242
AFRICA AND AMERICA.
times cast the weight of their influence, their voting
power, and eloquence in the scale of humanity, and for
the freedom of the African race.
But the prime cause — the grand agency, which
tended to produce the benign results, now approaching,
was the revived spirit of Religion, acting upon the
heart of England. To this, more than to any other
influence, are the children of Africa indebted for the
glorious gifts and offerings of freedom. England at
this period, was in one of those peculiar religious states,
which she has at various times experienced, when the
mind of her people and of her venerable church, was
aroused to a sense of unworthiness,—to sorrow for
ungratefulness, lukewarmness, and sin,—to a conscious¬
ness of the weight of responsibility and prerogative,
resting upon them, slighted and uncared for; and when
both Church and people started up with the determina¬
tion, to be equal to their responsibilities, to fulfil their
obligations, and to make the poor at home, and the
heathen abroad, participants with themselves, of the
lofty prerogatives of British freemen and the mild
duties of British Christians! And thence commenced
those magnificent schemes of love and mercy, which
have, carried peace, consolation, and blessedness to be¬
nighted men, in almost every quarter of the globe.
Thus renewed and strengthened, the Abolitionists
kept pressing on to the achievement of a glorious
conquest. At every presentation of the question to
Parliament, they were favored with evidences of pro¬
gress, feeble indeed, but not the less clear and indis-
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