and village of interior Africa. The galling remembrance of the slave-trade on the coast, and of slavery in America, would quicken the blood and the brain of both parties, and every wretch of a slave-trader who might visit the coast would have to atone for his temerity by submitting to the rigid code framed for piracy. And when this disturbing and destructive hindrance to African progress was once put down, noble cities, vast agricultural establishments, the seeds of universities, and groundwork of church organizations, would spring up all along the banks, and up the valley of the Niger.[1]
There is one certain commercial result—to return to my subject—that would surely grow out of this movement: I mean the flow of large amounts of capital from the moneyed men of America; that is, if black men showed skill, energy, and practicability. Philanthropy would come forward with largess for colored men, thus developing the resources of Africa. Religion would open a large and generous hand in order to hasten the redemption of a continent alien from Christ and His Church. And capital would hasten forward, not only for its wonted reduplication, but also to exemplify the vitality and fruitfulness which it always scatters from golden hands in its open pathway. And when you consider the fact of kinship, on our part, with Africa, the less liability to fever, the incentive to gain, the magnificent objects before us, and the magnificent field on which to
- ↑ The great hindrance to African evangelization at the present time is the slave-trade. Missionaries feel this all along the coast, from Cape Palmas to Congo.
