Page:A short account of the rise and progress of the African Methodist Episcopal Church in America.djvu/62

 will continue to reward you for your labours among us, having made you the instruments of bringing us from darkness to light, and from the power of sin and Satan, to Him, the true and living God. In the next place we proceed to say—When the Methodist Society in the United States was small, the Africans enjoyed comfortable privileges among their white brethren in the same meeting-house ; but as the whites increased very fast the Africans were pressed back; therefore, it was thought essentially necessary for them to have meeting-houses of their own, in those places where they could obtain them, in order to have more room to invite their coloured brethren yet out of the ark of safety to come in; and it is well known that the Lord has greatly enlarged their number since that memorable time, by owning their endeavours in the conversion of many hundreds. Many Preachers have been raised up among them, who have been very useful in a located state; but they have hitherto been confined; they have had no opportunities to travel, being generally poor men, and having no provision made for them to go forth and dispense the Word of Life to their brethren, their usefulness has been greatly hindered, and their coloured brethren have been deprived of those blessings which Almighty God might have designed to grant through their instrumentality. And now, it seems, the time is come when something must be done for the prosperity of the ministry amongst our coloured brethren; and how shall this be accomplished? for we have not the least expectation that African or coloured Preachers will be admitted to a seat 6*