Alexander Crummell

“ Adventurous spirits are starting off from every civilized land for Africa; anxious to dissipate the spell, which for centuries has divorced her crowded populations from the world's brotherhood and enlightenment; and eager to guarantee them the advantages of culture, which, during the ages, has raised them from rudeness and degradation, and carried them up to the heights of grace and refinement. ”

“ God never allows any evils on earth to be entirely aggregations of evil, without their incidents of good. So here, in this matter, God has raised up, even in their lands of servitude, a class of black men who have already gone from America, from the British West Indies, and from Sierra Leone; the pioneers of civilization and Christianity, to the land of their fathers. Thus God overrules the wrath of man. ”

“ But I beg to say that here is what I claim to be a most singular and striking phenomenon; of 15,000 simple and unlettered men, descendants of slaves, exiles from hereditary wrong and oppression, who, with, indeed, the aid of a large Christian philanthropy, have swept the slave-trade from 700 miles of the coast; have assimilated nigh 20,000 native Africans to them, to their own civilization and religion; have brought into the Christian faith, by baptism, several hundreds of their neighboring heathen; have built some 20 different towns and settlements, with brick, and stone, and frame dwellings ”

“ So in Africa, the work of these settlements, colonies, and mission, is being done by Negroes. Some of these came from the British West Indies: numbers of them are recaptured Africans, trained in English schools: thousands of them are American black men, educated in the missions of Liberia, or amid the institutions and in the schools of this country: and all of whom, thus enlightened, are Presidents, Judges, Senators, Merchants, Civilians, Planters, and a host of Priests, and Deacons, and Catechists—sons of Africa! How mighty is the hand of God in the affairs of earth! ”

“ After being afflicted, by nigh three centuries of servitude, God calls chosen men of this race, from all the lands of their thraldom—men laden with gifts, and intelligence, and piety—to the grand and noble mission, which they only can fulfil, even to plant colonies, establish Churches, found Missions, and lay the foundations of Universities along the shores, and beside the banks of the great rivers of Africa. ”

“ And then, standing at the very start of the Christian era, if we strive to penetrate the long lapse of ages, which anticipated the coming of the Lord, we meet vista upon vista of the deepest darkness, stretching out to the earliest dawn of the world's being. So far as Western Africa is concerned, there is no history. The long, long centuries of human existence, there, give us no intelligent disclosures. "Darkness covered the land, and gross darkness the people." ”

“ But so far as contact with the elements of civilization is concerned, so far as the possibility of being touched by the mental and moral influences of superior and elevating forces is implied, Africa might as well have been an island as a continent. The Desert of Sahara has served as effectually to cut off Africa from the ancient civilizations, as the ocean, for long centuries, separated the Sandwich Islands from the Avorld's enlightenment. Here is the solvement of Africa's benightedness. Physical causes have divorced her from the world's cultivation and improvement. ”

“ The remedial, the regenerative state of the Negro race and the continent of Africa, has now assumed a positive form, and reached a normal, and in some spots, an organic state; with both Christian and civilizing features. And these forms of fixed, and abiding, civilization are erowiim stronger and stronger every day, and taking deeper and deeper root. And there is an almost certain prospect, that a yet more thorough and radical growth will be theirs; as year by year, the work of grace, and the power of government and civilization go on, in the divers settlements of western Africa. ”

“ The whole of Negroland seems, without doubt, to be given up to the English language, and hence to the influence of Anglo-Saxon life and civilization. It is a most singular providence that that very people, who have most largely participated in the slave-trade, should have been brought, by the power of God's dealings, and in the workings of His plans, to bear the weighty burden of lifting up this large section of humanity to manhood , and ofilluminating; them with Christian light and knowledge. ”

“ Again, I would add, that the evangelization of Africa is manifestly to oe effected contemporaneously with, its civilization. Unlike most of the missionary and evangelizing movements of modern times, God evidently purposes the redemption of Africa, in connection with the use of all the appliances of culture, learning, trade, industry, and commerce. All these are already being used, in West Africa, as handmaids of religion. Civilization is to be a most marked agent in the process of evangelization, among the million masses of that vast continent. ”

“ The day of Africa's agony is being closed up by the simultaneous entrance of Christian churches and civilized colonies, all along her coasts, and through all her interior quarters!
3. You see here also the important fact that the main agency God is employing for the ends I have pointed out, is black men themselves. It is, indeed, in West Africa, as everywhere else in all history, namely, that the primal training, the early preparation come from advanced and superior people. They always plant the germs of a new faith, or are the pioneers of a new civilization. ”

“ One of these is, the fact that this little nation, of only 15,000 civilized black Americans has, during some 20 or 30 years, held under control nigh a half a million of bold and warlike heathen, and completely interdicted their participation in the slave-trade. Second, that although Liberia is one of the smallest of West African colonies, and its settlements are scattered along some 600 miles of coast; yet we are the only manufacturers of sugar and of bricks; we are the only ones who have saw-mills, and cut large quantities of lumber. ”

“ These streams of saving influence have flowed out from every powerful Protestant State in the world. The whole world's enlightened and reformed religion, has striven for the regeneration of Africa. Missionaries have gone thither from England and Germany, from America and France, from Switzerland and Holland. Their stations are scattered all along the coast of Africa, from the south border of the desert to the Cape of Good Hope. ”

“ A day's sail brings the traveller to Sierra Leone, the capital of West Africa, the settlement of recaptured Africans, with a population of over 60,000 inhabitants: its chief town, Freetown, with over 20,000 inhabitants—a capacious city, with numerous fine and even elegant houses ”

“ Doubtless all intelligent persons have contemplated the fact of the long-continued and unbroken benightedness of the continent of Africa; but perhaps they have not had their attention called to the recent transitional state into which that continent is passing, on the way to enlightenment and salvation. ”

“ Is it not apparent that civilization is the main fact, the general and definite fact, in which all others terminate, and are included? * * * * This is so true, that, with respect to facts, which are from their nature detestable, disastrous, a painful weight upon nations, as despotism and anarchy, for example, if they have contributed in some degree to civilization, if they have given it a considerable impetus, up to a certain point we excuse and pardon their injuries and their evil nature ”

“ But, as I have remarked, the Christian and civilized world, within a more recent period, has become both assured and hopeful by the fact of an evident transitional state, in Africa, from her night and gloom, to blessedness and glory. ”

“ I know, indeed, that the fact is often contrasted with the advance of both Europe and Asia in enlightenment; and the inference drawn, that is, of negro inferiority, as the cause of the seeming organic wretchedness of that vast continent. But you will remember that the civilization of all races has been conditioned on contact. It is the remark of a great German historian—perhaps the greatest historian of modern times: "There is not in history the record of a single indigenous civilization ”

“ At about the eighth degree of north latitude is the great missionary stronghold Sierra Leone. The English Church here has a Bishop, and the Church Missionary Society of England conduct, from that point, their extensive operations in Western Africa. Between 30 and 40 clergymen, the majority of whom are native-born Africans, and upwards of 60 lay agents, are employed in their different stations, whether at Sierra Leone, or Lagos, or Abbeokuta, or on the Niger. ”

“ The principle of association, moreover, is so tenacious and persistent a faculty that it is almost impossible, at times, to turn it from the channels in which it has been wont to flow, for generations or for ages. ”

“ Another effective agency now in use in West Africa for a permanent work of regeneration, is the missions and missionary schools scattered along some 2,000 miles and more of that coast, and which are giving, mostly, English instruction to many thousands of native African children. These mission stations are those of the Church of England and the Wesleyans, both north and south of Liberia ”

“ In Monrovia they maintain an important High School, where both boys and girls receive a good and thorough English education, with mathematical training. They are united in a Conference, which meets annually in different parts of the Republic. ”

“ Where peoples and nations have been so situated that they could be touched by influence and power, there men have gone upward and onward. And this accounts for the fact that newly-discovered islands in the seas have almost always been found low, degraded, and bestial; while, on the other hand, the peoples and races living on continents, generally exhibit the evidences of progress and improvement. ”

“ And thus, by these adventures, vast millions of that continent have been brought into contact with civilized men; with the fabrics of civilized nations; with the quickening ideas of superior men; and the whole continent itself, save a slight belt on either side of the Equator, has been opened to the scrutiny of travellers ”

“ Large masses of native children are now being trained in Christian schools. A great company of native cateehists have gone forth from their homes to train and evangelize their heathen kin. A host of native priests and deacons have been commissioned to go forth as missionaries, in divers tongues to preach the gospel: already have they penetrated the wilds of the interior ”

“ It maintains some 4 or 5 mission stations among the heathen; but is specially noted for the most important educational establishment in the Republic—The Alexander High School, in Monrovia; where a number of youth have received a superior education ”