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THE

African iUpsitm’g.

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Published monthly by the American Colonization Society.

THE UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT, THE FOUNDER AND
NECESSARY PATRON OF THE LIBERIAN REPUBLIC.*

When intelligent business men are seen to be directing their capital
into some new field of enterprise, they are supposed to have reasons
justifying their investment. When leading nations are observed to be
conspiring in making government appropriations for the common attain-
ment of a like end, it is justly inferred that some adequate motive con-
trols their policy. So, too, the principles of natural religion, the con-
victions of all men, lead to the necessary conclusion, that, the Divine
Author of all, rules alike the material Universe and the families of man-
kind in their intercourse with each other for the accomplishment of His
own wise and kind purposes.

The fact that no less than nine leading powers of Europe, — England,
France, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Belgium, Denmark, Germany and Rus-
sia,— have been engaged the past year in African explorations, certainly
indicates a common and an important end which those nations, leading
in modern civilization, are seeking to attain . The summary, so concise-
ly and clearly presented in a recent publication of the Secretary of the
American Colonization Society, aids the ordinary observer of foreign
affairs to analyze and group the reasons that have led to this converging
of interests on the Continent of Africa.

There are three classes of corporate bodies that are providing the
money appropriations which sustain and promote these explorations ; the
two former of which have been sustained by Government action. First
in natural order are commercial companies ; since it is through commerce
that the shores and ports of foreign lands are made known, and because

•An Address delivered at the Sixty-Fourth Annual Meeting of The American Cov-
«oeatk>n Society, Washington, D. CL, January 18, 1881, by Gborob W. Sameoh, D. D.

66 The U. S. Government , the Founder and

June)

the want of products, for the bodily welfare of advanced nations, is the
first to prompt enterprise . Second in order come scientific associations,
including geographical and archaeological societies, whose explorations
have the double end of opening roads to commerce and of amassing
knowledge, interesting or profitable to men as intellectual beings.
Third in the list appear religious societies ; including educational and
missionary organizations.

This grouping of organizations that have been penetrating the con-
tinent of Africa on all sides for years, and that have displayed special
completeness and activity during the past year, naturally suggests inqui-
ry as to the originating spring, the fundamental source, and especially
the harmonizing and all-controlling influence in human nature, which
prompts the united action of these classes of associations and the favor-
ing co-operation of the nine governments of Europe which have sustain-
ed the two former and their work. Without doubt it is to be found in
the principles brought out by such masterly works on the philosophy of
history as Guizot’s Progress of Civilization in Europe. There are, as
Guizot shows, two elements that constitute and that advance human
civilization, the material and the moral. The material interests and the
physical impulses of men prompt them to the supply of animal wants by
the accumulation of wealth and through that of all the conveniences and
comforts of bodily life. The moral interests and the mental impulses
prompt to the accumulation of knowledge as to all the social and re-
ligious relations of mankind and to the supply provided in the teachings
of nature and of revelation which meets those wants. In this analysis
the great statesman, Guizot, accepts all of truth brought out by such
minds as Buckle, Comte and Spencer; who in their seclusion, see clearly
what men ought to be in their relations to the world aDd to each other;
and what they would be provided they partook only of the nature of
mere animals or of pure angels. But the practical man of affairs, ming-
ling with men in their social, political and religious relations, finds that
men partake of both the animal and the angelic natures : which “war
within us,” and which lead to “wars and fighting among men,” must be
harmonized ; otherwise neither the passive quiet of herded animals, nor
the active peace of banded angels, will be found in human families,
communities and nations. Going farther, with the fearful experience of
communistic anarchy fresh and frequent before his own eyes, Guizot saw,
as also English and American statesmen have seen, that men need, not
simple accumulation of wealth, but the guarantee in man’s improved
moral instruction, moral training and religious enlightenment, that the
accumulation of individual wealth and of national treasures in art, in
science and in all the appliances of human advancement, will not in the
frenzy of a day be plundered or destroyed. It is this ruling necessity

1881 j Necessary Patron of the Liberian Republic . 67

which in the explorations of the past year on the continent of Africa,
has caused commerce, science and religion to go hand in hand. It
seems to be timely to review at this sixty-fourth anniversary of the
American Colonization Society, the necessary union of Governmental
and Associational co-operation in repaying our National debt to Africa.

The consideration of this topic requires a brief review of the assumed
relation through the mother country of the American Colonies, and
then of the independent United States of America, to the people of
Africa.

As Bancroft has clearly shown the Government and people of Great
Britain, more truly than of Spain, sought two ends in bringing African
slaves into this country. As Governor Brown, of Georgia, has just re-
peated in the United States Senate, the people of Georgia, who at first
resisted the attempts to introduce African slaves into that colony, yield-
ed at last because of the conviction, urged by such men as George
Whitefield, that the only apparent means of enlightening and Christ-
ianizing the people of Africa, who in their native land were warring
against and enslaving each other, was to receive and educate them as
laborers on the rich lands of the South. At the same time, Jonathan
Edwards, whose sincerity none will doubt, urged the same idea, and as
a motive to Christian fidelity in evangelizing the colored people in New
England.

When the colonial times had passed, a new relation was assumed by
the state and national governments to the colored people. New England,
provided with laborers from the old world and moved by convictions
of moral duty, freed her slaves ; some of whose descendants yet linger
in her large towns. The duty, however, of educating and Christianiz-
ing, and if dependent, of providing homes and food for these frecdmen,
remained, and was met by state legislation. The Southern States, dif-
ferently situated, retained their colored people in servitude ; often indeed
making provision for emancipation by individuals, as well as for the
care of freed people ; and above all, through the fidelity of Christian la-
borers winning to a sincere Christian faith a larger proportion of the
colored people than has ever before been found among any people in any
age.

At the same time the national as well as state governments, recogni-
zed and assumed a new relation to the colored people. The provision
of the U. S. Constitution limiting the importation of slaves to twenty-
one years, was not only an assumed relation, but it implied and com-
pelled another assumed duty when the twenty-one years had expired.
The anxious thought and effort of the successive Presidents, Jefferson,
Madison and Monroe, to provide a fit asylum for slaves brought to Amer-
ican ports after the year when the importation was to cease, not only

68

The U. S. Government , the Founder and

[Ju»e

suggested, but, after various expedients compelled the naval expeditions
repeatedly sent, first to explore, then tfo colonize and then to protect
the colonists on the shore of Africa.

Another new relation was assumed, when, after years of ineffectual
efforts in co operation with Great Britain to arrest slave-ships by means
of national cruisers on the African coast, the American cruisers were
directed to act on the American shore of the Atlantic, while the British
cruisers acted on the African Coast. Then, since the naval vessels were
no longer detailed for the long voyage, the American Colonization So-
ciety was made the agent of the United States Government in sending
the recaptured slaves to Liberia and in providing a safe asylum and a
school for independence on the coatf; of their native Continent. Then
amid all the countless influences which agitated the people both North
and South as disunion threatened, the voice of the public conscience,
prompting to assumed duty, was triumphant in Congress, while it was
specially deep and earnest in the Executive. No American can so real-
ize this as did the two men called to meet frequently the two Christian
statesmen, the Secretaries of State and of the Navy, whose duty it was
to provide for the necessity laid upon the United States Government. It
is enough to state the fact, that, under the two administrations, respon-
sible for the integrity of national policy from March 4th, 1853, to
March 4th, 1861, the slave trade to all North American ports, the West
India Islands included, was completely broken up and all the captured
people were colonized by Government appropriations in Liberia.

Yet a new relation was assumed when the war for the Union brought
Southern slaves within the lines of the Union armies. The duty of
providing for them was such, that promptly on the appeal of President
Lincoln, Congress made an appropriation for the foreign colonization of
the people desiring such provision. When the scheme of colonization
first in Central America, then in the Danish West Indies, had been frus-
trated, no one but those called to the interview, can ever appreciate the
intense anxiety shown by President Lincoln, personally sending for
and conversing two hours with the sub-committee of the Executive Com-
mittee of this Society ; sending at their suggestion an intelligent colored
clergyman as their representative to visit Liberia and report to the clus-
tering crowds of his people gathered at the national Capital. The rush
of events during the delay, the decision of the War Department to em-
ploy colored troops, and the idea that lands and other provisions at
home would be granted to the emancipated people, arrested this stage
of Government provision for colonists to the African Republic.

Yet another new stage of Government duty had now arrived, before
entering upon whose consideration, since it is the present demand, this
fact should be distinctly recalled. In every stage of the relations as-

1881] Necessary Patron of the Liberian Republic . 69

sumed between this country and its people, towards Africa and her
people, the two elements above considered, that constitute civilization
and that impose consequent national duty, have beon found acting in
co-operation; the material without question too often dominant; but the
moral silently but surely asserting ultimate supremacy over the Christ-
ian people who settled the American Continent, and over their descen-
dants of each succeeding generation. Certainly no one will question
the essential fact at issue, that since the origin of the United States Gov-
ernment, the moral has steadily gained sway over the material in the
motives controlling the policy of the United States people and its repre-
sentatives in their relations to the colored people. This certainly was
the case when by provision of the Constitution, for material consider-
ations, the importation of slaves was permitted during twenty-one
years ; while in the same Constitution, the moral consideration was de-
clared to be ruling after that period. This certainly was the case when,
though at the planting of the first colony of Liberia material consider-
tions might have influenced some who desired the removal of free
colored people, the highest moral convictions ruled the statesmen and
philanthropists who wished to provide a safe home for captured slaves,
and a Christian Republic on the dark continent. Surely, too, religious
duty led to the supply of most of the colonists, when Christian owners
sacrificed thousands of dollars in giving, first freedom, and then ample
provision in their freedom, to their most advanced and valuable servants,
who went joyfully to their new home. This, yet again, was the case
when the measures were inaugurated which broke up the slave trade,
and threw on the hands of the United States Government hundreds of
captured slaves to be provided for in Africa ; for though material inter-
ests can, in almost any act of men and of nations, be supposed to enter
into human counsels, such suggestions at this stage of African Coloniza-
tion are certainly overshadowed by a nobler impulse.

Coming then to the last stage the study of human impulses should
be impartially weighed, that decision may be just and duty clear. In
his interview with the Committee of the American Colonization Society,
asked by President Lincoln, he did drop expressions like this; ;T must
get rid somehow of this burden of care for the colored people ; which
may prove, among other weights, the last pound to break the camel’s
back.” But such utterances were momentary ebulitions. The deep,
pervading, controlling utterances were like these ; ‘ ‘I must do right by
these people. I am not sure that I have authority to assume that they
are free and that I shall not be called to account for sending them out
of the country. But I must do the best for them under the circumstan-
ces ; and I will run the risk of sending them to Africa if they care to

70

The U. S. Government, the Founder and [June

As mentioned, however, the delay necessary to make the requisite
arrangements, the sending of an agent to explore and bring back his re-
port to the people, the rush of events, the need of immediate provision
for the increasing crowds of refugees who had come within the lines, and
the policy of the Secretary of War, as well as the hopes that the employ
of colored troops inspired as to future Government provision, delayed
African Colonization, until a new phase of assumed duty revived the
demand.

The impoverished condition of the border Slave States, the destruc-
tion and waste of farming implements during the years of war, yet more
the exhausted soil, made tbe necessity of transferring colored laborers
to the richer lands of the South, as well as of partial provision for them
in their field of labor ; and this transfer and provision through the Freed-
man’s Bureau became a Government duty and charge. Accompanying
this transfer, disappointment and dissatisfaction in the minds of some of
the dependent people naturally arose ; then came, afresh, thoughts of Af-
rica as a home that had a future of promise ; and this time for the first,
it was the thought, the aspiration and the request ol the colored people
themselves. Just at this juncture, the experienced and honored Secre-
tary, Rev. R. R. Gurley, finished his course; and by the desire and di-
rection of the Executive Committee, the single individual who for years
had been Mr. Gurley’s associate in such calls was desired to see the
men most likely to take a just view of the demand. President Lincoln
was no more; and two intimate personal friends were, therefore, sought;
Maj. General Howard, at the head of the Freedmen’s Bureau, and Sen-
ator W. P. Fessenden, of Maine, whose declining health'had compelled
him to resign the post cf Secretary of the Treasury, and who wTas then
Chairman of the Finance Committee in the Senate. Both urged that the
presence of the colored people was needed as a material force in promo-
ting the labor required in the South, and yet more as a moral element,
aiding as voters to secure the protection of their associates in the South-
ern States and their advancement in social relations. The force and
justice of these ends suggested, was allowed; but the counter truth was
urged that those who wished to go to Liberia were entitled to seek their
individual interests as truly as white citizens, and that to deny this
would be to perpetuate the subordination of the interests of the colored
people to the interests of the white race. The justice of the plea was
allowed. Through General Howard the cost of transport as far as
Charleston or Norfolk to emigrants for Africa was granted. Senator
Fessenden promised to urge in the Finance Committee of the Senate that
the same appropriation be made for freed people wishing to emigrate to
Africa, which had for years past been made for slaves captured on the
ocean. The untimely death of Senator Fessenden prevented the reali^a-

1881] Necessary Patron of the Liberian Republic . 71

tion of hi9 design.

During the past year, in the mission of Commodore Shufeldt, the
United States Government has again recognized the debt of the American
people to the Liberian Republic. It is a debt, with its correspondent
responsibilities, both to the American colored people and to the land
robbed, since their ancestors were brought hither, of its legitimate pop-
ulation; yet a debt, which, as Jefferson, Madison and Clay all agreed in
stating can be amply repaid provided the people and Government of the
United States return to Africa, in place of uncultured and heathen bar-
barians, a cultivated and Christian people capable of maintaining an in-
dependent and growing civilization on the continent of Africa . Whether
this can be realized, whether the facts of past history assure this
realization, is the vital practical question, worthy our final considera-
tion. For, if this cannot be realized, the duty of the American people is
doubtful ; whereas if it can be realized, no shadow of a doubt can be
allowed to excuse the neglect of paying our debt.

Here it is of vital importance to notice that England and America,
eq.ually implicated in bringing the sons of Africa to our shores, and
equally indebted to Africa, have from the first been true representatives
of two lines of policy pursued towards the African people in all past
ages, and now legitimate in these two distinct nations. England, whose
increasing and ever advancing people, pent up in a little island, must
seek foreign territory in fulfilling the double duty of self-developement
and of extending civilization, has in both Asia and Africa, since the loss
of her chief Ameriean colonies, been steadily seeking territorial occupa-
tio; and of course in establishing imperial rule, in both Asia and Afri-
ca. The history of her occupation of African territory began, when
during the war of American Independence, slaves came within the lines
of her armies just as they came within the lines of the Union army dur-
ing our late war. As a necessity imposed upon them the British
Government provided the colored refugees, first, a temporary home in
Canada; and then, afterwards, at great cost, — an expense perpetuated
to this day, — they were furnished a permanent home at Sierra Leone: a
projecting Western Cape of Africa, which became a depot in the line of
England’s then increasing India trade. Since that day, points of per-
manent territorial occupation have been sought ; first at the Southern
Cape of Africa; then at Natal, on its eastern coast; then at Lagos, com"
manding the mouth of the Niger, South of the Great Western desert; to
which have succeeded a temporary military expedition into Christian
Abyssinia, and permanent commercial establishments in the heathen and
Mohammedan sections of the Continent. No impartial observer, how-
ever,— no honest critic, even, can fail to see and to say that in t;iis oc*
cupation, British Christian blessings to the African people have gone

The U. S . Government , Founder and uune

hand in hand with British monopoly of African commerce. For ex-
ploration she has both wisely and humanely employed such men as
Livingstone, the Christian missionary ; whose mantle fell even upon the
young American Stanley with such grace that the Christian conversion
of the African Emperor Mtesa became as truly a part of his mission as
the opening of a new field to British trade.

This is England’s chosen and legitimate policy of promoting civili-
zation in Africa. But, America has another mission ; approved alike by
the reasoning of her men of science and by the deductions from history
which will rule American statesmen. In the winter of 1860- ’61, Guyot
the Christian scientist, the peer of Agassiz in comprehensive observation
and careful analysis, in a course of Lectures at the Smithsonian Insti-
tution, brought out the fact that in the Divine design, the three families
are three types of human development of mankind, whose history has
been alike traced by Moses, Herodotus, Diodorus and Bunsen. These
three families are permanent types of buoyant and sincere childhood, of
the imaginative and self-sufficient spirit of youth, and of the advanced
and advancing thirst for science and philosophy peculiar to mature age.
The first family is the Hamitic of Africa; cheerful, docile, fond of physi-
cal employ ; simple in its unelaborated language, and isolated except
when forced from their home. The second is the Semitic or Asiatic;
imaginative, poetic and self-satisfied, with language half-elaborated;
Arbitrary in rule over inferior tribes, yet overshadowing only those
simpler people naturally brought under its shade by its own branch-
ing, which extends its spread. The third is the Japhetic or Euro-
pean ; never satisfied with the highest attainments in individual prog-
ress ; and ever aspiring for more extended rule over less developed
tribes .

In Africa, the home of the first race, the modern British policy was
witnessed from time immemorial in Egypt and Carthage on the North;
a precedent too often quoted as if it were the only guide in African de-
velopment. In Egypt foreign kings as Herodotus records, ruled from
the days of Menes, two centuries before Abraham’s day ; it was into this
family Joseph married, and it was under their tuition that Moses be-
came learned in all the wisdom of Egypt. At Carthage, Phenician
science and letters were ruling before Eneas, the fugitive Trogan, visi-
ted its shore ; while Greek colonies ruled in Cyrene before Homer wrote.
At the same time, however, in Central Africa, in ancient Ethiopia, now
modern Abyssmia, a pure type of the darkest colored African race
threatened Egypt in Moses’ day; Moses, as Josephus records, led an
Egyptian army thither, justifying Luke’s record that he was “mighty
in deeds” as well as “in words; ” and in his exile the Hebrew law giver
married an Ethiopian wife, to whom he proved faithful in his exalta-

1881] Necessary Patron of the Liberian Republic. 73

tion, though opposed by family pride. As permanent witness to the
association of Moses in On with both these superior and inferior races
is the fact, that one-tenth of the words of Moses’ records are Sanscrit
and one-fifteenth are Ethiopic. Shortly after the Hebrews left Egypt
under Mcses, as Bunsen has shown, Ethiopian kings invaded, and for
centuries held upper Egypt, with its grandest city Thebes. In the cul-
minating spread of the Hebrew power under David, the royal poet and
prophet wrote: “Ethiopia shall toon stretch out her hands unto God.”

That promise of early conversion to the faith of the Old Testament was
in the reign of Solomon, and through his commerce, realized ; illustrating
the fact recorded by Luke, the historian of Christ and His apostles, that
the treasurer of the Queen of Ethiopia was reading the prophet Isaiah,
while making a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, as a proselyte to the Jewish
faith. Returning home as a Christian convert, as Bishop Gobat has
shown, an independent African power has maintained an independent
and high character to this day, resisting the assaults of all foreign pow-
ers, and holding fast the Christian faith amid heathenism, untempted
by the professedly new supplements to Christianity claimed to have been
made by Mohammed. Even when England, in 1868, invaded this African
nation, the proud monarch, boasting his descent from the Queen of Sheba,
whose realm was separated from Ethiopia by only the narrow strait of
Bab-el-mandeb, claiming the descent from Solomon through this Queen
as one among his thousand wives — this proud and consciously superior
African prince proposed an alliance with England by offering to take its
widowed sovereign as one of his wives.

With this perpetual example of the true African’s capacity for inde-
pendent government before them, it was not surprising that at a very
early day in the history of the colony of Liberia, the nation, whose an-
cestors for a century and a half had been ruled by their mother country
as dependent colonists, should have entrusted the colored people them-
selves with the management of their own executive, legislative and ju-
dicial affairs. It is confirmatory of this wisdom in the past, that for
half a century the U. S. Government has interposed in the affairs of the
Liberian Republic, only when, as during the last year, their good offi-
ces in aiding the settlement of a territorial question as to boundary,
was invited ; a question to whose settlement our people are committed
because theirs was the original purchase. When now that Republic is
asking for emigrants from our shores to increase their population, and
when, too, the Colonization Society is specially careful to select the men
and the families best fitted in every respect to become useful citizens
of the Republic of Liberia, no wonder that the intelligent men, who
must act in meeting our national responsibility, declare with assurance
that the future stability and success of the Colony is assured. One fact

74

[June

The Next Expedition.

especially, no lover of his country north or south can forget, as a testi-
mony to the moral control exhibited by the colored people of the South
at home; which cannot prove deceptive as to their future in Africa.
When in the progress of the late war for the Union, four millions of
people were assured that emancipation would be their boon if the war
finally turned against their masters, not a single instance of insurrection
during the four long years of conflict occurred. Without any question
it was an all-controlling religious sentiment that lay at the foundation
of this anomoly in history. When the remarkable fact is taken into
account that 450,000, or about one-eighth of the 4,000,000 of colored
people in our Southern States, are communicants in the Christian
churches of a single denomination, that about 220,000, or an added
half-eighth are united to a single other denomination — so that without
doubt nearly one-half of the entire adult population are followers of
the Prince of Peace— not only does this fact explain the past as to
the order and stability of the Liberian Republic and as to their years
of faithful, loyal service in our States, but it is a prophetic voice
giving assurance that, through them as colonists, all Africa will
become civilized and Christianized.

In a brief but suggestive address following a lecture on the Irish
and their promise, by Rev. G. W. Hepworth, delivered a few eve-
nings since, in New York, ex-Governor Hoffman, whose political course
is known, uttered words to this effect: that “God has disappointed
the politicians of all schools in our country ; and the same might prove
true in Great Britain.” That was a pregnant truth. The Irish peo-
ple never can be independent of their union with Great Britain ; they
may nevertheless, yet be reconciled to that union ; but in the future,
as in the past, without question, the laboring people who aspire to
a future of promise for themselves and their children, will seek it by
emigration. So in our Union, no state or section will ever be inde-
pendent of their sister states ; that Union both for white and colored citi-
zens, may and will become more universally satisfactory ; but the. col-
ored people in our country will always be dependent on superior capi-
tal and culture, and the more intelligent and aspiiing will seek a home
where competition will not always keep them behind in the individu-
al struggle for social preferment.

We end, therefore, as we began. Men of business and nations
will have their plans for Africa and its people. But the Lord of all
mankind, the God of nations, has also His plans; and those plans
will prevail.

THE NEXT EXPEDITION.

The bark Liberia has arrived from West Africa and will sail from

1881]

Liberian Affairs .

75

New York on the 15th of June next, direct for Monrovia, with emigrants
to be sent by the American Colonization Society. They will settle at
the interior town of Brewerville, where a number of them have relations.

LIBERIAN AFFAIRS.

LETTER FROM REV. DR. BLYDEN.

Monrovia, March 25, 1881.

My Dear Sir:

Liberia College has re-opened with 27 students in the preparatory
department and 8 strong boys in the collegiate — one from Sierra Leone,
whose father pays his way. All the boys in the college are negroes, for
the first time since the institution has been in existence. The interest
in the college is increasing, not’only in the Republic, but in the region*
beyond, and in the foreign settlements along the coast.

The river towns are flourishing in the strength of their expanding
agriculture. Arthington and Brewerville are worth seeing. I was at
Brewerville a few days ago. The Arkansas refugees are pushing
rapidly ahead, and a number are already in advance of some of the old
settlers. Well, they have had facilities which the old settlers had not,
and every succeeding immigration will have greater advantages than
the preceeding one. The coffee crop this year has been very large.

When shall we have more emigrants? Perhaps it is better to let
them push on from Brewerville, occupying the intermediate lands
until they overtake Arthington. Then they may advauce, one large
flourishing settlement, toward Boporo. It is cheaper settling them at
Brewerville than at Arthington.

The Legislature at its last session recommended the people to vote
an amendment to the Constitution, making the Presidential term four
instead of two years ; but not to go into effect under the next President,
but to affect the following term.

Yours very sincerely,

Edward W. Blydkjt.

LIBERIA EPISCOPAL CHURCH.

— Rev. G. W. Gibson, of Monrovia, Liberia, writes to the Missionary
Bishop of Cape Palmas, now in the United States, “I do not find a dia-
senting voice in the matter of concurrence in the recommendationi of
the House of Bishops . I think there never was a fairer prospect for
the growth of our Church in this country than at present. ”

76

[June 1831. ]

Receipts of the Society.

ITEMS OF INTELLIGENCE-

Thk Bassa Tribe— At the tenth annual meeting of the Baptist Women’s Missiona-
ry Society, it was stated that] two schools had been opened in Grand Bassa County,
Liberia, under the care of Mrs. Jacob Voubrunn and Mrs~ Robert F. Hill. The
Bassa nation manifest special desire for schools and preaching. Rev.J. J. Cheesb-
man of Edina, writes that a competent female teacher, able to teach music and the
higher branches, is needed at that place. Rev. Judge Cook, formerly of Columbus,
Ga., is preaching part of his time to the Bassa people. There are now two Baptist
Associations in Liberia. Missionaries are needed for the friendly kingdom of Medina,
and for the vast population of the Niger Valley. Traders from the interior, able to
read Arabic, are anxious for the Scriptures in that language .

Jacob C. Hazeley, a native of Sierra Leone, is now lecturing on Africa, in New
Orleans. He is cordially welcomed by the Sunday-school children, white and colored.
His lectures are illustrated by numerous pictures, and he has awakened a missionary
spirit in behalf of his native land.

Bishop Crowther’s Wife, who recently died at Lagos, Africa, was, like himself,,
a rescued slave child taken to Sierra Leone to be educated. They were brought up
together and married in 1826. Slavery has not received credit for being very favora-
ble to the matrimonial relation; but it did a good thing in this case, thanks to the vigor-
ous help of British cruisers and the school at Sierra Leone.

The Bonny Mission— Bishop Crowther, of the N iger, reports that he had received
a visit from a wealthy chief from Okrika, a town of 16,000 people, forty miles from
Bonny, never yet vigfted by a mission agent. The chief announced that the Christi-
anity of the Bonny mission had extended to the town, that the people had built a
£hurch for Christian worship accommodating 500 people, which was filled every Sab -
bath, a school-boy from the Brass Mission reading tho service.

Decrease of Slavery in Cuba— By the law of emancipation the slaves in Cuba al
become free at the expiration of eight years from the time the law took effect. But
the Captain General has lately made a decree that any “patron who fails to pay hit
apprentices ther monthly wages within fifteen days after they become due will lose all
right to their labor, and the apprentices themselves will obtain their immediate free-
dom, subject only to the government surveillance for four years.” as many of the
owners of estates are unable to comply, it is believed that this decree will hasten the
freeing of slaves in Cuba. There has been already a decrease of the slave popula-
tion of the Island by one-third since 1876 .

Receipts of the American Colonization Society,

• During the month of April, 1888.

North Carolina. ($3.00.)

Littleton. Alex. Browne, addi-
tional toward cost of emigrant
passage to Liberia 3 00

South Carolina. ($90.00.)

Charleston. Daniel Hunter, to-
ward cost of emigrant passage
to Liberia - 90 00

For Repository ($19.00.)

| Vermont, $18. Missouri, $1.

Recapitulation .

| African Repository 19 00

Emigrants toward cost of pas-
sage *. 93 00

Rent of Colonization Building. .. 86 00

Total Receipts in April $198 06

1-7 v.57/62
African Repository

Princeton Theological Seminary-

-Speer Library

1 1012 00307 1919