The same Anglicizing influence has been carried on, but on a larger scale, in Montserrada County, but mainly through the Methodists; and they have spread our language widely abroad through that county, by the means of native schools, native children in their American schools, and missionaries residing in country towns, teaching and preaching as far back as the Golah tribe, and now among the Veys: native preachers, too, men converted to the faith, and moved by the Spirit to proclaim the glad tidings to their needy parents, brothers, and kin. I must not fail to mention the fact, that, during the last two years, one of their ministers has carried the English tongue some 200 miles in the interior,[1] and has spread it abroad amid the homes of the mild Pessas; thus preparing the way for legitimate trade, for civilization, for the Gospel of Jesus Christ, by the means of the spoken Word and the English Bible.
Thus, fellow-citizens, by these varied means the English language has been pushing its way among the numerous tribes of our territory. And thus, in a region of not less than 50,000 square miles, there are few places but where an English-speaking traveller can find some person who can talk with him in his own language.
And now I beg you to notice one point: this English, which we are speaking, and teaching the heathen to speak, is not our native tongue. This Anglo-Saxon language, which is the only language ninety-nine hundredths of us emigrants have ever
- ↑ The lamented Rev. George L. Seymour, Missionary and Traveller.
