Extracts of a letter from Rev. John Day to Bro. Taylor, September 1858

MONROVIA— AFRICA Extracts from a letter of Rev. John Day Monrovia, Sept., 1858 My Dear Bro. Taylor: ***To the astonishment of everybody I am looking well, and teach school every day, and preach once on Sunday; and am so strong that I walk to church twice on Sundays. Still the Doctor wishes to keep control over me. *** Poor Liberia drags heavily. She has no treasury. Oh yes, she has, but no money; and therefore the treasury is useless. *** Her want of interest in the salvation of the heathen has staid the love of God, and tends to lukewarmness in religion. She has cassada, potatoes, and sugar; but some of us are becoming superstitious enough to fear that she is under a curse. We are trying to rouse a spirit to do something for the heathen, in the minds of the people, to avert this seeming wrath. The Bassa Mission and Day’s Hope are the occupiers of my greatest desire. Whatever must be neglected, don’t let these be. If properly sustained, in a few years I guess you will be proud of them. For nearly twenty years I taught from twenty to forty native children, and preached in Bassa. I suppose, on a moderate calculation, there are two hundred reading natives in that section of country. Mr. Benham, many years ago, told me he regarded it as a nominally Christian country. Home and Foreign Journal March 1859 p. 35-36