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Africa and colonization the subject of many prayers.

with Ashmun, and Mills, and Carey, and Randall, and Cox, and Anderson, and others who died in the service of Africa; what a noble list might we write of its friends from the catalogue of the lamented dead, whose remembrance is blessed! And then the living-what an array of the names of the great and the good come up before the mind!'

'Many prayers ascend to heaven,' said Mr. L., in behalf of the colonization enterprise. It is a cause dear to many a pious heart.'

A great and worthy enterprise.

CONVERSATION XXIX.

"In vain ye limit mind's unwearied spring:
What! can ye lull the winged winds asleep,
Arrest the rolling world, or chain the deep?"-Campbell.

"GOOD MORNING, my children.*

'Good morning, Pa,' said Henry.

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Good morning, Pa,' said Caroline. I have been thinking much of Africa and Colonization, of America and our duty,' said Caroline; and the more I contemplate it, the more the work in which the Colonization Society is engaged, appears so noble and godlike, that I should think it would be considered by all as worthy of the noblest energies of our nature-worthy the efforts and prayers of every patriot and christian in our land.'

• We have reason to hope that the time is not far distant,' said Mr. L., 'when the benevolent and pious of our land will all engage in this work, regarding Africa, more than we have hitherto done, as a wide field for missionary enter

Africa's claims beginning to be acknowledged.

prise, where our most ardent wishes and untiring efforts should be directed.

Every passing year, the condition and claims of Africa are more and better understood, and the subject is taking deeper and deeper hold on the honour, the justice, the patriotic and christian sympathies of our highly favoured country. The work will be done-and I love to anticipate the day.

"Where barb'rous hordes on Scythian mountains roam,
Truth, Mercy, Freedom, yet shall find a home;
Where'er degraded nature bleeds and pines,
From Guinea's coast to Siber's dreary mines,

Truth shall pervade th' unfathom'd darkness there,.
And light the dreadful features of despair;;
There the stern captive spurn his heavy load,
And ask the image back that heaven bestow'd:
Fierce in his eyes the fire of valour burn,
And, as the slave departs, the man return."

Yes, it will be done, for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it. It will be done-and Africa, enlightened, regenerated, blessed, will remember the Colonization Society as her MOSES, which led her up from bondage. Forgetting her wrongs, obliterating from her mind the dark history of all her griefs, and remembering only the blessings received, she will look to this happy land, and say, breathing the sweet spirit of the gospel of Christ, "There are our Benefactors.",

I trust, Pa, the vision will be fulfilled. I love to think of Africa as a field of missionary enterprise. It is so extensive, and gives promise of such rich blessings.'

'As a missionary field,' said Mr. L., it is limited only by

Africa a missionary field.

the confines of one of the largest quarters of the habitable globe. Other missionary operations, although successful to a considerable degree, have not had a success corresponding in extent with the piety and benevolence of their aim, or with the amount of means which have been applied. Great advantages are united in the colonization enterprise. "Every emigrant to Africa is a missionary going forth with his credentials, in the holy cause of civilization and religion and free institutions, and the colonies which we establish will be so many points from which the beams of christianity and civilization will radiate on all that empire of ignorance and sin. These influences must be poured in from the western coast. The northern boundary is within the dominion of the false Prophet, and no light is to be expected from that direction. If we look towards its eastern border, we look to the region and shadow of death." Colonization deviates from the practice of other missionary institutions, and employs as agents the very brethren of the people sought to be converted. "It proposes to send, not one or two pious men into a foreign land, among a different and perhaps suspicious race, of another complexion; but to transport annually, for an indefinite number of years, hundreds and thousands of missionaries, of the descendants of Africa herself, with the same interests, sympathies, and constitutions of the natives. This colony of missionaries is to operate not alone by the preaching of the gospel, but also by works of ocular demonstration. It will open forests, build towns, erect temples of worship, and practically exhibit to the sons of Africa the beautiful moral spectacle and the superior advantages of our own religious and social systems.' Its means are simple; its end is grand and magnificent. Christianity will beautify Africa, and civilization will enlighten it. The Mahometans of the North will feel the influence; the Pa

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Bright prospects.-Fond anticipation of Mills.

gans who worship in her forests and groves, will be saved; Abyssinia now lighted by a few rays of christian light, will feel the full shining of the Sun of righteousness; idols will fall; human blood will no more be poured from victims sacrificed; the slave-ship will be driven from the coast; and Africa will feel a return of more than Egyptian greatnessmore than Carthagenian glory.

This seems to have been the view which the sainted Mills had at the very first. "If," says he, "by pursuing the object now in view, a few of the free blacks of good character could be settled in any part of the African coast, they might be the means of introducing civilization and religion among the barbarous nations there, and their settlement might increase gradually, and some might in suitable time go out from that settlement, and from others, and prove the occasion of great good."

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To what work more noble, could the powers of this whole nation be applied, than that of bringing up from darkness, debasement, and misery, a race of men, and shedding abroad over the wide territories of Africa, the light of science, freedom, and christianity. Whilst humanity points to the thousands of the victims of the slave-trade, and conjures us to aid in its suppression—and whilst patriotism calls us to seek our country's good and wash our hands as a nation of the guilt of slavery, religion speaks with loftier tone and instructs us that all men are "one flesh"-that we are brethren-that he who loves not his brother, cannot love God-that all are equally bound to the service of the Almighty-that all are equally entitled to the good offices of each other, and that he who would not lay down his life for his brethren, has not ascended to the height of the Saviour's charity. The day will come when christian princi

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