Page:A memoir of Granville Sharp.djvu/81

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GRANVILLE SHARP.
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many more people in Persia, than in the United States; and if numbers made nature, the United States are despicable; for the numerous Persians despised them!!!

Mungo Park, when on the point of perishing, was compassionated by a poor African, and generously lodged and entertained in his hut. The African's wife was terrified by the entrance of the pale-faced stranger, and getting out of the door as fast as she civilly could, ran off, screaming, "the devil!—the devil!" Was her feeling right? Yet she had much reason to believe white people devils; and she had not the scriptures, or science, or the preaching of the gospel, to teach her the glorious fact, that "God hath made of one blood, all the nations of the earth;" and that that poor, unprotected, emaciated, unintroduced, except by his miseries, pale-faced stranger, was her brother, whom she was bound to honor and to love. Besides, it is calculated, that there are about one hundred and fifty millions of people in Africa, while there are only about twelve millions of pale-faced ones (or rather called pale-faced ones, since they are of many colors,) in the United States, and any child therefore, who understands the single rule of three, can tell, that Africa has more than twelve times a better right to settle what "nature's" feelings are, than the people of the United States have; and that, therefore, by twelve odds to one, all really pale-faced people are devils! Then surely, abundant means of knowing better, do not render proud and cruel notions, less criminal or less absurd!

This color-phobia; this distinguishing characteristic of the United States, from which all other civilized people are free, was the precursor and the source, and is the support of the Colonization Society. It existed long before that society was organized—but it was comparatively insulated in individual bosoms, and was proportionably feeble. The Colonization Society is simply, its embodying and disciplining—and the difference is, that it now has the power of union. "Go to Africa," it says to the outraged class—hated and spurned because they are outraged; "go to Africa, and we will do all we can to make you happy. But this

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