unconquerable disability in the subject we had to work upon, that
the little success of our efforts is to be ascribed. This would indeed
be an insuperable obstacle, and must put an effectual stop to all
future attempts of the same nature; but as this is far from being the
case, we must look for other causes of our disappointment; which may
perhaps appear to be, though of a serious, yet less formidable nature,
and such as it is in the power of human industry and perseverance,
with the blessing of Providence, to remove. The principal of them, it
is conceived, are these which here follow:

1. "Although several of our ministers and catechists in the college of
Barbadoes have been men of great worth and piety, and good intentions,
yet in general they do not appear (if we may judge from their letters
to the Board) to have possessed that peculiar sort of talents and
qualifications, that facility and address in conveying religious
truths, that unconquerable activity, patience, and perseverance, which
the instruction of dull and uncultivated minds requires, and which
we sometimes see so eminently and successfully displayed in the
missionaries of other churches.

"And indeed the task of instructing and converting near three hundred
Negro slaves, and of educating their children in the principles of
morality and religion, is too laborious for any one person to execute
well; especially when the stipend is too small to animate his
industry, and excite his zeal.

2. "There seems also to have been a want of other modes of
instruction, and of other books and tracts for that purpose, besides
those made use of hitherto by our catechists. And there is reason
moreover to believe, that the time allotted to the instruction of the
Negroes has not been sufficient.

3. "Another impediment to the progress of our slaves in Christian
knowledge has been their too frequent intercourse with the Negroes of
the neighboring plantations, and the accession of fresh slaves to our
own, either hired from other estates, or imported from Africa. These
are so many constant temptations in their way to revert to their
former heathenish principles and savage manners, to which they have
always a strong natural propensity; and when this propensity is
continually inflamed by the solicitations of their unconverted
brethren, or the arrival of new companions from the coast of Guinea,
it frequently becomes very difficult to be resisted, and counteracts,
in a great de