This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1885 edition. Excerpt: ... chapter xxxi. encouragements to labor. From the experiment already made in the colony of Sierra Leone, we are fully warranted in the assertion that missionaries have a great influence over that people for good, and that they may do much to elevate them from a state of degradation to a state of moral purity. True, there yet remains much to be done where missionaries have operated for years; but is there not also much to be done yet among the people of this country, who have heard the gospel, and have had its restraining and purifying influences thrown around them from childhood? Some half-hearted religionists, and wicked persons who neither fear God nor regard the rights of man, there will be, in despite of all that Christianity can do to prevent it. Were all the clergymen of Ohio to concentrate their efforts in one county, and were they all much better men than most of them now are, still some of the people of that county would live and die in sin. Paul understood this; and hence, when he had planted a church and fully declared the whole gospel in one place he went to another; and thus he continued to go about much of his time, kindling up the glorious light of the gospel that men might be saved if they would. The argument that we have sinners enough at home, "stay here and preach instead of going to Africa," is worth nothing at all. True, we must keep up the institutions of Christianity at home, or in a few centuries we should be what the Africans are now in point of moral degradation; but we must also do our duty in sending the gospel to those who have it not. "We should be encouraged in the prosecution of this work, First: From the success which has attended the labors of those who have been and are still employed in it. In the colony...