supplying their own wants, furnish a large surplus of rice, oil,
cattle, and other articles of common use, for exportation."[107] This
tribe, like the Veis, of whom we shall make mention subsequently, have
reduced their language to a written system. The New Testament has been
translated into their language by a missionary, and they have had the
gospel these many years in their own tongue.

The "Greybo language," spoken in and about Cape Palmas, has been
reduced to a written form; and twenty thousand copies of eleven
different works have been printed and distributed. There are about
seventy-five thousand natives within fifty miles of Cape Palmas; and,
as a rule, they desire to avail themselves of the blessings of
civilization. The Veis occupy about fifty miles of seacoast; extending
from Gallinas River, one hundred miles north of Monrovia, and
extending south to Grand Mount. Their territory runs back from the
seacoast about thirty miles, and they are about sixteen thousand
strong.

This was a grand place to found a Negro state,--a _missionary
republic_, as Dr. Christy terms it. When the republic rose, the
better, wealthier class of free Colored people from the United States
embarked for Liberia. Clergymen, physicians, merchants, mechanics, and
school-teachers turned their faces toward the new republic, with an
earnest desire to do something for themselves and race; and history
justifies the hopes and players of all sincere friends of Liberia.
Unfortunately, at the first, many white men were more anxious to get
the Negro out of the country than to have him do well when out; and,
in many instances, some unworthy Colored people got transportation to
Liberia, of whom Americans were rid, but of whom Liberians could not
boast. But the law of the survival of the fittest carried the rubbish
to the bottom. The republic grew and expanded in every direction. From
year to year new blood and fresh energy were poured into the social
and business life of the people; and England, America, and other
powers acknowledged the republic by sending resident ministers there.

The servants of Christ saw, at the earliest moment of the conception
to build a black government in Africa, that the banner of the cross
must wave over the new colony, if good were to be expected. The
Methodist Church, with characteristic zeal and aggressiveness, sent
with the first colonists several members of their denomination and two
"local preachers;" and in March