unprincipled colonists from participating in it. No one can question the desire of Great Britain to purge Sierra Leone of this enormity, and yet we find the following statement in the English Monthly Review, for, May, 1833. "One of the Schoolmasters in Sierra Leone, has been tried for selling some of his scholars. There were lately upwards of one hundred liberated Africans, who were kidnapped from Sierra Leone, and were conveyed to a place near the banks of the river Pongos. Here they were detained, till an opportunity occurred of re-shipping them as slaves."

CHAPTER IV.

INFLUENCE OF THE COLONIZATION SOCIETY ON AFRICADIFFUSION OF CIVILIZATION AND CHRISTIANITY.

ALTHOUGH the Society is not a missionary institution, builds no churches, employs no ministers, and distributes no Bibles or tracts, yet it has persuaded the public, that Liberia is a missionary establishment, and the radiating point, from which a flood of light and holiness is to spread over Africa. So confidently and constantly has the missionary influence of the Society been asserted, that many of the members unfeignedly believe it, and their contributions are lavished, and their prayers are offered for the regeneration of Africa by emigrants, who, when in the United States, were denounced as "a curse and contagion wherever they reside." Let us attend to the stupendous objects the Society proposes to accomplish.

It would publish

"It would illuminate a CONTINENT. the name of Christ on the dark mountains of Africa, and the burning sands of the desert. It would kindle up holiness and hope among uncounted tribes, whose souls are as black with crime and misery, as are the forms of matter that veil them." Af. Rep. I. 164. Editorial.

"The little band at Liberia, who are spreading over the wilderness around them, a strange aspect of life and beauty, are in every sense a missionary station. Every ship freight

ed from our shores with their suffering kindred, will be freighted also with the heralds of the cross. You will see the light breaking in upon one and another dark habitation of cruelty. The night of heathenism will depart. One tribe after another will come to the light of Zion, and the brightness of her rising. Ethiopia will awake and rise from the dust, and look abroad on the day and stretch forth her hand to God. The light will spread and kindle and brighten till ALL THE FIFTY MILLIONS of Africa are brought to the glorious liberty of the sons of God." Address to the Ken

tucky Col. Society by Mr. Breckenridge.

They (the emigrants) go to unchain MILLIONS of slaves fettered in the bondage of death." Af. Rep. IX. 198. "Like the star in the East, which announced the Savior to the astonished Magi, it (the Society) points to the advent of the same Redeemer, coming in the power of his spirit to roll away the darkness of a thousand generations.' Speech of Mr. Frelinghuysen, Vice President.

"This Society proposes to add another regenerated conTINENT to our globe, and ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY MIL LIONS to the family of civilized man." Speech of Elliot Cresson before the Society. Af. Rep. IX. 360.

The number of Agents to be employed, are proportioned to the mighty work to be achieved.

"The Society proposes to send out not one or two pious members of Christianity into a foreign land, but to transport annually, for an indefinite number of years in one view of its scheme, 6,000, in another 56,000 missionaries of the descendants of Africa itself, to communicate the benefits of our religion and the arts." Mr. Clay's speech before Kentucky Col. Society. Af. Rep. VI. 24.

It will be observed that these missionaries are to communicate the benefits of both religion and the arts, and they are to be taken from two classes. The 6,000 are to be the annual increase of the free negroes; the 56,000 are to be manumitted slaves. The character of the first class is thus given by Mr. Clay, in the same speech in which he proposes their employment:

"Of all descriptions of our population, and of either portion of the African race, the free people of color are by far, as a class, the most corrupt, depraved, and abandoned.*

As this seems rather an unpromising character for teachers of religion, we presume this portion are to be confined to instruction in the arts; and that the explanation of religious mysteries, and the inculcation of moral duties, are to be entrusted to the 56,000 just released from bondage. Of the peculiar opportunities afforded them by the laws of the slave States, for fitting themselves for their new vocation, we may speak hereafter. Of this " great company of preachers," about three thousand have already set up their tabernacle at Liberia. We might naturally suppose, that a colony of missionaries would be "a holy city," a sort of New Jerusalem, and such we are assured it is. We have heard of "the poetry of philanthropy," as applied to the sympathy expressed by abolitionists for the sufferings of the slaves; the following extracts prove, that there is a poetry of Colonization which

“Can give to airy nothing

A local habitation and a name.'

"It (the colony) is already to the African tribes, like a city set upon a hill, which cannot be hid. A thousand barbarians, who have long made merchandize of their brethren, and been regarded themselves as the objects of a bloody and accursed traffic, come within its gates, and are taught the doctrine of immortality,—the religion of the Son of God." 8th Report, p. 14.—1825.

Here we have a solemn and official annunciation by the Board of Managers, of one of the most extraordinary facts ever recorded in the annals of missionary exertions. It appears from official documents, that at the date of this report, the whole number of emigrants could not have been more than 242, and had probably been reduced by death below that number; and of this number, a large portion were, of course, women and children. Yet this little band of Christian missionaries, just escaped from the ignorance and vice in which they had been enveloped in America, and still struggling for existence in a sickly climate, and amid all the hardships and privations of a recent settlement in a savage land; casting aside the fear of man, and with a faith almost miraculous in divine protection, admit within their gates an army of barbarians, four times the number of

the whole of their little community; barbarians too, who had long been engaged in a bloody and accursed traffic, making merchandize of their brethren; and these barbarians suddenly divested of their savage character, sit humbly at the feet of the newly arrived messengers of Heaven, and the natives of Africa, receive instruction in the doctrine of immortality, and the religion of the Son of God, from lips that had never uttered any other language, than broken English! It is singular that in the subsequent documents of the Society, we hear nothing farther of these thousand barbarians. How many became converts to the religion in which they were instructed; how long their attendance on the missionaries was continued, and why it was afterwards totally suspended, are points on which no information has been vouchsafed to us.

It is natural we should wish to know more of these wonderful teachers, and fortunately we are presented with the following picture of them by an eye witness.

"The holy Author of our religion and salvation, has made the hearts of a large proportion of these people, the temples of the divine Spirit. I have seen the proudest and profanest foreigners that ever visited the colony, trembling with amazement and conviction, almost literally in the descriptive phraseology of St. Paul, find the secrets of their hearts made manifest, and falling down upon their faces, worship God, and report that God is in the midst of these people of a truth." Ashmun's letter, 31st December, 1825. Af. Rep. II. 90.

We should certainly conclude from these accounts, that these holy men were blessed with

"Composed desires, affections ever even,

Tears that delight, and sighs that waft to Heaven."

Yet strange to tell, we are presented with the following perplexing statement, by the same eye witness:

"About twelve months since it (the colony) had entirely given way, as the committee are but too well apprised, to a blind and furious excitement of the worst passions, caused by a somewhat unfortunate policy operating on ignorance and invincible prejudice. During my absence for health, the people were obliged to taste some of the bitter fruits of

anarchy, and by the singular mercy of God, only escaped those tragedies of blood, which can find no modern parallel, but in the history of the civil murders and devastations of St. Domingo." Ashmun's letter, 15th January, 1825. Af. Rep. I. 23.

The excitement here alluded to, and its unhappy consequences, occurred, it will be seen by a comparison of dates, in 1824; and that wonderful moral change, which rendered the hearts of a large proportion of these people the temples of the Divine Spirit, must have been effected in 1825. Yet it was in the beginning of 1825, that the managers announced at their annual meeting at Washington, the marvellous fact of the instruction of the thousand barbarians within the gates of the colony, a fact which of course must have happened several months previous to the date of the report, and consequently during, or about the time of the "furious excitement!"

In March, 1825, the Editor of the Af. Rep., gives us the following delightful intelligence:

"The eye of the stranger is struck with the religious aspect of the settlement. He beholds, on Cape Montserado, standing in lonely beauty, a Christian village. There flourish the virtues of the gospel, defended by the Almighty, from the influences of paganism, cherished and refreshed by the dews of his grace." Af. Rep. I. 5.

The secret of this surprising exhibition of Christian loveliness and purity, is thus explained.

"It is well known that this little community is made up of SELECTED INDIVIDUALS, and that the Board have ever required of those seeking their patronage, satisfactory evidence that their morals were pure, and their habits industrious. Hence this settlement has from its origin exhibited great decency and sobriety, respect for the Sabbath, and the other peculiar duties and ordinances of our religion. It has thus shed a benign and sacred light upon the heathen, and the feelings of the profane and lawless stranger as he treads upon Cape Montserado are subdued into unwonted seriousness." Af. Rep. IX. p. 19. 1826.

But again we are perplexed, by the assertion of the Governor of the Colony.

"For at least two years to come, a much more discrimi