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SECTION IV.
THE REPUBLIC OF LIBERIA.
THE great work of African restitution has already begun. Silently and unobtrusively, — like all the great doings of the Divine One — and almost un-observed by many and by most, has the work been steadily going on, now for nearly forty years. It had, like all great things, a small beginning. A single benevolent individual, the Rev. Robert Finley, of New Jersey, United States, was the first who conceived (or at least, the first actively to carry into execution) a plan for restoring the negroes in America to the land of their fathers. "For years," says an interesting writer, "this eminent Christian had viewed the condition of the free colored population in the United States with sympathizing interest, and the whole vigor of his intellect was aroused to form plans for their relief. Among the exiled children of Africa, this good man saw not merely the heirs to a temporal but to an eternal existence; not those possessing merely the virtues of natural and social affection, but also capacities for the high improvements and joys of an immortal state. Early in the year 1815, he ex-
