"The hour for Africa."

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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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JANUARY 18, 1881.

BT

JOHN L WITHROW, D. D.,

?-/' j (j- Park Street CnuRcn, Boston.

PUBLISHED BY REQUEST.

^WASHINGTON CITT;
POLONIZATION ^UILDING, 45 0 J'eNNSYLYANIA /iVENUK

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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?