On my return to St. Thomas, I was apprenticed to the tailoring business, with a provision allowing me to attend school in the morning and the shop in the afternoon, and so continued for five years.

In 1845, Rev. John P. Knox, now pastor of a Presbyterian Church at Newtown, Long Island, came to St. Thomas and took charge of the Reformed Dutch Church. With others of my companions I became a member of a Bible-class under his instruction, and thus was formed a friendship which was of great benefit to me, and gave a turn to all my life. I was fond of composition and often indulged myself in attempts in that way. I was accustomed to take copious notes of his sermons, which especially attracted his attention, and led him to encourage me to prepare for the ministry, after I had formally joined his church, in which I had been baptized and brought up.

In 1850, when Mrs. Knox was about to return to the United States he encouraged me to come also, with the hope of securing for me admission to one of the colleges in this country. I found, however, the deep-seated prejudice against my race, exercising so controlling an influence in the institutions of learning, that admission to them was almost impossible.

Discouraged by the difficulties in my path, I proposed to return to St. Thomas, and abandon the hope of an education, when I received from Mrs. Knox a letter so full of interest in my welfare, and so urgent that I should still strive to become fitted for usefulness in the Christian ministry, and render my life useful to Africa, that I relinquished my purpose of returning to my parents. I decided to accept of the offer of the New-York Colonization Society to furnish me a passage to Liberia, in hopes to enjoy the advantages of the Alexander High School, then beginning its noble work, at Monrovia, the capital of the Republic.

By the Liberia packet from Baltimore, December 21, 1850, I was safely conveyed to the continent of my fathers and my race, reaching Monrovia, January 26, 1851. Arriving in Liberia, an entire stranger, without a single letter of introduction, I was received with great kindness by the people. Especially do I remember the cordial welcome and hospitable treatment extended to me by Mr. B. V. R. James and his family.

After a slight acclimation, I was, by the kindness of the Presbyterian Missionary Board, accepted as a student in the Alexander High School under charge of Rev. David A. Wilson, who care

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fully instructed me and others of my class-mates in Latin and Greek, as well as the usual lessons in Geography and Mathematics. The Hebrew language, not being embraced in the course of studies in the Alexander High School, I took up the study of it myself, and devoted for some time all my leisure hours to it; being anxious to read the entire Scriptures in the original languages, especially those passages of the Old Testament which have reference to the African race.

Three years after my admission to the school, during a visit for his health which Mr. Wilson made to the United States, I was placed in charge of some of the classes. While thus engaged in my first efforts at teaching, I was appointed by President Roberts, Editor of the Liberia Herald, which, without allowing it to interfere with my duties in the school, I conducted for one year.

After the return of Mr. Wilson, I continued to assist him from time to time as his health seemed to require it; and, in 1858, on his retirement, on account of the illness of his family, I was placed in full charge of the Alexander High School, where I continued teaching until 1861, when I was elected Professor of Greek and Latin in Liberia College.

It was under the ministry of Rev. Mr. Knox in St. Thomas, that I made a profession of religion. Ever looking forward to the ministry, I was finally, after the usual examinations, licensed and ordained by the Presbytery of West-Africa, in the year 1858.

In the early part of 1861, in order to recruit my impaired health, I made a visit to England and Scotland; thence I went to Canada, visited Niagara Falls, and spent a few weeks in the United States. While in England I was privileged to form the personal acquaintance of Lord Brougham, to whom I had the honor of presenting a walking-cane on behalf of the young men of Liberia; of Right Honorable W. E. Gladstone, and Rev. Henry Melvill, Principal of East-India College. With these gentlemen I had previously been in correspondence from Liberia. I was also shown great hospitality and kindness by Samuel Gurney, Esq., M.P., Gerard Ralston, Esq., and Thomas Hodgkin, M.D., of London, and by Rev. Drs. Guthrie and Johnston, of Edinburgh. By the last-named gentleman I had the honor of being presented to the United Presbyterian Synod, then in session in Edinburgh, at the same time that Rev. Dr. George B. Cheever of New-York City was introduced.

The Presbytery of West-Africa during their session, December,

1860, elected me their Commissioner to the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church, (O. S.,) in the United States, which met in the city of Philadelphia, in May, 1861, but my delay in Europe prevented my enjoying the privilege of being the first black representative from Africa in that distinguished body.

Returning to Liberia in the autumn of the year, I was induced to accept the appointment from the Government, as Commissioner to the descendants of Africa in the United States and the WestIndies, to give information of Liberia, and invite them to a home in that country. In the prosecution of this mission, I arrived in this country, via England, in the month of May last.

The reader will see in this brief record, the kind leadings of that Providence which, from an obscure condition, in a distant island, has taken me on to my present position, without any special merit of my own. Friends and helpers have arisen in all my path, to all of whom I am a debtor for unmerited kindness, and whom I shall not cease to remember with gratitude while life lasts.

I ought not to close without adding a few words about my home in Africa. After twelve years' residence there, I have this summer made a filial visit to my aged mother, to feel once more her warm embrace. I found a most cordial welcome and unexpected honors among my former friends. The New-York Colonization Journal for October makes the following note of my visit to St. Thomas:

HONORED AT HIS HOME.

We learn that Professor Blyden, of the Liberia College, who is a native of St. Thomas, and, after an absence of twelve years in Liberia, has this summer been to visit his mother and friends, was received with very great respect and kindness. He filled the pulpit of the Dutch Church at St. Thomas, frequently, and always had crowded audiences.

His official character as a Commissioner of Liberia, to make known the advantages for honor and usefulness which that Republic presented, enhanced the interest with which his modest circular, setting forth with brevity the facts in the case, was received. Hundreds there and in the Tortugas Islands expressed a desire to emigrate to Liberia, to participate in its privileges, and partake of its noble duties toward Africa. A few were so much in earnest as to start at once. We proposed to quote several articles from the St. Thomas Tidende, but the papers have been borrowed and not returned in time. The young men of St. Thomas made a fund, and publicly presented Mr. Blyden with a tangible evidence of their regard, in the form of a silver flower-vase and plate, and other useful articles, of which we find the following brief notice in the Tidende, August 23d:

TESTIMONIAL TO REV. E. W. BLYDEN.

"We learn that on the evening of the twenty-second instant, a deputation of gentlemen waited on Rev. Edward W. Blyden, at his residence, and presented to him, on behalf of a large number of his fellow-townsmen, a very valuable testimonial, accompanied with a beautifully written address, expressive of the great pleasure which his visit to his native land has generally afforded, and of the warm appreciation felt by his countrymen of his efforts in the sacred cause of Africa's evangelization and regeneration. We trust that the presence in our town of the reverend gentleman may act as a stimulus upon his former associates and acquaintances, urging them to attempt great things for the outraged land with whose interests he has identified himself, and which is now attracting so largely the attention of the civilized world. It is gratifying to us to know that our little Island has furnished one to take a part in the great work of opening Africa to civilization, to which savans and philanthropists are hastening from Europe and America to devote themselves."

A society was formed called the "St. Thomas Liberia Association," composed of the most prominent men of the island, who at once raised a fund and forwarded to the United States fifty dollars, to purchase maps, books, and periodicals concerning Liberia. It must be most gratifying to Professor Blyden to receive such tokens of hearty good-will and high appreciation from the people of his early home.

My heart is in Liberia, and longs for the welfare of Africa. An African nationality is the great desire of my soul. I believe nationality to be an ordinance of nature; and no people can rise to an influential position among the nations without a distinct and efficient nationality. Cosmopolitism has never effected any thing, and never will, perhaps, till the millennium. God has "made of one blood all nations of men," but he has also "determined the bounds of their habitation."

Liberia is a beautiful tropical country, teeming with the rich fruits of a perpetual summer, with mountains and valleys, and rivers and brooks, "well-watered every where as the garden of the Lord." In all these respects she can scarcely be surpassed.

Her civil, political, religious and social advantages, however, are her chief attraction. No community can have more perfect religious liberty. Republican government is nowhere more thoroughly carried out. No social disadvantage is felt by any descendant of Africa on account of color. The moment a colored man from America lands in Liberia, he finds the galling chains of caste falling from his soul, and he can stand erect, and feel and realize that he is indeed a man.

For myself and children I desire no wider field of labor and no greater privileges than I enjoy in that country. And could my

voice reach every descendant of Africa in America, I would say to him: "Come away from the land of caste and oppression, to the freedom of our young Republic!" Come help us build up a Nationality in Africa.

The reader, I trust, will pardon the seeming egotism of this narrative, inseparable from the very nature of the composition, and be lenient to this "Offering" from Liberia.

New-York, October 21, 1862.

EDWARD W. BLYDEN.