William Henry Ruffner

“ As the sun declines in Africa, the stupid Dutch boor of the south lights his pipe and sits down in moody silence; the saturnine Moor of the north whets his knife and thirsts for blood; whilst the negro leaps, and sings, and dances, and plays upon his musical instrument. The whole country is a scene of the most joyous merriment. Nor are the Africans destitute of regular governments. ”

“ It is the Nation's Jubilee, let every heart rejoice, and every tongue sing aloud with joy It is the Nation's Sabbath, let the labourer rest, and the patriot refresh his soul: let the Nation's universal, undivided heart pour out its praises to the Almighty Father, and supplicate his continued favours. It is not a day for childish glee, still less for wild extravagance it is a day for solemn thoughts and sacred communings, and soul-stirring memories, and earnest, unceasing, supplications. ”

“ If American Christians heed not these wonderful beckonings of Providence, if they sustain not this Christian enterprise with a vigour and liberality corresponding to this crying demand for the Gospel, surely the curse of Meroz will rest upon their souls. Brethren, brethren, from the dark shades of Africa, ten thousand brother voices come to our ears in sad and sorrowing tones, wailing out their griefs, and praying us for light and life, through Jesus Christ. ”

“ Let the Christians of this land come up to the help of the Lord, and soon those mango groves will resound with hymns to Christ, soon the light of life flashing free throughout that land will wake into life a multitude of Christian nations, and the descending sun of Africa will look, not upon senseless mirth and revelry, but upon the ascending incense of thankful worship, and upon all the tokens of a happy, thriving, and elevated population. ”

“ How can we expect or desire such people to be the teachers of Africa, to be the representatives of American republicanism and American Christianity. In many individual cases, may you find among us coloured men of intelligence and high moral character, but it is not so with the masses of them, and the reason is, that they have been a despised and shamefully neglected people.
Brethren, a thousand weighty motives call upon us to turn our kindly attention upon the African race. Let us not be guided by a fanatical zeal, but by a Christian philanthropy, which is wise, mild, and indomitable. ”

“ Almost any thorough abolitionist will say, "If the Bible sanctions slavery, down with the Bible." His human reason undertakes to judge God, contradict him, defy him, and dethrone him. That is abolitionism, and nothing less or more! Many good Christian men act with the party without seeing what others see, that pure abolitionism is but a fierce and arrogant form of rationalistic infidelity, and that really it is now doing more to spread abroad and infuse into the popular mind at the North, a Christ-hating, God-defying tone and temper, than any other evil influence that is at work in the land. ”

“ I have great faith in the self-sustaining powers of the improved negro race, but however faithless one may be as to this point, who can suppose the people of the United States to be so recreant to the peculiar relations they sustain to the race, as ever to withdraw their fostering care, or even to fail in affording the most liberal encouragement to all communities formed on the coast of Africa by negroes who have gone out from this country; and who could imagine anything but the most active possible co-operation of the Christian public, in elevating and saving the whole native population! ”

“ Abolitionism is responsible for the Fugitive Slave Law itself. The law sprang out of the monster's own loins, and now it gnashes its teeth upon its own progeny It was abolitionism that forced the law into existence: if the former had not existed, the latter would not have been needed. There would have been few fugitives to catch, and still fewer owners who would have cared to take the trouble to catch them, had they been let alone. And more than this, abolitionism with all its prating about American liberty, is the greatest foe American liberty has to contend against. ”

“ Viewing this project of African colonization in all its antecedents, connections, and consequences, we cannot place it second to any other of human devising. Consider the perplexing problem which it so beautifully solves, consider the gigantic and varied features of the scheme itself, the probable magnitude of its many most desirable results, and the glory and blessing attendant on every step in its onward progress, and where can be found an unfolding of Providence so stupendous and beneficent! ”

“ The South, if let alone, would spew out slavery in less than a generation. No one but a Southerner knows, or can know, how general is the antipathy of the Southern people to the institution. They know well that they are the chief sufferers in the matter, and they would gladly deliver themselves. But it is not human nature, certainly not American nature, to be lashed into anything. ”

“ Not only is money needed for transferring the emigrants from America to Africa, and for sustaining educational and missionary efforts in and about the republic of Liberia, but the most immediate and vigorous efforts are needed to prepare the population here for the destiny that awaits them. Let not the work of emigration proceed faster than the work of home preparation, which is necessary to make emigration a blessing to Africa. Look around us and behold the sad and neglected condition of the mass of our coloured population. ”

“ And yet these men seize hold of the abstraction that "all men being free and equal, and having certain inalienable rights, the holding of a man in bondage is a sin and a shame," and try to run it like a red-hot ploughshare through society, in utter defiance of all attending and modifying circumstances; and they would rip up, run over, and plough under, the very foundations of every structure, sacred, civil, and social, as savagely and remorselessly as a madman gashes the bodies of the members of his own family. ”

“ Colonization has taken the negro from under his disabilities here, and placed him where he has developed to an intellectual and moral stature never reached before by his race, and now holds him up as the optical demonstration of what the negro may easily become. Whole nebula of phrenological speculations and scientific infidelities have thus been dissipated; and there, star-like, shines out the negro intellect, clear and bright. There, intelligence, freedom, and religion, flourish amongst the descendants of Ham—amidst the much maligned Ethiopian race. ”

“ He may, by suitable effort, become a blessing and an ornament to the earth, and by God's mercy, an heir of eternal glory And, O, in the great and solemn day of the Lord, when we behold millions of Africa's redeemed children with, crowns on their heads and palms in their hands, falling into the line of God's sacramental host, how will our hearts swell with, joy to think that we were permitted to bear even the humblest part in sending Christ's religion to their shores, and scattering the darkness from their minds. ”

“ But it is not a day for isolating ourselves from all thoughts of brother man. To appreciate our own condition, we must contrast it with that of others: and we are not worthy of our privileges if we do not sympathize with the down-trodden and with the uprising. Certainly of all others, this is not a day to repudiate the bond between us and Africa. The destinies of America and Africa are undoubtedly and indissolubly united. ”

“ Let us now revert to the influence of Liberia on the native Africans, as exhibiting the mode in which Christian settlements of coloured people are calculated to accomplish the results of which I have been speaking.
The natives, who are interspersed among the Liberians, and who come in great numbers from the interior, for the purposes of trade, have before their eyes a small, but prosperous and completely organized nation, composed of people of their own colour. They see the land under culture and yielding, with an exuberance such as they have never seen, a great variety of valuable products. ”

“ Consider the stolid indifference of the American Indians, the supercilious contempt of the Chinese, the firm bigotry of the people of India and Hindoostan, the bloody rage of the South Sea Islanders, and the various other forms of opposition met with in most other portions of the heathen world, and contrast them with the eager, grateful, beseeching attitude of the Africans, arid you cannot fail to receive the impression that there the Gospel of Christ is destined to achieve its speediest and most remarkable triumphs. ”

“ But it becomes you, in dealing with this subject, to seek the broadest and most comprehensive views, and above all, to be guided by an intelligent Christian love. There are ways of shaking a tree which only makes it drive its roots deeper into the earth. I feel confident in declaring that in principle and policy, the colonization movement furnishes a safe, and the only safe, guide. Attempting to act upon slavery in any other spirit, and on any other principles, is unwise, useless, and Utopian, aye, it is ruinous. ”

“ When the intelligent American born negro touches African soil, he must feel somewhat as Nehemiah did when returning from captivity to Jerusalem, and like the Roman of old, he must feel ready to fall upon his face and kiss his mother earth ”

“ And the intellect of the negro has suffered from the protracted disadvantages under which he has laboured. No one, however, can assign any limit to the improvement which may be effected under suitable culture; and there can be no reasonable doubt that the negro has abundant capacity for all the ordinary affairs of human life, including self-government, and may attain to as high a degree of civilization as any other race. There are indeed some features in the negro character of peculiar interest, Of all others he is the kindest, brightest, gayest, and most inclined to religion. ”

“ Let the pathetic sound thrill and melt our hearts, and soon let the breezes which sweep from the sea through her scented groves bear our gladdening response. It is God's Spirit that has aroused them to a sense of their woes, and turned their hearts unto the Saviour of all men. ”

“ Undoubtedly vast deposits of gold lie imbedded in Western Africa; and when exposed, they will be (in a manner) exclusively for the negro. Even Anglo-Saxon enterprise must succumb before the pestilential air of Africa. What use God means to make of the gold of Africa in the furtherance of his cause on earth, no man knoweth, but supposing the news come to America, that on the Western coast of Africa mines of gold, richer than those of California, have been discovered, how quickly would be dissipated the fierce opposition of the masses of our free coloured people to African colonization. ”

“ Therefore, the Bible is either uninspired, and a mass of mingled truth and error, or it is one gigantic scheme of imposition: or, at the least, Christianity as commonly held is a lie, and an incubus, and the sooner it is thrown off the better, and men be left to the glories of a natural religion, developed from the ultimate principle of Abolition liberty—which means, abolish God, abolish Christ, abolish the Church, abolish the ministry, abolish the government, abolish society, abolish the family, abolish penalties, abolish compromise, abolish decency ”

“ As their observations continue, they see the people living in peace, order, happiness, and prosperity, under a republican form of government. They see crime punished, industry rewarded, property and life protected, education and religion prevailing, and altogether an air of comfort and improvement, and a tone of social and moral life, such as they have never dreamed of, much less witnessed, among people of their own race. ”

“ Suddenly a great Christian nation of coloured people would appear on the coast, and out of this, perhaps venial cupidity, would grow the most blessed results to that benighted continent. Let those who are skeptical as to the practicability of ever removing large numbers of the coloured population from this country to Africa, consider, in the light of European immigration to the United States, and the mighty rush of people to Australia and California, how easily similar motives would empty this land of the free black population. ”

“ You may hear one of them arguing that free trade, as an abstract doctrine, is the true law of international exchanges, whilst the circumstances of a particular nation may totally reverse the doctrine and make the tariff a propriety. You may hear another arguing that whilst "thou shalt not kill" is the true law in morals and religion, yet killing may become a propriety, an imperative duty, in certain circumstances. ”

“ We are the providentially designated guardians of Africa, and as soon might we expect the conscientious parent to see ignorance, degradation, and ruin fasten upon his son without using every effort to save him, as to see America allow the decadence of Liberia, as long as it was possible to save her. However strangely the words of Pitt may have sounded in the British Parliament, forty years ago, they now seem only the language of obvious truth. "We may live, (said he) to behold the natives of Africa engaged in the calm occupations of industry, and the pursuits of just and legitimate commerce. ”

“ Cannibalism is not uncommon. There is one tribe widely scattered over the country, whose food is said to be human flesh, and human bodies are hung up for sale in their shambles. Their prisoners of war are fattened, killed, and eaten, or sold to the butchers.
But the grand source of Africa's woes, is that inhuman traffic in her own people, which the civilized world unite in denouncing, and which several nations, the United States included, have united in endeavouring to suppress. This is the cause of the fearful state of society which there exists. ”