wo
missionaries are employed. The Report affirms that public opinion in
South Carolina is decidedly in favor of the religious instruction of
slaves, and that it has become far more general and systematic than
formerly. It also claims a great degree of success to have attended the
labors of the missionaries."

The Report of the Missionary Board, of the Louisiana Conference, of the
Methodist Episcopal Church, 1855, says:[75]

"It is stated upon good authority, that the number of colored members in
the Church South, exceeds that of the entire membership of all the
Protestant missions in the world. What an enterprise is this committed
to our care! The position we, of the Methodist Church South, have taken
for the African, has, to a great extent, cut us off from the sympathy of
the Christian Church throughout the world; and it behooves us to make
good this position in the sight of God, of angels, of men, of churches,
and to our own consciences, by presenting before the throne of His glory
multitudes of the souls of these benighted ones abandoned to our care,
as the seals of our ministry. Already Lousiana promises to be one vast
plantation. Let us--we must gird ourselves for this Heaven-born
enterprise of supplying the pure gospel to the slave. The great question
is, How can the greatest number be preached to?--The building roadside
chapels is as yet the best solution of it. In some cases planters build
so as to accommodate adjoining plantations, and by this means the
preacher addresses three hundred or more slaves, instead of one hundred
or less. Economy of this kind is absolutely essential where the labor of
the missionary is so much needed and demanded.

"On the Lafourche and Bayou Black Missionwork, several chapels are in
process of erection, upon a plan which enables the slave, as his master,
to make an offering towards building a house of God. Instead of money,
the hands subscribe labor. Timber is plenty; many of the servants are
carpenters. Upon many of the plantations are saw mills. Here is much
material; what hindereth that we should build a church on every tenth
plantation? Let us maintain our policy steadily. Time and diligence are
required to effect substantial good, especially in this department of
labor. Let us continue to ask for buildings adapted to the worship of
God, and set apart; to urge, when practicable, the preaching to blacks
in the presence of their masters, their overseers, and the neighbors
gener