ber and understand. This will quicken attention, fix what is
understood, and detect what is wanting.
To carry on this course, meet them twice on Sabbath and once in the week
if possible. But do not claim too much of their Sunday leisure, or they
will shun you.
"5th. To gain their confidence and love, sympathize with their innocent
feelings, talk to them privately, preserve a mild dignity without
contemning their ignorance and degradation. Have all patience with them.
"6th. Do nothing without the master's consent. Teach them what Paul
directed slaves to do and be; but beware of pressing these duties too
strongly and frequently, lest you beget the fatal suspicion that you are
but executing a selfish scheme of the white man to make them better
slaves, rather than to make them Christ's freemen. If they suspect this,
you labour in vain."
Another says, "On the modes of communicating a saving knowledge of
Divine Truth to the coloured population, best suited to their genius,
habits, and condition, we must remember that oral instruction is the
kind of instruction alone that is universally allowed in slaveholding
States. Hence the question with us will be, in what mode can oral
instruction be best communicated?
"I answer, 1st. Nothing can take the place of competent, qualified
ministers or missionaries; men exclusively devoted to the work, who
shall make it their lifetime labour and study, to whom adequate support
must be given. The church is as much bound to furnish and support such
missionaries, as missionaries to any other heathen people in the world.
"2d. Their labours must be at churches or convenient stations on the
Sabbath; and from plantation to plantation during the week. Plantation
meetings are scarcely exceeded in utility by Sabbath or any other kind
of meetings, and therefore should be vigorously prosecuted. As a general
rule none should attend but residents on the estates where they are
held.
"3d. In addition to the preaching of the gospel, classes of instruction
should be formed, embracing in the first division, adults; and in the
second, children and youth. Special instruction should also be given to
those who are members of the church, and those who are applying for
admission. Let hasty admissions be avoided.
"4th. The manner of communicating instruction should be plain and
familiar; fully within their comprehension; without coarseness or
levity; and with fervour. In the earlier stages of instruct
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