 
 nihil fit.' The languages, therefore, of the world, like 
 the men who have spoken them, have all been bound to- 
 gether by a regular series of sequences, running link by 
 link in luminous beauty, from any and every language 
 now spoken upon earth, to the first language in which 
 listening angels heard Adam and Eve discourse to each 
 other ; and from that back to God himself, the great 
 All-in-all, from whose own girdle the golden chain of 
 human speech divine was dropped lovingly down to 
 man, in order to bind him to himself, and all nations 
 in heavenly sympathy with each other."* Says Dr. 
 Kalisch, an able Hebrew divine: "The linguistic re- 
 searches of modern times have more and more confirmed 
 the theory of one primitive Asiatic language, gradually 
 developed into the various modifications by external 
 agencies and influences. Formerly the Hebrew tongue 
 was, by many scholars, advocated as the original idiom ; 
 for it was maintained both by early Jewish and Christ- 
 ian authorities, that as the race of Shem were no part- 
 ners in the impious work of the Tower, they remained 
 in possession of the first language, which the fathers of 
 the earliest age had left to Noah ; but this view,, like 
 the more recent one, that a child, if left alone, without 
 human society, would speak Hebrew, is now classed 
 among the popular errors."f 
 
 The greater number of scientific writers on language, 
 agree that there was one primitive language, from which 
 
 * Dwight, Bib. Sacra, vol. xv. p. 404. 
 
 f Historical and Critical Comment on Genesis, chap. xi. 
 
Liberia's offering. 105 
 
 all the languages now spoken have sprung, and that 
 that language was communicated to man by the Al- 
 mighty. The question as to which language it was, is 
 not quite settled; at present the probability inclines 
 more to the Sanscrit. 
 
 II. Language is progressive. God did not, in other 
 departments of his work, make at once full and com- 
 plete manifestations ; there was a gradual unfolding, 
 according to circumstances, until there came to pass a 
 full development. So we have eveiy reason to believe 
 it was with language. Man, in his primitive condition, 
 did not possess all those mental states and wants which 
 only age and experience could bring with them; he 
 could not, therefore, have words to express what he had 
 not seen, felt, or heard ; nor could he form any concep- 
 tions, except from, the things with which he was then 
 in contact. When, therefore, the Divine Being assisted 
 or instructed the first man to express by words his feel- 
 ings, intentions, and thoughts, the instruction was adapt- 
 ed to his wants and circumstances. The simple forms 
 of language which he then received, have been succes- 
 sively developed, and modified, and perfected, according 
 as man has increased in the necessities and the arts of 
 life. We find that among barbarous tribes, language 
 is rude and deficient in point of words; so that the 
 civilized foreigner, who wishes to convey his own ideas 
 through the medium of such language, finds insuper- 
 able difficulties. Words are multiplied in proportion 
 as the number of the ideas of a people is increased. 
 Language " begins with the dawn of reflective con- 
 sciousness, and unfolds itself as this becomes deeper 
 and clearer."* 
 
 * Professor Shedd's Address on the Relation of Language to Thought. 
 
106 Liberia's offering. 
 
 Even in highly civilized countries, the vernacular, 
 strictly speaking, or the language spoken by the masses, 
 is very limited as to words, compared with the language 
 of the educated. It is said that in England, the lower 
 classes can not understand above one fourth part of that 
 English which the higher classes speak. If any of the 
 former visit the House of Lords, they sometimes sit 
 with as much astonishment and disprofit, as if the de- 
 bates were conducted in a new language. The vocabu- 
 lary of terms used in the Houses of Parliament is one 
 which is never pressed into the service of the common 
 people.* 
 
 The character of the language spoken by any people 
 is, therefore, a sure standard by which to judge of the 
 attainments of that people in the arts of life. The 
 poverty of the language of the ancient Britons, if we 
 had no other proof of their extremely rude condition, 
 would be enough to convince us that they had made 
 very little progress in civilization. Even after the 
 Saxon and Danish languages had been blended with 
 each other, and with the aboriginal tongue, still the 
 composite language had no " aptitude for all the highest 
 purposes of the poet, the philosopher, and the orator," 
 until it had been enriched by contributions froin the 
 languages of Greece and Rome. Take any of the lead- 
 ing English historians, Hume, Gibbon, Hallam, or Ma- 
 caulay, and you will find that nearly three fourths of 
 the words employed by them are of foreign origin ; 
 because there were no poets or philosophers, historians 
 or orators, among the aboriginal inhabitants of that 
 country. The language has progressed as the people 
 have improved. 
 
 * Py croft's Ways and Words of Men of Letters. 
 
LIBERIA'S OFFERING. 107 
 
 III. Language lies at the beginning and occupies an 
 important place in the continuation of all human educa- 
 tion. The child must first learn to understand language 
 before he can receive ideas in any great number or varie- 
 ty ; and he must learn to speak before he can express his 
 wants. And when he grows up, if, in his early years, 
 he has neglected the study of language, it matters not 
 what progress or discoveries he may make in physical 
 or mathematical science ; before his knowledge can be 
 made available, he must learn, the use of language. 
 This was the experience of George Stephenson, of rail- 
 way notoriety, of Hugh Miller, and of others who, by 
 force of " good, original brain," have arisen from a child- 
 hood of obscurity and poverty, to a useful and dis- 
 tinguished manhood. 
 
 The mastery of language, then, is a very important ele- 
 ment in our qualification for usefulness. All our attain- 
 ments would be useless, so far as accomplishing their 
 true end is concerned, if we had no means of commu- 
 nion or communication with other minds. The true 
 uses of knowledge are not to be found in centralization, 
 but in distribution. And it is only by this distribu- 
 tion of our intellectual resources that we can enlarge 
 them. Here also the scriptural assertion is verified: 
 " There is that scattereth, and yet increaseth ; there is 
 that withholdeth more than is meet, and it tendeth to 
 poverty." "Shut up within one's self, thought stag- 
 nates and knowledge decays." Language, therefore, as 
 the instrument which an unerring Divinity has given 
 to man for communicating thought and feeling, should 
 be carefully studied and mastered, not only in its gram- 
 matical inflections and syntactical combinations, but in 
 its original and derivative aspects. 
 
 As a means of thus mastering language, of under- 
 
108 libeeia's offering. 
 
 standing its genius and power, all the distinguished 
 educators of modern times have chosen the study of the 
 Greek and Latin languages. The Greek language is 
 artistic and complete in its grammatical structure — a 
 language of gracefulness and beauty, and highly adapt- 
 ed to aesthetic culture. The cultivation of the beauti- 
 ful is one of the first steps towards civilization. The 
 Greeks, who as a nation were the type of beauty, were 
 an element in the development of mankind ; and their 
 language is indispensable to the opening of the mind 
 for the reception and pursuit of abstract ideas. It was 
 a language which the Romans assiduously studied, as a 
 means of culture. The greatest orators and poets of 
 Rome were cultivated by it. The famous advice of 
 Horace will recur to the classical reader : 
 
 " Vos exemplaria Grasca 
 Nocturna versate inanu, versate diurna." * 
 
 The Latin language must be studied, not only for the 
 disciplinary influence of the study upon the mind, but 
 for its vast resources ; its inward treasures, as well as 
 its outward relations. It is connected with nearly all 
 the languages of the past, and has contributed of its 
 wealth to the formation of all the important modern 
 languages. Its acquisition is really the key to a tho- 
 rough knowledge of all the languages of the enlight- 
 ened part of mankind. 
 
 The Latin and Greek languages have furnished all 
 the linguistic culture, and have contributed to all the 
 rich results of the higher education of the whole civil- 
 ized world, for the last two thousand years. They who 
 contemptuously speak of them as "dead" languages, 
 know not that such utterances illustrate their own lack 
 of culture. These languages are " dead " to them, in all 
 
 * Epistola ad Pisones, 286. 
 
Liberia's offering. 109 
 
 their inward beauty and force, and in all their outward 
 scientific relations ; they can no more appreciate them, 
 than a blind man can appreciate the colors of the rain- 
 bow, or a deaf man the sweet concords of mnsic. To 
 men of high culture, however, these languages are still 
 living, and their power is every day felt. Without a 
 knowledge of them, no Englishman, Frenchman, Span- 
 iard, or Italian, can thoroughly comprehend his own 
 vernacular ; whilst the man who has cultivated an ac- 
 quaintance with them, is possessed of the elements of 
 nearly all the languages of Southern Europe. Without 
 the slightest acquaintance with the Italian language, he 
 will feel at home in Italy. Before he has seen a French 
 or Spanish grammar, or heard a Frenchman or Sj3aniard 
 speak, he will be able to sit down and read, with some 
 satisfaction, French and Spanish literature. Such is 
 the influence of these " dead " languages upon the liter- 
 ature of the day. 
 
 The Greek and Latin languages must be studied by 
 the English student, in order to a complete mastery of 
 his own language. The English language is, for the 
 most part, a derived language, secondary in its origin. 
 r Into the English, as into the bosom of a great central 
 sea, all the streams of the past and present have poured, 
 and are still pouring their varied contents." To under- 
 stand this language, thoroughly, then, we must give 
 attention to those languages which have contributed 
 most largely to its formation. Many persons who, not 
 possessing a knowledge of these " dead " languages, 
 suppose themselves to be veiy good English scholars, 
 every day use words whose meaning they do not under- 
 stand. They refer with great confidence to their Eng- 
 lish dictionaries as the ultimate standard, not knowing 
 that even in the best dictionaries the etymological 
 
110 
 
 LIBERIA'S OFFERING-. 
 
 scholar discovers fatal deficiencies. The man who is 
 entirely devoid of a knowledge of the Greek and Latin 
 languages can never, generally speaking, use English 
 words with skill or satisfaction to himself. He can not 
 perceive, in the words which he uses, their original life 
 and beauty. He can not, out of the very words them- 
 selves, give his reason for employing them in preference 
 to others. He must be the slave of his dictionary ; and 
 all his lexicographical researches must be uncertain and 
 unsatisfactory. No perfection of English scholarship 
 can be acquired without a knowledge of the " dead " 
 languages. 
 
 But there is a still higher reason for the study of 
 these languages, and that is, the mental culture and 
 discipline which they afford. No other means has yet 
 been found to supply their place, for purposes of scho- 
 lastic discipline. All the present culture of Europe, 
 and the pure and elevated taste manifested by her best 
 scholars, have been derived from the study of the Greek 
 and Roman writers. After the lapse of centuries, those 
 great masters of thought stand unrivaled in their pecu- 
 liar sphere as the intellectual educators of mankind. 
 To neglect them, is to shut ourselves out from delight- 
 ful associations with the best minds. It is throus;h 
 them we have access to the most sacred places of 
 thought, and enjoy the influence of those mighty con- 
 cej^tions which still control the literary world. It is 
 through them that we are carried back to the youthful 
 days of the world, and enjoy something of the freshness 
 and vigor of those early times — the spring-time of hu- 
 man intellect. " Greece and Rome," to quote the elo- 
 quent language of Dr. Temple,* " have given us more 
 than any results of discipline, in the never-dying mem- 
 ory of their fresh and youthful life. It is this, and not 
 
 * Head-Master of Rugby School. 
 
LIBERIA'S OFFERING. Ill 
 
 only the greatness or the genius of the classical writers, 
 which makes their literature preeminent above all 
 others. There have been great poets, great historians, 
 great philosophers, in modern days. Greece can show 
 few poets equal, none superior to Shakspeare. Gib- 
 bon, in many respects, stands above all ancient histo- 
 rians. Bacon was as great a master of philosophy as 
 Aristotle. Nor, again, are there wanting, great writers 
 of times older, as well as of times later, than the Greek ; 
 as, for instance, the Hebrew prophets. But the classics 
 possess a charm quite independent of genius. It is not 
 their genius only which makes them attractive. It is 
 the classic life, the life of tke-people of that day. It is 
 the image there only to be seen, of our highest natural 
 powers in their freshest vigor. It is the unattainable 
 grace of the prime of manhood. It is the pervading 
 sense of youthful beauty. Hence, while we have else- 
 where great poems and great histories, we never find 
 again that universal radiance of fresh life which makes 
 even the most commonplace relics of classic days, 
 models for our highest art. The common workman of 
 those times breathed the atmosphere of the gods. 
 What are now the ornaments of our museums, were 
 then the every day furniture of sitting and sleeping- 
 rooms. In the great monuments of their literature, we 
 can taste this pure inspiration most largely ; but even 
 the most commonplace fragments of a classic writer, 
 are steeped in the waters of the same fountain. Those 
 who compare the moderns with the ancients, genius for 
 genius, have no difficulty in claiming for the former, 
 equality, if not victory. But the issue is mistaken. 
 To combine the highest powers of intellect with the 
 freshness of youth, was possible only once, and that is 
 the glory of the classic nations."* 
 
 * "The Education of the World," in Essays and Reviews, 1861. 
 
112 Liberia's offering. 
 
 But it has been asked : " Why devote so much time 
 to the study of those authors in their own language, 
 when they have been so well and ably translated? 
 Why undergo the labor to traverse the same ground 
 which they passed over, to bring to us those hidden 
 treasures \ Why not use our time and strength in 
 accomplishing something else V • We reply, that the 
 road to learning can not be made royal. It is true that 
 the present ever gathers into itself the results of the 
 past ; that the world is to-day what it is, as the result 
 of the whole of its antecedents ; that " we reap the 
 fruits of the toil of the men of the earliest ages ;" but 
 this is true with regard to the race in the aggregate. 
 The individual man must undergo an intellectual dis- 
 cipline, more or less severe, before he can be prepared 
 to comprehend and to profit by the results of the past. 
 The faculties of the child that is born to-day are essen- 
 tially the same as those of the child born in the earliest 
 period, and must be developed by a similar process, 
 though there may be a vast difference in the ultimate 
 development. Of all men of eminent abilities, in all 
 ages, it may be said: 
 
 " The eminence they reached and kept, 
 Was not attained by sudden flight, 
 But they, while their companions slept, 
 Were toiling upwards in the night." 
 
 Eveiy man must go over the same ground, experience 
 the same toil, struggle with the same difficulties. No 
 man, in any generation, is born with wings to enable 
 him to soar to the lofty hights- of literature or science. 
 It is by " slow degrees, by more and more," that those 
 " cloudy summits " are " scaled and climbed." And 
 every man, as by painful efforts he ascends those emi- 
 nences, may, from the boundless prospect and varied 
 wealth, bring contributions to literature and science. 
 
Liberia's offering. 113 
 
 The discipline of mind which is secured from the 
 study of the dead languages can not be obtained by 
 the use of translations. They are the only languages 
 which are developed according to the rules of perfect 
 art ; and no other language can fully supply their place. 
 Besides the wholesome exercise which is derived from 
 the weighing and balancing of the meaning of words, 
 observing and preserving nice distinctions, there is the 
 process of reasoning which must be employed in every 
 effort to translate. The student who has read one or 
 two leading Latin and Greek works, has not much more 
 labor with the lexicon. What he needs now, in prose- 
 cuting the study of the classic authors, is " a clear head 
 and close attention to the context."* The drudgery of 
 " hunting up " every word in the lexicon, is ended ; and 
 he has reached a region of plodding, indeed, but of 
 higher, intellectual plodding. Being able to select his 
 own meaning for each word out of the word itself and 
 its connections, he goes beyond the mere forms of words 
 and sentences, to the principles they contain. He im- 
 bibes the spirit of the writer. His mind enlarges. He 
 learns to form a correct estimate of the merits and de- 
 fects of composition. His taste is quickened, purified, 
 and elevated ; and by being obliged to extend his vo- 
 cabulary as widely as that of the author he translates, 
 he necessarily becomes familiar with a number of new 
 words, of which, perhaps, under other circumstances, 
 he might only have heard. He thus acquires a com- 
 mand of language, and enters upon a course of indefi- 
 nite improvement — a road that leads to the loftiest 
 attainment. 
 
 And then the study of translations can not introduce 
 us to a knowledge of the style and beauties of the clas- 
 
 * Macaulay's Essay on the Athenian Orators. 
 8 
 
114 libeeia's offeeing. 
 
 sic authors. We must become acquainted with them 
 through the words they spoke and wrote, and the man- 
 ner in which they spoke and wrote those words. It is 
 true that the thoughts and opinions of Herodotus, Xeno-' 
 phon, and Demosthenes, of Cicero, Horace, and Tacitus, 
 may be expressed in a translation. We may be able, 
 by studying translations, to get something of the sub- 
 stance of the original. But of the peculiar character 
 and spirit of the style of the writer ; of those special 
 qualities which belong to and are inseparable from the 
 languages in which they wrote ; of those associations 
 which are often linked, to a single word, and which no 
 combination of English words can express — of all these 
 things, we can get only an imperfect idea from the most 
 exact translation. " The dead languages possess not 
 merely a grammatical structure essentially unlike that 
 of living languages, but a peculiar system of poetic 
 symbols, which, often with one expression, open an 
 entire gallery of pictures, that must be, almost invari- 
 ably, lost in a translation."* 
 
 The experience of all the literary men in the world 
 proves that the study of classical literature, as a means 
 of intellectual culture, is highly important. But it 
 must be pursued as a means, not as an end ; not to 
 make us expert in verbal criticisms, or for pedantic 
 displays, but for the discipline of mind, which the 
 perusal and contemplation of the great models impart ; 
 for the large, thoroughly genial, and generous scholar- 
 ship which they bestow. Pursued in this way, the 
 influence of classical literature can not fail to be bene- 
 ficial. Sir Robert Peel, who won the first honors at 
 the Oxford University, both in the classics and mathe- 
 matics, declared that " by far the greater portion of the 
 
 * Bishop Esaias Tegner. 
 
Liberia's offering. 115 
 
 chief names that have floated down on the stream of 
 time, are those of men eminent for classical acquire- 
 ments and classical tastes." "Take the Cambridge 
 Calendar, for two hundred years," says Lord Macaulay, 
 " look at the Church, the Parliament, or the Bar, and it 
 has always been the case that the men who were first 
 in the competition of the schools have been the first in 
 the competition of life." All the distinguished scholars 
 of Great Britain have been deeply imbued with clas- 
 sical learning. Curran, the Irish orator, carried his 
 Virgil always in his pocket. Fox was devoted to the 
 classics. Sheridan pored over Euripides by night and 
 by day. Pitt is said to have been the best Greek 
 scholar in England. Lord Brougham — himself a mar- 
 vel of classical lore — in giving an account of the manner 
 in which Robertson, the historian, studied composition, 
 says : " Translations from the classics, and especially 
 from the Greek, of which he was a perfect master, 
 formed a considerable part of his labor. He considered 
 this exercise as well calculated to give an accurate 
 knowledge of our own language, by obliging us to 
 weigh the shades of difference between words or 
 phrases, and to find the expression, whether by the 
 selection of the terms or the turning of the idiom, 
 which is required for a given meaning."* The same 
 distinguished nobleman gives the following advice — 
 the result of his own rich and varied experience — to 
 a young student : 
 
 " If he would be a great orator, he must go at once to the fountain-head, 
 and he familiar with every one of the great orations of Demosthenes. His 
 taste will improve every time he reads and repeats to himself, (for he should 
 have the fine passages by heart,) and he will learn how much may be done 
 by a skillful use of a few words, and a rigorous rejection of superfluities. 
 In this view, I hold a familiar knowledge of Dante to be next to Demosthe- 
 
 * Lives of Men of Letters and Science. 
 
116 libeeia's offeking. 
 
 
 nes. It is in vain to say that imitations of these models won't do for our 
 times. First, I do not counsel any imitation, but only an imbibing of the 
 same spirit. Secondly, I know from experience, that nothing is half so 
 successful in these times, (bad though they be,) as what has been formed 
 on the Greek models. I use a very poor instance in giving my own experi- 
 ence, but I do assure you, that both in courts of law and Parliament, and 
 even to mobs, I have never made so much play, (to use a very modern 
 phrase,) as when I was almost translating from the Greek. I composed 
 the peroration of my speech for the Queen in the Lords, after reading and 
 repeating Demosthenes for three or four weeks, and I composed it twenty 
 times over at least, and it certainly succeeded in a very extraordinary degree, 
 and far above any merits of its own."* 
 
 But it is objected to these classical pursuits, that 
 these are practical times, and the facilities for practical 
 information are so multitudinous that it is far more 
 profitable for the purposes of life to devote attention to 
 the exuberance and diversity of knowledge to be found 
 in the innumerable newspapers and periodicals of the 
 day than to waste time in poring over the relics of 
 antiquity; that, in these days, when the prodigious 
 powers of the press are developed in the regular and 
 unceasing issue of pamphlets and tracts, works in series 
 and light literature, men might dispense with every 
 other means of improvement and instruction. " Why 
 need we go up to knowledge when knowledge comes 
 down to us V To this we reply once more, that culture 
 must be attained by the same means by which it has 
 always been attained. Every man, before he can be 
 fitted for the more important intellectual achievements, 
 must tread the highway of hard work and laborious 
 practice. The mind must first be formed before it can 
 be filled to advantage. Our real improvement depends 
 not so much upon the quantity as upon the quality of 
 what the mind takes in, and upon the manner in which 
 
 * Letter to Zachary Macaulay, in 1823, with reference to his son, Thomas Bab- 
 ington Macaulay, the historian, then at Cambridge. 
 
Liberia's offering. 117 
 
 it is taken in. Lord Macaulay tells ns, that " Rnmforcl 
 proposed to the Elector of Bavaria a scheme for feed- 
 ing his soldiers at a much cheaper rate than formerly. 
 His plan was singly to compel them to masticate their 
 food thoroughly. A small quantity thus eaten, accord- 
 ing to that famous projector, affords more sustenance 
 than a large meal hastily devoured.""' Thus it is with 
 the mind ; not the cramming, but the mastication and 
 the digestion secure the nutriment. A man may con- 
 stantly devour all the periodicals and newspapers, as 
 they are daily issued throughout the world, and after 
 he has gathered all the information they contain, may 
 not be as well prepared for usefulness and efficiency in 
 the world of letters as the man who has }3atiently given 
 his time and attention to one or two of the great mas- 
 ters in the language in which they wrote. Some of 
 the great English writers devoted nearly all their time 
 to the study of one or two of the classic authors. A 
 learned and distinguished English nobleman carried 
 his admiration of one of them so far as to exclaim: 
 
 " Read Homer once, and you can read no more ; 
 For all books else appear so mean, so poor, 
 Verse will seem prose ; but still persist to read, 
 And Homer will be all the books you need."* 
 
 The classics have been tried for centuries ; their value 
 and utility have often been denied, but they have as 
 often been successfully defended ; so that now, in the 
 literary world, there is all but a unanimous decision in 
 their favor. 
 
 The friends of education in Liberia have long desired 
 to see the same means of intellectual culture which 
 other countries have enjoyed, possessed by Liberians ; 
 
 * Essay on the Athenian Orators. 
 * Preface to Pope's Translation of the Iliad. 
 
118 Liberia's offering. 
 
 and as a result of their efforts to secure for us these 
 advantages, we have this College. Mind here, as we 
 have said, is as mind elsewhere. We must rise, and 
 we can rise by the same means by which other people 
 have risen. 
 
 By the direction of Divine Providence, a momentous 
 experiment has been committed to our hands on these 
 benighted shores, an experiment in which are involved, 
 to a great extent, the interests of Africa and the African 
 race. Our responsibility in this land is a serious one. 
 Sometimes we are appalled when we observe the fatal 
 facility with which every form of social, moral, and 
 political error from abroad takes root among us ; Avhen 
 we see the readiness and eagerness with which some 
 lay hold of the follies and nonsense which advanced 
 communities are endeavoring to throw off. But let our 
 hearts be cheered in view of the increase among us of 
 those means which will counteract this facile disposi- 
 tion. We trust that by the encouragement and gener- 
 ous cultivation of literature, the public mind shall be 
 directed to high principles and objects worthy of attain- 
 ment. 
 
 Before we can realize all that greatness which we 
 sometimes hear predicted in our public orations and 
 speeches, we must avail ourselves of all those means by 
 which a nation's heart is chastened, purified, and refined- 
 We can not expect any special providential interference 
 in our behalf to cause us to glide unconsciously into 
 distinction and respectability. If Ave desire among us 
 great poets, statesmen, and philosophers, if we would 
 have profound theologians and able lawyers, we must 
 resort to such books as the great men whose language 
 we speak studied ; to such books as Milton and Cow- 
 per, Bacon and Newton, Butler and Paley, studied ; to 
 

 LIBERIA'S OFFERING. 119 
 
 the books which the great men of England now study ; 
 to the literary companions of Brougham, Gladstone, 
 and D'Israeli ; to Csesar, Horace, and Tacitus ; to De- 
 mosthenes and Cicero ; to the JEneid, the Odyssey, and 
 the Iliad. We may not expect to despise these and 
 reap the fruits which are to be gathered only from 
 them. "Till we have discovered some intellectual 
 daguerreotype which takes oif the course of thought, 
 and the form, lineaments, and features of truth, as com- 
 pletely and minutely as the optical instrument produces 
 the sensible object, we must come to the teachers of 
 wisdom to learn wisdom ; we must repair to the fount- 
 ain and drink there."* 
 
 If we assiduously use the means of culture, we need 
 not fear the results. We shall soon rise to a respect- 
 able if not a commanding position in the world of let- 
 ters. Though much has been already done, there is 
 yet a great deal to be achieved in the field of science 
 and literature ; and may we make no achievements ? 
 Let us hope that though civilization is well begun, even 
 our feeble hands may shape its course ; and that here 
 on these benighted shores there may be elaborated 
 noble principles out of which shall spring a practice 
 that shall be exemplary to the whole civilized world. 
 
 Let us then encourage and sustain this Institution, 
 that its influence may go forth into all the land. We 
 can not expect that every child will attend college, but 
 we may reasonably hope that such an influence will be 
 sent forth from this Institution, and others that may 
 hereafter be established, that those children who are 
 not themselves able to attend college, may enjoy the 
 benefit of the influence and tuition of those who have 
 attended. Thus a higher tone of intellect will spread 
 
 * Office and Work of Universities. — J. H. Xewman. 
 
120 libeeia's offering. 
 
 itself throughout all classes of society; and high and 
 low, rich and poor, all uniting in the one great cause 
 of Africa's redemption, we shall advance to national 
 usefulness and respectability. 
 
 I feel the responsibility of the position I am assum- 
 ing in connection with this Institution. I feel it for 
 various reasons, many of which can be appreciated by 
 you without any specific reference. I enter upon these 
 duties with great diffidence, feeling that, while it is an 
 honorable distinction, it will continue so only so long 
 as he who fills it " acts well his part." I enter upon 
 them, however, with confidence that, with the blessing 
 of God, all that we or our friends abroad desire, can be 
 accomplished. The liberality which conceived the idea 
 of founding this Institution, and which, under various 
 discouragements, persisted in carrying out that idea, 
 will, we may hope, be continued towards us. In view 
 of that liberal support which we may reasonably hope 
 the Institution will receive from its friends in the United 
 States ; and in view of the feelings so manifest among 
 Liberians to do all they can in behalf of the Institution, 
 we may feel that the College opens this day under 
 favorable auguries. 
 
 As a race we have bee'n quite unfortunate. We have 
 no pleasing antecedents — nothing in the past to inspire 
 us. All behind us is dark, and gloomy, and repulsive. 
 All our agreeable associations are connected with the 
 future. When other people speak of glorious reminis- 
 cences and recollections, we must speak of glorious 
 hopes and expectations. Let us then strive to achieve 
 a glorious future. 
 
 " Let the dead Past bury its dead." 
 
 Let us devote ourselves to all those pursuits, success 
 
libeeia's offering. 121 
 
 in Avliicli will prove our brotherhood with tlie enlight- 
 ened world. It is, after all, the mind and heart which 
 prove the unity of the human races. The inward re- 
 semblance is far more forcible than outward disparities. 
 We should not content ourselves with simply declaim- 
 ing about our equality with the advanced races. Let 
 our reply to the slanders of our enemies be a practical 
 one. It is evident that it is only those who do not 
 know us, except under the most unfavorable circum- 
 stances, who speak disparagingly of us. Judging from 
 the specialities of their own limited experience, they 
 say that we are not susceptible of the same progress ; 
 that we can not achieve in science, literature, or art, 
 what they can. It would not be wisdom in us to assail 
 and abuse them for this, or to indulge in empty decla- 
 mations about our ability. Let us, under any and all 
 circuin stances, prove to them that we can achieve just 
 what they can, under similar circumstances — prove it 
 practically. In works on logic, the sophistical argu- 
 ment is often introduced to prove that motion is impos- 
 sible ; and it is usual, before handling it according to 
 logical rules, to suggest a practical refutation of it — 
 solvitur ambulando. Such is the reply which we should 
 strive to make to those whose interest it has been, and 
 now is, to throw discredit upon us. 
 
 It is very true that there must be the struggle and 
 perseverance of many years before the associations of 
 our oppressed condition in the Western hemisphere, 
 with all their train of obloquies and prejudices, shall 
 be obliterated. But our case is not unprecedented. 
 All peoples who have risen froni obscurity have had 
 the same opposition of contempt to contend against. 
 A few centuries ago the name of Briton was disdained 
 by the Romans ; and later still, the name of English- 
 man, which is now being carried down on such a tide 
 
122 Liberia's offering. 
 
 of glory to distant ages, was the object of the impetu- 
 ous contempt of the proud Norman.* Let us think of 
 this when our adversaries bring their names, and their 
 influence, and their arguments to bear against us. And 
 when they pour their indignities, and fasten their dis- 
 graceful epithets upon us, let us take comfort in the 
 thought that we are now beginning to enjoy the means 
 which their ancestors were obliged to possess before 
 they could rise from their obscure, ignoble, and ignorant 
 condition. 
 
 Many of our adversaries are not ashamed to aver 
 that no change of our circumstances will avail to release 
 their understanding from the influence of its old associ- 
 ations. But such assertions are the result of a narrow 
 view of things. We believe that, notwithstanding all 
 their perverse representations of us — all their spiteful 
 malignity — all their pretended immovable hardness — 
 all the inveteracy of their prejudice — they will not be 
 able to withstand demonstrations of superior ability, 
 furnished by a successful pursuit of science, literature, 
 and art. 
 
 But we must acknowledge that there are adverse 
 influences, arising from our peculiar circumstances, iso- 
 lation from the civilized world, difficulty of procuring 
 books and other means of culture. We must, there- 
 fore, nerve ourselves for the arduous work that lies 
 before us. Our struggle must be the harder and more 
 strenuous, in proportion to the unyielding influence of 
 the force by which we are opposed. The struggle may 
 be long, but let us persevere. The road to greatness, 
 whether individual or national, is no " primrose path of 
 dalliance." 
 
 The first College in West- Africa is founded. Lord 
 
 * See Macaulay's History of England, vol. i. chap. i. 
 
libeeia's offering. 123 
 
 Macaulay's prediction, uttered forty years ago, of the 
 illustrious University at Timbuctoo,* though uttered 
 jocosely, is receiving realization. Truth is proving it- 
 self stranger than fiction. We hail this Institution as 
 the precursor of incalculable blessings to this benighted 
 land — as the harbinger of a bright and happy future 
 for science, literature, and art, and for all the noblest 
 interests of the African race. 
 
 * In a very humorous and entertaining article, styled "A prophetic account of 
 an Epic Poem, to be published in 2824," Lord Macaulay predicts that in that year 
 there will exist at Timbuctoo — established how long previously he does not say — 
 au illustrious University, to which all the ingenuous youths of every country will 
 be attracted by the high scientific character and eminent literary attainments of 
 its Professors. — Miscellaneous Writings, vol. i. p. 142. 
 
J± EULOGY 
 
 « PRONOUNCED ON 
 
 REV. JOHN DAT, 
 
 SUPERINTENDENT OF THE MISSIONS OF THE SOUTHERN BAPTIST CONVENTION IN 
 WEST-AFRICA, AND CHIEF-JUSTICE OF THE REPUBLIC OF LIBERIA. 
 
 BEPOKE THE CITIZENS OP MONROVIA, 
 IN THE PROVIDENCE BAPTIST CHURCH, 
 
 OK" THE EVENING OP MARCH 2d, 1859. 
 
 Nudaque Veritas quando ullum inveniet parem ? — Hor. 
 
% €ttlag2 f roitonnrctr on ^Leir. fojpt Jaj. 
 
 Theee are times in the history of nations as of indi- 
 viduals, when they are called upon by the voice of Pro- 
 vidence to look back upon their past, to examine their 
 present, and to endeavor to rectify whatever is wrong, 
 to adjust whatever is disordered, and to harmonize 
 whatever is discordant in their social and political or- 
 ganization, to see whether they have not departed too 
 far from the old landmarks, or whether, destitute of an 
 experience sufficient for a wise eclecticism, they have 
 not adopted principles which militate against their pro- 
 gress and success. And, perhaps, no occasion more 
 naturally suggests this retrospection and introspection 
 than when called upon, as we are called upon this even- 
 ing, to recite the history and reproduce the examples of 
 those who have occupied positions of trust and respon- 
 sibility, who have made themselves useful to the com- 
 munity ; by whose wisdom, patriotism, and energy the 
 nation has been advanced in respectability and prosper- 
 ity, but who, by the rude entrance of death, have been 
 torn from our embraces. 
 
 And, perhaps, there never was a time in the history 
 of Liberia when we needed more carefully to ponder 
 our condition ; when the necessity seemed greater to 
 hold up to our view whatever was virtuous and exem- 
 plary in the character of our fathers ; that by summon- 
 ing to out* gaze, from those pure and lofty regions, their 
 
128 libeeia's offering. 
 
 noble spirits, there may possibly be disposted from the 
 midst of us that selfishness and unpatriotic feeling, and 
 that spirit of disunion which we fear are taking the 
 place of the public spirit, the enlarged benevolence, the 
 self-sacrificing zeal, and the spirit of unity, under the 
 influence of which this nation was founded, and by the 
 aid of which it has been brought thus far. 
 
 The history of the late Rev. John Day, which we 
 now purpose briefly to review, is not, it is true, marked 
 by any of those stirring incidents, those marvelous and 
 exciting adventures, those heroic actions which are 
 pleasing to the minds of some. He achieved no great 
 and remarkable exploits, which by the common and 
 voluntary consent of mankind, place his name at once 
 high among the great and honored of the earth. But 
 there are, nevertheless, points in his history, monotonous 
 and undi versified as a history enacted for the most part 
 in Liberia must of necessity be, from the consideration 
 of which important lessons may be gathered. We shall 
 attempt, therefore, on this occasion, to collect some of 
 the materials, which render his memory dear to every 
 Liberian, to every Christian, and which should dispose 
 us to cherish that memory as a precious inheritance, and 
 to transmit it as a valuable legacy to future genera- 
 tions. 
 
 John Day was born in the northern part of the State 
 of North-Carolina, in the year 1797. His native county, 
 bordering upon the State of Virginia, was influenced 
 not a little by the manners and customs of Virginian 
 life. The circumstances of his birth were favorable. 
 Born of a family of a high degree of respectability and 
 held in great esteem by their white neighbors, his 
 privileges were superior to those of many of his race in 
 that country. And in the region where he was born 
 
Liberia's offering. 129 
 
 and "brought up, as indeed over the greater portion of 
 North-Carolina and Virginia at that time, the distinc- 
 tion which now prevails between respectable persons of 
 color and white persons was not known. Nathaniel 
 Turner had not yet achieved his magnificent failure, and 
 abolitionism had not yet assumed its rabid and sectional 
 character. In his youthful education Mr. Day was for- 
 tunate. He attended the best schools in the county, 
 and sat side by side with the sons of the most aristo- 
 cratic planters. He was born at a time when the spirit 
 that engendered the American Revolution was still rife 
 among the people ; when the exciting oratory of Patrick 
 Henry still rang in their ears ; when the mighty rever- 
 berations of his " Give me liberty, or give me death !" 
 had not yet died from the mountain-ranges of Old Vir- 
 ginia, Sentiments averse to oppression of every kind 
 still pervaded the breasts of the white inhabitants, and 
 were diffused throughout their conversation. Mr. Day, 
 allowed freely to mingle with the immediate descend- 
 ants of the Jeffersons, the Randolphs, the Henrys, 
 caught the flame of liberty and independence. And, as 
 he looked around, and saw the majority of his brethren in 
 a thralldom, which, by that keen foresight with which 
 he was gifted, he saw would sooner or later affect un- 
 favorably the condition of all persons of color, he sighed 
 for a land where he might not witness the degradation 
 of his brethren. He thought of Hayti, but he thought 
 also of its foreign language, its priestcraft, and its fre- 
 quent revolutions. He formed various plans for his 
 future life, looking forward to a time when, amid some 
 fortunate scene, and beneath some auspicious sky, he 
 would realize his ardent desires for the enjoyment of 
 liberty untrammeled by the adventitious circumstance 
 of color. 
 
 9 
 
130 Liberia's offering. 
 
 Having been put to the trade of cabinet-making, he 
 made such proficiency in that branch of industry that 
 he was soon enabled to establish himself in business. 
 By the superior finish and strength of his work, he at. 
 tracted considerable custom. The most distinguished 
 persons for miles around furnished him with work. 
 He soon made himself a competency. But just as he 
 was forming plans large and magnificent for his worldly 
 aggrandizement and gratification, just as he was begin- 
 ning to say with the rich man of old, " My grounds 
 have brought forth plentifully, what shall I do ?" it 
 pleased the Great Head of the Church, by that mysteri- 
 ous influence whose operation is like the wind, blowing 
 where it listeth, to transform his moral nature and make 
 him a child of God. He found himself, to use his own 
 words when relating the Avonderful transition, in a new 
 world. He found himself with new feelings and new 
 desires, new predilections and new antipathies. He 
 must now, therefore, form new plans. He looked 
 abroad upon the world, and his enlarged heart took in 
 all mankind. He felt that he had a work to do. He 
 felt that it was his duty, as he esteemed it his privilege, 
 to exhort others to flee from that impending wrath 'froni 
 which as a brand from the everlasting burnings he had 
 been plucked. He was strongly impressed with the 
 conviction that he should devote himself to the import- 
 ant business of preaching the Gospel. Having enjoyed 
 the advantages of a good English education, he entered, 
 through the recommendation of some friend, a theologi- 
 cal class, whose reading was directed by Rev. Mr. Clop- 
 ton, a Baptist minister of profound learning, skillful in 
 the languages, and an adept in metaphysical science. 
 Standing foremost in the ranks of Baj)tist ministers at 
 that time, Mr. Clopton was eminently fitted for the du- 
 
Liberia's offering. 181 
 
 ties of preparing young men for the ministry. Rev. Dr. 
 J. B. Jeter, of Richmond, Virginia, then quite a young 
 man, also frequented Mr. Clopton's study. Mr. Clopton 
 had paid close attention to the laws of the mind, and 
 had great facility in explaining difficulties in religious 
 experience, which at that time frequently troubled Mr. 
 Day. And from him, doubtless, the subject of our re- 
 marks acquired that love for metaphysical discussion 
 and research which those who were intimate with him, 
 or attended his preaching, could not fail to discover. 
 
 While pursuing his studies under Mr. Clopton, the 
 colony of Liberia, as an asylum for free persons of color, 
 began to attract attention in that part of the country 
 where he resided. No sooner had he heard of the place 
 tli an he at once made up his mind to cast in his lot 
 with the people who, on these far-off shores, and in this 
 insalubrious clime, were endeavoring to establish a 
 home for themselves and their children. Coincident 
 with the desire for a land of liberty, there was now a 
 burning zeal to preach the Gospel to the thousands of 
 degraded Africans who roam these forests. He dili- 
 gently applied himself to the work of preparation for 
 the Gospel ministry. But unfortunately for the intel- 
 lectual advancement of Mr. Day, a circumstance trans- 
 pired — a circumstance to which, even down to the day 
 of his death, he frequently referred with expressions of 
 unmingled regret — which obliged him to relinquish his 
 studies before he had gone through the prescribed 
 course, and enter upon the active duties of the calling 
 which he had chosen. 
 
 Having sacrificed his property, he embarked in De- 
 cember of the year 1830, with a most amiable wife, and 
 four interesting children, for this land, which was so 
 soon to be the grave of the affectionate grouj). He ar- 
 
132 libeeia's offeeing. 
 
 rived in Liberia, entered at once upon his sacred duties, 
 pursuing the business of cabinet-making for his support, 
 and preaching as often as opportunity offered. He had 
 not been long in the land before he saw his lovely com- 
 panion stricken down by the relentless hand of death — 
 a companion to whose charms and loveliness he was 
 most keenly alive, and around whom the most ardent 
 affections of his soul were so firmly entwined, that the 
 great depths of his heart seemed upheaved by the sev- 
 erance. Then, one after another, he saw his beloved 
 offspring wrapped in the chilling embraces of the grim 
 monster, and conveyed to the house appointed for all 
 living, until his whole family melted away from him, 
 and none was left to remind him of the scenes and asso- 
 ciations of the past. There he stood all alone in a new 
 country, amid new scenes and associations ; there he 
 stood, like some solitary oak in the dead of winter, 
 stripped of its foliage, and exposed, dry and defenseless, 
 to all the beatings of the northern storms. Finding 
 himself in this grievous solitude, and entirely at a loss 
 how to dispose of the sad and weary hours that hung 
 so oppressively upon him, he abandoned himself to 
 gloomy abstractions and melancholy reveries. This led 
 to the supposition that there was some unhingement of 
 his mental organization. But notwithstanding his deep 
 afflictions he never murmured ; was never disposed to 
 abandon the field which he had chosen for the labors 
 of his life. He had numerous inducements to return to 
 the land of his birth. His relatives, in comfortable and 
 respectable circumstances, urged him again and again 
 to return. Several wealthy friends anxiously waited to 
 welcome him. But he had put his hand to the plow, 
 and he would not look back. His ardent and cherished 
 desire was to labor for the evangelization of his heathen 
 
Liberia's offering. 133 
 
 brethren in this land, and he would not, notwithstand- 
 ing Ms deep bereavements, and the imminent danger in 
 which his own life often stood, swerve from his noble 
 purpose. Here we have an instance of the triumph of 
 grace in the soul. Here we see true Christian benevo- 
 lence, the constraining love of Christ, the new, living, 
 and all-controlling principle implanted in eveiy regene- 
 rate heart, rising superior to all earthly interests, forsak- 
 ing father and mother, and hazarding life itself for the 
 cause of Christ. Oh ! in the heart of the Christian a 
 deep and everflowing fountain has been opened, flowing 
 out to all the world. u There is not the wreck of hu- 
 manity it will not pity ; there is not an infected prison 
 it will not enter ; there is not a pestilential climate or an 
 inhospitable region it will not visit ; there is no peril of 
 robbers, nor peril of the sea, nor peril of false brethren, 
 nor hunger, nor thirst it will not hazard in behalf of 
 human redemption." 
 
 After Mr. Day had resided here for several years, a 
 mission was established by the Northern Baptist Board 
 of Missions, with which he became connected, and in 
 the service of which, for a number of years, he was 
 abundant in labors. The principal seat of the opera- 
 tions of that Board was in the county of Grand Bassa. 
 Frequently have we sat and heard him recite for hours 
 together the interesting: and instructive incidents of 
 those laborious, painful, and hazardous tours which he 
 repeatedly made for hundreds of miles into the interior, 
 preaching and teaching the people. And there are now 
 to be found scattered all over that country delightful 
 fruits of his labors. Taking the city of Buchanan as a 
 center, and with a radius of sixty or seventy miles, de- 
 scribe a semicircle, and there is no point to which you 
 can go within that semicircle where the name of John 
 
134 Liberia's offering. 
 
 Day is not a household word, and at many points yon 
 will readily recognize precious evidences of his toils and 
 efforts. 
 
 Mr. Day subsequently became connected with the 
 Southern Baptist Convention, who have established 
 missions throughout Liberia, at Sierra Leone, and in 
 Central Africa. For several years, and up to the hour 
 of his death, he filled the responsible position of super- 
 intendent of their missions in Liberia and at Sierra 
 Leone, and prosecuted to the utmost of his ability the 
 arduous duties of that station of trust. 
 
 But Mr. Day was patriotic. Of this no citizen of Li- 
 beria, within the sound of my voice, needs any elabor- 
 ate demonstration. Residing within the limits and 
 being a citizen of a nation in the incipient stages of 
 progress, he felt that, notwithstanding his arduous min- 
 isterial labors, he had a work to perform in shaping the 
 political institutions of his country. No love of indul- 
 gence or ease, no dread of severe application, kept him 
 from striving to qualify himself for usefulness to his 
 country and fellow-citizens. He studied closely and 
 patiently the science of jurisprudence and the general 
 principles of statesmanship, so that he was fitted for 
 usefulness in all those positions for which intelligent 
 men are needed in rising communities. Nor were his 
 talents and acquirements slighted by his fellow-citizens. 
 After having filled various subordinate offices, elective 
 and otherwise, he was, in the year 1853, placed as suc- 
 cessor of Chief-Justice Benedict at the head of the Ju- 
 diciary, which position he occupied with dignity and 
 credit until his demise. It is said by competent judges 
 that his charges to juries and decisions, when Judge of 
 the Court of Quarter Sessions in the county of Grand 
 Bassa, were most elaborate, and discovered a deep in- 
 

 Liberia's offering. 135 
 
 siglit into legal principles. In the Legislative hall he 
 did not very often take the floor, but whenever he did 
 his counsels were wise and judicious. His remarks 
 were "brief, but to the point. And when he occupied 
 leading j)ositions on committees, where important re- 
 ports and other documents had to be prepared, he 
 showed his wisdom and skill, did justice to his subject 
 and credit to himself. 
 
 The declaration of the Independence of Liberia, the 
 establishment of the first Republican government on 
 the Western Shores of Africa, did not, it is true, solve 
 any intricate problem in the history of nations. It did 
 not shed any new light upon mankind with reference to 
 the science of government. It was not the result of the 
 elaboration of any novel principle in politics. But it 
 poured new vigor into the poor, dying existence of the 
 African all over the world. It opened a door of hope 
 for a race long the doomed victims of oppression. It 
 animated colored men every where to fresh endeavors 
 to prove themselves men. It gave the example ©f a 
 portion of this despised race, far away in the midst of 
 heathenism and barbarism, under the most unfavorable 
 circumstances, assuming the responsibilities, and coming 
 forward into the ranks, of nations ; and it demonstrated 
 that, notwithstanding the oppression of ages, the ener- 
 gies of the race had not been entirely emasculated, but 
 were still sufficient to establish and to maintain a na- 
 tionality. 
 
 When the idea of bringing to pass this mighty 
 achievement in the history of the race was first mooted, 
 many regarded it as chimerical, some viewed it as pre- 
 sumptuous, and others thought it but little less than 
 treason. In the county in which Mr. Day then resided 
 there was considerable opposition to the measure ; but, 
 
136 Liberia's offering-. 
 
 deeply thoughtful, he saw the beneficial results which 
 were likely to accrue to the country and to the race 
 from the assumption of Independence. He boldly ad- 
 vocated the measure, notwithstanding various threats 
 from an exasperated populace. The boisterousness of 
 the mob could not daunt him. He persevered, and 
 rode triumphantly over the tumultuous surges. He 
 was elected a delegate to the National Convention 
 which assembled in this city to draft a Declaration of 
 Independence and a Constitution for the new Republic. 
 He was therefore among the signers of the Declaration 
 of Independence. And here we are reminded of the 
 melancholy fact that those distinguished men are fast 
 passing away. One after another has entered upon his 
 voyage to that 
 
 " undiscovered country 
 
 From whose bourn no traveler returns." 
 
 But four of the twelve who sat in that memorable 
 convention survive. This admonishes those of us who 
 are youthful that soon the fathers will have gone for- 
 ever, and it presses home to our hearts, with all the 
 solemnity of the grave, the question : Are we preparing 
 ourselves, by mental and moral culture, to take their 
 places and lead on this infant nation, which they have 
 established in weakness and in much trembling, to in- 
 dependence and glory ? 
 
 Just at this point we trust we shall be excused if we 
 digress for a few minutes. "We have with regret no- 
 ticed of late a growing tendency among some of the ju- 
 venile members of the community to depreciate the 
 labors of our fathers, the pioneers of Liberia. We say 
 with regret, because we conceive such a spirit to be in 
 violation of the command, recorded in broad and solemn 
 
Liberia's offering. 137 
 
 characters on the pages of God's Holy Book : " Honor 
 thy father and thy mother that thy days may he long 
 upon tlie land wliicli the Lord thy God giveth thee? We 
 regret it because it is doing great injustice to the heroic 
 men who for years have struggled, in sickness and in 
 health, in joy and in sorrow, to maintain themselves on 
 these shores. We are tauntingly asked : " What have 
 these men done ?" And we are told that " all that has 
 been achieved has been achieved by foreign means." 
 What have they done 1 We would ask in return, what 
 have they not done \ They have voluntarily exj^atri- 
 ated themselves from the land of their birth ; forsook 
 the endearing scenes and associations of childhood; 
 severed themselves from the comforts and conveniences 
 of an advanced state of society; denied themselves 
 the enjoyment of health, the pleasure of civilized 
 and enlightened influences, and gave themselves up to 
 a living death on these barbarous shores. And for 
 what purpose ? That they might found a home not for 
 themselves, for they knew they would not live to enjoy 
 it, but for us their posterity. Foreign means indeed ! 
 It is true they were poor men. They had no gold and 
 silver to lavish out upon improvements ; but mark their 
 superior self-abnegation and heroism, they gave them- 
 selves. And what could foreign learning and foreign 
 wealth have done without their groans, and sweat, and 
 blood ? Yes, they suffered keenly, and bore up heroic- 
 ally under their sufferings for us. Their work consisted 
 in patient endurance — a task far more difficult than 
 active exertion. Let us not, then, depreciate their sac- 
 rifices and toils, but rather let us endeavor to qualify 
 ourselves to carry on, by labor and well-directed effort, 
 what they have begun in intense suffering and endur- 
 ance. And if we are wise to detect any faults or defi- 
 
138 ' Liberia's offering. 
 
 ciencies in any of their doings, let us not boastingly ex- 
 patiate upon them, but rather let us, taking the mantle 
 of charity, hasten to spread it over them, lest, while we 
 luxuriate and delight ourselves with ideas of our own 
 superiority to them, there come over the land a physical 
 barrenness, a mental and moral blight, because we have 
 not accorded the reverence due to our fathers. 
 
 We are not by any means, however, asserting that it 
 is incumbent upon us to entertain such unquestioning 
 deference to the opinions and actions of our fathers as 
 to reenact their errors, and proceed, right or wrong, in 
 the beaten track ; but we are for interring with their 
 bones the ill they may have done, encouraging the vi- 
 tality of their virtuous deeds, and immortalizing their 
 exemplary conduct. Let us emulate their noble actions. 
 Let us not be content to live and die without doing 
 something to ameliorate the condition of our down- 
 trodden race. Oh ! let us not be drones in the great 
 hive of humanity. 
 
 " In the world's broad field of battle, 
 In the bivouac of life, 
 Be not like dumb, driven cattle, 
 Be ye heroes in the strife." 
 
 But we must return from our digression. Not only 
 was Mr. Day laborious and diligent in qualifying him- 
 self for the public duties which he was so frequently 
 called upon to perform, but he assiduously endeavored 
 to fit himself for usefulness in the more private scenes 
 of life. In that part of Liberia where he spent the 
 greater portion of his time, there was seldom any phy- 
 sician, yet there were frequently cases among the people 
 which needed medical attention. Mr. Day, therefore, 
 gave himself, in addition to his numerous other studies, 
 to the reading of medical works, and to the study of 
 
Liberia's offering. 139 
 
 the natural sciences, that he might fit himself for ordi- 
 nary practice. He soon acquired a sufficient knowledge 
 of pathological principles arid of therapeutics to enable 
 him to be a very useful practitioner among the poor of 
 his neighborhood. He willingly went from house to 
 house, administering relief to the sick, healing the dis- 
 eases of the body, and endeavoring to bind up the 
 wounds of the spirit. Not a little of his earnings was 
 expended in unwearied services among the poor and af- 
 flicted. By his well-bred gentility, the cordiality of his 
 manners, and his sympathy with their griefs, he won 
 the esteem and love of all around him. The sick and 
 the afflicted, the poor and needy, were satisfied that he 
 was their friend ; and in the very humblest of their 
 tenements he was met with exhibitions of their warm- 
 est w r elcome. In these private and retired acts, we 
 have the most complete demonstration of the greatness 
 of his spirit. 
 
 " The drying of a single tear has more 
 Of honest fame than shedding seas of gore." 
 
 We make a great mistake when we confine deeds of 
 eminence to public scenes and magnificent occasions. 
 It is often in the loneliness of a limited social or domes- 
 tic circle, and in the discharge of the most common- 
 place duty, that the greatest self-denial has to be exer- 
 cised. Men in obscure stations, of whom the world 
 never hears, may have the hardest tasks to perform, and 
 the greatest sacrifices to make, in the cause of God and 
 religion. We should not lavish all our applause and 
 admiration on such as stand foremost in the ranks of 
 philanthropists, and whose names stand prominently 
 forth as having done and suffered much to alleviate hu- 
 man suffering. We should not confine the honors of a 
 true philanthropy to those who, in the sight and amid 
 
140 libeeia's offering. 
 
 the applauses of thousands, pour out of their abundance 
 in the cause of charity. We conceive that he who, se- 
 questered from the gaze of the multitude, " little and un- 
 known," distributes daily and habitually of his earnings 
 to satisfy the needs of an indigent neighborhood, is to 
 the full as deserving as he whose thousands, abstracted 
 from a large and constantly increasing heap, are be- 
 stowed in the vicinity of a newspaper-office. 
 
 Mr. Day, then, by his activity in the performance of 
 those deeds of charity, which were far removed from 
 the observation of men generally, which attracted no 
 attention, showed that he was possessor of a large and 
 expansive soul ; and though he did not attain to the 
 celebrity of a Howard, he was none the less deserving 
 of it, on the principle inculcated by our Saviour him- 
 self : " He that is faithful in that which is least is faith- 
 ful also in much." 
 
 Mr. Day was also a soldier of no ordinary courage. 
 His country never called for his services in that capaci- 
 ty but he was ready to respond ; and when he believed 
 that duty required it, he would brave the greatest dan- 
 gers. On several occasions has he risked his life among 
 uncounted numbers of the enemy, accompanied only by 
 a few men, others refusing to follow, regarding his un- 
 dertakings from their very boldness as the result of 
 some mental disorder. Nothing intimidated him from 
 any position to which he believed himself invited by 
 the interests of his country. 
 
 But it is especially as a Christian and a Christian 
 minister that we delight to contemplate Mr. Day. Be- 
 lieving himself called to the responsible work of preach- 
 ing the Gospel, he devoted himself to it for more than 
 thirty years with unremitting diligence. Although he 
 had not received any of the honorary distinctions of 
 
Liberia's offering. , 141 
 
 literary institutions, although he was no graduate of 
 any Theological Seminary, he had made great profi- 
 ciency in the sublime science of Theology. He had 
 carefully studied all the standard theological works of 
 his own church and of several other denominations, so 
 that on all theological subjects he was generally and 
 perfectly at home. 
 
 Of his Christian character, what can we say that is 
 not already known to you ? You could not have met 
 him at all if you do not agree that he had very high 
 and very noble qualities. No one could have inter- 
 course with him without perceiving prominent and in- 
 teresting features in his character — features formed by 
 the combination of virtue, courage, assiduity, diligence, 
 perseverance, with natural talents and genius of no in- 
 ferior order. There was such a frankness and sincerity 
 in his words and actions, that no one could for a mo- 
 ment suppose that he was not what he seemed to be. 
 What he said he meant. And whenever he made a 
 promise he could be depended upon for its fulfillment, 
 even though such fulfillment involved his own injury. 
 
 There was in his whole life a beautiful consistency 
 and harmony. Not that we would claim for him an 
 exemption from faults and errors. Such is poor human 
 nature, that not unfrequently we find some of the high- 
 est qualities of mind and heart accompanied with very 
 great defects. There were occasionally prominent in 
 Mr. Day certain oddities of character ; but these, if 
 faults at all, were, to say the most of them, venial faults, 
 when we consider the remarkable excellencies by which 
 they were counterbalanced. On the disk of that bright 
 luminary shining above us, the glorious king of day, 
 may be discovered dark spots. But who would be ac. 
 counted wise that should deny himself the privilege 
 
142 , libeeia's offekhstg. 
 
 and pleasure of enjoying the benign rays of that " great- 
 er light," and employ his precious time in pointing out 
 and counting the spots on the sun % Mr. Day had his 
 defects, but the number, and strength, and vitality of 
 his constitutional gifts and Christian graces, completely 
 overshadowed those defects; they were scarcely seen, 
 or, if seen, were but little regarded except by those 
 whose moral vision was jaundiced by prejudice. 
 
 His piety was genuine. He had clear and distinct 
 apprehensions of the great truths of salvation. He had 
 a thorough persuasion that the promises of God record- 
 ed in the Bible are yea and Amen, in Christ Jesus. 
 And there were no prophecies or promises upon which 
 he more delighted to dwell than upon those which re- 
 ferred to Africa. He had strong faith in the assurance 
 that " Ethiopia shall soon stretch out her hands unto 
 God," and to hasten the fulfillment of this glorious 
 promise he prayed and labored. It was a cherished 
 desire of his to have extensive and permanent missions 
 established by the Baptist Board among the natives 
 throughout Liberia. And we could wish that this no- 
 ble desire may be speedily realized, not only with re- 
 spect to his own denomination, but all other denomi- 
 nations in Liberia. We trust that the death of this 
 man of God will prove a stimulus to the " sacramental 
 host of God's elect " to go up and possess the land. 
 We trust that there may be generated in us a more en- 
 larged benevolence, a more ardent zeal, and a more self- 
 denying spirit, that, bravely closing up the vacancy 
 which has just been occasioned in the ranks by the fall 
 of a veteran, we may rally up with redoubled energy 
 and power, determined to conquer or to die. 
 
 As a pastor of the Providence Baptist Church, so far 
 as the weakness and infirmities of declining years per- 
 
LIBERIA'S OFFERING. 143 
 
 uiitted, lie was faithful. For his pulpit ministrations 
 he always made laborious preparation. 
 
 Crude and superficial views of truth never satisfied 
 him. He followed closely the advice of the Apostle in 
 giving attendance to reading, to exhortation, to doctrine. 
 His discourses were the product of much thought and 
 severe mental application. And he not unfrequently, 
 with characteristic humility, referred to the intense 
 labor which it cost him to prepare a discourse as a 
 proof that he was not a man of genius. He earnestly 
 lifted up his voice in public and in private against in- 
 competence and want of intellectual industry in the 
 pulpit. It was his constant endeavor to discourage and 
 suppress the " declamatory raving of ignorance and 
 fanaticism." And he never let pass unimproved any 
 opportunity to rebuke that disposition to noise and 
 disorder, during times of religious interest, which was 
 formerly so common in Liberia. He gave it as his firm 
 and decided intention not to tolerate such undignified 
 proceedings in his church. The friends of reform in 
 this respect must mourn the loss of an efficient and 
 influential co-laborer. May his successor to this charge 
 be blessed with a double portion of his spirit ! 
 
 Mr. Day was unceasing and untiring in his efforts to 
 promote the educational interests of Liberia generally, 
 and of the Baptist church particularly. It had been, 
 for a series of years, his earnest desire to see a literary 
 institution established in Liberia in connection with 
 the Baptist denomination ; and he did not relax his 
 efforts for that purpose until he succeeded in establish- 
 ing the Day's Hope Academy. Day's Hope ! signifi- 
 cant appellation ! It indicates the deep sentiments of 
 his heart with reference to education. He felt that 
 intellectual and moral culture was the hope of Liberia, 
 
14:4 Liberia's offering. 
 
 of the Church, and of the state ; in that were centered 
 all his hopes for the future. May those hopes never be 
 disappointed ! May their object be fully and abun- 
 dantly realized now and hereafter to the latest poster- 
 ity. We trust that that building and that institution 
 may long remain to proclaim to coming generations the 
 high estimation which their fathers placed upon educa- 
 tion. We trust that it will remain to rebuke that false 
 and presumptuous spirit which, while aspiring to use- 
 fulness and eminence in the Church and in the state, 
 despises intellectual application ! We trust it will 
 remain, with its high and sacred design, to inspire pli- 
 ant infancy with the desire and disposition to devote 
 themselves to those ennobling pursuits which it was 
 erected to encourage. We trust it will remain, and 
 that in years to come, old age, weary and worn by 
 toil, may be able to look back and be comforted by 
 the reminiscences it shall suggest, and be encouraged 
 by the future it shall indicate ! Long may Day's Hope 
 stand ! O ye Agents of the Southern Baptist Conven- 
 tion in Liberia and in America ! let Day's Hope stand. 
 Let it stand by your fostering care to bless this infant 
 Republic, Let it stand to bless the Church and send 
 forth scores, nay, hundreds of warriors to fight the bat- 
 tles of the Lord ; to storm manfully and successfully 
 the numerous fortresses of Satan scattered over this 
 land, and to plant the standard of the cross upon their 
 demolished ruins ! 
 
 So keenly did Mr. Day appreciate the deficiency of 
 some of the laborers in Christ's vineyard in this land, 
 and so fearful was he lest, in a cause so near and dear 
 to his heart, they, " for want of better mind," should 
 do more evil than good, that very often his references 
 to such and to their labors seemed to those who did 
 
Liberia's offering. 145 
 
 not understand him, more the result of a bitter and 
 caustic spirit than of Christian charity. But he earn- 
 estly and constantly longed and prayed for, and la- 
 bored to accelerate, the time when all the pulpits in 
 Liberia, but particularly in his own church, should be 
 filled by " faithful men able to teach others." 
 
 When we became acquainted with Mr. Day he had 
 already passed the meridian of life. He was what 
 might be called, especially in this country, an old man ; 
 but he did not undervalue, as is too often the case with 
 the aged, the improvements of the present day. 
 
 " He looked in years, but in his years were seen 
 A youthful vigor, an autumnal green. 1 ' 
 
 While he was no lover of novelty, he always stood 
 ready to adopt and recommend " whatsoever things 
 were true, whatsoever things were lovely, whatsoever 
 things were of good report." He was a man of large 
 experience and extensive reading, and of nice, discrimi- 
 nating judgment. It was not easy to impose upon 
 him. The light and trashy literature of the day, no 
 matter how extolled in newspapers and periodical re- 
 views, found their just deserts when they came into 
 contact with him. He entertained the greatest rever- 
 ence for the old theological and metaphysical writers. 
 " One line," he would frequently say, " froni Edwards, 
 or Butler, or Leighton, or Fuller, is worth pages of 
 many of the productions which the steam-presses so 
 rapidly throw off." He ever referred in most gratefu] 
 terms to Paley's Natural Theology as having arrested 
 his fearful career, when at one time he was nearing the 
 rapids of skepticism and infidelity. When the illus- 
 trious Spurgeon first burst upon the astonished gaze of 
 the Church, extracts from his sermons as reported in 
 
 10 
 
146 LIBERIA'S OFFERING. 
 
 newspapers would often be subjected to Ms cutting 
 severity ; but after having received and read several 
 volumes of the sermons of that wonderful' young man, 
 bis views became considerably modified. 
 
 For tbe last five or six years, and until within a few 
 weeks before Ms death, as there loomed up in the dis- 
 tance before the faith of this veteran soldier of Christ, 
 the mighty battles that are to be fought and the great 
 victories to be achieved in Africa, he desired to live on 
 indefinitely. He could not fix upon any time in the 
 future in view of the great work to be accomplished, 
 when he would be at leisure to die. Nor was this 
 strange. This is the feeling experienced by most of 
 the aged Avho have been laboring for the cause of truth 
 and righteousness, when the time draws near to ex- 
 change faith for vision, hope for fruition. " The desire 
 for continued existence is a native, ardent, universal 
 passion. It is as inherent and inseparable an attribute 
 of the human soul as the understanding; or the will. 
 Christianity adds a religious element, and makes the 
 irrepressible longing a deep and expanded aspiration 
 for an eternal purity, an eternal well-doing and well- 
 being. This passion, when CMistianized, is not a sim- 
 ple desire of the spirit for its own endless life in God, 
 but a deep, indwelling interest in the endless life in 
 God of all fellow-spirits. In this way does it become 
 the inspirer of an important religious activity." 
 
 This earnest desire for long life Mr. Day experi- 
 enced, but only that he might exert himself for the 
 glory of God and the benefit of his fellow-men. Hence 
 his activities were unceasing — under all circumstances 
 of health or sickness, if he could only stir. We have 
 frequently seen him wending his weary way to some 
 church-meeting when, judging from his looks, he ought 
 
Liberia's offering. 147 
 
 to have been in bed. And we have again and again 
 seen his worn and feeble form in the school-room bend- 
 ing over some obtuse intellect striving to impart an 
 important idea, when he seemed to be in the last stage 
 of debility. And no entreaty of his friends, no admo- 
 nition of his physician could induce him to relax his 
 labors whenever he felt the least ability to engage in 
 them. He was influenced by a deep conviction that he 
 had a great deal to do and a short time to do it in. In 
 his indefatigable exertions to serve his day and genera- 
 tion, he has left us a noble example : 
 
 " Oh ! think how, to his latest day, 
 When death, just hovering, claimed his prey 
 With Palinure's unaltered mood, 
 Firm at his dangerous post he stood ; 
 Each call for needful rest repelled, 
 With dying hand the rudder held, 
 Till, in his fall, with fateful sway, 
 The steerage of the realm gave way." 
 
 A few months previous to his last illness he seemed to 
 have conceived a presentiment of the approach of his 
 latter end. But he did not as usual express any desire. 
 to live. He seemed to have no fears at all of dying. 
 He viewed death and spoke of his own dissolution with 
 perfect indifference — not, indeed, with the indifference 
 of the stoic, but with the composure and unruffled 
 calmness peculiar to the Christian. 
 
 On Sunday, the sixth of February, he came, as was 
 his custom when able to walk, to this house, where a 
 large and eao;er congregation was anxiously waiting to 
 hear the words of wisdom and counsel which were 
 wont to fall from his lips. He conducted the prelimi- 
 nary exercises with his usual ease and dignity ; but, 
 alas ! the " silver cord was loosed," and his audience 
 knew it not. When he arose to announce his text, he 
 
148 libekia's offering. 
 
 was seized with such weakness as rendered hini wholly 
 unable to proceed. Having been taken home, he went 
 to bed, but from that bed he rose no more. On the 
 fifteenth of February his spirit was summoned to eter- 
 nal realities. The last assembly he met on earth was 
 an assembly of God's people, with whom he was essay- 
 ing to worship. In a few days after, his spirit mingled 
 with that illustrious and noble army of martyrs who 
 
 " shine 
 
 With robes of victory through the skies." 
 
 We had not the oj^portunity of being at his bed-side 
 immediately before his death, and we can not accurately 
 give you his dying words. But we know that it was a 
 privilege to be there, for 
 
 " The chamber where the good man meets his fate 
 Is privileged beyond the common walks of life, 
 Quite on the verge of heaven," 
 
 We know that he was not at all dismayed as he stood, 
 conscious of approaching dissolution, on the very verge 
 of eternity. Oh ! no. But over its dark and untrav- 
 eled vastness he cast a fearless eye ; and, as he saw 
 himself hastening 
 
 ■ " to join 
 
 The innumerable caravan that moves 
 To the pale realms of shade, where each shall take 
 His chamber in the silent halls of death, 
 He went not like the quarry slave at night, 
 Scourged to his dungeon ; but, sustained and soothed 
 By an unfaltering trust, approached his grave, 
 Like one who wraps the drapery of his couch 
 About him and lies down to pleasant dreams." 
 
 Mr. Day is gone ! Never more will his voice be 
 heard within these walls. Never more will he lift up 
 the voice of warning to the impenitent and administer 
 
Liberia's offering. 149 
 
 encouragement and comfort to the desponding believer. 
 Never more will lie mingle in the public councils of the 
 nation and assist, by his presence and instruction, in the 
 various enterprises of popular interest. He is gone — 
 from the Church and state ! Hear it, ye aged fathers ! 
 and strive to do with all your might whatsoever your 
 hands find to do. Hear it, O cheerful youth ! and lay 
 aside your trifling hilarity, and think of the responsi- 
 bilities which must soon fall upon you, and endeavor 
 to qualify yourselves for their assumption. 
 
 While, however, the death of Mr. Day has occasioned 
 an irreparable loss to Church and state, we do not feel 
 to entertain unmingled emotions of sorrow. He has 
 left us an illustrious example. We have reasons for 
 congratulations in view of the noble instance afforded 
 for the contemplation of the world, the encouragement 
 of the Church, and the emulation of the rising genera- 
 tion, of a long; life of self-denial and usefulness closed 
 
 7 O 
 
 with a beautiful serenity — a dignified calmness and 
 peace. Such a life, such a death, constitute a legacy 
 richer than the silver mines of Peru, and more valuable 
 than the sparkling deposits of Australia or California. 
 Let us avail ourselves jof it. 
 
 " Lives of great men all remind us, 
 We can make our lives sublime ; 
 And, departing, leave behind us 
 Footprints on the sand of time." 
 
A. CHAPTEE 
 
 HISTORY OF THE AFHICAN SLAVE-TRADE, 
 
§t mixytM \\x tire gfetwjj at tlu Qitfim *tew-S»afle.* 
 
 "Quce caret ora cruore nostro?" — Hor. 11 B. Ode I. 
 
 The great epochs of tlie history, whether of mankind 
 generally or of one particular section of the human 
 race, are not unusually preceded by occurrences more 
 or less extraordinary. These occurrences, cursorily 
 viewed, inspire opinions as to their ultimate results, 
 which subsequent experience and the development of 
 the results themselves prove to have been entirely erro- 
 neous. And often what would seem to be the natural 
 and necessary interpretation of the tendency of any 
 particular train of events is discovered to be as wide 
 from the truth as possible. Hence, while there may 
 be formed the most plausible conjectures as to the true 
 character and bearing of any given circumstance or 
 combination of circumstances, the uncertainty of re- 
 sults necessarily precludes the possibility of a just 
 appreciation of any event at the time of its occurrence. 
 The hatred which we learn from sacred story existed in 
 the large family of Jewish brothers against one of their 
 number, upon whom the head of the family seemed to 
 lavish all the affection of old age, the bitterness with 
 which they persecuted him, and the unnatural and 
 cruel indifference with which they consigned him to 
 slavery, were circumstances which seemed to justify the 
 anticipation that the object of their malignity would 
 
 * Reprinted from the Anglo-African for June, 1859. 
 
154 Liberia's offering. 
 
 suffer, pine away, and die in miserable obscurity. But 
 his bondage was the means, humanly sj)eaking, of intro- 
 ducing him to a position, whence, in after-years during 
 a period of pressing exigency, he could administer to 
 the relief and deliverance of the whole family.^ So 
 before the permanent establishment of the nation whom 
 God had chosen to be the depositary of his will and 
 to preserve a knowledge of himself, amid the general 
 apostasy of mankind ; whose conservative character 
 was to influence either remotely or directly other por- 
 tions of the human family, they must go down into 
 Egypt, and there, in a land of strangers, be afflicted 
 " four hundred years ;" their moral and intellectual 
 powers must pass under the withering and blighting 
 influence of a pernicious bondage ; circumstances which 
 seemed entirely at variance with the preparation re- 
 quired by a people destined to occupy the high and 
 important position which the Jews afterwards filled in 
 the world. So also when there was to be established 
 the nation whom God had chosen to " conquer the 
 world and subject it to the dominion of law," as pre- 
 paratory to the advent of the " Prince of Peace," one 
 of the most ancient and powerful states must pass 
 through a series of unprecedented calamities, and, at 
 length, leveled to the dust by the " unsparing steel and 
 devouring element," of relentless foes, from its ashes 
 must spring forth the germ of the chosen people — 
 the all-conquering Romans. 
 
 " Res Asiae Priamique evertere gentem 
 
 Immeritam visum Superis.* 
 
 So, again, in modern times, when the period draws 
 near for the redemption and delivery of Africa from the 
 
 * Vireil's JEneid. B. III. 1. 
 
LIBERIA'S OFFERING. 155 
 
 barbarism and degradation of unnumbered years, there 
 must take place circumstances so horrible in their char- 
 acter, and so revolting to the nobler instincts of man 
 as to find few disposed to recognize in them the hand 
 of a supreme and merciful Ruler. 
 
 " Sunt lachrymas rerum, et mentem mortalia tangunt." 
 
 Almost coeval with the invention of printing and 
 the discovery of America — two great eras in the history 
 of human improvement — was the beginning of the 
 African slave-trade. As soon as the empire of Europe, 
 following the guiding " star" of destiny, began to move 
 "westward," she dragged Africa, rather tardy in the 
 march of nations, along with her to the place which 
 seems to have been designed for the rejuvenescence of 
 eastern senility, for the untrammeled exercise and 
 healthful growth of the principles of political and 
 ecclesiastical liberty, and for the more thorough devel- 
 opment of man. And it can not be denied that the 
 Africans when first carried to the Western world were 
 benefited. The men under whose tutelage they were 
 taken generally regarded them as a solemn charge in- 
 trusted to their care by Providence, and felt bound to 
 instruct them, and in every way to ameliorate their 
 condition. They were not only indoctrinated into the 
 principles of Christianity, but they were taught the 
 arts and sciences. The relation of the European to the 
 African in those unsophisticated times was that of 
 guardian and protege. And the system, if slavery it 
 was, bore a strong resemblance to slavery as it existed 
 among the Romans, in the earlier periods of their his- 
 toiy, when the " slave was the teacher, the artist, the 
 actor, the man of science, the physician." Hence many 
 good men, in view of the benefits which they saw accrue 
 
156 Liberia's offering. 
 
 from the mild and generous system, embarked their 
 capital in, and gave their influence to, the enterprise of 
 transporting negroes from Africa. The virulent fea- 
 tures of the trade were not developed until the enor- 
 mous gains which were found to result from the toil of 
 the African and the consequent demand for his labor, 
 had supplied the Western continent with hordes of 
 these children of the sun. But the evils of the sys- 
 tem, though horrifying in the extreme, were not re- 
 garded of sufficient magnitude to arrest the importation 
 of slaves. The benefits which the poor heathen re- 
 ceived in his deportation from a land of barbarism to 
 a land of civilization furnished a counterbalancing ar^u- 
 ment to the mind of those benevolent souls who were 
 actively engaged in the trade — the rapidity and ease 
 with which they were enriching their coffers was, of 
 course, only incidental to their glorious design of civil- 
 izing poor, benighted Africa ! ! 
 
 But it was not long before the true character of the 
 traffic began unmistakably to discover itself. Its im- 
 mense gains brought men of various characters into 
 competition. The whole western coast of Africa became 
 the haunt of the slave-trader, and the scene of unutter- 
 able cruelties as the result of their operations. The 
 more powerful native chiefs, impelled by those sordid 
 and cruel feelings which, in the absence of higher mo- 
 tives, actuate men, made war upon their weaker neigh- 
 bors in order to capture prisoners to supply the demand 
 of the traders ; and a state of things was induced which 
 awakened the commiseration and called, forth the re- 
 monstrances of the thoughtful and philanthropic in 
 Christian lands. Wilberforce, Granville Sharp, and 
 others, ably exhibited before the British public the 
 horrible effects of the trade ; pointed out its disastrous 
 
libeeia's offering. 157 
 
 influence upon the peaceful communities of Africa ; 
 showed its agency in the disintegration of African soci- 
 ety, and in the feuds and guerrillas which distracted the 
 African coast ; discovered it as depopulating the conti- 
 nent, and giving rise to multifarious and indescribable 
 evils ; and proposed as a remedy the immediate aboli- 
 tion of the traffic. In 1792 Mr. H. Thornton, Chair- 
 man of the Sierra Leone Company, said, in the course 
 of a discussion consequent upon a motion made by Mr. 
 Wilberforce for the abolition of the slave-trade : " It 
 had obtained the name of a trade', and many had' 
 been deceived by the appellation ; but it was a war, 
 not a trade', it was a mass of crimes, and not com- 
 merce', it alone prevented the introduction of trade 
 into Africa. It created more embarrassments than all 
 the natural impediments of the country, and was more 
 hard to contend with than any difficulties of climate, 
 soil, or natural dispositions of the people." The slave- 
 traders by pampering their cupidity had so ingratiated 
 themselves with the native rulers of the country, and 
 had acquired such an influence on the coast, that 
 nothing could be suffered which would at all interfere 
 with the activity of the trade. The establishment of 
 any settlement or colony opposed to the traffic was of 
 course out of the question. 
 
 The close of the eighteenth century, when experi- 
 ence had proved the traffic to be at variance with the 
 laws of Grod and an outrage upon humanity, witnessed 
 the inauguration of vigorous efforts on the part of the 
 philanthropists in England for the destruction of its 
 legality. Mr. Wilberforce, having introduced the mo- 
 tion in Parliament " that the trade carried on by Brit- 
 ish subjects for the purpose of obtaining slaves on the 
 African coast ought to be abolished," the friends of the 
 
158 Liberia's offering. 
 
 motion ceased not in their efforts nntil on the tenth of 
 February, 1807, a committee of the whole Honse passed 
 a bill " that no vessel should clear out for slaves from 
 any port within the British dominions after May 1, 
 1807," fifteen years after the introduction of Mr. Wil- 
 berforce's motion. The legality of the traffic being 
 thus overthrown by England, and by other nations fol- 
 lowing in her wake, the horrors of the traffic manifestly 
 declined, and honorable commerce could again be pros- 
 ecuted with some measure of safety. 
 
 The temporary immunity of the coast- from the hor- 
 rors attendant upon the slave-trade, occasioned by the 
 passage of the British " Abolition Act," furnished an 
 opportunity to certain philanthropists in America to 
 carry out an idea which had originated years previous- 
 ly, of planting on the west coast of Africa a colony of 
 civilized Africans, but which had seemed impracticable 
 in consequence of the unlimited and pernicious sway 
 which the slavers held on the coast. In the year 1816 
 a Society was instituted under the denomination of the 
 "American Colonization Society," for the purpose of 
 colonizing in Africa, with their own consent, free per- 
 sons of color of the United States. In 1820, the neces- 
 sary preparations having been made, the ship Eliza- 
 beth sailed from the United States with a conrpany of 
 eighty-eight emigrants for the west coast of Africa. 
 After various trials and difficulties they landed on Cape 
 Monserrado and succeeded in establishing themselves. 
 But" scarcely had they intrenched themselves when the 
 slavers, a few of whom still hovered on ihe coast and 
 had factories in the vicinity of Monserrado, began to 
 manifest their hostility to the settlers, endeavoring in 
 every possible way to break up the settlement ; while 
 the aboriginal neighbors of the colonists, finding that 
 
libeeia's offeeing. 159 
 
 tlie presence of the colony was diminishing very con- 
 siderably their gains from the unhallowed trade, in- 
 dulged a lurking enmity which only awaited opportu- 
 nity to develop itself. But the opportunity was not 
 long in offering, for the colony was hardly two years 
 old when it was desperately assailed by untold num- 
 bers of savages who came down in wild ferocity upon 
 the feeble and defenseless company, and must have 
 swept away every trace of them had not a merciful 
 Providence vouchsafed deliverance to the weak. The 
 settlers triumphed against overwhelming odds. 
 
 The slave-traders, notwithstanding the signal defeat 
 of their native allies in the traffic, were not willino: to 
 abandon a scene which for scores of years they had 
 unmolestedly and profitably infested. They still lin- 
 gered about the settlement. " From eight to ten, and 
 even fifteen vessels were engaged at the same time in 
 this odious traffic almost under the guns of the settle- 
 ment; and in July of the same year, (1825,) contracts 
 were existing for eight hundred slaves to be furnished 
 in the short space of four months, within eight miles of 
 the Cape. Four hundred of these were to be purchased 
 for two American traders.'* During the same year Mr. 
 Ashmun, agent of the American Colonization Society, 
 wrote to the Society : " The colony only wants the 
 right ; it has the power to expel this traffic to a dis- 
 tance, and force it at least to conceal some of its worst 
 enormities." From this time the Society began to take 
 into consideration the importance of enlarging the ter- 
 ritory of the colony, and thus including within its 
 jurisdiction several tribes, in order both to protect the 
 settlement against the evil of too great proximity to 
 slave-factories and to place it within the competency of 
 
 * Gurley's Life of Ashmun, page 261. 
 
160 Liberia's offering. 
 
 the colonial authorities to " expel the traffic to a dis- 
 tance." But even after the limits of the colony had 
 been greatly extended and several large tribes brought 
 under its jurisdiction, the slavers would every now and 
 then attempt to renew their old friendships, and fre- 
 quently occasioned not a little trouble to the colonists 
 by exciting the natives to insubordination and hostility 
 to a colony which, as they alleged, (being instructed so 
 to think by the slavers,) " was spoiling their country 
 and breaking up their lucrative trade." 
 
 The feelings of some of the natives who had surren- 
 dered themselves to Liberian authority, became, under 
 the guidance of the " marauding outlaws," so embit- 
 tered against the colony that they more than once 
 boldly avowed their hostile sentiments, and professed 
 utter indifference to the laws of Liberia. This, together 
 with the fact that every once in a while slavers would 
 locate themselves, erect barracoons and purchase slaves 
 on Liberian territory under the countenance and pro- 
 tection of aboriginal chiefs, rendered several wars (?) 
 against the latter necessary in order to convince them 
 that Liberians had power to compel them to obedi- 
 ence. The last war of this character was " carried " to 
 New-Cess in 1849, immediately after the independence 
 of Liberia had been recognized by England and France. 
 The condign punishment inflicted upon the slavers by 
 that military expedition, the regular cruising of the 
 Liberian government schooner Lark, and the scattering 
 of settlements at various points, have entirely driven 
 away the slavers from the Liberian coast. The country 
 in consequence has enjoyed a grateful repose, and the 
 people have been peaceably prosecuting a legitimate 
 traffic both with Liberians and foreigners. 
 
 But latterly a new element of discord has been intro- 
 
LIBERIA'S OFFERING. 161 
 
 chiced on the Liberian coast, the French emigration sys- 
 tem. French vessels visit the coast for the ostensible 
 object of employing laborers for the French colonies. 
 Of course it is understood or presumed that all emi- 
 grants embarking on board of these vessels do so of 
 their own accord ; if so, the trade is as lawful as any 
 other emigration trade. But it must be borne in mind 
 that the aborigines are not settled along the coast in in- 
 dependent republican communities. They are under 
 the most despotic rule ; the king or head-man having 
 absolute control over his subjects or " boys." All the 
 employer of emigrants has to do, then, is to offer, which 
 he does, liberal conditions to the chiefs for the number 
 of laborers required. The chiefs immediately send 
 around and compel their boys to come, or if they have 
 not a sufficient number of their own people to answer 
 the demand, predatory excursions are made, in which 
 they kidnap the weak and unsuspecting, or a pretext is 
 assumed for a war with a neighboring tribe ; cruelty, 
 bloodshed, carnage ensue; prisoners are taken, driven 
 down to the beach and handed over to the captain of 
 the emigrant ship, whose business being to employ all 
 the laborers he can get, does not stop to inquire as to 
 the method adopted for obtaining these persons. The 
 result is, a state of things as revolting as that occasioned 
 by the slave-trade in its most flourishing period. The 
 bond which it was hoped Liberia had formed for the 
 linking together of tribe to tribe in harmonious inter- 
 course and mutual dependence, is thus being rudely 
 snapped asunder. The natives, according to complaints 
 made by some of them to the Liberian government, are 
 being agitated with reciprocal fears and jealousies, their 
 lives and property are in danger, and a check is imposed 
 upon all their industrious efforts. 
 11 
 
162 libeeia's offering. 
 
 An occurrence, however, sad indeed, but no doubt 
 providential, has recently taken place on the Liberian 
 coast, which has clearly developed the character of the 
 system, and which will, in all probability, arrest its 
 deleterious influences. In the early part of April last 
 (1858) the Regina Coeli, a French ship engaged in 
 the enlistment of laborers, as above stated, was laying 
 at anchor off Manna, a trading port a few leagues north- 
 west of Monrovia, with two or three hundred emigrants 
 on board, among whom, in consequence of some of their 
 number being manacled, considerable dissatisfaction 
 prevailed. During the absence of the captain and one 
 of the officers, a quarrel broke out between the cook 
 and one of the emigrants. The cook struck the emi- 
 grant, the latter retaliated, when a scuffle ensued, in 
 which other emigrants took part. This attracted the 
 attention of the rest of the crew, who coming to the as- 
 sistance of the cook, violently beat the emigrants, kill- 
 ing several of them. By this time, those emigrants who 
 had been confined below were unshackled, and joining 
 in the fracas killed in retaliation all the crew, save 
 one man who fled aloft and protested most earnestly his 
 freedom from any participation in the matter. The 
 emigrants, recognizing his innocence, spared his life, but 
 ordered him ashore forthwith, which order he readily 
 obeyed. 
 
 The surviving emigrants having sole charge of the 
 vessel, awaited the arrival of the captain to dispatch 
 him as soon as he touched the deck. But he, learning 
 their design, did not venture on board, but sought and 
 obtained aid from the Liberian authorities at Cape 
 Mount to keep the exasperated savages from stranding 
 his vessel. The unfortunate ship was subsequently res- 
 cued by an English mail steamer, and towed into Mon- 
 serrado Roads. 
 
Liberia's offering. 163 
 
 One very important result lias accrued from this sad 
 occurrence, and that is the one already referred to — the 
 development of the ruinous influence of the French emi- 
 gration system upon the natives from among whom the 
 laborers are taken. There have existed apprehensions 
 on the part of the Liberian government that the emi- 
 gration was constrained; "but having received official 
 information and assurance that the system enjoyed the 
 countenance and patronage of the French government, 
 and that the traders were under the immediate surveil- 
 lance of French officials, it could not depreciate the 
 honesty and good intentions of that renowned and mag- 
 nanimous nation. 
 
 Nearly coincident with the above circumstance, and, 
 perhaps, in some measure the result of it, was another 
 of a similar character, in the interior of Liberia. One 
 or two native chiefs, it appears, had collected a number 
 of persons and were conveying them, manacled, to the 
 coast for the purpose of supplying the emigrant vessels. 
 On their way they stopped, with their human load, to 
 pass the night at a native town. During the night, 
 one of the captives having worked himself loose, untied 
 the others, when a revolt ensued in which the prisoners . 
 killed their kidnappers and made their escape. 
 
 It is a matter of profound regret that such should be 
 the concomitants of a system which was doubtless de- 
 signed by the French government for the benefit of the 
 x\frican race, and which, if judiciously carried out, ac- 
 cording to its original intention, would probably result 
 in the downfall of American slavery. A French periodi- 
 cal published in Paris, states the view taken of the sys- 
 tem by French philanthropists as follows : 
 
 " La France, en agissant comme elle le fait, ne travaille pas seulement 
 pour la fortune des deux iles qui lui restent dans l'archipel des petites 
 
164 Liberia's offering. 
 
 Antilles ; elle a, il est vrai, a peupler aussi, dans le cercle plus special des 
 interets nationaux, la Guyane francaise et l'Algerie ; mais elle a surtout 
 la mission de proteger de son pavilion et de couronner de son aureole mor- 
 ale une oeuvre essentiellement humanitaire, dont la double consequence 
 doit etre, d'extirper l'esclavage de deux continents a la fois, de l'Afrique 
 et de l'Amerique."* 
 
 If the emigration system could be carried on without 
 involving the coast in such fearful distractions, it would, 
 we are inclined to believe, furnish before long a fair and 
 satisfactory solution of the problem respecting the com. 
 parative productiveness of slave and free labor. There 
 would be furnished in Gruiana and other French colo- 
 nies, to which these emigrants are taken, an example of 
 vast tropical regions extensively and profitably culti- 
 vated by hordes of free native Africans. But so long 
 as the system bears a compulsory character, the results 
 to Africa of the efforts of those engaged in it, can not 
 fail to be disastrous. And no intercourse of foreigners 
 with the natives, in the vicinity of Liberia and Sierra 
 Leone, containing in it any element of the slave-trade, 
 will be long endured. Through the influence of these 
 civilized and Christian colonies, the natives far and near 
 have been taught the sacredness of human rights. 
 They will not easily and silently submit to enslavement, 
 if there is the least chance of successful resistance. 
 From Sierra Leone to Bereby, a distance of about seven 
 hundred miles of coast, with an interior of about one 
 hundred and fifty miles, and a population of about 
 eight hundred thousand souls, the natives have caught 
 the inspiration of the Genius of universal Freedom, 
 and they too sing — 
 
 " Hereditary bondmen, know ye not, 
 That they who would be free, themselves must strike the blow !" 
 
 In a great part of this region, what is an unmistaka- 
 
 * Annates d'Afrique, Mars et Avril, 1858. 
 
Liberia's offering. 165 
 
 ble indication that the natives have permanently aban- 
 doned the slave-trade, is the absence of barricaded 
 towns, which formerly, when the trade was rife, were 
 indispensable to their protection from the slave-hunters. 
 And these sentiments of freedom are spreading them- 
 selves far and wide, into the equatorial regions of Afri- 
 ca. Besides the influence which the missionaries scat- 
 tered along the coast for about two thousand miles, are 
 exerting, " a commencement has been made of home mi- 
 gration of liberated Africans, from Sierra Leone into 
 the Yoruba country." These people having received 
 an education under the operation of the free principles 
 of English law, and having accumulated a little proper- 
 ty, are returning home deeply imbued with a sense of 
 the wrong and injustice of the slave-trade, and are form- 
 ing settlements on civilized and Christian principles. 
 The ardent and enlightened love of liberty, which has 
 been engendered among them, under the teachings of 
 those friends of the African, will render them anxious 
 not only to reduce to practice, but widely to dissemi- 
 nate those lessons of personal and political liberty. 
 And it may reasonably be hoped, that they will soon 
 so generally diffuse their principles among the natives 
 of those regions, so develop and strengthen among the 
 masses the love of freedom, as to render those chiefs 
 who favor the slave-trade, unjDopular among their peo- 
 ple, as all such miscreants are becoming in the vicinity 
 of Liberia. 
 
 The unusual rush recently made by slavers to certain 
 portions of the equatorial coast, have called for vigorous 
 action on the part of the British squadron, which has 
 resulted in the capture of several notorious slavers. 
 The American squadron, which has hitherto not been 
 as efficient as desirable, is now on the alert. Measures 
 
166 ' libeeia's offekixg. 
 
 are taking, we understand, to increase the efficiency of 
 this squadron. From the cooperation of the two squad- 
 rons, much good may be expected, or rather we may 
 look for the prevention of much evil. 
 
 But while the odious traffic is receiving its death- 
 wounds on the coast, we hear of a determination on the 
 part of some in North- America to resuscitate it. Upon 
 almost every wind that sweeps from the United States 
 do we receive indications of a disposition in certain sec- 
 tions of that country to commence the importation of 
 slaves into the Southern States. In the reports of Con- 
 gress and State Legislatures, in the public newspapers, 
 in the sermons of eminent divines, in private letters, we 
 have the same admonition. Qne may aspectu primo be 
 somewhat surprised to find such a feeling existing in a 
 land, which in point of intellectual and moral light, is 
 among the most favored in the world. But when it is 
 considered that we have fallen upon times when " the 
 lust of gain is the sole impulse of human activity, and 
 almost the only umpire of human life," when intellect 
 has become the slave of avarice, though proclaiming 
 its incontestable dominion over the universe, we can 
 hardly wonder. It is by no means surprising that there 
 should be such a failure on the part of those votaries of 
 slavery and the slave-trade, in the land of light, to dis- 
 cover that flagrant wrong and enormous guilt involved 
 in their favorite pursuit ; for, besides the strenuous ef- 
 forts which they make to believe and to disseminate 
 the dogma that " the black man has no rights which 
 white men are bound to respect," their indisposition to 
 work with their own hands, and the prodigious gains 
 which accrue to them from the unrecompensed toil of 
 the Negro, have erected an insurmountable and impene- 
 trable barrier between them and Bight. " I can never 
 
Liberia's offering. 167 
 
 cease to be most unfeignedly thankful," says Dr. Liv- 
 ingstone, " that I was not born in a land of slaves. No 
 one can understand the effect of the unutterable mean- 
 ness of the slave system on the minds of those who, but 
 for the strange obliquity which prevents them from 
 feeling the degradation of not being gentlemen enough 
 to pay for services rendered, would be equal in virtue 
 to ourselves. Fraud becomes as natural to them as 
 1 paying one's way ' is to the rest of mankind."* 
 
 But we are rather encouraged than otherwise by the 
 noisy boasting of the pro-slavery zealots. We regard 
 it, all things considered, as a favorable augury. It is 
 our deliberate opinion that, if the real feelings of some 
 of the loudest defenders of slavery were known, we 
 should find them briefly but truly expressed in the sig- 
 nificant device : " Le passe me tourniente, et je crains 
 l'avenir." 
 
 The days of giant o23pression are numbered and he 
 knows it. His hideous and menacing roars are only ac- 
 companiments of his dying paroxysms. While we must 
 admit that the " gnashing of his teeth," and his " hor- 
 rible grins," are indications of what he would do under 
 more favorable circumstances, yet, knowing as we do, 
 the march of events in the current history of the world, 
 we can not but regard it as a sign of supervening ener- 
 vation and overwhelming overthrow. 
 
 * Livingstone's Miss. Travels, etc., in South-Africa, p. 39. 
 
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