of the other chiefs at Monrovia for his trial on the 14th, and returned home with his prisoners.  At the time appointed, the trial was held, Boombo was found guilty of ‘high misdemeanor’ and sentenced ’to make restitution, restoration, and reparation of goods stolen, people captured, and damages committed:  to pay a fine of five hundred dollars, and be imprisoned for two years.’  When the sentence was pronounced, the convict shed tears, regarding the ingredient of imprisonment in his sentence to be almost intolerable.  These rigorous measures, adopted to maintain the authority of the government and majesty of the laws, have had a salutary influence upon the chiefs.  No outbreaks have since occurred, and but little apprehension of danger for the future is entertained."[114]

The republic did a vast amount of good before the Great Rebellion in the United States, but since emancipation its population has been fed by the natives who have been educated and converted to Christianity.  Professor David Christy, the great colonizationist, said in a lecture delivered in 1855,—­

“If, then, a colony of colored men, beginning with less than a hundred, and gradually increasing to nine thousand, has in thirty years established an independent republic amidst a savage people, destroyed the slave-trade on six hundred miles of the African coast, put down the heathen temples in one of its largest counties, afforded security to all the missions within its limits, and now casts its shield over three hundred thousand native inhabitants, what may not be done in the next thirty years by colonization and missions combined, were sufficient means supplied to call forth all their energies?”

The circumstances that led to the founding of the Negro Republic in the wilds of Africa perished in the fires of civil war.  The Negro is free everywhere; but the republic of Liberia stands, and should stand until its light shall have penetrated the gloom of Africa, and until the heathen shall gather to the brightness of its shining.  May it stand through the ages as a Christian Republic, as a faithful light-house along the dark and trackless sea of African paganism!

FOOTNOTES: 

[106] Ethiope, p. 197.

[107] Foreign Travel and Life at Sea, vol. ii. p. 359.

[108] Bishop Scott’s Letter in the Colonization Herald, October, 1853.

[109] In Methodist Missionary Advocate, 1853.

[110] Gammell’s History of the American Baptist Missions, pp. 248, 249.

[111] Edward W. Blyden, L.L.D., president of Liberia College, a West Indian, is a scholar of marvellous erudition, a writer of rare abilities, a subtle reasoner, a preacher of charming graces, and one of the foremost Negroes of the world.  He is himself the best argument in favor of the Negro’s capacity for Christian civilization.  He ranks amongst the world’s greatest linguists.