Page:Cole (1885) The Hope of Sherbro's Future Greatness.pdf/24

—20— was hunted like a deer in the streets of Liverpool and Bristol. Rev. John Smith, of the Independents, was condemned to be hanged at the Island of Demarara for defending the rights of negroes and from harsh treatment. He died in prison, in 1824. Rev. William J. Shrewsbury, a Wesleyan missionary, was driven from Barbadoes by an infuriated mob of European slave-dealers for communicating with Sir Fowel Buxton about the brutal treatment of Africans. And though the Wesleyan chapel was demolished, yet the society did not give up. When he was on his death-bed, Wesley’s last words to Wilberforce were, “Persevere in the glorious enterprise of effecting the abolition of the traffic in the sinews and blood of men. Go on in the name of God and the power of his might, till even American slavery, the vilest that ever saw the sun, shall vanish away before it.”

It could be said of our country, since the time of the slave-trade, that the continent of Africa “suffereth violence until now, and the violent taketh it by force.” Many even in America are this day made to suffer violence for their zeal in rescuing us and embracing us as brethren. I remember reading just a few months ago an article headed, “Persecution in Virginia.” A kind-hearted and philanthropic white man was accounted unfit for the position of a public school-director for associating himself with negroes.

You will, my countrymen, be able to judge from this the condition under which we are still regarded by some Christian men in civilized countries.

Christianity, education, commerce, and agriculture shall scatter the gloom that now overhangs the Sherbro country, and make all to be free, both body and soul.