for we are not, like you,
hard-hearted, unmerciful, and unforgiving. What a happy country
this will be, if the whites will listen! What nation under
heaven, will be able to do any thing with us, unless God gives
us up into its hand? But, Americans, I declare to you, while you
keep us and our children in bondage, and treat us like brutes,
to make us support you and your families, we cannot be your
friends. You do not look for it, do you? Treat us then like men,
and we will be your friends. And there is not a doubt in my
mind, but that the whole of the past will be sunk into oblivion,
and we yet, under God, will become a united and happy
people.'[V]

FOOTNOTES:

[S] A cruel taunt. The wonder is not that colored persons do not more
generally visit our sanctuaries, but that they _ever_ should attend. If
they go, they are thrust into obscure, remote and unseemly pens or
boxes, as if they were not embraced in the offers of redeeming love, and
were indeed a part of the brute creation. It is an awful commentary upon
the pride of human nature. I never can look up to these scandalous
retreats for my colored brethren, without having my soul overwhelmed
with emotions of shame, indignation and sorrow. No black man, however
virtuous, respectable or pious he may be, can own or occupy a pew in a
central part of any of our houses of worship. And yet it is
reproachfully alleged--by a clergyman, too!--that 'if we visit the
sanctuaries which are _open to all_ (!) to worship, and to hear the word
of God, we shall not find them there'! No--I hope they will respect
themselves and the religion of Jesus more, than to occupy the places
alluded to.

[T] Francis Devany, the colored sheriff of Liberia, is reputed by
colonizationists to be worth property to the value of twenty-five
thousand dollars; and they have trumpeted the fact all over the country,
and so repeatedly as almost to lead one to imagine that he is the
greatest and wealthiest man in all the world! James Forten, the
reputable colored sail-maker of Philadelphia,--a gentleman of highly
polished manners and superior intelligence,--with whom Devany worked as
a journeyman, can _buy him out_ three or four times over. Joseph Cassey,
another estimable and intelligent man of color, or the widow of Bishop
Allen, both of Philadelphia, can purchase him. I mention their names,
not to extol them, but simply to show, that what begets fame in Liberia
i