ed a calm and skilful judgment, and in
almost every instance, the decision was characterized by remarkable
good sense and equity. In most of the _colonies_ the men who are
intrusted with local control, a few years since were either slaves in
America, or employed in menial tasks which it was almost hopeless they
could escape. Liberia, at present, may boast of several individuals,
who, but for their caste, might adorn society; while they who have
personally known Roberts, Lewis, Benedict, J. B. McGill, Teage, Benson
of Grand Bassa, and Dr. McGill of Cape Palmas, can bear testimony that
nature has endowed numbers of the colored race with the best qualities
of humanity.

Nevertheless, the prosperity, endurance and influence of the colonies,
are still problems. I am anxious to see the second generation of the
colonists in Africa. I wish to know what will be the force and
development of the negro mind on its native soil,--civilized, but cut
off from all instruction, influence, or association with the white
mind. I desire to understand, precisely, whether the negro's faculties
are original or imitative, and consequently, whether he can stand
alone in absolute independence, or is only respectable when reflecting
a civilization that is cast on him by others.

If the descendants of the present colonists, increased by an immense
immigration _of all classes and qualities_ during the next twenty-five
years, shall sustain the young nation with that industrial energy and
political dignity that mark its population in our day, we shall hail
the realized fact with infinite delight. We will rejoice, not only
because the emancipated negro may thenceforth possess a realm wherein
his rights shall be sacred, but because the civilization with which
the colonies must border the African continent, will, year by year,
sink deeper and deeper into the heart of the interior, till barbarism
and Islamism will fade before the light of Christianity.

But the test and trial have yet to come. The colonist of our time is
an exotic under glass,--full, as yet, of sap and stamina drawn from
his native America, but nursed with care and exhibited as the
efflorescence of modern philanthropy. Let us hope that this wholesome
guardianship will not be too soon or suddenly withdrawn by the parent
societies; but that, while the state of pupilage shall not be
continued till the immigrants and their children are emasculated by
lengthened dependence, it will be upheld