Calumny Refuted, by Facts from Liberia Part 1

Calumny Refuted, by Facts from Liberia.

by Wilson Armistead.

CALUMNY REFUTED, ETC., ETC.

Amidst the numerous attempts to depreciate the character of the Negro, by exhibiting it as inferior and incapable of improvement, it is desirable to adduce evidence of an opposite nature, and to show that circ.u.mstances operate no less powerfully on the Sable inhabitants of a tropical climate, than on the natives of more northern lat.i.tudes, in which opportunities have been employed to remove the ignorance of uncivilised man, and to invest him with the glorious light of religion and science. How have they raised the brutal to the rational--the degraded to the n.o.ble--the idolatrous to the Christian character! What was once the condition of Druidical Britain, when, in the most barbarous manner, parents sacrificed their offspring to senseless deities? And to what can her present position amongst the nations be attributed, but to that expansion of knowledge, human and divine, with which she has been pre-eminently favoured?

The false philosophy which has imputed to the Negro a const.i.tutional inferiority, is amply refuted by facts. There is not only abundant evidence, that the African is susceptible of all the finest feelings of our nature, but that his intellectual capacity, under circ.u.mstances more favourable than have generally fallen to his lot, will bear a comparison with that of any other portion of our species.

The capabilities of this calumniated race have been remarkably exhibited within a few years, on a portion of the Western coast of Africa colonised by Free Blacks from the United States, most of them formerly Slaves, including aborigines recaptured from slave-vessels as well as Negroes from the adjoining districts. From this interesting locality, recently const.i.tuted into the Free Republic of Liberia, overwhelming evidence might be adduced of the ability, sound judgment, and Christian character of its Sable inhabitants and legislators. Probably no government exists founded more nearly on Christian principles; and the community in general is perhaps as purely moral as any in the world.

Several public schools have been established in the country, and all parents and guardians are required to send their children to them, or be subject to a pecuniary fine; so that there is scarcely a child over six years old that cannot both read and write. The state of religion and morality amongst the people is progressive. The exertion of the authorities has been directed to the exclusion of ardent spirits. A short time ago, one of the colonists a.s.sisted in procuring a barrel of rum, which was landed twelve miles distant from the colony; he was fined one hundred dollars, deprived of his license as a trader, and considered no longer eligible to any office in the colony. Such are the stringent efforts to keep down a vice, which, if once suffered to exist, would no doubt prove detrimental. Internal improvements keep pace with the increase of commerce, and the steady revenue which arises therefrom, enables the authorities to effect various public improvements.

These are remarkable facts. Here we behold a community of Blacks, in almost a defenceless state, located on the border of a vast country, the swarming inhabitants of which are enshrouded in ignorance;--a regularly organised government, which, though still in comparative embryo, is the germ of what may become a great and powerful nation, the nucleus of a vast political and religious empire, from which may radiate, far into the interior of this land of moral and intellectual degradation, the elevating and enn.o.bling principles of civilization, and the benign and heavenly influences of Christianity.--Liberia, amidst the gloom of midnight darkness which envelopes the minds of the millions of Africa's benighted children, stands as a beacon-light to direct them to the port of freedom and the haven of everlasting rest.

The present governor of Liberia, J. J. Roberts, under discouraging circ.u.mstances, left Virginia some ten or twelve years ago, and, unaided by any culture beyond that attainable on the spot, has placed himself among the most prominent of the citizens of the new Republic. His correspondence with the commanders of British cruisers on the coast of Africa, and his state papers, exhibit a superior force of character and diplomatic ability. The inaugural address, annual messages, and speeches of this Coloured statesman, before a Coloured Legislature, are highly interesting and satisfactory.

I was much gratified in reading, a short time ago, a speech delivered in 1846, at Monrovia, the capital of Liberia, by Hilary Teage, a Coloured senator of the infant Republic. Independent of its embracing a beautiful exposition of the history, trials, exertions, and aspirations of the Coloured colonists, it is a continued flow of eloquence, whilst it breathes throughout a truly Christian spirit. When I read it, I concluded the speaker must be a "cla.s.sical scholar," probably a "graduate in some eastern college." To my surprise, I afterwards ascertained, he had never even _seen_ a college, his father having been a Slave in Virginia, which place Hilary Teage left when very young, and went to Liberia, where he received his education. Here he made rapid advances in learning, soon overcoming the difficulties of several languages, both ancient and modern.

The following are extracts from the Inaugural Address of President Roberts, delivered at the first Meeting of the Legislature of the Republic, January 3rd, 1848, followed by the speech of Hilary Teage; which afford striking evidence of the capacity and attainments of Negroes, whose education and life from early boyhood are thoroughly African:--

"It is with great pleasure I avail myself of the occasion, now presented, to express the profound impressions made on me by the call of my fellow-citizens to the station, and the duties, to which I am now about to pledge myself. So distinguished a mark of confidence, proceeding from the deliberate suffrage of my fellow-citizens, would, under any circ.u.mstances, have commanded my grat.i.tude, as well as filled me with an awful sense of the trust to be a.s.sumed. But I feel particularly gratified at this evidence of the confidence of my fellow-citizens, inasmuch as it strengthens the impression on me, that my endeavours to discharge faithfully the duties which devolved on me as chief Executive officer of the Commonwealth, during the last six years of our political connection with the American Colonization Society, have been favourably estimated. I, nevertheless, meet the responsibilities of this day with feelings of the deepest solicitude. I feel that the present is a momentous period in the history of Liberia; and I a.s.sure you, under the various circ.u.mstances which give peculiar solemnity to the crisis, I am sensible that both the honour and the responsibility allotted to me, are inexpressibly enhanced.

"We have just entered upon a new and important career. To give effect to all the measures and powers of the government, we have found it necessary to remodel our Const.i.tution and to erect ourselves into an independent State; which, in its infancy, is exposed to numberless hazards and perils, and which can never attain to maturity, or ripen into firmness, unless it is managed with affectionate a.s.siduity, and guarded by great abilities;--I therefore deeply deplore my want of talents, and feel my mind filled with anxiety and uneasiness, to find myself so unequal to the duties of the important station to which I am called.--When I reflect upon the weight and magnitude now belonging to the station, and the many difficulties which, in the nature of things, must necessarily attend it, I feel more like retreating from the responsible position, than attempting to go forward in the discharge of the duties of my office.

"Indeed, gentlemen of the Legislature, if I had less reliance upon your co-operation and the indulgence and support of a reflecting people, and felt less deeply a consciousness of the duty I owe my country and a conviction of the guidance of an all-wise Providence in the management of our political affairs, I should be compelled to shrink from the task. I enter, however, upon the duties a.s.signed me, relying upon your wisdom and virtue to supply my defects; and under the full conviction that my fellow-citizens at large, who, on the most trying occasions, have always manifested a degree of patriotism, perseverance, and fidelity, that would reflect credit upon the citizens of any country, will support the government established by their voluntary consent, and appointed by their own free choice.

"While I congratulate my fellow-citizens on the dawn of a new and more perfect government, I would also remind them of the increased responsibility they too have a.s.sumed. Indeed, if there ever was a period in the annals of Liberia, for popular jealousy to be awakened, and popular virtue to exert itself, it is the present.

Other eras, I know, have been marked by dangers and difficulties which 'tried men's souls,' but whatever was their measure, disappointment and overthrow have generally been their fate. The patriotism and virtue which distinguish men, of every age, clime, and colour, who are determined to be free, never forsook that little band of patriots, the pioneers in this n.o.ble enterprise, in the hour of important trial. At a time when they were almost without arms, ammunition, discipline, or government--a mere handful of insulated Christian pilgrims, in pursuit of civil and religious liberty, surrounded by savage and warlike tribes bent upon their ruin and total annihilation--with 'a staff and a sling' only, as it were, they determined, in the name of the 'Lord of Hosts,' to stand their ground and defend themselves to the last extremity against their powerful adversary. And need I remind you, fellow-citizens, how signally Almighty G.o.d delivered them, and how he has. .h.i.therto prospered and crowned all our efforts with success.

"These first adventurers, inspired by the love of liberty and equal rights, supported by industry, and protected by Heaven, became inured to toil, to hards.h.i.+ps, and to war. In spite, however, of every obstacle, they obtained a settlement, and happily, under G.o.d, succeeded in laying here the foundation of a free government. Their attention, of course, was then turned to the security of those rights for which they had encountered so many perils and inconveniences. For this purpose, a const.i.tution or form of Government, anomalous, it is true, was adopted."

After giving some explanation of the motives which actuated the Colonists in a.s.suming the whole responsibilities of the government of Liberia themselves, President Roberts observes:--

"While we exceedingly lament the want of greater intelligence and more experience to fit us for the proper, or more perfect management of our public affairs,--we flatter ourselves that the adverse circ.u.mstances under which we so long laboured in the land of our birth,[1] and the integrity of our motives, will plead excuse for our want of abilities; and that in the candour and charity of an impartial world, our well-meant, however feeble efforts, will find an apology. I am also persuaded, that no magnanimous nation will seek to abridge our rights, or withhold from the Republic those civilities, and 'that comity which marks the friendly intercourse between civilised and independent communities'--in consequence of our weakness and present poverty."

The enlightened Negro legislator, after entering into a consideration and refutation of the charge made against the Colonists, of having acted prematurely in proclaiming their independence, continues:--

"The time has been, I admit, when men--without being chargeable with timidity, or with a disposition to undervalue the capacities of the African race, might have doubted the feasibility of establis.h.i.+ng an independent Christian state on this coast, composed of, and conducted wholly by Coloured men,--but, fellow-citizens, that time has pa.s.sed, and I believe in my soul, that the permanency of the government of the Republic of Liberia is now fixed upon as firm a basis as human wisdom is capable of devising. Nor is there any reason to apprehend that the Divine Disposer of human events, after having separated us from the house of bondage, and led us safely through so many dangers, towards the land of liberty and promise, will leave the work of our political redemption, and consequent happiness, unfinished; and either permit us to perish in a wilderness of difficulties, or suffer us to be carried back in chains to that country of prejudices, from whose oppression He has mercifully delivered us with his out-stretched arm.

"It must afford the most heartfelt pleasure and satisfaction to every friend of Liberia, and real lover of liberty, to observe by what a fortunate train of circ.u.mstances and incidents the people of these colonies have arrived at absolute freedom and independence.

When we look abroad and see by what slow and painful steps, marked with blood and ills of every kind, other states of the world have advanced to liberty and independence; we cannot but admire and praise that all-gracious Providence, who, by His unerring ways, has, with so few sufferings on our part, compared with other states, led us to this happy stage in our progress towards those great and important objects. That it is the will of Heaven that mankind should be free, is clearly evidenced by the wealth, vigour, virtue, and consequent happiness of all free states. But the idea that Providence will establish such governments as he shall deem most fit for his creatures, and will give them wealth, influence, and happiness, without their efforts, is palpably absurd. G.o.d's moral government of the earth is always performed by the intervention of second causes. Therefore, fellow-citizens, while with pious grat.i.tude we survey the frequent interpositions of Heaven in our behalf, we ought to remember, that as the disbelief of an overruling Providence is Atheism, so, an absolute confidence of having our government relieved from every embarra.s.sment, and its citizens made respectable and happy by the immediate hand of G.o.d, without our own exertions, is the most culpable presumption. Nor have we any reason to expect, that He will miraculously make Liberia a paradise, and deliver us, in a moment of time, from all the ills and inconveniences consequent upon the peculiar circ.u.mstances under which we are placed, merely to convince us that He favours our cause and government.

"Sufficient indications of His will are always given, and those who will not then believe, neither would they believe though one should rise from the dead to inform them. Who can trace the progress of these colonies, and mark the incidents of the wars in which they have been engaged, without seeing evident tokens of Providential favour. Let us, therefore, inflexibly persevere in exerting our most strenuous efforts, in an humble and rational dependence on the great Governor of all the world, and we have the fairest prospects of surmounting all the difficulties which may be thrown in our way.

That we may expect, and that we shall have difficulties, sore difficulties yet to contend against, in our progress to maturity, is certain: and, as the political happiness or wretchedness of ourselves and our children, and of generations yet unborn, is in our hands, nay more, the redemption of Africa from the deep degradation, superst.i.tion, and idolatry in which she has so long been involved, it becomes us to lay our shoulders to the wheel, and manfully resist every obstacle which may oppose our progress in the great work which lies before us. The Gospel is yet to be preached to vast numbers inhabiting this dark continent, and I have the highest reason to believe, that it was one of the great objects of the Almighty, in establis.h.i.+ng these colonies, that they might be the means of introducing civilization and religion among the barbarous nations of this country; and to what work more n.o.ble could our powers be applied, than that of bringing up from darkness, debas.e.m.e.nt, and misery, our fellow-men, and shedding abroad over them the light of science and Christianity. The means of doing so, fellow-citizens, are within our reach, and if we neglect, or do not make use of them, what excuse shall we make to our Creator and final Judge? This is a question of the deepest concern to us all, and which, in my opinion, will materially affect our happiness in the world to come. And surely, if ever it has been inc.u.mbent on the people of Liberia to know truth and to follow it, it is now. Rouse, therefore, fellow-citizens, and do your duty like men: and be persuaded, that Divine Providence, as heretofore, will continue to bless all your virtuous efforts.

"But if there be any among us, dead to all sense of honour and love of their country; deaf to all the calls of liberty, virtue, and religion; forgetful of the benevolence and magnanimity of those who have procured this asylum for them, and the future happiness of their children; if neither the examples nor the success of other nations, the dictates of reason and of nature, nor the great duties they owe to their G.o.d, themselves, and their posterity, have no effect upon them;--if neither the injuries they received in the land whence they came, the prize they are contending for, the future blessings or curses of their children, the applause or reproach of all mankind, the approbation or displeasure of the great Judge, nor the happiness or misery consequent upon their conduct, in this and a future state, can move them; then, let them be a.s.sured, that they deserve to be Slaves, and are ent.i.tled to nothing but anguish and tribulation. Let them banish, for ever, from their minds, the hope of obtaining that freedom, reputation, and happiness, which, as men, they are ent.i.tled to. Let them forget every duty, human and divine, remember not that they have children, and beware how they call to mind the justice of the Supreme Being: let them return into Slavery, and hug their chains, and be a reproach and a by-word among all nations.

"But I am persuaded, that we have none such among us;--that every citizen will do his duty, and exert himself to the utmost of his abilities to sustain the honour of his country, promote her interests, and the interests of his fellow-citizens, and to hand down unimpaired to future generations, the freedom and independence we this day enjoy.

"As to myself, I a.s.sure you, I have never been indifferent to what concerns the interests of Liberia--my adopted country; and I am sensible of no pa.s.sion which could seduce me, knowingly, from the path of duty or of justice: the weakness of human nature, and the limits of my own understanding may, no doubt will, produce errors of judgment.--I repeat, therefore, that I shall need the indulgence I have hitherto received at your hands. I shall need, too, the favour of that Being in whose hands we are, who has led us, as Israel of old, from our native land, and planted us in a country abounding in all the necessaries and comforts of life; who has covered our infancy with his providence, and to whose goodness I ask you to join with me in supplications, that He will so enlighten the minds of your servants, guide their councils, and prosper their measures, that whatsoever they do shall result in your good, and shall secure to you the peace, friends.h.i.+p, and approbation of all nations."

Anniversary Speech of Hilary Teage, a Coloured gentleman, (the son of a Virginian Slave), delivered at Monrovia, in Liberia, December 1st, 1846:--

"Fellow-Citizens:--As far back towards the infancy of our race, as history and tradition are able to conduct us, we have found the custom every where prevailing among mankind, to mark, by some striking exhibition, those events which were important and interesting, either in their immediate bearing or in their remote consequences upon the destiny of those among whom they occurred.

These events are epochs in the history of man--they mark the rise and fall of kingdoms and of dynasties--they record the movements of the human mind, and the influence of those movements upon the destinies of the race; and whilst they frequently disclose to us the sad and sickening spectacle of innocence bending under the weight of injustice, and of weakness robbed and despoiled by the hand of an unscrupulous oppression; they occasionally display, as a theme for admiring contemplation, the sublime spectacle of the human mind, roused by a concurrence of circ.u.mstances, to vigorous advances in the career of improvement. To trace the operations of these circ.u.mstances from their first appearance, as effects from the workings of the human pa.s.sions, until, as a cause, they revert with combined and concentrated energy upon those minds from which they at first evolved, would be at once a most interesting and difficult task; and, let it be borne in mind, requires far higher ability and more varied talent than he possesses who this day has the honour to address you.

"The utility of thus marking the progress of time--of recording the occurrence of events--and of holding up remarkable personages to the contemplation of mankind, is too obvious to need remark. It arises from the instincts of mankind--the irrepressible spirit of emulation--and the ardent longings after immortality; and this restless pa.s.sion to perpetuate their existence, which they find it impossible to suppress, impels them to secure the admiration of succeeding generations in the performance of deeds, by which, although dead, they may yet speak. In commemorating events thus powerful in forming the manners and sentiments of mankind, and in rousing them to strenuous exertion and to high and sustained emulation, it is obvious that such, and such only, should be selected as virtue and humanity would approve; and that, if any of an opposite character be held up, they should be displayed only as beacons, or as a towering Pharos throwing a strong but lurid light to mark the melancholy grave of mad ambition, and to warn the inexperienced voyager of the existing danger.

"Thanks to the improved and humanised spirit--or, should I not rather say, the chastened and pacific civilization of the age in which we live,--that laurels gathered upon the field of mortal strife, and bedewed with the tears of the Widow and the Orphan, are regarded now, not with admiration but with horror--that the armed warrior, reeking with the gore of murdered thousands, who, in the age that is just pa.s.sing away, would have been hailed with noisy acclamation by the senseless crowd, is now regarded only as the savage commissioner of an unsparing oppression, or at best as the ghostly executioner of an unpitying justice.--He who would embalm his name in the grateful remembrance of coming generations--he who would secure for himself a niche in the temple of undying fame--he who would hew out for himself a monument of which his country may boast--he who would entail upon heirs a name which they may be proud to wear, must seek some other field than that of battle as the theatre of his exploits.

"Still, we honour the heroes of the age that has pa.s.sed. No slander can tarnish their hard-earned fame--no morbid sentimentalism sully their peerless glory--no mean detraction abate the disinterestedness of their conduct. They bowed to the spirit of their age: and, acting up to the light afforded them, they yielded to the dictates of an honest conscience. While a.s.sembled here to-day, on this festal occasion, to commemorate the event for which the founders of our infant Republic toiled, and fought, and bled, we seem to behold the forms of the departed ones mingling in our a.s.sembly: we seem to behold them taking their seats by the side of their venerable compeers yet spared among us: watching with intense anxiety the emotions which agitate our bosoms, and marking the character of the resolves which the occasion is ripening. Rest in peace, ye venerable shades! And ye, their living representatives--calm be the evening of your days. We honour you.

And though no sculptured marble transmit your fame, a n.o.bler monument shall be yours--the happy hearts of unborn millions shall be the shrine in which your names will be treasured. In your high example--in your n.o.ble disinterestedness--in your entire subordination of every thought, and act, and scheme, and interest, to the heaven-born purpose of human regeneration and human elevation, we hear the language of encouragement.

"Fellow-citizens,--on this occasion, so big with subjects of profitable meditation--when it is so natural that the mind should oscillate between the events of the past and the prospects of the future, we can conceive of nothing more proper than the enquiry, how we can best execute the solemn trust committed to our hand--how we may challenge and secure the admiration and the grat.i.tude of a virtuous and a happy posterity, by transmitting to them the patrimony received from our fathers, not only in all its original entireness, but in vastly augmented beauty, order, and strength. In a word, how we may best conduct ourselves so as to encite them to high and sustained exertion in the cause of virtue and humanity.

"In order to impress your minds with the propriety of this enquiry, there is, I trust, no need that I shall remind you of the peculiarity of our condition. It will suffice that I remark, that, should you succeed in rearing upon the foundation already laid,--or, to drop the figure--should you succeed in establis.h.i.+ng a community of virtuous, orderly, intelligent, and industrious citizens, this very peculiarity must enter largely into every consideration on the amount of praise to which you shall be held ent.i.tled.

"Let us, then, for a moment look back, that from the events of the past we may derive hope for the future.

"We have not yet numbered twenty-six years since he who is the oldest colonist amongst us was the inhabitant--not the citizen--of a country--and that too the country of his birth--where the prevailing sentiment is, that he and his race are incapacitated, by an inherent defect in their mental const.i.tution, to enjoy that greatest of all blessings, and to exercise that greatest of all rights, bestowed by a beneficent G.o.d upon his rational creatures--namely, the government of themselves. Acting upon this opinion--an opinion as false as it is foul--acting upon this opinion, as upon a self-evident proposition, those who held it proceeded with a fiendish consistency to deny the rights of citizens to those whom they had declared incapable of performing the duties of citizens. It is not necessary, and therefore I will not disgust you with the hideous picture of that state of things which followed upon the prevalence of this blasphemous opinion. The bare mention that such an opinion prevailed, would be sufficient to call up in the mind, even of those who had never witnessed its operation, images of the most sickening and revolting character.

Under the iron reign of this crus.h.i.+ng sentiment, most of us who are a.s.sembled here to-day, drew our first breath and sighed away the years of our youth. No hope cheered us: no n.o.ble object looming in the dim and distant future kindled our ambition. Oppression--cold, cheerless oppression, like the dreary region of an eternal winter, chilled every n.o.ble pa.s.sion and fettered and paralysed every arm.

And if among the oppressed millions there were found here and there one in whose bosom the last glimmer of a generous pa.s.sion was not yet extinguished--one, who, from the midst of the inglorious slumberers in the deep degradation around him, would lift his voice and demand those rights which the G.o.d of nature hath bestowed in equal gift upon all His rational creatures, he was met at once by those who had at first denied and then enforced, with the stern reply, that for him and for all his race--LIBERTY and EXPATRIATION are inseparable.

"Dreadful as the alternative was--fearful as was the experiment now proposed to be tried, there were hearts equal to the task--hearts which quailed not at the dangers which loomed and frowned in the distance, but calm, cool, and fixed in their purpose, prepared to meet them with the watchword--Give me Liberty or give me Death.

"On the 6th day of February, in the year of Our Lord One Thousand Eight Hundred and Twenty, the s.h.i.+p Elizabeth cast loose from her moorings at New York, and on the 8th day of March, of the same year, the pilgrims first beheld the land of their fathers, the cloud-capped mountains of Sierra Leone, and cast anchor in that harbour. A few days afterwards they again weighed anchor, stood to the south, and debarked upon the low and deadly island of Sherbro.

On the character of those who formed her n.o.ble company, I deem it unnecessary to remark. They are sufficiently commended to our esteem, as being the first to encounter the difficulties and to face the dangers of an enterprise, which, we trust, is to wipe away from us the reproach of ages--to silence the calumny of those who abuse us, and to restore to Africa her long-lost glory. I need not detain you with a narrative of their privations and sufferings: nor will I stop to tell you--though it would be a pleasing task to do so--with what happy hearts they greeted a reinforcement of pilgrims who joined them in 1821, by the Nautilus. Pa.s.sing by intermediate events, which, did the time allow, it would be interesting to notice, we hasten to that grand event--that era of our separate existence, the 25th day of April, in the year of Grace 1822, when the American flag first threw out its graceful folds to the breeze on the heights of Mesurado, and the pilgrims, relying upon the protection of Heaven and the moral grandeur of their cause, took solemn possession of the land in the name of virtue, humanity, and religion.

"It would discover an unpardonable apathy, were we to pa.s.s on without pausing a moment to reflect upon the emotions which heaved the bosoms of the pilgrims, when they stood for the first time where we now stand. What a prospect spread out before them!! They stood in the midst of an ancient wilderness, rank and compacted by the growth of a thousand years, unthinned and unreclaimed by a single stroke of the woodman's axe. Few and far between might be found inconsiderable openings, where the ignorant native erected his rude habitation, or, savage as his patrimonial wilderness, celebrated his b.l.o.o.d.y rites, and presented his votive gifts, to Demons. Already the late proprietors of the soil had manifested unequivocal symptoms of hostility, and an intention to expel the strangers, as soon as an opportunity to do so should be presented.

The rainy season, that terrible ordeal of foreign const.i.tutions, was about setting in; the lurid lightning shot its fiery bolt into the forest around them; the thunder muttered its angry tones over their head; and the frail tenements, the best which their circ.u.mstances would afford, to s.h.i.+eld them from a scorching sun by day and drenching rains at night, had not yet been completed. To suppose that at this time, when all things above and around them seemed to combine their influences against them, to suppose they did not perceive the full danger and magnitude of the enterprise they had embarked in, would be to suppose, not that they were heroes, but that they had lost the sensibility of men. True courage is equally remote from blind recklessness and unmanning timidity; and true heroism does not consist in insensibility to danger. He is a hero who calmly meets, and fearlessly grapples the dangers which duty and honour forbid him to decline. The pilgrims rose to a full perception of all the circ.u.mstances of their condition. But when they looked back to that country from which they had come out, and remembered the degradations in that house of bondage out of which they had been so fortunate as to escape, they bethought themselves; and, recollecting the high satisfaction with which they knew success would gladden their hearts, the rich inheritance they would entail upon their children, and the powerful aid it would lend to the cause of universal humanity, they yielded to the n.o.ble inspiration and girded them to the battle, either for doing or for suffering.

"Let it not be supposed, because I have laid universal humanity under a tribute of grat.i.tude to the founders of Liberia, that I have attached to their humble achievements too important an influence, in that grand system of agencies which is now at work, renovating human society, and purifying and enlarging the sources of its enjoyment. In the system of that Almighty Being, without whose notice not a sparrow falls to the ground:

'Who sees with equal eye, as G.o.d of all, A hero perish, or a sparrow fall: Atoms or systems into ruin hurled, And now a bubble burst, and now a world:'

--In the system of the Almighty One, no action of a mortal being is unimportant. Every action of every rational creature hath its a.s.signed place in his system of operations, and is made to bear, however undesigned by the agent, with force upon the end which His wisdom and goodness have in view to accomplish.