MONROVIA
Letter from Rev. John Day
Monrovia, Sept. 9th, 1 856
I sit down to inform you that the seminary is now up. It is a
most beautiful little house. Not equaled in symmetry and good
workmanship by any building in Monrovia. It is plain and simple;
standing on a base of stone, two feet above ground, jutting out a
few inches, on which a moulding of brick inclines to the wall, from
which the wall rises 10 feet to the joists. Between the joists of the
lower and upper floors are 9 Vi feet. 15 inches below the top of the
wall starts a brick comice, which juts out 9 inches, over which the
shingles extend 3 inches. The ends of the cornice project 2 Vi
inches-these juts are connected by a string of bricks, leaving a
space, a little dropped back, of a foot wide. That space is filled
with a moulding of plaster of Paris, with a star in the center, and at
each comer a beautiful rose-the roof, two feet below a square, has
at the end large boards 7 inches wide, 2 inches thick, worked into a
beautiful moulding, which makes a finishing most pleasing to the
eye. There are 8 windows in each side, 6 windows in the back end,
2 in each story and 2 smaller windows in the garret, one on each
side of the chimney. In the front end, a large door in the lower
story, with glass on each side of it. Two windows in the upper
story, and one large window in the garret.
I am now fiting up desks, benches, and a little pulpit, and
shall commence school there the first of next month. 1 shall
venture to draw on the appropriations for what is absolutely
needed, and hope the Board will sustain the school for a few years,
even if many other things must be neglected. A pious, well
instructed ministry is of vital importance to this mission, and to the
Baptists of Liberia. That an ignorant ministry will do for an
ignorant community is preposterous, only needs observation to
demonstrate. It is the blind leading the blind. But what am I
saying? And to whom? You have often had that well instructed
mind of yours taxed severely for arguments to convince an erring,
ignorant people of their wrong. Could you hear the sagacious
questions often propounded by the poor heathen, and the
difficulties raised by the Mahomedans, you would see at once that
a missionary needs a well-furnished mind. And to instmct the poor
Liberians, the mind should have the grasp of a Lion, and the
