THE NEGRO IN LIBERIA
In the previous chapter, attention was called briefly to the effect,
upon the negro races in Africa, of contact with the whites. It was
seen that, while the efforts of Christian explorers and missionaries
have resulted locally in good to these backward races in their
own land, the benefits have been vastly more than offset by the
widespread horrors of the white slave-trader and exploiter, and
by the harm resulting from the introduction of the liquor and the
vices of the white man. But how does it fare with the Negro when
his contact with the white race is elsewhere than in Africa? Or
what is the result when the Negro in Africa is given an opportunity
for self-development under more or less favorable conditions and
with only helpful contact with the whites? Of the former condition,
the United States accords of course the most illuminating example,
while the free colony of Liberia gives the best answer to our second
inquiry. These, together with the negro republics of the Island of
Haiti will prove the surest guides in our study of what can be made
of the Negro and what he can make of himself under varying degrees of
contact with the white race; therefore, before turning to our main
subject of study, we will consider the Negro in Liberia and in Haiti.
On the west coast of Africa, just where the enormous back-head of the
continent makes its turn upward, lies the little republic of Liberia.
Along this upward waterline of the head, it stretches for about five
hundred miles, from the Ivory Coast to Sierra Leone, while its other
boundary lines run irregularly into the interior, enclosing an area
of 41,000 square miles.
In 1816, the American Colonization Society was organized for the
purpose of establishing a home, in the land of their forefathers, for
the American Negroes who had regained their freedom. Hence the name
Liberia, which was given to the small area at first acquired from
the natives and later much enlarged. Jehudi Ashmun, an American, is
credited with the actual founding of the colony in 1823.
The first, and perhaps the only, motive of the Society was to fulfill
what they regarded as their solemn duty to the freed Negroes, and
to do this in a way which they thought ought to be most agreeable
to the Negroes themselves. No thought, apparently, was given to the
tribes who would be neighbors of the new colonists. In the many
years since the founding of the little Republic, the population of
American Negroes has reached only the small aggregate of from 14,000
to 15,000, living in coastal regions. Contrary to expectations in
America (and very likely also in Liberia), of a spontaneous movement
of Negroes to Liberia after their emancipation, less than 2,000
have availed themselves, since the Civil War, of the privilege of
returning to the land of their fathers. The balance of the population
is made up of some 40,000 natives—some of them Christians—upon or
within reach of the coast, and at least a million more who possess
the interior. The greater part of these last are still savages, a few
are Christians, while many have embraced the Mohammedan religion.
It does not require a vivid imagination to picture the tragic
condition of the earlier colonists as they arrived in the fatherland,
and faced a wild country to be subdued, savage kinsmen who were their
foes, a land without law, and a climate without kindness. These freed
Negroes were, by training and experience, alien to the natives, and
strangers to their fatherland. The story of those early years must be
read elsewhere; but this merest hint cannot but call forth sympathy
for the actors in the drama.
For twenty-five years the colonization society directed the colonial
policies, until, in 1847, the colonists declared Liberia free and
self-governing, and fashioned a government modelled after that of
their native America. Since then, the Republic of Liberia has held
its place among the nations of the world, and its unique position as
the only State in Africa over which the Negro exercises authority.
All the rest of the continent has been divided among the European
nations.
Of the effort of the Church to supply this lonely colony with her
ministrations, it is not our purpose to speak in detail. That has
been done elsewhere. Our present object is to see what the Liberians
themselves have accomplished with the assistance of the Church. We
may therefore pass over, with very brief notice, the story of the
Church in Liberia, until the time when she developed a bishop of the
negro race.
In 1833, through the activities of Governor Hall and others, a
parish was organized at Monrovia under the auspices of the American
Episcopal Church whose interest in the well-being of the colony had
early been enlisted. Two years later, Mr. James M. Thompson, a negro
layman who, as lay-reader, had been holding the flock together,
accepted the appointment as missionary on the part of the Church in
America. A small appropriation was made, and a school was built at
Mount Vaughan and opened, in 1836, with five boys and two girls as
the beginning of an educational work which has been a feature of
supreme importance to the development of the Liberian Church and
to the Republic. On Christmas Day of that year, the Rev. Thomas S.
Savage, M. D., arrived from Connecticut, the first white missionary
sent by our Church to a foreign field.
In 1837, the Rev. and Mrs. John Payne and the Rev. Lancelot B. Minor,
of Virginia, arrived, followed by others in fairly quick succession.
For fifteen years these devoted servants of our Lord, battling with
an unhealthy tropical climate, labored to establish the faith of the
Colonists and to spread the Gospel among the neighboring natives.
In 1851, the Rev. John Payne was called home to be consecrated and
sent back as “Bishop of Cape Palmas and Parts Adjacent”; and, until
1869, he skillfully guided the enterprises of the Church. It is
probably true to say that nowhere and at no time since the first
three centuries of the Christian Era, has there been so much of
heroism, and of tragedy, bravely and quietly and naturally endured,
as in this mission of Liberia during the period of eighteen years
which Bishop Payne’s Episcopate covered and in the thirteen preceding
it. It is rightly called the “Period of Establishment,” when, at the
cost of quite one-fourth of the splendid lives devoted to the cause,
the foundation of the now native Church was firmly laid both to
resist every shock of heathen attack and to offer its strength to the
superstructure of the native living Temple of God.
And the call upon faith and zeal, so peremptory in Bishop Payne’s
life, was echoed to the Church at home. The answer came in the
persons of both white and negro volunteers; among them, the Rev.
Eli W. Stokes, and the Rev. Thomas A. Pinckney, both of them negro
priests.
Though it had been the consistent dream of Bishop Payne, and his
steady labor to realize it, that Liberia should develop its own
pastors,—that the tree should bear its own appropriate fruit,—it
was not until negro volunteers in America came forward that he
could dare to feel that the tree was ready for the fruit-bearing so
needful to its life. In 1853, the staff of negro clergy was greatly
strengthened by the coming of the Rev. Alexander Crummell, whose
father was a native of the Gold Coast. The Republic soon established
the Liberian College, of which Dr. Crummell was a distinguished
professor. Throughout its history, College and Church have been
closely associated in developing the Republic. Already, through
the schools which had gradually grown in number as in attendance,
the boys and girls had been preparing to take their places in the
College, and as teachers and guides and pastors of their people. The
coming of Stokes and Crummell and Pinckney and their Christian wives,
furnished models in racial kind to both boys and girls, though Mrs.
Thompson, widow of the first lay-reader, had long been a wholesome
example. Speedily volunteers offered; and, in the Report of 1853,
news was sent home of the admission of two candidates for Holy Orders
from among the natives—Ku Sia, who, upon baptism, had received the
name, Clement F. Jones; and Mu Su, renamed John Musu Minor. These
men, ordained on Easter, April 16th, 1853, were the first products of
the Liberian Church Schools. Following these ordinations, a stream of
native applicants, small indeed as was natural, flowed steadily into
the ordained ministry of the Church.
* * * * *
But evidently the negro colonists of Liberia had not yet proved their
ability to organize and maintain an independent native Church. This
was natural enough, for the colonists were poor and the Republic
itself had not yet learned how to turn its natural resources to
profitable account. Hence the Church in Liberia had to depend almost
entirely on financial help from the American Church.
In 1855, the Board of Missions in New York, through its Foreign
Committee, took the following action, which changed the entire
status of the work in Liberia. “_Resolved_: That the whole extent of
the American Colonial Settlements in Western Africa, including the
State of Liberia and the colony of Cape Palmas, is considered as a
missionary station occupied by this Committee.” From this time on,
the Mission of the Church was no longer the Cape Palmas Colony and
its near neighborhood, but was co-terminous with the whole Province
of Liberia.
This is, therefore, a good time to review the achievements of these
most difficult years. _The Caralla Messenger_, the mission journal
published in Cape Palmas, contains this interesting summary: “It
is just 19 years, last Christmas Day, since the Rev. Dr. Savage
formally opened the Mission at Mount Vaughan in the only building
connected with it, and this but half finished. On that day, only
about a half-dozen communicants, if so many, were connected with
the Episcopal Church. Since then, ‘through the good hand of our
God upon us,’ the Mission has established permanent stations, of
greater or less efficiency, at fourteen different places, amongst
colonists and natives. It has expended for churches, mission-houses,
and school-houses, a sum not less than one hundred thousand dollars.
In the day and boarding-schools sustained by it, not fewer than
three thousand children and adults have received the rudiments of a
Christian education. From six, the communicants—some of whom are
now living, some dead—foreign, colonists and natives—have numbered
at least three hundred. The number, at the present time, is two
hundred and forty-one. The blessed Gospel is preached regularly
to four colonist congregations, in some twenty different native
tribes, and to one hundred thousand people. There are now, including
the Orphan Asylum, seven commodious mission-houses, three churches
completed and a fourth nearly so—two being of stone, one brick, and
one wood—besides one very superior school-house and several more
indifferent, for colonists and natives. A more sufficient cause of
thankfulness still, is to be found in the number and character of
the schools connected with the Mission. The High School and female
day-school at Mount Vaughan; the Orphan Asylum at Harper; the native
schools at Fishtown, Rocktown, Cape Palmas, Cavalla, Hening Station,
Rockbookah, and Taboo; the boarding and colonist day-school at Bassa
Cove, the Female High School at Monrovia, and the native boarding and
colonist day-school at Clay-Ashland, give evidence of earnest and
well directed effort to diffuse Christian instruction throughout the
bounds of the Mission.”
But this hopeful, almost buoyant, message was followed at the close
of the next year, 1856, by great distresses, many deaths of faithful
workers, war among the savage tribes, and hostilities between
the Government and the natives, resulting in the loss of Mission
property—all of which brought disaster, and retarded the work.
The years of the Civil War in America were especially trying, since
revenues from the Mother Church were much decreased. Work had to be
curtailed. Yet, through all the trials, the laborers in the field,
missionaries, catechists and teachers, remained steadfast under
the leadership of Bishop Payne who saw clearly that the hope of
the Liberian Church lay in the gradual development of the will and
ability to become self-supporting, and the arousing of missionary
zeal toward the unevangelized tribes from the coast inland.
In 1862, the Bishop wrote, “We endeavor always to impress upon our
native converts that the lesson God means to teach them, by the
troubles in America, is to exert themselves for their own support and
that of the Gospel in their midst. And they feel and acknowledge the
situation.”
In that year, the organization of the Church was strengthened, and
the widely scattered missions brought into more compact oneness, by
the formation of a General Missionary Convocation to bring the whole
Church together in conference and mutual communion at stated times. A
full account of this appears in _The Spirit of Missions_ for August,
1862. Later in this year, Mr. Samuel D. Ferguson, a negro colonist,
was appointed Principal of the Mount Vaughan High School, and thus
began his training for the later leadership of the Liberian Mission.
Before the close of the trying War period, the Mission sustained
the loss of one of its oldest (in point of service) and one of its
most efficient teachers, Mrs. Elizabeth M. Thompson, who, for
twenty-eight years, taught in our Mission schools. She was a native
of Connecticut, of negro blood, born in 1807. In 1831, she emigrated
to Liberia where she began work as a teacher in an infant-school in
Monrovia. She later moved with her husband to Cape Palmas, and was
associated with his work there and at Mount Vaughan, where, in 1833,
he was appointed as lay-reader in charge of our budding work. Her
husband died early, and she continued her work as teacher with great
devotion until within a short time of her death, when ill-health
obliged her to resign. She continued lighter labors in St. Mark’s
Hospital almost to the end, which came in April, 1864. Mrs. Thompson
was an excellent Christian character, faithful and zealous and
greatly beloved by all, an example to her race, and her death caused
great sorrow in the entire community.
In 1871, after thirty-one years of devoted labor in
foundation-building, Bishop Payne found himself obliged, by
ill-health, to give up his work. Simply and modestly he gives the
following account of his stewardship.
“To the praise of His grace, God has prospered the work of my hands
as well as prolonged my days. At my own station (Cavalla) I have
baptized 352 persons, of whom 187 were adults. In the Mission I have
confirmed 643 persons. I have lived to ordain Deacons—two foreign,
eight Liberians, four natives—in all, fourteen; of Presbyters, three
foreign, seven Liberians, one Native—in all, eleven; or, altogether,
twenty-five ordinations have been held. And at twenty-two places
along 250 miles of what was, fifty years ago, a most barbarous
heathen coast, has the Church been planted, and radiating points
for the light of the Gospel established. Nine churches may be
considered established and supplied with ministers of the Country.
Besides schools, common and Sunday, we have a High School for boys, a
Training School for young men, and an Orphan Asylum to take care of
destitute children in the colonies. The Church and Mission by God’s
blessing, may be considered established.”
Meanwhile, the Rev. Mr. Auer, the only white missionary left after
the Bishop’s withdrawal, had been even more busy than ever, with
his American and native negro co-workers, in building up the waste
places and planning for the extension of work; in preparing native
candidates for the Ministry, in which Mr. Crummell was chief factor;
in building new and repairing old school-houses; and in recruiting
the ranks of the white staff. The strain had been too great, and he
lived for less than a year after his consecration as Bishop Payne’s
successor in the Episcopate. A few months later, Bishop Payne also
died in his distant American home.
Thus the Mission was left with only recently recruited white helpers;
but these, with the fine band of negro clergy, catechists, and
teachers, went steadily and faithfully forward. As Bishop Payne had
so confidently declared, “the mission may be considered established”;
and so it was. For two years, with many misfortunes, but always in
the confidence of hope, the work went forward until, in 1876, the
Rev. Charles C. Penick, D. D., was elected Bishop of Cape Palmas
and, on February 13th, 1877, was consecrated in Alexandria, Va. He
arrived in his new field in October, and, two months later, returned
this message to the Church at home, which sounds discouraging enough:
“I find the American Mission confusion worse confounded. The work
here has been so long without any head that the disorder is very,
very great. Every building connected with the Mission is tumbling to
pieces. I can put my foot through the rotten floor in the room where
I now write, and it is one of the best in the house, and the house
as good as any in the Mission. Books are all moulded and bug-eaten
to worthlessness; furniture eaten to honeycomb; records like autumn
leaves, only not so close together; no school system, no educational
system; not the first move towards self-support; many changes and old
questions to be settled, and not enough clergy to form a court.”
I wonder if the Bishop, coming upon an era of more than usual
confusion, was not tempted into a judgment upon the basis of
standards at home among a people with ten centuries and more of
steadily increasing stability of government and social order? I
wonder if he had not forgotten that, since Bishop Auer served only an
invalided Episcopate of a few short months, the Mission had really
been headless for a period of quite eight years—from 1869 to Bishop
Penick’s arrival in 1877? What might not have happened in any
Diocese in America, in far more favorable circumstances, had that
Diocese been left without a head for such a period? And I am quite
sure that something like this happened; for, two years later, the
whole tone of the Bishop’s report clearly indicates it, as he thanks
God for the healing of divisions resulting from lack of Episcopal
oversight, and for the bringing of good out of the evils incidental
to the years of war, throughout which the Church had saved many from
starvation, slavery and death. “More scholars than the schools can
take are coming from heathen tribes,” he wrote in substance, “and
some are seeing the Christ and following Him.” In addition to other
activities, Bishop Penick wisely introduced a department of farming,
both for instruction and for profit; and the report in 1879 shows
its steady advance under the direction of Mr. Christian Schmidt, a
volunteer who came out with Bishop Penick from America and whose name
suggests a well-trained German farmer. Out of this enterprise grew
one or more agricultural schools, until eventually, into practically
all the schools of the Mission, most helpful industrial features
were introduced. Doubtless, all should have begun with industrial
training, and the discipline of hand and eye should properly have led
to the training of mind, and upward to that of soul. More properly
all must go together, notably, with primitive folk, since each reacts
upon the other.
In 1882 the Bishop’s health failed, and he was forced to return to
America; and, the next year, finding his hope to return groundless,
he tendered his resignation to the Board. Bishop Penick’s noteworthy
contribution to the Church and people of Liberia consisted in the
practical industries and the business system introduced just when
these became possible of a fairly successful adoption. He was a
spiritual power always, as preacher and pastor. The statistics,
at the close of his Episcopate, are thus given: “Total average
attendance in the churches, 1,063; number of communicants, 567;
attendance at Day and Boarding Schools, 392; at Sunday Schools, 719.
Total number of agents employed, including the Bishop, 8 presbyters,
5 deacons, and others engaged in the Mission staff, 57.”
So closes, for the time being, the succession of Bishops of an alien
race in Liberia. Against this time, God had been preparing a great
negro leader for His Church. After a trying vacancy of three years in
the Liberian Episcopate, the Rev. Samuel D. Ferguson was elected, in
1884, and consecrated the following year.
Bishop Ferguson was the second Negro of our Episcopal Church to
be consecrated as Bishop, the Rt. Rev. Dr. Holley of Haiti being
the first. He was born in Charleston, S. C., on January 1st, 1842;
and, while ill, was baptized by Bishop Gadsden at the request of
his Roman Catholic mother. In 1848, the family moved to Liberia,
where the father and two children soon fell victims to the tropical
fever, leaving the mother and Samuel David to establish their home
in the new land. Bishop Payne took charge of the boy, put him at
school, and was as a father to him in his formative years and until
he became, first a teacher, then a priest of the Church. While
still a student, he was a Christian teacher to his less fortunate
fellow students. From one post of responsibility to another his
faithfulness and growth in grace and wisdom combined to call him.
When Bishop Penick arrived, he quickly singled out Mr. Ferguson,
in his business administration of the Mission, as a fit person to
be the business agent of the Cape Palmas District. He was for many
years the President of the Standing Committee. The fatality of the
climate among the white missionaries, the growing emphasis put upon
the aim of the Church to grow into a native national Church, the
increasing growth in culture and in grace of the negro clergy, had
all conspired to arouse in the Liberian Church the desire for a
Bishop of their own race, and in the home Church the willingness to
grant it. In the Rev. Samuel David Ferguson, as the trial proved, the
man was found eminently fitted for the sacred office and the arduous
tasks. After his consecration in Grace Church, New York, the Bishop
visited the home of his childhood, Charleston, and other points in
the South. His first service as Bishop was in Norfolk, Va., where he
confirmed a class for the Rev. J. H. M. Pollard in the Church of the
Holy Innocents—a day of days for the negro brethren of Norfolk and
of America. Another such day was that on which he was received with
glad, loving, enthusiastic welcome by his own people, the shepherd
raised in his own fold—Liberia. All honor to the devoted white men
who, in successive martyrdoms, gave their lives in devoted service to
their black brethren; but is it either ungenerous or untrue to think,
and to write the thought, that from earth and heaven must have come
the glad acclaim to the black Bishop, blood of his people’s blood and
bone of their bone! “Thrice welcome to our Bishop, thrice honor to
God that His grace has been sufficient for us!”
Bishop Ferguson, while on the voyage to America for his consecration
mapped out his plans for development. Among the enterprises projected
were a theological school of high grade, a medical college for whose
conduct native physicians had been preparing, and an industrial
school completing the design of his predecessors. Upon his return to
Liberia, as Bishop, he was met by immediate and significant evidence
of his people’s gratitude for a Bishop of their own race. Before the
year closed, the King of the Grebos presented himself to the Bishop
for baptism; and later, the king’s wife, thus opening a wide door
of future influence for the Church, though the habit of polygamy
temporarily deterred many from surrender to the Faith which forbade
it.
Most encouraging was the personal interest of the President and
members of the Cabinet, and of the mayor of the capital city and
most of the officials. E. J. Barclay, Secretary of State, was
Superintendent of Trinity Sunday School, and others were active on
the vestry or as worshippers.
In 1888, after another journey to the United States, the Bishop set
about establishing a Manual Labor Farm, for the founding of which
Mr. R. Fulton Cutting of New York, had given $5,000, with a view to
the instruction of boys in industries, and to serve as a pattern for
other similar institutions. One hundred acres were bought, and the
site was renamed Cuttington in honor of the founder. Thus was the
Bishop enabled to begin one of the great enterprises to which he had
set his efforts in his initial plans for development. An interesting
sidelight is thrown on the success of these enterprises by the Rev.
Mr. Fair in describing his work at Bassa. The coffee crop here was
nearly doubled in one year through the use of improved methods, and
the whole crop was sold to Park and Tilford of New York—a testimony
to the excellence of the sample. Later reports of our Mission farms,
though perhaps not so favorable, fully justified their establishment.
Another stimulating evidence of the new life in the Mission, is
contained in the report of the year 1889: “The native converts are
becoming increasingly interested in the spread of the Gospel and
evincing a desire for self help”—such is the message. Church after
church set itself the task of raising as much as possible for the
support of the rector and the meeting of its home charges, while
some also included contributions for the general work outside their
borders. This marks the beginning of a new day for the Liberian
Church, when the vision of a mission to others is dawning.
In 1890, a high recognition of the negro leadership of the Church
came in the election, by the authorities of the Republic, of the Rev.
G. W. Gibson as President of the College of Liberia.
It is often stated that the Negro, left to himself, is liable to
moral degeneration. It is interesting, therefore, to note the high
standard of morals maintained in the Liberian Church under Bishop
Ferguson as shown by the firm discipline with which, on the rare
occasions when it proved necessary, he immediately eliminated
from the roll of workers anyone who showed disregard of Christian
standards of morals.
Again, while the missionary zeal of the Liberian Church was, time
and again, thwarted by hostilities among the tribes in whose borders
mission work was carried on, there is abundant evidence that
foundations were being laid. Thus when, in 1892, the tribes of the
Cavalla region were notified by the Bishop that disturbances caused
by them necessitated the discontinuance of mission work, the chiefs,
with one accord, begged for a withdrawal of the notice, and that they
be not denied the light of Christianity.
One of them is quoted: “We are looking to you, as the people that
started leading us to the Great One, still to continue His message
amongst us. But if you mean to leave us to remain in darkness, please
let us know; for we do not think it right to seek it elsewhere until
we hear and know the same from you, that you have already given us
up. We close with the following—that we sincerely and earnestly need
the preaching and teaching of the Word of God amongst us with more
force and spirit than ever in other past times. We are sincerely and
earnestly yours for whom God’s Son died too.
_Signed_, Teba Yue Hue, King.”
Many a white Church might envy such a witness to its labors.
In the year 1895, the efforts of the Church toward self-help and
national entity had so far progressed as to give birth to a new
organization—“The Board of Directors of the Protestant Episcopal
Church Missionary Society of Liberia, for the conduct of the Business
of God.” This organization was effected by the General Convocation
of the Church of Liberia meeting in St. Mark’s Church, Harper, and
has continued ever since with appropriate changes in name and in
constitution.
Steadily the native Church grew—the children of early converts in
the ranks, still more of the grandchildren. From these, the ordained
ministry is now being recruited, teachers prepared, doctors taught,
nurses trained, Christian mothers and fathers raised up to be called
blessed of their children. The general level of life is surely and
steadily being raised. It has produced not a few worthy to be held
in memory. Not the least among them, as earnest of what the race is
capable of, was the Rev. M. P. Keda Valentine, who died on July 11th,
1896, and of whom Bishop Penick, his former Bishop, on hearing of his
death, wrote: “He was one of the foremost spirits who ended the forty
years’ war between two factions of the Grebo tribe. He was foremost
in Latin, Greek, Hebrew, music, athletics, courage, marksmanship,
statesmanship, and Christian character amongst his fellows. Deeds of
daring, self-sacrifice, patient endurance, forgiveness, and justness
cluster about this man’s life as about few I have ever seen or read
of.... For six years I was in touch with Keda Valentine as his
Bishop; I, coming from the center of Christian culture and light;
he, from the depths of heathen corruption and superstition; yet I
cannot recall one solitary instance when this man, by word or deed,
fell below the mark of lofty Christian manhood as we know it. No duty
assigned was ever too hard, no promotion over him ever drew a word
or look of protest, no echo of envy did I ever hear from his lips.
I saw him sit amongst the kings and sages of his people, where no
other young man had ever sat, and when I asked them why he was there,
they answered, ‘True, he is very young, but God has put plenty of His
Book in him, and he is fit to sit with us and make laws.’ Now he is
gone to join the other brave, cultured, true spirits—Montgomery and
Walters—three bright stars in that dark land’s firmament.”
Bishop Ferguson died on August 2, 1916, just one hundred years after
the organization of the American Colonization Society, to which
the Liberian Republic owes its existence. The Rev. Mr. Matthews
furnishes the statement here quoted which contains the facts about
the District just prior to the Bishop’s death: “When he was made
Bishop, the Church had but ten clergy in the District; today we have
26, all colored. Then only 24 lay helpers; now we have 74. Then but
9 day-schools, with 284 pupils; now we have 25 schools with 1,094
pupils. From 5 boarding schools with 251 scholars, we have now grown
to 20, with 596 boarders. The number of Sunday School scholars
has increased over 2,000. The number of stations and churches has
increased 150 per cent, and the communicant list has grown over
2,000. From being, in 1885, absolutely dependent for support on the
home Church, the Liberians, in 1913, contributed nearly $7,000 toward
self-support.”
We must not close the story of Bishop Ferguson’s devoted labors
without a reference to his relation to the Republic. This relation
was unique. The Bishop grew to be the chief citizen, the “grand old
man” of the Republic. In his quite fifty years of service as teacher
and Bishop, he had trained many of the rulers and legislators in
whose hands the destiny of Liberia lay. These men knew him as man,
as teacher, as Bishop. They knew his honor, his love for country and
people, his wisdom, his unselfishness. They trusted him. He was their
adviser. At crucial times he was called to address and to advise
their Congress. The President felt that in him a wise counsellor was
at hand, and he used him as the Bishop was willing to be used. Well
did the Liberians say of him, with set purpose to abide by it: “Let
us imitate the good example he has set us.”
Yet still the negro Church of Liberia, while proving itself capable
of developing individual Christians of high character, did not seem
prepared for full independence. Three years passed, during which
time the matter of the Liberian Episcopate was discussed in all its
bearings. There were strong arguments in favor of a negro Bishop,
possibly with a white Archdeacon as his adviser; but finally it was
deemed best by General Convention to appoint a white Bishop, and at
its meeting in Detroit in October, 1919, the Rev. Walter J. Overs,
a man of long experience in Africa, was elected Bishop of Liberia.
Consecrated two months later, he at once left to assume his new
duties.
But the Liberian Church was not to be left without a native
Episcopate. The Rev. T. Momolu Gardiner, a native of the Vai tribe,
and a priest of high Christian character, had long since given
evidence of what the Negro can attain to under the training of the
Church. The Liberians themselves had expressed an eager desire for
a Bishop of their own race, and no one was more fitted to fulfil
those desires than Mr. Gardiner. In October, 1920, therefore, he was
elected by the House of Bishops as Suffragan Bishop for Liberia, and
was consecrated on June 23d of the following year.
Bishop Gardiner is a native, a fruit of St. John’s School, and of the
Divinity School at Cuttington. In his consecration sermon, Bishop
Overs thus graphically pictures the task to which the new Bishop is
called, and for which God had been preparing him: “You and I have
travelled through much of Liberia together. You know the field
and the work. You are a member of the Vai tribe, one of the most
promising tribes of Liberia. But it is the only tribe of the Republic
that is influenced by Mohammedanism. Your name is Momolu, which means
in English Mohammed. Your father—a Mohammedan priest—gave you that
name, but he also sent you to a Christian school, to learn letters.
You learned to be a Christian. Gradually you have come to the
position which you now hold. What a responsibility is yours! You must
claim your tribe for Christ. Just before I left Monrovia, last month,
one of your chiefs, a Mohammedan, came to me and said, ‘The mosque in
my town is falling down; if you will send me a teacher, I will build
a Christian church and school in the very place where the mosque
has stood.’ It is prophetic. It will come. Then there are twenty
other tribes in our District for whom little has been done from the
standpoint of religion, education, or development in any way. You
particularly represent these people. Your work will not be easy.
Nothing worth while is. The work is vast. The task is tremendous. But
the opportunity is magnificent.”
Who can withhold his prayers of deepest sympathy for this David of
his race, going forth against the mighty, new-clad in armor still
being tried? Can we fail continually to hold close in our hearts the
white Bishop and the black Bishop, as each sustaining the other and
supplementing the lack of the other, they cross the borderland of the
heathen and go forward with the Cross.
We are now in a position to reach some fair conclusion as to what the
Negro is capable of when placed on his own feet in a more or less
favorable environment. And let it be borne in mind that we are here
dealing with a people of precisely the same stock as our own negro
population.
Apart from what we have considered in these pages, we may with
confidence adduce the statements contained in the Report of the
Commission to Liberia, sent out by the Church in 1918. This report is
contained, in full, in the _Spirit of Missions_ for June, 1918.
The Commission calls attention to the difficulties, both external
and internal, which the negro Republic has had to face from the very
beginning. Powerful foreign nations on either side of her, though
friendly towards her, have pre-empted much of her valuable territory
for debts incurred, thus indicating what may yet befall. Poverty
and lack of technical skill have prevented her from discovering and
developing her own resources, while there has been no lack of those
who would exploit her to their own selfish advantage. Unavoidable
conditions, not inherent in the race, have made well-nigh impossible
the establishment of an adequate school system, without which free
institutions must always be in danger. The Government has had to face
constant internal disturbances due to tribal warfare often stirred
up by self-seeking individuals; hence, much of her strength, which
should have gone to developing her resources, has been expended in
preserving respect for law and order.
Yet the Commission found the Liberian people realizing clearly
the obstacles to be overcome in self-development, and calmly and
courageously facing problems which demand for their solution the
most perfect skill, and earnestly endeavoring to overcome natural
obstacles such as only wealth wisely used can control. “To think
what would be the effect throughout the continent of Africa if, in
Liberia, free institutions were definitely established, is to make
one tingle with enthusiasm. Nor is there any question but that this
is entirely within the ability of the people if they have the kind
of help which only the Church can render. This can be freely given
without fear of loss to Liberia and without resulting in dangerous
dependence on her part.”
A free and stable government has been established by the Liberians
themselves, and it has stood the test of time and of innumerable
obstacles measurably overcome. It is an honest government, Christian
at heart and in ideals; but it lacks knowledge and skill and training
to realize its ideals. It has no model to work by. The ability to
bear responsibility is the difference between a free man and a man in
bonds, and it is from this kind of bondage that the Liberian suffers
because, with all the willingness in the world, he has not had the
opportunity to make responsibility count. These things emphasize the
ability and courage and industry with which the Republic is facing
the obstacles to her growth.
The Commission reports most hopefully concerning the state of the
Liberian Church: “With opportunity for education such as we, in
America, would hesitate to call opportunity, the Church has developed
a body of clergy who need not be apologized for. With a task that
is literally colossal, they are working at it with a good will and
full of hope. The religious life of the body of the people in the
Church reminds one of the manner of life which used to prevail in
America before America became rich and sophisticated. In every home
where we have been, family prayers have been a matter of course, and
the reverence with which the household has taken part has been most
refreshing. When we offered three young girls in the household of
the Chief Justice tickets to a moving-picture show they thanked us
but declined, saying that they were expecting to be confirmed the
following Sunday. On Ash Wednesday, fasting was the rule—apparently a
matter of course.”
* * * * *
“The help of Americans will be needed for the establishment of
the Church among the uncivilized. This is not because of any lack
of courage or industry or initiative or devotion on the part of
the Liberians. We saw all these graces abundantly manifested. But
these people are shut off from contacts which would give them the
experience and knowledge necessary for aggressive work. They know
what they lack, but must have help to find relief.” The help we
render must be that which will enable the Church of Liberia to get
along without our help and to give to the Republic that service by
which the Republic may be established.
“During the past twenty-six years, the Liberians have had entire
control of the Church’s work, and the strength of the Church has been
multiplied many times. No damage has resulted, and no waste of her
meagre funds has occurred.”
“The glory of Liberia is that it is a black man’s country—the
only black man’s country on the face of the earth. The interests
of humanity, as of Christianity, demand that it remain so. In His
providence, God seems to have laid upon the black man the task of
establishing free institutions in Africa. The story of Liberia’s
eighty years is as thrilling as that of our fathers who, we believe
were sent for a like beneficent purpose to this continent. The
fortitude and courage and patience and enthusiasm with which those
people have devoted themselves to their task, are beyond praise.
The Republic of Liberia, in spite of malign influence and slander
and misrepresentation, in spite of poverty which would have broken
the spirit of white men, is an established entity. Let Liberia make
good, and she will have made possible the realization of the phrase,
‘Africa for the Africans.’ That Liberia can do it, would be evident
to anyone who has the wish to see and comprehend the miracle that has
been wrought there.”