' • *# <^ ^^^ >o^ <* *'VV.* ,0^ o. "-.*• A <^ ♦'TV.* .0^ "o. \/ %'^^-/ ^<>.*^?^'\/ ^'^^-^ ^-..^'^ ^°^t< v"^ .'J^^ '-' A^ %. ••-»' aO ^5^ *'»>^*' ^ o ♦.To' ^0' @?^. J % PROF. SHEDD'S ADDRESS BEFORE THE V JJassacl^ttselts Cwlora^ation ^mk% 4T gf, iiSf. c3 AFRICA AND COLONIZATION ADDRESS DELIVERED BEFORE TUB ilta00acl)it5ctt0 (llolonijation Socictg, May 27, 1857. WILLIAM a. T. SHEDD, [From the Bibliotheca Sacra for July, 1857.] ANDOVER: PRINTED BY WARREN F. DRAPER. 1 857. -tl- Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1857, by WARREN F. DRAPER, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachnsette. ADDRESS. Mr. President and Gentlemen : On the 22d of March, 1775, Edmund Burke, pleading for the liberties of the American Colonies, in the British House of Commons, had occasion to allude to their marvellous growth, as outrunning everything of the kind in the then past history of England, or the world. In less than seventy years, he said, the trade with America had increased twelve- fold. It had grown from a half-million of pounds per an- num to six millions — a sum nearly equal to the whole ex- port trade of England at the commencement of the eighteenth century. This rapid growth, he continued, might all be span- ned by the life of a single man, " whose memory might touch the two extremities." Lord Bathurst was old enough, in 1704, to understand the figures and the facts, as they then stood. The same Lord Bathurst, in 1775, was a member of that parliament, before whom the great orator was reciting the new facts that were stranger than fiction, in order to waken England to a consciousness that the colonies beyond the sea were bone of her bone and flesh of her flesh, and must be treated accordingly. Warming from the gravity of his theme, and rising in soul as the vision slowly evolved be- fore him, he represents the guardian angel of the youthful Bathurst as drawing aside the curtain of the future and un- folding the rising glories of his country ; and particularly as pointing him, while absorbed in the commercial grandeur of England, to " a little speck scarce visible in the mass of the national interest, a small seminal principle, rather than a formed body," and as saying to him : " Young man, there is America ; which, at this day, serves for little more than to amuse you with stories of savage men and uncouth man- ners ; yet shall, before you taste of death, show itself equal to the whole of that commerce which now attracts the envy of the world." ^ We have alluded to this well-known but ever fresh and fine prosopopoeia of the great Englishman, because it spon- taneously comes into memory when one commences to read, to think, or to speak upon Africa. That tropical continent lies nearly as dim and vague before the mind of this gene- ration, as the cold and cheerless America did before the mind of England when Johnson and Burke were boys. With the exception of a small strip of the Atlantic coast, the wilds of this Western world were as unknown to the Eng- lishman of 1700, as the jungles of Soudan or the highlands of Central Africa are to us. And yet it may be that there are youth of this generation who will live to see those dim be- ginnings of Christianity, of civilization, and of empire, which are now scarcely visible on the African Atlantic coast, expanded and still expanding into vigorous and vital churches, into strong and mighty States. The guardian ge- nius, in this instance too, might with perhaps as much probability of verification, say to the youth whom he leads by the hand : " Young man, there is Africa ; which, at this day, serves for little more than to amuse you with stories of savage men and uncouth manners ; yet it shall, before you taste of death, take its place among the continents, and be no longer an unknown world." For nothing is more wonderful than the changes and trans- formations of history. But involved, as every present genera- tion is, in the great stream, and whirled along by it, it is not strange that no generation of men are ever fully aware of the strength and rapidity of their own movement. He who be- longs to another generation, and looks back, can see that in such a century, and in such a quarter of the globe, a 1 Sp;;ech on Conciliation witli America. mighty current was running. The spectator always sees more than the actor. The rare prophetic mind, also, that beholds the future in the instant, may foresee and predict a history too great and grand for contemporaneous belief. The philosophic statesman is aware of what is going on in the struggling masses around him, and auspicates accord- ingly. But the common man, of the busy present time, never knows the rate he is moving ; because he is, himself, ab- sorbed and carried headlong in the movement. It is not strange, therefore, that all hopeful, glowing vaticination, in respect to changes upon this sin-smitten planet, is regarded with distrust. Such anticipations are supposed to belong to the poet and the orator. They have no support in the data and calculations of the statician or the statesman. Called upon then, as we are at this time, to consider the present and prospective condition of the most wretched and unpromising quarter of the globe, by the voice of that Colonizing Society which has already done more than any other single association for the welfare of Africa, and which is destined, we believe, under that benign Providence which has protected and blessed it thus far, to see its own great ideas and plans realized ; called upon to speak and to think for a hundred millions of our fellow-creatures, by a small corporate body, not yet a half-century old, and annually dis- bursing only a few thousands of dollars, we desire to assign some reasons for believing that a career similar to that of the British colonies in America, and similar to that of all the great colonizing movements of the past, awaits the Republic of Liberia. What, then, are the grounds for expecting that the plans and purposes of the American Colonization Society will be ultimately realized in the Christianization of the African continent ? 1. The first reason for this expectation is of a general na- ture. Africa has no past history. It is the continent of the future : for it is the only one now left to feel, for the first time, the recuperating influences of a Christian civilization. Religion, law, and letters began their march in Asia, and a 1* large part of that continent once felt their influence. From thence they passed into Europe; and Europe is still the strong- hold of religion, law, and letters. Westward they then took their way ; and the vast spaces of the American continent are still waiting for the Christianity and Republicanism that have so rapidly and firmly taken possession of that compara- tively small belt called the United States. It is true that these influences were, for a time, felt along the northern bor- der of Africa. Egypt and Carthage were once civilized ; and a very vigorous Christianity, for three centuries, erected its altar, and kept itsfires bright, along the southern shore of the Mediterranean. But Egypt, though African in nature and blood, derived its ideas from Asiatic sources ; and its place in history is Asiatic rather than African. That ancient and wonderful pantheistic civihzation which built Thebes and the pyramids, was but the corrupted remains of a yet more ancient Asiatic monotheism ; as South tells us that " an Aristotle was but the rubbish of an Adam, and Athens but the rudiments of paradise." Carthage was Phoenician ; and when both Egypt and Carthage were absorbed into Rome, North- Africa belonged much more to the European than to the properly African quarter of the globe. The great continent, then, notwithstanding all these attempts at ap- proach for thousands of years, lies lone and solitary. It is out of all historical connections ; so much so, that the gene- ralizing Hegel, after a very brief characterization of it, in his Philosophy of History, dismisses it with the remark : " We now leave Africa, and shall make no further mention of it. That which we understand by Africa proper, is totally desti- tute of a history ; is totally unopened and undeveloped ; and can, therefore, be merely hinted at, on the threshold of Universal History." ^ Now there is something in this fact, that inspires expecta- tion. It may be vague, but it is large and full. The mode and manner may be left to conjecture or imagination ; but the fact that one whole quarter of the globe has never yet been visited by the great influences of religion, law, and let- 1 Hegel's Werke, IX., 123. ters, taken in connection with the fact that these influences are a part of the plan and destination of God in reference to the ivhole world and the whole human family, lead to the confident faith that this will not always be so. Nature, it w^as said, abhors a vacuum. Empty spaces will be filled and peopled. History treads no step backward. Her voice cries : " Ever onward ! " — as the guiding Genius, according to Schiller, continually sounded in the ear of Columbus on the gray waste of waters : " Ever westward ! Ever to the West ! " Who expects that population, law, and manners, will ever flow eastward again, from the Alleghanies or the Rocky Mountains ? Who expects that the great changes and alterations of the future are to take place on the old theatres of Assyria, Macedonia, Greece, and Rome ; or on the more recent, yet already antiquated arenas of Modern Europe ? The winds rush where there is vacancy. The great historic currents of the next half-millennium, must disembogue where they find room. The fact, then, that there is no pre-occupancy, and no ef- fete civilization, in the African world, is a ground of expec- tancy and of courage in regard to it. It is a negative prepa- ration for great results when the time arrives. 2. A second ground of confident hope in reference to the future of Africa, is found in the qualities of the African nature. The characteristics of the African man are still almost as unknown as those of the African soil or the African flora. There are two reasons for this. In the first place, the African has never been in a situation where the depth and reserve of his nature has been drawn upon. Only the superficies of his being has been called into exercise ; so that his real and true manhood lies as hidden as the sources of the Nile. In the second place, and as a consequence of this, only his surface- traits and characteristics have appeared in his portraiture. These, moreover, having been exorbitantly unfolded, because there has been none of the balance and moderation of a deeper education and culture, have been as extravagantly depicted. The black man in literature is, therefore, either a 8 weakling or a caricature. The comic side of him, alone, comes into view. The single sonnet of Wordsworth upon the chieftain Toussaint, and the " sparkles dire of fierce, vin- dictive song," from the American Whittier, are almost the only literary allusions to the sublime and tragic elements in the negro's nature and condition ; certainly the only allusions that, without any abatement, and introduction of ludicrous traits, ally him solely with human "... exultations, agonies, And love, and man's unconquerable mind." The African nature is the tropical nature. All the races that have hitherto struggled upon the arena of history have belonged to the temperate zone. The Egyptian, the Assy- rian, the Babylonian, the Persian, the Greek, the Macedonian, the Roman, the Goth, the Frank, the Englishman, the Anglo- American — all lived north of Cancer. And the fact that thus far the inter-tropical portion of the globe has furnished few or none of the elements of human history, is very often cited to to prove that it can furnish none. It has almost come to be an axiom that the hot zone cannot ripen man. Brazil may crys- tallize diamonds of the purest water, and Africa may distil the most elaborate juices and gums ; but high intelligence and free will must grow up beneath northern skies. Now, it is undoubtedly true that the fallen human being needs stimulation, and that sinful man has done best when he has been crowded from the outside. Easy and pleasant circumstances have always proved too much for his feeble virtue. Hence, though he was created in Paradise, and lap- ped in elysium so long as he could bear it, yet, the very mo- ment he unfitted himself for such perpetual peace and joy, he was driven out among the thorns and thistles, and com- pelled to eat his bread in the sweat of his brow. In conse- quence of human apostasy, then, and for no other reason, the general movement of human history has been in climes and under skies that have tasked man, and have fretted him to action. While, therefore, it is conceded that the colder zones and the harder soils have been favorable, like the primi- tive curse of labor itself, to the best unfolding of an imperfect and a corrupt humanity, it still remains true that man was originally made for an outward world of genial warmth, of luxuriant growth, and of beauty. The primitive man was nude ; his light labor was merely to prune away luxuriance ; and his spiritual mind, sanctified by direct intercourse with angel, seraph, and the Eternal Mind, could both endure and profit by the otherwise enervating bliss and beauty of Eden. This original intent and adaptation of the Creator, war- rants the belief, that as there are some circumstances and in- fluences under a temperate sky that are favorable to human development, so there are some, also, beneath a torrid one. Wherever man can go and live, there he can grow and thrive. Wisdom rejoiceth in all the habitable parts of the earth ; and her delights are with all the sons of men. What, then, are the fundamental peculiarities of the Afri- can, or of man within the tropics, that afford ground for faith and confidence that human nature will here also, in due sea- son, exhibit a culture and character unique and fine ? Before proceeding to give only the very brief answer which the time allows to this question, it is nec( ssary to di- rect attention to the comprehensiveness of the word " Afri- can." We mean by it, and it properly denotes, a physical and mental structure that belongs to the African continent as a whole, in the same sense that the " Asiatic " belongs to Asia, and the " European " belongs to Europe. The term, therefore, includes a variety of races ; all, however, charac- terized by certain common traits. From the mouths of the Nile to the Cape of Good Hope, the observing traveller will find a primary type of mankind different from the Shemitic, and different from the Japhetic ; a style of man which is original and sui-generis ; and the minor varieties of which can easily be accounted for by the physical changes that are made by varieties in the modes of living, and particu- larly in the degrees of proximity to the burning equatorial line. It is the misfortune of Africa that only the most degraded portion of its population have been its representatives be- 10 fore the world. The enslaved and thereby imbruted negro is the only specimen from which the civHized world obtains its ideas, and draws its conclusions, as to the dignity and capabilities of the tropical man. But the coast negro, as we shall soon have occasion to see, is, in his best estate, merely the extreme of the African type ; and even he has not yet been seen in his best estate. What would be thought of a generalization in respect to the native traits and capacities of the whole Celtic stock, — of the entire blood of polished France, and eloquent Ireland, and the gallant Scotch High- lands, — that should be deduced from the brutish descendants of those Irish who were driven out of Ulster and South Down in the time of Cromwell ; men now of the most repulsive characteristics, " with open, projecting mouths, prominent and exposed gums, advancing cheek-bones, depressed noses ; height, five feet two inches, on an average ; bow-legged, abortively featured ; their clothing, a wisp of rags ; spectres of a people that were once well-grown, able-bodied, and comely.-' But such a judgment would be of equal value with that narrow estimate of the natural traits and charac- teristics of the inhabitants of one entire quarter of the globe, which rests upon an acquaintance with a small portion of them, a mere infinitesimal of them, carried into a foreign land and reduced to slavery. The African seems to differ from the European and the Asiatic by a fuller, more profuse, and more sensuous organi- zation. He is emphatically the child of the Earth and the Son. His tissues are not compact, tough, and fibrous, like those of the more northern races. On the contrary, they are tumid, and betoken a luxurious soul. The organs of the senses — the eyes, nose, mouth, and ears — are called "rich," in the phrase of the physiognomist ; and, in the ex- treme ts'pes, are animal and coarse. Man is like the earth he lives upon ; and the African man corresponds to that tropical soil and climate, in which every seed swells and sprouts with the rank luxuriance of a jungle. The great generical feature in the African, then, is richness and fulness in the physical organization ; and, in proof that it is so, we shall cite the testimony of travellers and physiologists. 11 The French Denon tells us that " instead of the sharp fea- tures, the keen, animated, and restless visages, the lean and active figures of the Arabian," he finds " in the land of the Pharaohs, full but delicate and voluptuous forms ; counte- nances sedate and placid ; round and soft features ; with eyes long, almond-shaped, half-shut and languishing, and turned up at the outer angles, as if habitually fatigued by the light and heat of the sun ; thick lips, full and prominent ; mouths large, but cheerful and smiling ; complexions dark, ruddy, and coppery ; and the whole aspect displaying, as one of the most graphic delineators among modern travel- lers has observed, the genuine African character, of which the Negro is the exaggerated and extreme representation." i Blumenbach's examinations of the Egyptian mummies led him to the belief that there are three varieties in the physi- ognomy expressed in Egyptian paintings and sculptures. But one of these was the Ethiopian, which, he says, " coin- cides with the descriptions given of the Egyptians by the an- cients, and is chiefly distinguished by prominent jaws, tur- gid lips, a broad flat nose, and protruding eye-balls," 2 " Among the modern Copts," says Prichard, " many travel- lers have remarked a certain approximation to the Negro. Volney says that they have a yellowish, dusky complexion, resembling neither the Grecian nor Arabian ; and adds that they have a puffed visage, swollen eyes, flat nose, and thick lips, and bear much resemblance to mulattoes." ^ Ledyard, whose testimony Prichard remarks is of the more value as he had no theory to support, says : " I suspect the Copts to have been the origin of the Negro race : the nose and lips correspond with those of the Negro. The hair, wherever I can see it among the people here (the Copts), is curled, not like that of the Negroes, but like that of the mulattoes." * But if the Egyptians and Copts exhibit the full, sensuous and luxurious organization of the African, and properly be- long to the African race, it certainly will not be difficult to establish the same claim for all the remaining dwellers on the 1 Prichard's Natural History of Man, pp. 151, 15S » Prichard, p. 156. 3 i^jd. p. 153. * Ibid. p. 159 12 continent. These were nearest to Asia and Europe, and felt most of foreign influences ; and yet the type could not be changed : the round cheek, the full, protuberant eye, the dark hue, could not be converted into their contraries. Passing southward, into the burning heart of Africa, we find the tropical man in yet greater intensity and power. The races of Soudan display the fervid type of humanity fully formed, and in the highest degree. There are varie- ties in this great central region ; the lowest being found on the Guinea coast, and the higher ones meeting the traveller as he rises those great terraces by which the continent lifts itself up from the sea. The Negroes of the Gold Coast, though dwelling amidst miasm and fever, and feeling only the very worst influences of European intercourse, are never- theless characterized by Barbot as " generally well-limbed and well-proportioned ; having good oval faces, sparkling eyes, eye-brows lofty and thick ; mouths not too large ; clean, white, and well-arranged teeth ; fresh red lips, not so thick and pendent as those of Angola, nor their noses so broad." ^ " Among the Ashantee tribe of this same Guinea race," says Bowditch, " are to be seen, especially among the higher orders, not only the finest figures, but, in many in- stances, regular Grecian features, with brilliant eyes, set rather obliquely in the head." ^ Of the Senegambian nations, the Mandingoes are re- markable for their industry ; and, of all the inter-tropical races have shown the greatest energy of character. Their features are regular, their character generous and open, and their manners gentle. Their hair is of the kind termed com- pletely woolly. The Fulahs, another Senegambian people, forge iron and silver, and work skilfully in leather and wood, and fabricate cloth. An intelligent French traveller describes them as fine men, robust and courageous, understanding commerce, and travelling as far as to the Gulf of Guinea. The color of their skin is a kind of reddish-black, their coun- tenances are regular, and their hair longer and not so wool- ly as those of the common Negroes.^ 1 Prichard, p. 306. ^ Ibid. p. 307. » Ibid. p. 297. 13 These statements may be overdrawn in some particulars, and further exploration is undoubtedly required in order to form a sure and completely satisfactory judgment respecting the tribes of Soudan. But, certainly, all the information thus far obtained, goes to evince that this Negro-land is fil- led up with no puny populations, but with barbaric races of a powerful structure, — the bone and muscle out of which a Christian civilization shall hereafter form a powerful style of man. Finally, threading our way downward, from the terraces to the southern-ward slope of the African continent, we find the Hottentot and Kafir, the most degraded of the African races, yet owing the excess of their degradation, by which they fall below the other African races, to the contact and influence of a corrupt European civilization. Unless a gen- uine Christian influence shall eventually be thrown in upon them by missions, by education, and by commerce, it was, indeed, as one remarks, an ill-omened hour when a Chris- tian navigator descried the Cape of Storms. The Hottentot, by war and vices, has to a great extent degenerated into the Bushman ; but the Kafir still retains his aboriginal traits. Professor Lichtenstein describes them as follows : " They are tall, strong, and their limbs well proportioned ; their color is brown ; their hair, black and woolly ; they have the high forehead and prominent nose of the Europeans, the thick lips of the Negroes, and the high cheek bones of the Hottentots."^ This rapid survey of the inhabitants of the continent, from north to south, justifies us, then, in attributing a com- mon continental character to them all, — and a continental character that is neither feeble nor emasculated ; but, on the contrary, one that is muscular, arterial, and prodigal. There is a generical type of the African nature, constituted by the assemblage of certain physical and mental characteristics, which may be found all over the African continent, whereby this portion of the globe becomes as distinct and peculiar as Asia, or Europe, or America. And it is from this inter-tropi- 1 Prichard. p. 317. 9 14 cal humanity that we are to deduce a ground of belief and confidence that Ethiopia will yet stretch out her hands to God, and that Africa is finally to acquire a place in the uni- versal history of man on the globe. The chief characteristic of the African nature is the union^ in it, of recipiency with passion. The African is docile. He has nothing of the hard and self-asserting nature of the Goth. He is indisposed (like the dweller of the cold and stimulat- ing zones) to stamp his own individuality upon others. On the contrary, his plastic, ductile, docile nature receives influ- ence from every side, gladly and genially. It is not probable that great empires will be built up on the African continent, that will extend their sway over other parts of the globe, — as the Persian sought to obtain rule in Europe, but was thwarted by Greece ; or as the Roman extended his domin- ion over both Asia and Africa. The lust of empire will probably never run in African blood ; for, foreign conquest requires a stern, §elf-reliant, indocile, ambitious nature, which would force itself upon other races and regions ; and of this, the tropical man has little or nothing. It is rather to be expected that the African will confine himself to his own home, within the tropics, and will there take up, into his own rich and receptive nature, the great variety of ele- ments and influences that will be furnished by other races and portions of the globe. Under such circumstances, a unique and remarkable de- velopment of human nature must occur. A new form of national life will take rise. For this plastic character, this deep and absorbing receptivity, will be an alluvium, in which all seeds that arc planted will strike a long root, and shoot up a luxuriant growth. National history, thus far, exhibits stimulant natures, and stimulant characteristics. The types of nationality that figure in the past, have gene- rally been moulded from this sort of material, — a species which has reached its height in the Anglo-Saxon. This quality is, indeed, a strong, intense, and grand one ; and we are the last to disparage its worth. The triumphs of modern Christianity, and modern Civilization, are intimately 15 connected with its powerful and persistent action in indi- viduals and nations. But this tense and stimulant nature, characteristic of man in the northern zone, has its deficien- cies, also, like everything human. In isolation, and after long strain, it becomes wiry, hard, brittle, broken. It would not be well that it should be the sole type of humanity ; or that no other elements than it can furnish, should enter into the texture and fabric of national or individual life, from generation to generation. The Saxon himself, in order to his own preservation even, as well as his own best development^ needs some infusion of equatorial elements. It would be well if his already over-wrought stimulancy could be somewhat tranquillized and enriched by the languor and sluggishness of the tropics. It would be well if the hollow features of (he Anglo-American could assume somewhat of the rounded fulness of the Sphinx's or the Memnon's face ; if his eager and too shallow eye, could be made bulbous and deep, like that of Soudan. This, then, is the groundwork of the coming nationalities in Africa. It is a mild, docile, musing, and recipient nature, which is to drink in all the influences that shall pour forth from the old, and perhaps then declining civilizations of the other zones. It is the artist's nature, open at every pore, sen- sitive in every globule and cell of tissue, pulsing with a warm and somewhat slumbrous life, — a deep base for a high structure. But this lethargic quality in the tropical man is allied with an opposite one. He is also a creature of passion. In the phrase of Mark Antony, there is a " fire that quickens Ni- lus' slime." Like his own clime, the inhabitant of the trop- ics combines great antagonisms in his constitution. This slumber of his nature is readily stirred into wildest rage, — as the heavy and curtained air of the equator, which has hung dense and still for days and weeks, is suddenly dis- parted by electric currents, and, in an instant, is one wide, livid blaze of lightning. This quality, like all counterbalanc-. ing ones, is not strictly contrary to the one that has just been described. Were it so, the one would neutralize and kill the 16 other. There would be no interpenetration of the two, if nothing but the relation of sheer and mere contrariety, like that between fire and water, obtained between these two qualities in the African nature. It is antithesis, not contra- riety. For this very passion itself originates in, and springs right out of, the lethargy. The nature has been slumbrous and dormant, only that it may, at the proper time, be fiery and active. The one balances, not neutralizes, the other. Were there an unintermittent draught and strain upon the entire man, there could never be this tropical vehemence. But the slumber is recuperative of the constitutional force ; and, in and by the osciUations of passion and lethargy, the wondrous life goes on. That the African is a passionate being, is attested by all history. No one can look at the features of the Meranon, without perceiving that beneath that placid contour there sleeps a world of passion. Shakspeare has given Cleopatra to us in her own proud words : " I am fire and air ; my other elements I give to baser life." The influences of Christianity do not destroy, but refine and sanctify, this quality. The North- African church of the first centuries was full of divine fire. It flashes in the labor- ing but powerful rhetoric of Tertullian. It glows like an- thracite in the thoughts of Augustine, whose symbol in the church is a flaming heart ; and over whose mighty and pas- Bionate sensualism the serene, spiritualizing, and Divine power of Christianity ultimately, and only after an elemental war within like that of chaos, wrought an ethereal and saintly transformation that has not yet been paralleled in the his- tory of the church. But we need not go into the distant past, or into the dis- tant African continent, for evidence upon this point. We cannot look into the eye of the degraded black man who meets us in our daily walks, without perceiving that he be- longs to the torrid zone. The eye, more than any other fea- ture, is the index of the soul, and of the soul's life. That 17 full, liquid, opaline orb, that looks out upon us from face and features that are stolid, or perhaps repulsive, testifies to the union of passion and lethargy in this fellow-creature. That large and throbbing ball, that sad and burning glance, though in a degraded and down-trodden man, betoken that he be- longs to a passionate, a lyrical, and an eloquent race. This tropical eye, when found in conjunction with Cau- casian features, is indicative of a very remarkable organiza- tion. It shows that tremulous sensibilities are reposing upon a base of logic. No one could fix his gaze, for a moment, upon that great Northern statesman who has so recently gone down to his grave, without perceiving that this rare combination was the physical substrate of what he was, and what he did. That deep-black iris, cinctured in a pearl- white sclerotic, and, more than all, that fervid torrid glance and gleam, were the exponents and expression of a tropical nature ; while the thorough-bred Saxonism of all the rest of the physical structure indicated the calm and massive strength that underlay and supported all the passion and all the fire. It was the union of two great human types in a single personality. It was the whole torrid zone enclosed and upheld in the temperate. It will be apparent from this analysis, if it be a correct one, that the African nature possesses a latent capacity fully equal, originally, to that of the Asiatic or the European. Shem and Japhet sprang from the very same loins with Ham. God made of one blood those three great races by which he re- populated the globe after the deluge. This blending of two such striking antitheses as energy and lethargy, the soul and the sense ; this inlaying of a fine and fiery organization in- to drowsy flesh and blood ; this supporting of a keen and irritable nerve by a tumid and strong muscular cord, — what finer combination than this is there among the varied types of mankind ? The objection urged against the possibility of a historical progress in Africa, similar to that in the other continents, upon the ground that the original germ and ba- sis was an inferior one, — an objection that shows itself, if not theoretically, yet practically, in the form of inaction, and 2* 18 an absence of enthusiasm and enterprising feeling when the claims of Africa are spoken of, — this objection is invalid. The philosophic and the philanthropic mind must, both alike, rise above the prejudices of an age, and look beyond a present and transient degradation, that has been the result of centuries of ignorance and slavery. If this be done, the philosopher sees no reason for refusing to apply the same law of progress and development (provided the external circum- stances be favorable, and the necessary conditions exist) to the tropical man, that he does to the man of the temper- ate or the arctic zones ; and no reason for doubting that, in the course of time, and under the genial influences of the Christian religion — the mother of us all — human nature will exhibit all its high traits and qualities in the black races, as well as in the white. And certainly the philani hropist, after a wide survey of history ; after tracing back the modern Englishman to the naked Pict and bloody Saxon ; after comparing the filthy savage of Wapping and St. Giles with the very same being and the very same blood in the dra^ving-rooms of Belgrave Square — has every reason for keeping up his courage and going forward with his work. There have been much stranger transformations in history than the rise of African republics, and African civilizations, and African literatures will be. But how is the way to be prepared for this ? From what point or points, and through what instrumentalities, is the alteration to commence ? It is this second branch of the subject, which we now proceed to briefly examine. 1. It is natural to expect that the movements of God's providence, in the future will be very much like those of the past ; and that civilization and culture will, hereafter, pass into the unenlightened parts of the globe in very much the same way they have heretofore. But history shows that this has uniformly taken place by the exodus of colonies. Re- ligion, law, and letters are not indigenous, but exotic, in all the past career of man on the globe. One race hands the torch of science to another. One quarter of the globe is both the parent and teacher of another. There are autochthones 19 nowhere. There are no strictly self-taught men anywhere. And in the last examination, and at the primary origin and source, we are compelled to rise above earth and man alto- gether, and find the first beginnings of knowledge and reli- gion in the skies. From first to last, there is an imparting act from the higher to the lower. The more inteUigent makes revelations to the less intelligent. The genealogy cannot stop short of the Creator himself. Cainan was the son of Enos, " which was the son of Seth, which was the son of Adam, which was the son of God." These changes and movements in human civilization are particularly visible at those points where civilization passes from one continent to another continent. The knots in the grape-vine reveal where the life gathers and concentrates in order to a new expansion. Europe received letters and civ- ilization from Asia. The little district of Greece was the radiating point ; for Rome received them from Greece, and gave them to all her empire. But the original sources of Greek culture were colonists, few and feeble, from Egypt, PhcEnicia, and Asia Minor. The Egyptian Cecrops and Da- naus brought over the seeds of civility to Attica and Ai'gos, fifteen centuries before our era. The Phoenician Cadmus carried over an Asiatic alphabet soon after. And the Lydian Pelops soon followed with his wealth and knowledge of the mechanic arts.^ But the consequences of this immigration from another continent were not felt, to any great extent, upon Europe at large, until a thousand years had rolled by. The Greek, with all his treasures of wisdom and of beauty, was shut up from the " barbarian " world, until the Roman broke down the barrier, and Grecian culture then had free course. And if we should allow a millennium for a colony upon the African coast to diffuse law, manners, letters, and religion, over the African continent, it would be as rapid a movement as that to which Ancient Rome and the whole Modern World owe their secular civilization. The radiating points for the Western Continent were the 1 Heercn's Ancient Greece, Chapter III. 20 ^ ' . and more especially ihe Brinsh. colonies. The nr here has been much mor^e rapid than anything in the hisToiy of the Old Weald- And yet, after more than rwo cenniries, not one qnairer of ihis Wesiem hemisphere is folly nnder the induence of Chrisrian civilization. The hisTory of the past, then, indicates that Amca mnst receive religion, law. and leners in the same \ray that the oiher continents have received them. They mnst be given to her. The colonist mnst carry the seeds of civilization aad of empire into the tropical world. Christendom o\ves cx^nies to the only j>oriion of the globe that has never yet been a part of Christendom. Europe and America ought to adopt the unerance of the great Apostle to Europe — an ut- terance to \rliich both of them, under God. owe their religion and their culture, more than to any other single human cause — and say : ~ We are debtors, as much as in us lies. to Amca.~ Each. of them ought to prove its sincerity, by ent ering with energy upon a great colonizing movement, and planting Christian colonies all along the coast. 2. In the second place, it is the colonist of African bloody upon whom the chief reliance must be placed, so long as the colonizing period continues. For the tropical climate neces- siiates the sluggish blood of the tropical man. It is certain death to expose the nervous, high-strunsr. and never-relaxed nature of the Caucasian, to the fervors of the burning zone, and ihe dam|>s of an equatorial night-falL The dweller in this pcation of the globe must be able to rise and fall, like a barometer, with the climate : to act and toil vehemently for a time, and then to pass into a recuperative inaction. All the colonists of history have gone from temperate to tem- perate regions. The true colonist for the tropics, then, is the man of the tropics. It may be that the white man can live upon the high grounds of the interior, when the hean of Africa shall have been opened to commerce, and made yet more salubrious by - ~ - — ire and civilization ; but, for a long time to cc»me, :. . . man must lay the foundations of empire and civilization, and build up the superstmctnre. 3. And thirdly, w^ithout intending to disparage, in the 21 least, the other agencies that have been and will be em- ployed, all present indications go to show that it is the Libe- rian colonist who must take the lead in this great movement. For the Liberian is the tropical man more or less penetrated by the cold and calm, ideas of the North. He carries with him some American discipline and education. He has not lost his ancestral traits ; for, while in bondage, he has still lived upon the borders of that great zone from which his fore- fathers were stolen. He can not only endure, but he loves a hot and languid clime. And yet he has felt the stimu- lation of that active race among whom he has lived. The wrath of man has praised God. The American negro has been made aggressive and enterprising by his enslavement. He has been fitted to be a colonist, and to impress himself upon the passive and plastic millions of Africa, by a pro- cess that involves awful guilt in the human authors of it. The Liberian colonist has, thus far, obtained a firmer foot- hold than any other, upon the African continent. He has established a republic whose independence is acknowledged by the leading po\vers of the world ; and whose nationality has now entered into the history of nations. There is a defi- nite point of departure, and a living germ of expansion in Liberia. Furthermore, this Liberian republic is a really Christian State. There is not now, probably, an organized common- wealth upon the globe, in which the principles of Christianity are applied wdth such a childlike directness and simplicity, to the management of public affairs, as in Liberia. New England, in the days of her childhood, and before the con- flicting interests of ecclesiastical denominations introduced jealousies, — Geneva, in the time of John Calvin, when the church and the state were practically one and the same body, now acting through the consistory, and now through the council, — in fine, all religious commonwealths in their infancy, and before increasing wealth and luxury have stu- pefied conscience and dimmed the moral perception, fur- nish examples of the existing state of things in the African republic. Even the common school education, which the Li- 22 berinn c-onstitvition provides for the whole population, has been given by Ihe missionary, and in connection with the most direct religious instructions and influences. The state papers of the Liberian Executive and Legislature breathe a grave and serious spirit, like that which inspires the docu- ments of our own colonial and revolutionary periods. It is not necessary, in the heart of New England, and be- fore such an audience as this, to enlarge upon the signifi- cance of the fact that the most influential radiating point for civilization throughout Africa, is a religious republic. No reflecting man can ponder lhe fact, and think of all it involves, without ejaculating, from the depths of his soul : " God save the Commonwealth." Such, then, is the general nature of the argument for African colonies, and for the American Colonization Soci- ety. The race itself, which it proposes to elevate and Chris- tianize, is one of the three great races in and through which God intended, after the total destruction of all antecedent ones by the flood, to re-people the globe and subdue it- The tropical man and lhe tropical mind is destined, sooner or later, to enter into human history, and to have a history. It is in this faith that the Society, whose anniversary we are celebrating, toils and prays. It has been its misfortune that its vision has been clearer than that of others, and that it has, consequently, cherished plans that have appeared im- practicable. But this is always the misfortune of faith within the sacred sphere, and of genius within the secular. Each of them may say to the torpid soul : " I hear a voice thou o- v*'???;^'.^ 'o,.*T^-^o'' **.'^?r^.y %/ -'Ife-' \/ .'^'» %.<■* *^ ^^ •'^' *^^ ^v . . .^^,.„™,v,^. »» . •» * 0« ^ ^*fS«&'. -^Z ;^^„ ^^^^^^ :^ \^^^ ^^•n^ "^oV* ■r • H "^v,.%'i" ■^^ ^ '^ ^•/ \*^^v %^^*/ \*^^v V„." >-is^>, ",„./ .v'^Pi-.'^