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 DELIVERED BEFORE THE 
 
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 JANUAEY 18, 1881, 
 
 BY 
 
 JOHN L. WITHROW, D. D., 
 
 Pauk Stueet Church, Boston. 
 
 PUBLISHED BY REQUEST. 15?!^ ^^ 
 
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 Colonization JBuilding, -450 Pennsylvania /Avenue 
 
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 DELIVERED BEFOEE THE 
 
 ^^^mi|natt f^IatthaJtcn ^^diflo. 
 
 JANUARY 18, 1881. 
 
 BT 
 
 JOHN L WITHROW, D. D., 
 
 ?-/' j (j- Park Street CnuRcn, Boston. 
 
 PUBLISHED BY REQUEST. 
 
 ^WASHINGTON CITT; 
 POLONIZATION ^UILDING, 45 J'eNNSYLYANIA /iVENUK 
 
 i88i, 
 
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KosiiAL School Steam Pbess, •■|i- 
 Hawpton. Va. S. 1 
 
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ADDRESS. 
 
 • 
 
 Things sound as if the morning hour for Africa must have struck. 
 The last of the six continents to claim the attention of the world, who 
 can be sure she may not yet, as the last child of Jesse, be appointed by 
 Providence to a place of principal eminence? Her calling is at a pro- 
 pitious period of human history. Though denominated the dark cont- 
 nent, her set time strikes in the high day of universal light, when the 
 prophecy is being fulfilled : " the darkness shall flee away." Other con- 
 tinents have been carved and shaped into the similitudes of palaces for 
 the people with clumsy and cruel weapons of civilization: with dull 
 and inadequate agencies for education and under bigoted and blunder- 
 ing leadership in religion. 
 
 Would the governments of Darius and Alexander have perished if 
 knowledge had been diHused so that politics had been understood by 
 the people as well as by the archon ; and religion by the worshipner 
 as well as by the priest? 
 
 Might not Rome have still been stable on her seven hills of Empire 
 had she but felt the thrill of disenthraUing individualism, which came 
 forth in convulsions at the close of the eighteenth century, but is the 
 normal life of the nineteenth? 
 
 Do the agonizing nations of Northern Europe now indicate anything 
 more clearly than this, that our era means to end its work by cuttincrthe 
 canch from the fetter, and flinging into the black abyss of'the 
 forever the last shackle of human bondage? Because the world moves 
 mankind has come much nearer than ever to know how deep were the 
 words of the Lord : "The son of man came to seek and save that which 
 was lost." Naturalism provides a physician for the whole; Biblical 
 civilization, for them that are sick. 
 
 Old times and nations m not imitate your parental care and provide 
 first for the impotent, ignorant and poor. They debated and declared 
 the div.nc right of Kings; the lofty claims of feudal lords; and the in- 
 hcrent eminence assured by color of blood, independent of character 
 Ancestral times were reluctant to learn that a State cannot imitate an 
 acrobat and stand upon its head. Later times have learned it And 
 now, whither have the absolute monarchies of earth departed? How 
 limited arc the limits of momarchies that yet remain? And how their 
 constantly shrinking prerogatives remind us of the cage of storv 
 Bu.lt so that the turn of crank each morning made its sides close 
 and shutout ray after ray of day, until at last the inmate, was chr.shed ' 
 by Its irou embrace. And he who designed and built it suffered death 
 by It. So those old Constitutions and States, which potentates composed 
 
io press the life out of the common people, for the pleasure and profit 
 of fortune's favorites, are closing on their builders, as the shrinking cage; 
 until there is hardly a royal house that does not suffer a continual ache 
 of apprehension for the future of crowned heads. Up to this pro- 
 pitious present where -willwe find a continent oi; country whose begin- 
 nings of civilization were not hampered by the restrictions of popular 
 riglits? This accounts for empires perishing, and for the slow pro- 
 gress made by such as survive. 
 
 Consider the condition of England at the hour of the Norman con- 
 quest, and compare her with Great Britain now ; and how very slowly she 
 has moved during those eight centuries! England would not have been 
 so long in rising from the bogs and barbarism of her beginning to be- 
 come, as she is, the first of Christian Kingdoms, if Alfred the Great liad 
 begun his work at the same time that you planted a Colony on the shores 
 of Africa! 
 
 But three and three quarter centuries have a little more than elapsed 
 since white men commenced to fashion our national fabric from the 
 American forests. Only two hundred and sixty Decembers have sheet- 
 ed Plymouth Rock with ice since the pious and intrepid Puritans sowed 
 the seeds of republican liberty along the New England coast. But a 
 hundred and four times, the fourth of July's rejoicings have reverberated 
 over our heads as an independent people. For ninety and two years 
 only wc have slept under the canopy of a national Constitution. And 
 behold how much further we have advanced in less than four centuries, 
 than England did in six. 
 
 And yet our beginnings were under heavy disabilities. What slug- 
 gish shipss ailed the seas? What tardy communications circulated ideas? 
 What loitering messengers imparted intelligence? How narrow were 
 the notions of natural laws! Uow dull was the appetite for progress in 
 art! Science was an embryo. Religion largely a superstition. Com- 
 merce a name. Civilization rude. Culture crude. International comi- 
 ty unknown. China was a sealed munition ; Japan a myth ; England an 
 enemy and all Europe a fiercely contested battlefield. Therefore, there 
 is no other ground of national boasting so broad and safe as this; that 
 •we have done as well as we have, considering the hindrances at the outset. 
 
 During these dolorous ages Africa, as a diamond in the mine, has 
 been hid in the dark waiting for the digger, the lapidary and the day 
 when she may dazzle and decorate the world. Her time arrives when the 
 noise of war is scarcely heard under the sun; when Kings and Captains 
 have loosed their clutch of spears and swords to take up plows and pens; 
 when for Councils of War wc select Commissions of arbitration; when 
 the haughtiest power cannot abuse its subjects, any more than a heart- 
 ■ less driver can the dumb brute, without having sucli protests and penal- 
 ties imposed as Austria and Turkey have recently heard and heeded. 
 The hour for Africa is when nations are not clamorous for territorial 
 
conquest, but rich enous;li to offer unlimited wealth for investment and 
 for her development: and religious enough to give aid to those who will 
 carry her the best schools and the most Bibles ; build the fewest confes- 
 sionals; bind her conscience the least and exalt her social life the most. 
 When the plans and impulses of Providence prompted the opening of 
 North America — except a few scattered fishermen who came down from 
 the north not to stay — tiiere were but two great nations that could 
 take time from war at home to man expeditions and plant colonies in 
 this new country. To day the entire world nearly looks through the 
 oi)cn gates of Janus in the only one direction that remains to invite the 
 explorer; and is eager to follow him. Ships have been stripped of lazy 
 sail and filled with impatient steam. Monrovia is nearer New York than 
 Pittahnrg was when your Society elected its first President. At thirty 
 or forty dilTerent points ambitious parties are seeking entrance to the 
 unknown secrets of Africa; and maybe we will hold our breath when 
 they bring back full reports, by and by. They are clothed with peace; 
 weaponed with implements of the best civilization ; aflame with the 
 loftiest aspiration and devoted to the extension of that religion which, 
 alone has a heaven-born right to reign. Theodolites and spades are 
 ready to alter footpaths into railroads, on which engines will ultimate- 
 ly each drag hundreds of tons where but a few stone- weight have been 
 loaded on brutes and slaves' backs from the beginning. The desert of 
 Sahara, from side to side, is soon to be seeded with the roses of industry 
 which railroads are sure to sow. And the Niger is to cradle keels that 
 will carry some such promise and potency for the Western side of the 
 Continent, as the Nile did for the little nook of Egypt when it bore 
 Moses in the basket of bulrushes. 
 
 For this, prosperous France appropriates this year six millions of 
 francs. Germany unites the purse of iier Parliament with the resources 
 of lier geographical societies, and commissions six expeditions to go and 
 sfe tiiis thing which has come to pass, and bring her word again. 
 Though trembling under the burdens of taxation and weary with schem- 
 ing, to sustain her standing as a solvent nation, Italy is unable to hold 
 (•tf her hands from knocking for admission to Africa. Spain, never in- 
 different to her neighbor beyond the narrows of Gibraltar, now wakes 
 to unwonted energy ; and enters eagerly into the competition with others, 
 if haply she may on the eastern side sieze the pearl of great price. Of 
 all names that are taken up tenderly in our times none receives more rev- 
 erent regard tlian that of David Livingstone ; the factory boy of Blantyre, 
 who became for ever illustrious by hiding himself in the bosom of the 
 dark continent — as a lamp in a lantern— thereby becoming its light, 
 and as well making it luminous to all who look at it. 
 
 The intrepid Stanley is as renowned as was a great warrior of old ; simp- 
 ly because he has carried the torch of a Christian civilization, and the let- 
 ters which spoil liberty further than any white man into the interior and 
 up to Mtesa's Court ! Surely things sound as if the morning hour for 
 
Africa has struck. 
 
 In this consort of nations, closing round her coasts, — their minds on 
 her mines of precious ores; eyes on her elephants and ivory; snuffing 
 her spice groves and peering into the mouths of her waters to see where 
 her rivers of palm oil rise, what attitude and anxiety best becomes us 
 as a nation? Not the same as is seemly for others. No other nation 
 has, as we have, crushed and milled her sons into riches, as the caues of 
 the sugar fields are worked. No other nation has been so ignorant and 
 rapacious as ours in robbing this subject race of its blood, and rolling it 
 up as the make weight of cotton bales, and chiefest wealth and sign of 
 boasted social supremacy of the proudest section of the body politic. 
 Therefore, by no rule of righteousness can we seek first the prizes of 
 commerce which rightfully allure other lands. Or if we do, and do ob- 
 tain them, I fear the curse of ill-gotten pain will accumulate as between 
 us and these our ebony brothers of one blood. 
 
 It is time for us to begin to serve Africa; to redress unutterable 
 wrongs by " works meet for repentance." The eternal throne of justice 
 may express its full satisfaction with African slave-holding America 
 when we do more than God's compulsory Providence in war compelled 
 us to do — cut the shackle and set the black man free. When we do 
 more than put into the hands of benighted ignorance a ballot, to make 
 the black man a voter in form, but a victim of all political villainy in 
 fact. When we do even more than open public schools and university 
 courses for his education. 
 
 Story books, that we read in boyhood, had thrilling tales of Indians 
 stealing children from families of white people on the frontier. The 
 agonies of parental sufferings! how vividly they are painted! The pe- 
 rils of the pure maiden as a prisoner in the wigwam of wicked men ; and 
 the months and years of anguish that intervene before word is brought 
 home how the lost child is, we can easily recall ! Suppose it were our 
 child, and all we heard was that her captors had cut the cords from her 
 wrists ; had agreed not to degrade her character any deeper by unspeak- 
 able lawlessness ; and had opened a school in which her offspring of 
 shame might see what they could do to recover themselves. 
 
 Could our indignation acquit even an aboriginee who would con- 
 sider this a decent travesty of justice' Give me back my child, is the 
 choking cry of abused parental love. 
 
 And if Africa is too far off for our ears to catch her cry: or if ignor- 
 ance and oppression have so deadened her best sensibility that she has 
 ceased to knoV how shamefully she has suffered in the robbery and 
 commerce of her children, we believe heaven hears for her, and holds the 
 book of account. 
 
 And if so, our bounden duty is to undertake, more errnestly than 
 ever for Africa both here and abroad, all enterprises that promise to re- 
 dress her wrongs and to return her offspring, who may have a hunger 
 for home, to tlie land of their fathers. Therefore it goes without say- 
 
1 
 
 ing, that those imposing plans of the American Board to plant the agen 
 cies and emblems of salvation at Bihe deserve the sympathy and suppli- 
 cation of every American citizen. They go not for gain, but the good 
 of souls, the glory of God and the illumination of the dark land. So 
 does the Mendi Mission, which now, under our American Missionary 
 Association, after thirty years of feeble success and fearful sacrifice of 
 white missionaries, is setting nut to bring salvation to that part 
 of Africa through the service of her own sons. 
 
 But passing these and other agencies with only a word of benediction, 
 we are now to consider, whether this African Colonization Society ought 
 not still to have a share of sympathy and a swelling measure of substan- 
 tial support in doing a part of this work. 
 
 It ought; consideiing its patient continuance in well doing up to 
 this present. At a meeting held in Park St. church, Boston, about a 
 year ago, in the interests of your Society, Rev. Joseph Cook shocked the 
 audience into intense attention by this opening sentence: "Liberia is 
 bankrupt!" He instantly relieved our solicitude by saying; "These 
 were the words of an opponent of African Colonization which I heard 
 while coming down to the church." 
 
 It was not our Boston orator who declared " Liberia is bankrupt." 
 And it may not have been the best informed from whom he took his ora- 
 torical fire-cracker. 
 
 The outs, if they are of a critical mind, have every advi ntage over the 
 ins that endeavor to promote an enterprise. Because it is so much eas- 
 ier to criticise than to construct; easier to give reasons for refusing fav- 
 or than to establish truth by argument and effort. 
 
 Of those who have least faith in African Colonization and least fervor 
 in forwarding your endeavors, it may not be uncharitable to guess, the 
 lack is due largely to the same cause which, we read, gave God such 
 grief in the days of the prophets; "Israel doth not know ; my people do 
 not consider." But, remembering how much there is to know and do in 
 our day, we need not feel aggrieved if all good men are not enlisted in 
 every excellent movement. 
 
 It does n<it disturb the faith we have in the temperance reform that 
 some really pious people are imprudent enough to tipple. Nor ought 
 it to influence any friend of African Colonization unfavorably to hear of 
 ardent philanthropists who prefer another way of paying our debts. It 
 weighs nothing against this Society's work, that we know, if even the de- 
 based race, for wliose welfare it has so patiently worked, are not entire- 
 ly enthusiastic in their praise of it. That signifies nothing; because their 
 intelligence is not yet so broad and clear but that they are in dread of 
 the very uncertain white man who from the time he first stole their fore- 
 fathers and enslaved them has shown an ingenuity in mistreating men 
 «)f their color. Neittier do any short comings of complete success in 
 the free colony and Republic of Liberia settle the question against your 
 eloquent appeal for enlarged support. Nations do not grow as Jonah's 
 
gourd — unless to wither as quick. It was 1821 before a permanent be- 
 ginning of tlie Republic of Liberia was recorded. Since then only sixty 
 years have passed. Sixty years with sixty wings on every minute of the 
 time, and how swiftly the years do fly. 
 
 Take account of any other nation that started on so desolate a site, 
 on such stinted supplies, in the teeth of such hostilities, and see how 
 much more any one of them achieved in their first sixty years. What 
 was there to show on these shores within sixty years from the coming 
 of Columbus? Or wait six years after the Spanish keel had cut a track 
 across the sea. when the first English colony of 300, under Sabastian 
 Cabot, arrived, and then count forward sixty years, and compare the re- 
 sults with those of Liberia. Quite seventy years elapsed before there 
 was so mucli as a permanent colony planted north of the gulf of Mexi- 
 co. True the world was younger then than now, and equal progress 
 could not be expected. But we may be more generous, and not 
 begin to inquire of the American colonies for a full century after Cabot's 
 company came. And yet starting thus, in 1598, we shall need to wait 
 two weary centuries more before those colonies are seamed and cement- 
 ed under a Constitution of States. 
 
 So that if the short-comings of African Colonization were even more 
 real than they are now imaginary, the propriety of supporting it does 
 not deserve a snap judgment against it. 
 
 When reading recently more carefully than before the significant 
 facts of the Society's history, I paused at this; it was in the ship 
 "Elizabeth " your first eighty immigrants were carried to Africa. We re- 
 cal another Elizabeth who bore a forerunner of her race and the pioneer 
 of a holy dispensation. Her child endured many a year of ascetic sac- 
 rifice and severe labors in the wilderness of Judea merely to "prepare 
 the way of the Lord." lie organized nothing. He established nothing. 
 This son of the New Testament Elizabeth was satisfied if he might be 
 but " the voice " of the better things to come. And if the results of 
 the voyage of that Eliizabeth of yours, in all the years since she touched 
 at Sherbro Island had been but to prepare the way of the people who 
 are yet to follow, and to secure the blessings that Lilieria may yet be- 
 stow on Africa, we ought to say of the Society; "Well done good and 
 faithful servant ! " 
 
 A second reason why the African Colonization Society ought to survive 
 and be strengthened is, that better th;m any other it is now equipped 
 to aid these restless sons of Africa to return home. 
 
 With some it is a first question whether they are restless, and do ask 
 to r turn, Tlie street says, ni). Statistics say, yes? And of the two, 
 statistics miy bo taken as tlie in )ri; sober and reliable witness. But I 
 have not met a more a 1 verse view of this work than comes from thos( 
 who quote the street. They think the fundamental idea of the Society 
 is fallacious: because the colored people do not desire aid to return and 
 it is at variance with the truth to say they do! May I not safely make 
 
& 
 
 this answer on your behalf? If they do not, then they need not. 
 
 They are not to be coerced nor cheated into changing countries. 
 Tills Society has no kidnappers roamiug the South. No cunning repre- 
 sentations of yours are deceiving the colored population of the Carolinas. 
 No oily-lipped agent in Florida or Louisiana, biinilar to those wlio serve 
 the Cliinesc companies of California in As!;), or tlic ^lormon monstrosity 
 in Northern Europe arc securing yuu emigrants. You do not flush the 
 south with posters promising these poor people they will find Liberia the 
 Eldorado where tiicy can pick up riches a? stones in the street. That is 
 the way they used to draw emigrants from Ireland, — morc's the pity. But 
 as far as the east is from tlie west is any measure of yours from that bold 
 operating of modern mining companies, which capitalizes a shadow at 
 millions, on paper, and puts the shares on the market at a sixpence. 
 And so, it has but little appearance of undue influence, where I read in 
 ^'' Information cibout going to Liberia that each emigrant on his arrival is 
 given only a town lot, or ten acres of land.'' For if lie remains in Amer- 
 ica there are one huudrcd and sixty acres open to his occupancy. Wlieu 
 it is asked: "How can I make a living in Africa;" the answer, as 
 printed, is not particularly enticing to a peojile who arc naturally tired. 
 It says : "In the same way that you would make one anywhere else ; that 
 is by indiistry and economy." 
 
 Tills is not even so inviting as the inducement which an Irish labor- 
 er, lately landed in America, ollered to friends in the old country to fol- 
 low him here. I have nothing to do, wrote he, but lug loads of brick to 
 the top of the building, and another man does all the work. Emigrants 
 to Liberia learn before leaving home that the sentence of Heaven stands 
 in Africa as here: "In the sweat of thy face slialt thou eat 
 bread." But notwithstanding the ignorance there is among the colored 
 people of the opportunity presented to them to obtain an independence, 
 a self-control, a social respect, and political influence, Avhicli for geufr- 
 atlons to come but few of their race can reach by remaining in America; 
 and notwithstanding the slight inducements that arc offered I hem in 
 passage and in property, this conservative Society asserts, that of its 
 know ledge there arc half a million of the people of color who are agi- 
 tating the question of emigration to Liberia. If so it would seem befit- 
 ting that this firs:; friend of Western Africa's civilization should be en- 
 abled to aid this restless offspring of the early slaves. Except the Afri- 
 can, there is no race represented in our heterogeneous population wdioso 
 offspring might not be able without any outside aid to emigrate where- 
 over they would — over all the earth, provided their fathers had used their 
 opportunities and economized their profits. But it has been otherwiso 
 with the African race. Of the millions of them who were slaves, not 
 one has a son over eighteen years of age who was not born with the 
 brand of bondage on his brow and a fetter on his foot, unfitting him to 
 easily find his way beyond the base estate in which his ancestors liavo 
 suffered for centuries. And it agrees with the best impulses and deep- 
 
io 
 
 est principles of justice that we owe it to every son of tEose sires who 
 lived and died in servitude, to put it within their power to go and 
 take up a residence wherever they desire. 
 
 Do some of them yearn for that, to them, most of all sacred state, the 
 fat lands of Kansas? Then we would throw open every door, despite 
 any specious argument which former owners urge against losing 
 them from the cotton fields. And more, as Joseph put money 
 into the bag of his brethren it would be but scant charity if ev- 
 ery emigrant to that land should have given him as good a send off as 
 you promise to those who start for Liberia. So, too our God speed 
 would go with all who ask the way to South Africa, or to the rising-sun- 
 side of their fatherland, '"with their faces thitherward." But multi- 
 tudes are looking to Western Africa: and when it is inquired who is in a 
 position to best promote their going there does not appear any ground to 
 debate that you arc. Whether thinking of the wisdom of the illustrious 
 men who have managed this Society — and before the array of their 
 names the spirit of reverence spontaneously bows. — or whether we reck- 
 on tlie superior advantages of climate and geography of your young Re- 
 public or if we note the numerous pointings of Divine Providence 
 w'hich prophecy a brilliant future for Liberia, it does look unreasonable 
 and is due to some ignorance tliat all well wishers of colored people are 
 not friends of African Colonization. 
 
 And this leads me to the next reason why the Society ought to succeed . 
 Third ; The American Republic owes it to her only child, the Republic in 
 Africa, that she shall receive such supplies as will insure her stability 
 and preserve her purity. 
 
 We say things sound as if the morning hour for Africa has struck. 
 But ther^are hours before the third. We do not forget that for a hun- 
 dred and fifty years fearless and faithful followers of Christ, have been 
 laboring to lift South Africa into the light of Christian civilization. lie 
 reads little of the world's heroes who knows not George Schmidt, tlic 
 pioneer of African missions; nor of that illustrious scholar, soldier and 
 saint, Vandcrkemp, who gave his great heart and life for Kaffirs and 
 Hottentots, nor yet of Robert Mofliat, whose glory-crowned grey-head 
 was cynosure at the Mildmay Missionary Conference in 1879. ; and who 
 owed the honors he received, and is to receive unto and after death to 
 the unmatched services and sacrifices he has given to missions in South 
 Africa. It is not forgotten that Cape Colony gives a brighter view of 
 the continent than Victoria Nyauza, Bornu, or the upper Niger. That 
 where George Schmidt planted his "handful of corn" mission near- 
 ly two hundred thousand Christians have come to the Cross, and es- 
 tablished the faith in South Africa. 
 
 But none of the beginnings in that region belong to us. To Great 
 Britain and the Dutch Boeis belong the Cape", the Orange River Free 
 State : and the Transvaal Republic. And as posterity will hold them 
 responsible for their good or evil influence over the poor natives, so it 
 
n 
 
 must be with us up the coast, where we are trying the experiment of a 
 Republic, built on a pattern received by us in the holy Mount Calvary. 
 Liberia is far from home, and bard presfcd by heathen populations that 
 would enthral her liberty by exhibiting to her ruling spirits the advantages 
 of oppression. The child is separated by wide seas from this parental at- 
 mosphere that has, as its vital element of intelligent enterprise and inde- 
 pendence, the prayers tnd piety, traditions and tendencies which arise 
 as a fountain under the Christian Church and circulate through all the 
 channels of social, commercial, literary and political life. 
 
 Remembering Liberia's proximity to populous and profoundly de- 
 based neighborhoods, it is worthy of our wonder that her skirts haven ot 
 been already bemired and her spirit bewitched — as Israel of old was 
 wont to be by the encroaching heathen . 
 
 To surely prevent this, under that propitious Providence which has 
 watched all your ships sail safe from shore to shore, let picked emigrants 
 from our schools and Universities, and the better classes of colored citizens 
 go out ; in numbers corresponding at least with that constant inflow of 
 country life which keeps our own cities supplied with their reviving ele- 
 ment, and the young Republic will swell but never stagnate, and will 
 age but not lose its youth. 
 
 Its present population of three quarters of a million is not sufBcentto 
 pierce the masses of moral corruption without becoming contaminated 
 itself. And the best addition will be well bred brothers of their own blood 
 who carry from home our highest and holiest ideas of education and re- 
 ligion to repeatedly refresh their aspirations and piety. 
 
 And as it is your aim to accomplish just this, I think the effort ought 
 to succeed: and for a final fourth reason. 
 
 To afford a reasonable argument why other attempts to save Af- 
 rica ought to be aided. At the outset of this enterprise the end in view 
 stopped with your good will to free people of color in this country. Now 
 all are politically free: and the emphasis of your endeavor rests not on 
 narrower but on broader grounds. Then it was for the benefit of some 
 Africans. Now it is for all Africans and all Africa. But if Liberia is not 
 made a success after what has been given to it of the head and heart of 
 many of the purest philanthropists which this century has produced, what 
 can be hoped for on the more hostile Eastern Coast, or at Mtcsa's court? 
 Neither the East nor the interior offer greater facilities of approach ; nor 
 a kindlier reception to the new comer. Their airs are not so salubrious, 
 nor soil more prolific, nor population more promising subjects of Chris- 
 tian civilizations. 
 
 So that when Liberia shall come to disappoint the expectations of its 
 founders and friends, the wisdom of expending life and treasure on any 
 further attempt to dissipate the darkness from the Transvaal to the Al- 
 bert Nyanza will be pointedly questioned by practical men. 
 
 It is not because I have consented to say something on this occasion, 
 that the claims of this work draw my warmest words of approval. I am 
 
12 
 
 not subsklized to utter an endorsement, by a desire to receive your ap- 
 proval, who have placed mc here. Any want of interest io me durinjj 
 the past has been due to ignorance and misapprehension ; and to the fact, 
 that only in the last few years have the claims of the dark continent and 
 of the colored people pressed to the front of philanthropic questions. 
 
 Even now no violent rapture sweeps me from the place of reason. 
 No Utopian dream of drawing everybody into admiration of African 
 Colonization fill my mind. But by as niuch as I gather together the 
 facts of history, motives of action, and achievements of good which are 
 already recorded of your attempt to plant a land of the free and a home 
 for the black in Liberia, by so much does it appear impossible that 
 divine Providence will allow you to want any good thing. 
 
 Around the entire rim of that great continent beacons have been 
 lighted and beginnings made. But no where is the light so prismatical- 
 ly pure, containing so many of the colors that blend to make the white 
 beam, as that which shines off tlic shores of Liberia. I would it were 
 only by a flight of fancy, that I see there the one Strong-hold of our ho- 
 ly religion ; and the one place where the son of man when He cometh 
 will find faith on the earth. Naturally a more religious race than any; 
 and so easily captivated by the name of Christ that colored people nev- 
 er yield to anything so cordially as to the most Biblical religion, it may 
 be that they in their own saved conntry may yet become the chiefest 
 custodians of its sacroments, services and traditions. That if philosophi- 
 zing Europe, and fashionable America, and idolatrous Asia shall ever 
 have lost themselves in a turmoil of debate, in a whirl of imitations, or 
 laid down in a lethargy of indifference — as Asia is fast doing, Africa 
 may be holding fast the faith once delivered to the saints. 
 
 A distinguished and venerable bishop of the A. M. E. Church was 
 preaching in my hearing at Saratoga. His topic was; the trials and 
 triumphs of Christianity. Selecting many striking examples in old 
 Testament times where the powers of evil tried but failed to destroy the 
 Cliurch of God, he came to the advent of Christ. Now, said the preach- 
 er, Satan and his forces were fired with a fierce purpose; they would 
 not be foiled in this attempt. This is the son, they said ; come let us 
 kill him that the inheritance may be ours. 
 
 And so all the aids of the adversary combined and engaged Ilcrod 
 to kill the child Jesus. But when the Lord saw how strong they were, 
 and He had no place of safety for his son outside of Egypt; lie just 
 ordered .Joseph to take the young child and its mother and go down 
 among the colored people: and stay until He brought him word again. 
 "As it is written out of Egypt have I called my son." It had been known 
 and written by inspiration long before it happened that there would 
 come a time when the only safe place for the infant Christ would be 
 down among the colored people. Is there any other Scripture in His 
 mind, that reads; the time will come when the cause of Chirst will 
 have no place of perfect acceptance and safety except in Africa, among 
 the colored people?