It is my sober conviction, that no contrivance or enterprise could possibly be planned more fatally calculated to obstruct the progress of christianity in a heathenish country, than the establishment of a colony, or colonies, of selfish, ignorant, or even intelligent and high-minded men, on its shores. In every settlement of this kind,--no matter how choice the original materials,--vice will soon preponderate over virtue, intemperance over sobriety, knavery over honesty, oppression over liberty, and impiety over godliness. The natives will see just enough of christianity to hate and shun it; finding that its fruits are generally bad--that it has no restraining influence upon the mass of its nominal professors,--they will not easily comprehend the utility of abandoning their own idolatrous worship; looking only to the pernicious examples of the intruders, they will spurn with contempt the precepts of the gospel. Their confidence will be abused--their lands craftily trafficked for nought--their ignorance cheated--their inferiority treated oppressively; and then what must naturally follow? Why--WAR--_a war of retaliation_. All the vices, and few of the virtues, of the instructers, will be faithfully copied; and thus barriers will be erected against the progress of the Christian religion, not absolutely insurmountable, it is true, but sufficiently tall and strong to retard its noble career--barriers not only of superstition and ignorance, but of hatred and revenge. These reflections might be extended to the size of a volume; but they are probably sufficient to convince every unprejudiced, discerning mind, that the establishment of foreign colonies in a barbarous land is the surest way to prevent its speedy evangelism and civilization. In reply to this reasoning, some of the advocates of African colonization may argue, that schools and houses of worship, multiplying with the growth of the settlement at Liberia, will check the evil propensities and passions of the emigrants, and qualify them to act as missionaries or instructers among the natives; and thus great good will be bestowed upon Africa. This is at least a summary, if not a sure mode of obviating these difficulties.