the course of time, large numbers of them have become free. The free blacks of America are a disturbing; element in the midst of the white inhabitants of the paradoxical Republic; and hence, by the force of the oppressive principle, thousands of them have been led to emigrate to the coast of Africa. There they have formed a Republic—the Republic of Liberia, with free institutions, with schools and churches, and missions to their heathen kin.
Here, then, in the providence of God, we see three distinct movements, in the Negro race itself, of a civilized and Christian character, tending towards the coast of Africa; and it presents this singular, this cheering and auspicious aspect, that after three centuries of slavery and outrage, this people are emerging from the shades, and, all at once, from three different quarters of the globe, are carrying in a combined and organized manner, in three different streams, civilized institutions and the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, not only to the coast of Africa, but to the banks of the Niger—to the very beart of that vast benighted continent!
II. I must not dwell any longer upon these. topics of temporal regard. Interesting and gratifying though they be, they are not nigh so grateful to the Christian mind, as the facts which pertain to the spiritual progress of the Negro race during the last fifty years.
The contrast I have just presented between the commencement of this century and the present moment, holds in an equal degree with respect to the
