was colonized by as wise, judicious and educated men as the world afforded.  WILLIAM PENN did not want for learning, wisdom, or intelligence.  If all the people in Europe and America were as ignorant, and in the same situation as our brethren, what would become of the world? where would be the principle or piety that would govern the people?  We were stolen from our mother country, and brought here.  We have tilled the ground and made fortunes for thousands, and still they are not weary of our services. But they who stay to till the ground must be slaves. Is there not land enough in America, or ’corn enough in Egypt?’ Why should they send us into a far country to die?  See the thousands of foreigners emigrating to America every year:  and if there be ground sufficient for them to cultivate, and bread for them to eat; why would they wish to send the first tillers of the land away?  Africans have made fortunes for thousands, who are yet unwilling to part with their services; but the free must be sent away, and those who remain must be slaves.  I have no doubt that there are many good men who do not see as I do, and who are for sending us to Liberia; but they have not duly considered the subject—­they are not men of colour.  This land which we have watered with our tears and our blood, is now our mother country, and we are well satisfied to stay where wisdom abounds and the gospel is free.”

“RICHARD ALLEN,

“Bishop of the African Methodist Episcopal Church in the
United States.”

I have given you, my brethren, an extract verbatim from the letter of that godly man as you may find it on the aforementioned page of Freedom’s Journal.  I know that thousands and perhaps millions of my brethren in these States, have never heard of such a man as Bishop Allen—­a man whom God many years ago raised up among his ignorant and degraded brethren, to preach Jesus Christ and him crucified to them—­who notwithstanding, had to wrestle against principalities and the powers of darkness to diffuse that gospel with which he was endowed, among his brethren—­but who having overcome the combined powers of devils and wicked men has under God planted a church among us which will be as durable as the foundation of the earth on which it stands.  Richard Allen!  O my God!! the bare recollection of the labours of this man, and his ministers among his deplorably wretched brethren (rendered so by the whites,) to bring them to a knowledge of the God of heaven, fills my soul with all those very high emotions which would take the pen of an Addison to portray.  It is impossible, my brethren, for me to say much in this work respecting that man of God.  When the Lord shall raise up coloured historians in succeeding generations, to present the crimes of this nation to the then gazing world, the Holy Ghost will make them do justice to the name of Bishop Allen, of Philadelphia.  Suffice