Page:Africa's redemption.djvu/45

Meanwhile, colonization is silently lifting the entire coloured population in America. This it does by first calling a general and kindly attention to the condition of this population—whence grows an honest and inquisitive interest in their welfare. The public feelings, instead of being exasperated, are softened and tenderly enlisted by the way in which colonization presents the case of the negro. Then, along with the perception of the avoidable evils in the condition of this race among us, goes corresponding efforts for his relief and improvement. To this, no doubt, is to be attributed in considerable measure, the increasing interest which is felt in giving religious instruction to coloured people, and in some places in free States, in regularly educating them. And the reflex influence of the Liberian Republic is already powerfully felt for the good of the race here. Colonization has taken the negro from under his disabilities here, and placed him where he has developed to an intellectual and moral stature never reached before by his race, and now holds him up as the optical demonstration of what the negro may easily become. Whole nebula of phrenological speculations and scientific infidelities have thus been dissipated; and there, star-like, shines out the negro intellect, clear and bright. There, intelligence, freedom, and religion, flourish amongst the descendants of Ham—amidst the much maligned Ethiopian race. This exhibition must greatly affect the minds of philanthropists and slaveholders. "What right have we (will they argue) to allow these people to exist