rs of his
slaves, aside from the rector of the parish. He read the service and taught
the catechism to all every Sunday afternoon, and taught such as came
voluntarily to be instructed after family prayers on Wednesday nights. His
wife and sons taught the children "constantly during the week," chiefly in
the catechism. On the other hand R.F.W. Allston, a fellow Episcopalian of
Prince George, Winyaw, had on his plantation a place of worship open to all
denominations. A Methodist missionary preached there on alternate Sundays,
and the Baptists were less regularly cared for. Both of these sects,
furthermore, had prayer meetings, according to the rules of the plantation,
on two nights of each week. Thus while Middleton endeavored to school his
slaves in his own faith, Allston encouraged them to seek salvation by such
creed as they might choose.

An Episcopal clergyman in the same parish with Allston wrote that he held
fortnightly services among the negroes on ten plantations, and enlisted
some of the literate slaves as lay readers. His restriction of these to the
text of the prayer book, however, seems to have shorn them of power. The
bulk of the slaves flocked to the more spontaneous exercises elsewhere;
and the clergyman could find ground for satisfaction only in saying that
frequently as many as two hundred slaves attended services at one of the
parish churches in the district.

The Episcopal failure was the "evangelical" opportunity. Of the thirteen
thousand slaves in Allston's parish some 3200 were Methodists and 1500
Baptists, as compared with 300 Episcopalians. In St. Peter's parish a
Methodist reported that in a total of 6600 slaves, 1335 adhered to his
faith, about half of whom were in mixed congregations of whites and blacks
under the care of two circuit-riders, and the rest were in charge of two
missionaries who ministered to negroes alone. Every large plantation,
furthermore, had one or more "so-called negro preachers, but more properly
exhorters." In St. Helena parish the Baptists led with 2132 communicants;
the Methodists followed with 314 to whom a missionary holding services on
twenty plantations devoted the whole of his time; and the Episcopalians as
usual brought up the rear with fifty-two negro members of the church at
Beaufort and a solitary additional one in the chapel on St. Helena island.

Of the progress and effects of religion in the lowlands Allston and
Middleton thought well. The latter said, "In