it Christianity, will have prepared the way, as we see it now being
made ready, and the negro race of this land will go back gradually
but with increasing rapidity, and by a natural and healthy emigration.
Such emigration only could be permanently and extensively beneficial
to a new land. The colonist must be more or less be impelled by
the native force of his own character to seek the new home. Africa
must look for her Christianity and her civilization especially
to her own sons. Like all other lands which are to be elevated,
the power raising her must come from without. It seems to be the
course of Divine Providence that new and heathen countries are
to be civilized and Christianized by Christian colonization; not
commercial, but Christian colonies must go out to them. The colonists
must not supplant and destroy the aboriginal inhabitants, nor must
they come simply as teachers, but they must abide as those whose
home is to be there, who as residents bring them the arts and
practices of civilized and Christian life, and whose extended and
continued example illustrates the power and benefits of the life
they bring.
This has been for the most part of the course of events. No people
rises alone and unaided from a state of barbarism. The early history
of nations which have a history, usually begins with the coming of
a colony, whether it be Phoenician, Cadmean, or Trojan. "Religion,
law and letters are not indigenous, but exotic; in all the past
career of man upon the globe one race hands the torch of science to
another." Of no people must this be more true than of the African.
If Africa is to be elevated, it must be by the infusion of life
and power from without, and by means of colonies which bring with
them the elements of life and power.
The colonist who brings this boon to Africa must be an African.
Every year and every experiment renders this more clearly evident.
The white missionary has done, and is doing, a noble, perhaps
indispensable work, but the permanent results which are to be found
over extensive regions must come from men whose race is similar
to the people among whom they dwell, and with whom it can mingle
freely and advantageously. Such a race has been preparing, and will
be prepared by the overruling power of God in this country.
At present the work of preparation is not complete. A few have been
made partially ready, some fit for the work have gone and, by their
success on the west coast of Africa, have shown what the people
are capable of doing. A beginning has been made, but in the coming
time it must have a new starting-point. The Liberian colony, or
any other which shall be formed, must rise from the position of a
far distant place to which one is banished, to be the attractive
spot which calls, and to which a manly energy and independence
urges.
To send only the degraded and the low in intellect is not the method
to elevate and ennoble a new land. The stream will not rise higher
than the fountain, and a slave, though free, cannot at once be a
truly self-reliant man, least of all can he be a good teacher of
self-reliance and progress. He must first teach himself, well as
he may, before he can do much for others. The colonist must, if he
carry good with him, be first elevated himself. Nor, on the other
hand, can the isolated and exceptional cases of advancement and
cultivation be spared from their brethren here.
For the most part, as can easily be seen would naturally be the case,
the colonists who have hitherto gone have been the most energetic
and intelligent. But in the time to come such cannot all be spared:
their example and aid are needed here to help the general rise.
But if the time comes, and when it comes, that under the stimulus
of freedom the colored race as a whole advances to the point which
we think there is for it in the future, individuals will not be
of account; emigration passing along the track of commerce, and
commerce by its own great laws will set toward Africa, and in this
way the problem of Africarn colonization, and of African history
in America will be fulfilled. All this may be very distant, many
years may go by, though, fewer than perhaps we may imagine, but
the Great God who guides the hours and their burden can bring it
all about, and through one of the deepest crimes of history, the
Rebellion of to-day, hasten it in its coming. It will be like Him
to make crime its own avenger, and both crime and vengeance illustrate
his goodness and love.