But there was one cause to which he was so particularly devoted that it deserves a special notice. It was, perhaps, his favorite cause. We refer to African Colonization. Of the American Colonization Society, he was certainly one of the earliest supporters, if not original founders. In connexion with his most intimate friend, the Rev. William Meade, now senior Bishop of our church, in Virginia, he traveled and labored much for it. Both of them, in common with all pious men in their two States, deplored the existence of slavery as a mighty evil. But, as near observers of the difficulties and dangers connected with it, they saw no public instrument with which they could work hopefully, safely, legally, or scripturally, but African colonization. And if ever man was a true friend to the African race, that man was Francis Scott Key. Through out his own region of country, he was proverbially the colored man's friend. He was their standing gratuitous advocate in courts of justice, pressing their rights to the extent of the law, and ready to brave odium or even personal danger in their behalf. We could give instances of his courageous benevolence, which would place his friendship for them beyond the doubts of the most sceptical. For he was

A man of true courage-courage for good, never for evil. And in doing good, or in the discharge of duty, he feared God:-he did not fear the face of man. But he was not rude. His manners were those of a polished christian gentleman; and, although adverse to frivolity, he was hospitable, cheerful, and social. His colloquial powers were as vivid as his powers of oratory.

To speak of him as a husband, father, son, brother, and friend, would be too severe a tax upon feeling. His removal is felt as a sore bereavement by many hearts far beyond his own family circle. But he is gone! The places which knew him once, shall know him no more! And yet he was a man of so much life, that we find it hard to realize his death! But although his bright eye is closed, and his once active limbs are now still, his spirit lives-lives in that heavenly home which he had in his poetic vision when he penned a sweet simple parody, which concludes with these lines:

"O! holy and sweet its rest shall be there,

Free forever from sorrow, from sin, and from care;
And the loud hallelujahs of angels shall rise,
To welcome the soul to its home in the skies!

Home, home-home of the soul;

For the bosom of God is the home of the soul."

Friends and hearers: fix your eye upon the same heavenly home! To business men, and especially members of the legal profession, who plead their cares and temptations as an excuse for not entering on the way of life, we say, be encouraged by his example to turn your steps heavenward. Few men were, to human appearance, more unfavorably circumstanced for a pious life; few had stronger inward impulses to con trol, or a thicker array of outward temptations to encounter. But in simple dependence upon grace, he went forward; and although he passed through some deep waters and fierce flames, he came off conqueror, and more than conqueror, through him that loved him! Follow him, as he followed Christ.

P. S. The services were concluded with the following hymn, (the 150th,) written, it is believed, by the deceased:

1. “Lord, with glowing heart I'd praise thee,
For the bliss thy love bestows;

For the pardoning grace that saves me,
And the peace that from it flows.
Help, O Lord, my weak endeavor;
This dull soul to rapture raise:
Thou must light the flame, or never

Can my love be warmed to praise.

2. "Praise, my soul, the God that sought thee,
Wretched wand'rer, far astray;

Found thee lost, and kindly brought thee
From the paths of death away;
Praise with love's devoutest feeling,
Him who saw thy guilt-born fear,
And the light of hope revealing,

Bade the blood-stained cross appear.

3. "Lord, this bosom's ardent feeling
Vainly would my lips express:
Low before thy footstep kneeling,

Deign thy suppliant's prayer to bless:
Let thy grace, my soul's chief treasure,
Love's pure flame within me raise;
And since words can never measure,

Let my life show forth thy praise."

SPEECH OF THE REV. C. W. ANDREWS, AT THE ANNUAL MEETING OF THE SOCIETY.

The views expressed in the following able speech, especially in regard to securing exact and full statistical information from Liberia, deserve, and will receive, the special attention of the committee. The Governor of the Colony is instructed to furnish such information at the earliest possible period.

The REV. C. W. ANDREWS offered the following Resolution:

Resolved, That, for the better information of the public, the Executive Committee be requested to procure by the next annual meeting, and earlier if practicable, a census of the Colony, embracing its geographical extent and political organization, the number of inhabitants, their age, sex and professions, health, and the extent of their education; the number of original settlers who were free born, and the number who were emanci pated with a view to colonization, with the States from which they have respectively emigrated; full statistical accounts of agriculture and commerce; the institutions for intellectual, social and religious improvement; with an exact statement of pauperism and crime; together, also, with such facts as may illustrate the influence of the Colony, upon the contiguous native tribes.

I am aware, said Mr. A., that we have already a considerable amount of information on many of the points embraced in the resolution and that it is sufficiently authenticated for those who are familiar with the history of the colony. It has not however been

presented to the public in the manner best calculated to meet objection. And I am not so sanguine as to suppose that when all the information here contemplated shall be before us in statistical form it will prove Liberia to be a paradise, or that there are there no hard times, no negroes who are poor, or ignorant, or indolent, or vicious. But I do expect (and the expectation is founded in part upon my own correspondence in the colony) that the whole truth will show that this Society well deserves the confidence of all the friends of the African race.

It has been the misfortune of the institution thus far to have had too much of seed time and too little of harvest to meet an eager, impatient philanthropy, or satisfy that passion for immediate results which characterizes the age.

There are comparatively few who feel no discontent in planting a scion whose earliest blossoms they scarcely expect they will live to see. Such is the work which the Colonization Society has undertaken. It has deposited a seed in the earth, has watered and nourished it with care, satisfied that distant ages shall gather its maturest fruits and nations yet unborn sit under the shadow of its branches.

scope and For

It is not to be forgotten that all benevolent enterprizes, the seat of whose operations has been in a foreign land, have met their most serious hindrances in the beginning, and not unfrequently, those ultimately the most prosperous have been without visible success for as long a period as this Society has existed. See the history of Plymouth, Jamestown, the Sandwich Islands and the missionary operations in South Africa and India. Yet in some of these cases impatience began to call for the number of converts before there had been time to learn languages. This institution had peculiar obstacles to contend with. It undertook to found a christian state upon the most barbarous and inhospitable shore that is washed by the Atlantic-and in a climate which in the very beginning proved fatal to its best agency. It was early shut up by Providence to the use of very defective materials, defective in the elements of character, the want of which, in the free people of color first awakened compassion in their behalf. This which Mr. Buxton charges upon the Society as a fault was a matter of necessity, and in fact, the primary article of its constitution contemplates this as the evil to be remedied. On this simple ground, the condition of the negroes who are free, the Society might reasonably expect general ympathy and co-operation. Here is " verge" enough for the charities of one institution if it looked to nothing more. surely it must move a generous mind to see a numerous people, by no fault of their own, in a social condition where no amount of worth can be a passport to honor, to see them shunned by those who may be their inferiors in every virtue, shut out on account of a physical dissimilarity [and as vigorously in the free states as elsewhere] from the hope of ever attaining by real worth a station of respectability. Even the refinement which a few obtain is scarcely a blessing, inasmuch by increasing their sensibility it causes them to feel more keenly the disparagement cast upon them. Of that state beyond any other within our knowledge, may it be said that ignorance is bliss, where knowledge only enables its subject to perceive more clearly the line of immutable distinction which separates him from those who possess the most desirable blessings of human life, while the future holds out nothing in prospect to him but a fruitless struggle to obtain them, one protracted and continuous defeat. To improve the condition of such a people is the work of this Society by its constitution. It appeals to every generous mind for support. The blessing of mere emancipation is nothing when compared with the change which this Society seeks to effect in the state of the free.

But if an appeal to the constitution is insufficient to secure confidence, we ask a judgment of her from her acts under that constitution. The Society has been variously charged, with with being for abolition and for slavery; simply because it has been for

neither. The causes are obvious. In the early stages of the enterprize it was joined by some at the south under the expectation that it would prove a shield to the institution of slavery. But such as were actuated by no other motive shortly discovered their mistake and withdrew; while pecuniary aid from such was feeble, their advocacy was not unfrequently prejudicial.

Others again joined the Society at the north under the apprehension of its being an abolition society and used their utmost industry to induce it to undertake a war upon slavery. Failing, these again witl.drew and became its strenuous opposers. And so it has been the fortune of the Society to be left to those who hold to its original objects. By these in fact it has ever been controlled and can triumphantly appeal to its acts and monuments as in strict accordance with its constitution. And for the time to come, if there be those who think that in any movement for the free people of color the interests of the slave-holder are first to be consulted, they will not find this institution congenial with their views, and it will probably have still fewer attractions with those who think it their first duty to engage in a crusade against slavery. But to those who feel that they owe a debt to Africa and the colored race, and are willing to discharge that debt where they can, though not to the extent they would—to such as are willing to extend their charities to those within their reach, and complete the emancipation of the free by taking them from the still galling bondage of circumstances and opinions, and placing them where they shall be absolutely without let or hindrance in a national career, where by their own intelligence, wealth, independence and national power they may oblige the world to respect them, and thus wield an influence for the benefit of their whole race which all other friends might attempt in vain, and to those who are willing to walk toward this object when they cannot run, we say that this Society presents the noblest field for philanthropic enterprize-the most comprehensive and practicable scheme of good (in our view) before the American people, and until something better can be shown in the same line, the most obligatory.

Facts are not now wanting to substantiate the Society's claims to patronage, and should this resolution be adopted we shall soon have the vouchers. Where in the great charities of the age have there been more encouraging results? If we compare the amount of means employed with the results obtained in a civil point of view, history may be challenged in vain for a like example of success. Upon the expenditure of some four or five hundred thousand dollars by the Parent Board there has been purchased in Africa a territory, equal in extent, to the state of Maryland. Considerable tracts have been settled, cleared of trees, tigers and pirates and reduced to cultivation. Emigrants have been transported, towns and villages settled, trade established, churches and school-houses erected, and lyceums, libraries and printing presses have been founded. For this small sum with partial assistance from other sources, the Society can show an independent community of the negro race, a small republic more entitled to respect and of being regarded as a model of imitation for their whole race, than any other community of the same race in existence.

It must be admitted also that the Society has done something in demonstrating the capabilities of the negro. We recollect well when, it was extensively objected that there was a constitutional thriftlessness in the negro character which would render all attempts to fit them for self-government abortive, an objection which perhaps might have been sufficiently answered by the historical fact, that we ourselves are descendants of a race, whom the ancient Romans accounted too dull and brutish for slaves, as appears in the advice of Cicero to his friend by no means to procure his slaves from Britain, as they were too stupid, too utterly incapable of being taught, to form a part of the household of Atticus.

But there is yet another point of surpassing interest in the Society's operations-her essential aid in the extension of christianity in Western Africa. This has been often set forth and cannot be too highly valued. Without the protection of a foreign power, christian missions have never been sustained there. The Moravian whom neither the terrors of an Arctic winter nor the pestilential heats of the burning zone, nor the brutal manners of the heathen could intimidate, attempted in the spirit of the martyrs, at sixteen different points, to plant the standard of the cross in Western Africa and in every instance either perished in the attempt or was compelled to retire within the protection of the English settlements. Within and near our colonies there are now between sixty and seventy missionaries (including teachers who to some extent are to be regarded in that light) laboring without opposition. Through an interest which this Society has had no small share in awakening, christians in different parts of the world have embarked in the avowed enterprize of converting the whole of Central Africa to the christian faith. It is impossible that the facts which invite to this enterprize, through colonization, can long fail to produce their rightful effect. And unless we greatly err we now perceive the dawn of a brighter day for Africa. There are indications too plain to be mistaken that—whether through this particular organization or not-the objects which the Society has in view and in furtherance of which she has met so many difficulties are shortly to be undertaken upon a larger scale. Sympathy for Africa is daily increasing. The voice of those who have the power to execute their will is heard distinctly, saying the slave tra le shall cease. The eyes of every missionary organiza tion in Europe and America are turned to Africa. For her the charities of Christendom are being stirred to their foundation. Deep calleth unto deep, and nation vies with nation in schemes to do her good.

Permit me to allude briefly in conclusion, to the importance of the statistics called for in the resolution, in order to a good understanding of our affairs abroad, which the Society, well regarded, as of such consequence as to justify a special mission to England. Of the operations of our Secretary in that service, I had the opportunity of knowing something upon the spot, and surely the alvocate for amalgamation had never more reason to complain of the tyranny of prejudice than he. The Society's plans were made known to the English public through the press, by correspondence with persons in high places, and in public in setings. Its character was triumphantly vindicated from the aspersions cast upon it from abroad. Its strong clains to confilence were urged, and even its substantial identity with their own favorite scheme of" Civilization" made to appear. In the partial hearing obtained for the cause in public debate, it was the almost unanimous judgment of audiences, pre-disposed to decide against it, that it was worthy of all confilence. In the published correspondence with Sir Thomas Fowell Buxton it was perfectly manifest that the Baronet had been out-argued by the Secre. tary; and wherever prejudice yielded so far as to hear, conviction took place. But as a general thing the people would neither argue nor hear. An agency which had exerted itself for a number of years with desperate activity, had created the impression in the minds of a majority of those who had been accustomed to take an interest in questions of this sort, that colonization (whatever might be its theory) was a practical hindrance to their all-absorbing project of inmediate abolition, and right or wrong it was to be prostrated and taken out of the way, lest by chance it should clog the wheels of this new car of reform. Argie and demonstrate, as you might, its fate had been settled by the world's convention-" Delendi est Carthago."

This torrent of preju lice was met and partially turned back by the Secretary; and had he been able to meet the English passion for statistics, he would have been more successful. Could all the facts connected with our colony be placed before the people of England, in an official shape, we of course, cannot doubt their favorable judgment.