Page:The future of Africa.djvu/302

296 providence, lias been perhaps the most puzzling question which ever agitated the mind uf Christian men, who could not doubt the justice and equity of Heaven. Well, three centuries have passed, and the mystery is being solved: the recaptured Africans taken to Sierra Leone, civilized and Christianized, feel all of a sudden, an irresistible desire to return to the land of their birth: they charter vessels, and a large number go down the coast a thousand miles and more, bearing the Gospel to Abbeokuta. Again, emancipation takes place in your British West Indian Islands, and eight hundred thousand men, women, and children are changed, by a single act in one day, from chattels into men. So soon as they are freed from the fetter and from thraldom, a strong spiritual yearning arises in their souls for their father-land, and they stretch forth the arms of a sacred affection for Africa. The feeling is so wide, so general, so earnest, that an organized system is fallen upon; and soon Christian communities of black men in large numbers from your British West Indies, will be seen planted on the west coast of Africa, proffering the boon of salvation to all the large tribes and nations of that continent. And yet again: the children of Africa have been sojourning nigh three centuries in America, and in