Africa
The committee of the Board, brethren Day and Cheeseman,
thus refer to the state of things on the coast. We find abundant
reason to thank God and take courage. The extract below is from a
report written in April.
Yours of the 12th December, by the Liberia Packet, came
duly to hand, and your Executive Committee feel truly gratified
that they have in any degree, been permitted to meet the
expectation of the Board, who has been pleased to repose much
confidence in them. Your committee, however, regret that they
have not been able to do more, for want of efficient laborers.
There are situations which ought to be filled, but until men, in
whom implicit confidence can be reposed, are to be had, they must
be left vacant.
Brother Harden arrived here in the packet, and was landed,
to become acclimated, at Bexley, under the medical care of our
excellent Dr. Smith. After he was on shore a letter came to hand in
which you suggested the propriety of his being sent to Cape
Palmas, until he had been acclimated. Had your letter arrived
sooner, it would have afforded us much pleasure to have followed
your suggestion. He is doing well, and we think of sending him up
on St. Paul’s river, as soon as his health sufficiently recovers.
We have selected two boys, one from each school; the one
from brother Day’s school, for the Beulah Missionary Society, a
boy about ten years old, four feet high, reads well, and promises to
be quite an interesting youth. His name will be Andrew Broaddus.
We hope he will meet the expectation of the Society who promise
to sustain him.
The boy from the Edina school, will write a few lines to the
E Street Baptist Sunday School, Washington. He is an interesting
youth about 16 years old, five feet high, and we have great hopes
of him.
You ask for a report which will assist you in making up
your report, (annual) for 1851. We are happy to say that, from the
reports of missionaries and teachers, there were taught in our
schools, last year, an average number of four hundred and twenty
children; baptized at the different stations, sixty-four, or six. Our
Sabbath Schools are generally filled; the average number 440.
