MISSIONS TO THE NATIVES OF
LIBERIA
Rev. John Day, our venerable missionary at Monrovia, has
for some time been urgent with the Board to increase their direct
efforts for the Christianization of the native Africans in and around
Liberia. We give, as a concurrent view of the subject, the
following extract from “Liberia As I Found It,” by Rev. Alexander
M. Cowan, agent of the Kentucky Colonization Society:
“It is a question deserving the most calm and prayerful
consideration, whether the Church, in her different missionary
societies, should not act more definitely and distinctly for the
evangelizing of the natives of Liberia. I would speak with great
deference on this subject. The Liberians and the natives are living
in the same country, as two distinct classes of persons, in their
language, their education, their religion, their habits, their customs,
their dress and their aims of life. What is used for the benefit of
one class cannot be used for the other class without important
modifications. A minister, to make full proof of his ministry to the
Liberians, must live among the Liberians. A missionary, to labor
for the conversion of the natives to Christianity and civilization,
must live in the tribe, and see that the day school and sanctuary
institutions are bearing directly upon parents and children. He
should be ‘among them as a nurse who cherisheth her children.”’
The Board have not been unmindful of the wants of the
natives, nor of the difficulties attending the attempt to conduct
missions for them and the Liberians conjointly. Long since more
direct effort would have been made for the natives but for want
both of suitable men, and of the means to sustain them. The first
object seemed, evidently to be to establish and perpetuate churches
among the colonists, not only for their own benefit, but as
necessary to furnish and train the men who might become
missionaries to the natives. God has blessed the efforts thus put
forth. Meantime the minds of all our missionaries have been
repeatedly and urgently directed to the necessity of preaching to
the natives, and they have been required to do it. To some extent,
this requisition has been complied with. A number of natives have
received the gospel-but far less has been done than it was desired
to accomplish. The time has come, we think, when greater
attention should be given to this department of the work.
Missionaries expressly for the natives are needed. And we have
reason to think that some suitable men might now be found for this
