the honor and pleasure of visiting, have placed Liberia under many courteous, respectful and friendly obligations, by reason of the attentions and high considerations accorded to the representatives of this Republic during his visits, and for the very unfeigned interest they have manifested for the general success and prosperity of Liberia. With several of those powers treaties have been negotiated this year, which will be presented to the Senate this session for ratification, and others are being negotiated which may arrive timely to secure ratification also at this session. You will permit me to add, that the respectful attention of the civilized powers of the earth is now attracted towards Liberia with more scrutiny and friendly solicitude than ever before; and that our destiny is now under God to a great extent in our own hands; and that I feel sure that the wisdom, moderation, and self-respect, not only of the several Departments of this Government, but of the loyal citizens of this Republic, will fully demonstrate in future, that the Government and people of Liberia were not unworthy of the respect, confidence, and good will of those great civilized Christian nations. It only remains for me to assure the Legislature that I will cordially co-operate with them during their session, in every honorable measure that shall tend to demonstrate and secure this cherished object. STEPHEN A. BENSON. GOVERNMENT HOUSE, MONROVIA, Dec. 5, 1862. ·000 [From the United States Gazette, January [corrected] 14, 1863.] Light is dawning where night, almost primeval, has reigned. There are decided evidences of encouraging progress in the work of Africa's elevation and evangelization. The slave trade is giving way to legitimate commerce. The merchants of England are now organizing a trading company with a capital of one-and-a-quarter million of dollars; and another project representing two-and-a half millions is on foot for general banking operations in Western Africa. A line of monthly steamers has proved successful and profitable, bringing Liverpool in "almost as frequent communication with the interior of Africa, as ten or twelve years ago was had with Constantinople." Surely the vast material resources of this region are being developed. At the same time the Gospel is becoming rooted at various points, and is advancing. AT BATHURST, a recent visitor remarks: "The Wesleyans have a a membership of six hundred, including two preaching places on the mainland, where they have classes, but not many communicants. They have four chapels, fourteen local preachers, seventeen prayer-leaders, and nineteen class-leaders. There is preaching at all their chapels each Lord's day, and at the principal one there are two services every Sabbath. This chapel is built after the European style, and will seat about seven hundred persons." The Episcopal Mission on the Rio Pougas, commenced twelve years ago, has connected with it two clergymen, a daily school of eighty children, and thirtytwo communicants. On Sunday three hundred persons attended religious services. SIERRA LEONE, according to the census taken in 1860, had 11,418 dwellings, with a population of 41,624, of whom 15,782 were liberated Africans, and 22,593 were born in the colony; 3,351 were Pagans, and 1,174 were Mahommedans; 15,180 were Methodists, and 12,954 were Episcopalians; 11,016 children were taught in the schools. The customs receipts have increased to one hundred thousand dollars, and the internal trade is steadily growing, a number of native traders having latterly started in business. In Liberia the citizens and natives are engaging in commercial transactions with diligence and avidity, and are reaping the benefits of enlarged communication, and in many instances amassing wealth. Its rich soil furnishes every tropical product in abundance, with rice, tobacco, sugar, coffee, indigo, and cotton. Forests exist which yield palm oil, camwood, and woods for ship and cabinet purposes. It is rich in metals, the iron-ore being so pure as to be directly and readily worked. This Republic is proving not only a refuge for the American people of color, and for those who are rescued from slave ships by our men-of-war, but a nucleus of civilization and school of Christian teaching. The Methodist Episcopal Mission in Liberia, composed exclusively of colored people, was established in 1832, and is now organized into a Conference, with a Bishop, (Burns,) 19 ordained, and 34 local preachers, 1,383 members, 23 Sunday schools, with 151 teachers, and 927 scholars. The general summary of the Episcopal Mission within the same limits is thus given in the last report of the committee: MISSIONARIES. Foreign, including Bishop, 4. Colonists, 6; native, 1total, 7. Assistants-Foreign, 4; colonist, 3; native, 16-total, 23. Candidates for orders-Colonist, 3; native, 1-total, 4. Baptisms-Infant, colonist, 14; native, 36-total, 50. Adult-Colonist, 4; native, 27-total, 31. Confirmations-total, 61. Ordinations-Priests, foreign, 1; Colonist, 1-total, 2. Deacons, foreign, 2; colonist, 1-total, 3. Communicants-Foreign, 8; colonist, 200; native, 149-total, 357. Scholars-Colonist, boarding, 20; native, boarding, 87-total, 107; colonist, day, 215; native, day and evening; 130-total, 345. Marriages-Colonist, 12; native, 9-total, 21. DeathsColonist, 18; native, 12-total, 30. Contributions-Church building and repairs, about $1,000; missionaries, $355 41; alms, $53 51-total, $1,408 92. Proceeding along the coast, missionaries are zealously operating at many points, among which may be named as occupied by Europeans, Coomassie, Abeokuta, Lagos, and on the Calabar and Niger rivers; and by Americans at Corisco and the Gaboon. Touching the work at the latter named quarter, we are informed by an old laborer: "Foreign influences once hostile are now friendly to our evangelizing efforts. The French free emigration that was robbing us of many of our people, has ceased. Educational efforts are continued, with some hope of raising up gradually a native agency, and the work of translating the Scriptures into the native languages is progressing, and the translations are being read by many who were taught in our schools in past years. Our preaching services are well attended, and in the absence of what may be termed general or powerful revivals, we have frequently been favored with seasons of special religious interest. The success which has attended Christian efforts in Western Africa, mostly put forth within the last thirty years, gives encouraging promise of a glorious future. It is strictly within the bounds of truth to assume that along the west coast of this continent there are one hundred and fifty churches, with twenty thousand hopeful converts; two hundred schools are open, with twenty thousand children under instruction; twenty-five dialects have been mastered, into which portions of the Scriptures and religious tracts and books have been translated and printed; and that some knowledge of the Gospel has reached six millions of debased Africans. From the Gambia to the Gaboon, a distance of two thousand miles, there is, perhaps, not a village where a visitor would not be saluted by the natives in the English language. What is most wanted to extend this elevating process are persons of color as teachers and preachers. Why should there be any lack of supplies, while there are so many competent colored men in the United States who ought to feel an interest in their fatherland? It is the most urgent Missionary field in the world, and the one where alone they can effectively labor. Whites suffer much from disease, while colored men suffer comparatively but little from the climate. Bishop Burns, of the Liberian Methodist Mission, thus speaks from a locality which has so many peculiar attractions for them and their families. "Our field is one of promise. We have the largest church accommodations by far of any denomination in the Republic. The houses are mostly of brick or stone. We gather into them, from Sabbath to Sabbath, the largest congregations. Our educational agencies and influence are proportionably in the lead. Our Sabbath schools swarm with children, Americo-Liberia and native. We ought to be breaking forth on every side; and if we had the men and women we need in sufficient number for the most important points, we should have nothing to arrest our progress. A felicitous combination of circumstances is preparing Africa for her political, moral, and Christian regeneration. Important features in her present condition are the settlements dotted along the western seaboard. How much these have already accomplished may be seen in the instance of Liberia. Forty years ago the slave hunters roamed its territory without hindrance; it is now an independent Republic, acknowledged by and in treaty relationship with the most powerful nations. [From the (Philadelphia) North American, February 12, 1863.] LIBERIA COLLEGE AT MONROVIA. Lord Macaulay jocosely predicted, forty years ago, that in 2824 there will exist at 'Timbuctoo an illustrious University. Like other English predictions, American enterprise and philanthropy are giving it realization almost in the same generation in which it was uttered. The first college in West Africa is founded, and in operation at Monrovia, Republic of Liberia. The main college building is seventy feet long by forty-five feet wide, and three stories in height, erected under the superintendence of Ex-President Roberts, the whole costing twenty thousand dollars. The Legislature of the Republic has granted twenty acres on which the college stands, and as an endowment, one thousand acres of land in each of the four counties of Liberia. A faculty of competent Liberians has been inaugurated, except a professor of mathematics and natural philosophy. This appointment has been delayed only to find a suitable person and means of paying his salary. A black man, of twelve years experience, at the head of a prominent educational institution in Pennsylvania, a graduate of a New England college, and admirally qualified for the position, is willing to make Liberia his permanent home, and to promote the interests of education in that country. But after spending so large a part of the funds in erecting suitable buildings, and pledging the remainder so deeply for the payment of salaries and other expenses, it is considered improper to undertake the support of another professor, without first securing additional resources. The income of an endowment of fifteen thousand dollars would pay a professor's salary and some unavoidable small incidental expenses; while the yield of twenty-five thousand dollars would not only meet these, but purchase books, apparatus, and other facilities for instruction in that department. As Pennsylvania is ready to furnish the professor, it would be a happy circumstance if she should contribute the means to endow a professorship. If the latter cannot be done in a short time, perhaps the friends of the college in this State would secure the payment of the professor's salary annually, for five years. In that case it might be deemed prudent to appoint him, confident by that time the college will be so established, and have such a hold on public interest that there will be no more difficulty about funds. As the salaries are fixed at eight hundred dollars a year, four thousand dollars would just answer the purpose, and no more. A liberal offer has already been made towards the endowment or to meet the salary for five years. If the latter plan, a gentleman of this city, well known for his unostentatious deeds of philanthropy, volunteers to be one of four, each to contribute one thousand dollars to effect this object. We hope this valuable aid will be speedily rendered, and the college of Liberia be enabled to prove of incalculable blessings to a benighted continent, and the fountain for science, literature, and art, and the highest interests of the African race. It is proper to state that the college is managed by Boards of Trustees, in Boston and Monrovia, is incorporated in this country and in Liberia, and is not influenced by sectional or denominational bias. The Pennsylvania Colonization Society are ready to receive, invest, and set apart such sum or sums of money as may be given or bequeathed to it for the college, or for the purposes of education in Liberia. ·000 COLONIZATION SCHEMES. Among the recent projects to colonize the colored people of the United States, the following are worthy of special notice: [Some of these schemes have, we learn, already failed.]--Ed. First. An earnest, formal appeal comes from the Haytien Government, presenting great apparent inducements for them to emigrate to Hayti. A general agent is employed to obtain the desired emigran s, whose compensation is some $20 per capita. A large company are at length induced to go; many of whom die soon after their arrival. Of those who survive, some return to the United States, and others, it is said, are imprisoned for refusing to perform the labor required of them for the wages offered. Second. A certain party claiming to have a large interest in land in Chiriqui, Central America, represents that country as a suitable place to colonize negroes. To effect the proposed settlement, the aid of our Government is solicited for the transportation of emigrants, and for their subsistence and comfort for a given time in their new home; also, $50,000 for mining purposes, to be refunded in coal, which, it was said, could be obtained there in great quantities. The sum of $25,000 was paid from our National Treasury in the prosecution of this scheme, but a remonstrance against the establishment of such a colony from the authorities of New Granada, stopped all further operations in that direction. It stated on good authority that all the claim the party in question had in Chiriqui, was the "right of way" for a railroad, and that there is no coal there worth mining. Third. A man of enterprise leases of the Haytien Government for twenty years the island of A'Vache-a neighboring island, which is said to cover an area of about a hundred square miles. This island, though unhabited, is supposed to contain very valuable timber, and a fertile soil, adapted to all tropical productions. The leaser, of cous, wants "field hands" to cultivate it, and he comes to the United States after negroes, and seeks Governmental aid in the prosecution of his object, and is hopeful of getting |