Who will not pray for the
salvation of these people?

From what has been already said, our minds are fully satisfied of the
correctness of the following positions:

I. It is the duty of Christians generally, and of Presbyterians
particularly, earnestly to seek the salvation of all the destitute, and
especially of the negroes of this country, by such methods as the laws
of God require, and in conformity with every proper law of the land,
relating to these people. A good police is nowhere adverse to the spread
of the gospel.

II. On account of the incalculable benefits resulting to the teacher of
the plan of salvation, and to him who is taught as well as to masters
and the community generally, it is expedient to do this thing and that
speedily.

III. It is entirely safe to do this. No facts can be established to the
contrary, and many can be established in support of this assertion.

IV. It is very unsafe not to do it, because all men will have some
notions of religion, and if they be not correct notions, they will be
erroneous, wild, fanatical, superstitious, or in some way highly
dangerous. On this subject we present a short extract from a discourse
published by the late Dr. Rice, in the year 1825, on the subject of the
injury done to religion by ignorant teachers. In that discourse the
writer speaking of fanaticism says:

"These remarks have a bearing on a particular part of our population,
which I think it my duty to state in such terms that the intelligent
will understand me. And that this subject may present itself with
greater force it ought to be observed, that there is always a
predisposition to superstition, where there are no settled religious
principles. This state of the human mind, may be regarded as a
predisposition to fanaticism where there is a general prevalence of
ignorance and rudeness. Now it is well known that there is a large and
increasing part of our population whose ignorance is almost absolute.
Their spiritual interests have been very generally neglected; and
attempts to afford them religious instruction have often been frowned
upon by men of power and influence. But have they thus been able to
suppress the workings of the religious principle? That is impossible. It
would be as easy to exclude the light of the sun by a leaf of the
statute book. What then has been the result of this very general
negligence? Why, thousands of this race have a set of religious opinions
of their own in many