of this youthful republic, to save bleeding, benighted Africa, and to help redeem the continent. I assure you that there is a school of this character in Liberia; men who feel obligated to philanthropy, who are burdened with a sense of duty, who have the keenest, most sensitive feeling of race, who love Africa, who are anxious for the welfare of the whole negro family, who labor with all their might for the advancement of industry and civilization, who would fain glorify God. When I look upon this class of men, and mark their ways, I feel that the country will yet attain standing and reach some distinction.[1]
It is these thoughts and observations, and some experiences, which lead me to think that those who look upon Liberia in connection with their commercial desires, are wise. I have no wish to discourage those who are looking to the banks of the Niger. God bless them every way if that is indeed their mission! But, as an individual, I have earnestly
- ↑ I cannot better illustrate the importance of such a class, as above mentioned, in Liberia, than by referring to a paragraph from a speech recently sent me by a friend: "If the founders of the American Republic had been formed by the same materials as the settlers of California, the genius and liberties of America would have been lost in anarchy or absorbed in an inevitable despotism. It was because, on however small a scale, they were senators and soldiers, impressed with a due sense of the heavy responsibility that rested upon them, and not mere money-getters, that they succeeded in laying the foundations of the greatest republic in the world. They never lost sight of the responsibility of the task they had undertaken,—they felt that they were going for a high position in the eyes of the world, and to set an example for all ages. Feeling this, the early settlers of New England accomplished their mission."
John Robert Godly, Esq.,before the "Canterbury Association," London.
