Journal of an African Cruiser: Comprising Sketches of the Canaries, the Cape De Verds, Liberia, Madeira, Sierra Leone, and Other Places of Interest on the West Coast of AfricaBridge, Horatio
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Journal of an African Cruiser: Comprising Sketches of the Canaries, the Cape De Verds, Liberia, Madeira, Sierra Leone, and Other Places of Interest on the West Coast of Africa
Bridge, Horatio
Africa, West -- Description and travel; Bridge, Horatio, 1806-1893
By such a state
of things, the progress of Christianity and civilisation must be rather
retarded than advanced.
There is reason, therefore, to doubt whether the labors of white
missionaries, in the territory over which the colonists exercise
jurisdiction, is, upon the whole, beneficial. If removed beyond those
limits, and insulated among the natives, they may accomplish infinite
good; but not while assuming an anomalous position of independence, and
thwarting the great experiment which the founders of Liberia had in view.
One grand object of these colonies is, to test the disputed and doubtful
point, whether the colored race be capable of sustaining themselves
without the aid or presence of the whites. In order to a fair trial of the
question, it seems essential that none but colored missionaries should be
sent hither. The difficulties between the Government and the Methodist
Episcopal mission confirm these views. At a former period, that mission
possessed power almost sufficient to subvert the Colonial rule.
Let it not be supposed, that these remarks are offered in any spirit of
hostility to missionaries. My intercourse with them in different parts of
the world, has been of the most friendly nature. I owe much to their
kindness, and can bear cheerful testimony to the laborious, self-devoting
spirit in which they do their duty. At Athens, I have seen them toiling
unremittingly, for years, to educate the ignorant and degraded descendants
of the ancient Greeks, and was proud that my own country--in a hemisphere
of which Plato never dreamed--should have sent back to Greece a holier
wisdom than he diffused from thence. In the unhealthy isle of Cyprus, I
have beheld them perishing without a murmur, and their places filled with
new votaries, stepping over the graves of the departed, and not less ready
to spend and be spent in the cause of their Divine Master. I have
witnessed the flight of whole families from the mountains of Lebanon,
where they had lingered until its cedars were prostrate beneath the storm
of war, and only then came to shelter themselves under the flag of their
country. Everywhere, the spirit of the American Missionaries has been
honorable to their native land; nor, whatever be their human
imperfections, is it too much to term them holy in their lives, and often
martyrs in their deaths. And none more so than the very men of whom I now
speak, in these sickly regions of Africa, where I behold them sinking,
more or less gradually, but with certainty, and destitute of almost every
earthly comfort, into their graves. I criticise portions of their conduct,
but reverence their purity of motive; and only regret, that, while
divesting themselves of so much that is worldly, they do not retain either
more wisdom of this world, or less aptness to apply a disturbing influence
to worldly affairs.
But it is time to return from this digression. Matters being now in a good
train at Cape Palmas, we go to use our pacific influence elsewhere.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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