African Colonization by the Free Colored People of the United States, an Indispensable Auxiliary to African Missions: A Lecture

In the course of his labors, as Colonization Agent for Ohio, the writer, at an early day, found it necessary to examine the subject of African Missions. It was zealously urged, by many, that the Colonies of the Society, instead of being auxiliaries to the evangelization of the natives, presented an almost insuperable barrier to the spread of the Gospel in Africa. The facts ascertained, during the investigations, have been used, from time to time, in the Lectures delivered in different parts of the State, with general satisfaction to the friends of Colonization. The events of the last year or two in Africa, however, have been so marked, and the superiority of the missions in Liberia over all the others, so fully demonstrated, that the publication of the results has been urged as an act of justice to the American Colonization Society and to the Missions in the Republic.

In the preparation of the Lecture, none but the best authorities have been consulted, and the greatest care has been taken to avoid error. References to the sources of information are given in a few instances. Should any wish to verify the whole range of the facts stated, they will find them, mostly, in the following works and periodicals: Choule’s History of Missions, Reports of American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, Missionary Herald, African Repository, and the works occasionally quoted in foot notes in the Lecture.

In temporal affairs, experience supplies the best rule for the guidance of man. In spiritual concerns, the word of God is the law by which his conduct must be governed. In relation to the spread of the Gospel, while the Saviour has given a few general directions, as to the mode of its propagation, he has left much to human wisdom, as to the measures by which it is to be extended. Pagan countries differ so widely in their civil relations, social customs, superstitions, and degrees of intelligence, that corresponding variations must be made in the plans for their evangelization. Africa, when first visited by the Missionary, was one broad field of ignorance and barbarism. Its condition differed so widely from that of any other country, where missions had been established, that the efforts made for its redemption, could be little else than experiments.

The time has arrived when we may safely proceed to contrast the results of the several classes of missions in Africa, ascertain what experience teaches, and determine the rule by which the greatest progress is to be made, in the extension of Civilization and Christianity, in that land of darkness and desolation.