PREFACE.
At an early period in the settlement of this country, while the slave-trade was vigorously pursued, many of the natives of Africa were brought to America and sold into perpetual servitude. While this class of people has long excited the interest and sympathy of the benevolent, but little has been done to change, essentially, their relative position in society. While a portion remain in servitude, others, though free, must meet almost insurmountable obstacles to that improvement and elevation which, under other circumstances, and in their own native land, they might probably secure.
Though this numerous class of men, as a body, have improved but little for many generations, there have been occasional exceptions to their general ignorance and degradation. which show what they might become, under influences more favourable to their physical and moral discipline than they are likely to meet at present, if ever, in this country.
The question of their social and civil relation may involve difficulties perplexing and embarrassing to the Christian, but we know that the truth, consolations and hopes of the gospel are abundantly adequate to relieve the wants and mitigate the miseries of every human apostate.
From the most ignorant and wretched of mankind we are furnished with some of the finest illustrations of the power of truth and grace. Those monuments of saving mercy, while they in no degree detract from the value of religious instruction or the means of grace at all times and in all classes of society, may show the virtue of Christianity and the amazing love of God in overcoming the most formidable difficulties in the way of salvation.
The subject of the following brief memoir is taken from the most ignorant and profligate class of men, and the history of his degradation and crimes is given for the simple purpose of showing, not only what are the distinct features of human nature in its deplorable apostasy and to what lengths ignorance and sin will lead, but more specially to show what transformation of character may be secured by the proper application of the means of grace and the blessing of God upon the agencies of his appointment to save mankind.
Divine truth, when addressed to the most guilty, with kindness and sympathy for their miserable and lost condition, is seldom refused or despised. When accompanied with fervent prayer, and attended with the blessing of God, nothing is too great to anticipate. We may look for miracles of mercy and salvation.
In the relief ultimately found from ignorance and sin, by the renewing influence of truth and grace, no excuse can be borrowed for moral delinquency, no palliation pleaded for crime, and no encouragement given to such as may be repeating the hazardous experiment of indulged depravity. While one abandoned sinner lives to repent, thousands die incorrigible. While the grace of God reaches and secures one from the sentence of death, thousands are abandoned to the wages of unrighteousness, to reap forever the fruit of their crimes.