Page:The future of Africa.djvu/276

270 beauty now and then bursting upon our sight; navigable for sloops and schooners near eighty miles from the coast, and stretching out beyond the falls which here obstruct its passage, some three or four hundred miles in the interior. Everywhere, in every town, we were most cordially received, hospitably entertained, and my teachings eagerly listened to, by whole towns and villages, who invariably turned out in a body to hear the preacher. In most of these towns I had gone preaching before; other missionaries had been there long and often before me; and hence you can see that it was interest that excited them, and not mere novelty. Now here is a vast, open field ready for the Gospel; but it is but one among scores, in the limited territory of Liberia. Saving that the Cavalla can be navigated a further distance inland, there are many other as good opportunities and facilities for the conveyance of the Gospel interiorward, as this.

Now, let me ask, what hinders the colored Christians of America from entering these large, inviting missionary fields, and founding the institutions of Christianity here? Putting aside, altogether, the question of colonization, why can they not as a people come forward to save their race from heathenism, and to give them both the present and the future consolations of religion? Let me refer in particular to the three classes of religionists among our brethren, with whom I am more especially acquainted: the Methodists, Presbyterians, and Episcopalians. The colored Episcopalians are a "small folk," I