"The poor forsaken ones:"
men, however, of earnest mind, who would not sit in the negro pew; men, who but for this society must have been left to indifferentism or infidelity, have had their wounded hearts soothed by the visitations of this society, and their anxious, passionate gaze turned from the trials of caste and slavery, to "the Lamb of God, who taketh away the sin of the world." They have built churches, established schools, founded a college, raised up a ministry of over four hundred men, meet in several conferences, and are governed by their own bishops. Here, then, is a spiritual machinery which has saved the United States the shame of hundred of thousands black heathen. Here is a purely missionary enterprise in the full tide of success, which has been administered by black men over a half century. Stretching from Maine to Louisiana, from Maryland to California; it shoaws that black men "can exert an influence which will reach the remote part of the continent" of America; and why not do the same on the continent of Africa? Operating among negroes, most of whom a century ago were recently from Africa; it shows that American Christians, even now, "can look to colored men as" [at least, humbly] "adapted to the work" that is, to give shape to a community emerging into the light of civilization." The disproof of Dr. Wilson's assertion is right before his eyes.
Dr. "Wilson's objection, that we are "not best adapted to study out the barbarous languages and prepare dictionaries," I regard as exceedingly unfair. There is not a missionary society in Christendom
