purposes of
being instructed, Morgan Goodwyn registered a most earnest protest. He
felt that prompt attention should be given to the instruction of the
slaves to prevent the Church from falling into discredit, and to
obviate the causes for blasphemy on the part of the enemies of the
Church who would not fail to point out that ministers sent to the
remotest parts had failed to convert the heathen. Therefore, he
preached in Westminster Abbey in 1685 a sermon "to stir up and
provoke" his "Majesty's subjects abroad, and even at home, to use
endeavors for the propagation of Christianity among their domestic
slaves and vassals." He referred to the spreading of mammonism and
irreligion by which efforts to instruct and Christianize the heathen
were paralyzed. He deplored the fact that the slaves who were the
subjects of such instruction became the victims of still greater
cruelty, while the missionaries who endeavored to enlighten them were
neglected and even persecuted by the masters. They considered the
instruction of the Negroes an impracticable and needless work of
popish superstition, and a policy subversive of the interests of
slaveholders. Bishop Sanderson found it necessary to oppose this
policy of Virginia which had met the denunciation of Goodwyn. In
strongly emphasizing this duty of masters, Bishop Fleetwood moved the
hearts of many planters of North Carolina to allow missionaries access
to their slaves. Many of them were thereafter instructed and baptized.
See Goodwyn, _The Negroes and Indians' Advocate_; Hart, _History Told
by Contemporaries_, vol. i., No. 86; _Special Rep. U.S. Com. of Ed._,
1871, p. 363; _An Account of the Endeavors of the Soc._, etc., p. 14.]

Complaints from men of this type led to systematic efforts to
enlighten the blacks. The first successful scheme for this purpose
came from the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign
Parts. It was organized by the members of the Established Church in
London in 1701[1] to do missionary work among Indians and Negroes.
To convert the heathen they sent out not only ministers but
schoolmasters. They were required to instruct the children, to teach
them to read the Scriptures and other poems and useful books, to
ground them thoroughly in the Church catechism, and to repeat "morning
and evening prayers and graces composed for their use at home."[2]

[Footnote 1: Pascoe, _Classified Digest of the Records of the Society
for the Propagation of the Go