All these great purposes are now beginning to be accomplished. As wisely remarked by Dr. Beecher, God is not in haste to accomplish His designs. No!
Harris, in a letter addressed to his colored friends: — "The desire and yearning of our soul," he says, "is for an African nationality. I want a people that shall have a tangible, separate existence of its own, and where am I to look for it? Not in Hayti; for in Hayti they had nothing to start with: a stream cannot rise above its fountain. The race that formed the character of the Haytians was a worn out, effeminate one; and, of course. the subject race will be centuries in rising to anything. Where, then, shall I look? On the shores of Africa I see a Republic — a Republic formed of picked men, who, by energy and self-educating force, have, in many cases, raised themselves above a condition of slavery. Having gone through a preparatory stage of feebleness, this Republic has at last become an acknowledged nation on the face of the earth — acknowledged both by France and England. There it is my wish to go, and find myself a people.
"I am aware, now, that I shall have you all against me. But before you strike, hear me. During my stay in France, I have followed up, with intense interest, the history of my people in America. I have noted the struggle between Abolitionist and Colonizationist, and have received some impressions, as a distant spectator, which could never have occurred to me as a participator. I grant that this Liberia may have subserved all sorts of purposes, by being played off, in the hands of our oppressors, against us. Doubtless the scheme may have been used, in unjustifiable ways, as a means of retarding our emancipation. But the question to me is — Is there not a God above all man's schemes? May He not have overruled their designs, and founded for us a nation by them? In these days a nation is born in a day. A nation starts now, with all the great problems of republican life and civilization wrought out to its hand; it has not to discover, but only to apply. Let us, then, all take hold together with all our might, and see what we can do with this new enterprise; and the whole splendid continent of Africa opens before us and our children. Our nation shall roll the tide of civilization and Christianity along its shores, and plant there mighty republics, that, growing with the rapidity of tropical vegetation, shall be for all coming ages." — Uncle Tom's Cabin, chap. xliii.
These wishes seem to be now undergoing their accomplishment. A Cincinnati paper, of July 11, 1860, says: "The Africans of the United
