Agriculture shall pour forth its gifts and offerings for distant marts; Commerce shall bear multitudinous treasures to foreign climes; and Art shall multiply its blandishments, to
"Soften the rude and calm the boisterous mind."
It was a remark of the great William Pitt: "We may live to behold the nations of Africa engaged in the calm occupations of industry, and in the pursuit of a just and legitimate commerce; we may behold the beams of science and philosophy breaking in upon their land, which at some happier period, in still later times, may blaze with full lustre, and joining their influence to that of pure religion, may illuminate and invigorate the most distant extremities of that immense continent."
And already have these noble words been somewhat realized. I myself, with my own eyes, have seen the fulfilment, in partial degrees, of this grand prediction. Large masses of native children are now being trained in Christian schools. A great company of native cateehists have gone forth from their homes to train and evangelize their heathen kin. A host of native priests and deacons have been commissioned to go forth as missionaries, in divers tongues to preach the gospel: already have they penetrated the wilds of the interior; already have they reached the banks of the Niger; and soon the full picture painted by the great orator, shall assume the features of grand reality, "and science and philosophy, with pure religion, illuminate raid invigorate extremities of that immense continent."
But nobler words and a more glorious prediction
