CAPE PALMAS
Letter from Rev. B.J. Drayton
Brother Drayton has been elected Governor of the Colony of
Maryland, but it will be seen that he still continues the supervision of
Cape Palmas Mission.
Harper, Maryland, in Liberia
Rev. James B. Taylor:
Dear Brother - I have the satisfaction to acknowledge the
receipt of your favor, of May 23rd, which afforded me no small
amount of pleasure. I regret that you have not received letters
from me as often as you have reason to expect them, for I am sure
the Board have the first place among my correspondents; and if
you have not received letters, it is not because I have not written.
I feel truly grateful for your kind expressions respecting my
prosperity and usefulness. These repeated manifestations of the
favor of Almighty God, in singling me out as an instrument in His
hands to assist in the establishment and spread of His lovely
Gospel in this dark and benighted country, have a strong tendency
to humble me in the dust before His Omnipotence.
The church, as you are aware, must evidently go forward in
this, as well as in other lands, with triumphant glory and success;
and to secure this happy and desirable result, the Head of the
Church has various means and ways. Through a prudent, pious,
and wise Government, many of the angry feuds arising among the
natives may be arrested -- highways thrown up ~ paths thrown
wide open, through which the Gospel may pass and reach the
countless numbers who must perish, if they are deprived of its
blessedness.
You alluded to my “elevation in official influence.” It is as
you have learned. The government came into my hands in
December last, as Lieutenant Governor, to serve out the unexpired
term of the former Executive, which expired the first of June last;
and at the regular election, which occurred in the same month, I
was elected, almost unanimously, for two years from August last.
It appeared to me, after due consultation and prayer, that I would
be pursuing the path of duty, under existing circumstances of the
