Lastly, in reference to the state of Religion in Liberia, it is interesting to see how early and how deeply the religious spirit seemed to influence the colonists, giving to the "Pilgrims of Mesurado" (as they have been called), as it did to the Pilgrim Fathers of New England, their strength and power of endurance, their wisdom, and their final prosperity. "The cause of religion in the colony," says Mr. Freeman, "seems always to have been an object of much solicitude on the part of the Colonization Society. The churches are generally well supplied with respectable and faithful ministers. In all these churches there are Sunday schools established, to which the most promising young people in the colony have attached them~ selves either as teachers or as scholars. I have," he says, "in a pamphlet before me, printed in Monrovia, the ‘Minutes of the first Convention of the Liberia Baptist Association,’ by which it appears that there are in the colony six Baptist churches, comprising about 220 members. These ‘Minutes’ represent the Baptist churches as in a flourishing condition; and the proceedings of the Convention, and their circular to the churches, evince talent, judgment, and piety, of a very respectable order. Here is an extract from their ‘Minutes’:
"‘Princes shall come out of Egypt, Ethiopia shall soon stretch out her hands unto God’ — is the prediction of a holy prophet, uttered ages antecedent to the advent of the Messiah. And when we reflect on the midnight darkness which, from time immemorial, has shrouded this portion of Africa, we hail with rapture the first dawning of that glorious gospel-day, which is
