u to look upon your Country-men around
you, and pity them, not so much for their being Fellow-Captives with
you in a strange Land; as for this, that they are not yet, like you,
delivered from the Power of Darkness....

"Invite them to learn to read, and direct them where they may apply
for Assistance, especially to those faithful Ministers, who have been
your Instructors and Fathers in Christ...."--Fawcett's _Address to the
Negroes in Virginia_, etc., pp. 8, 17, 18, 24, 25.

EXTRACT FROM THE APPENDIX OF BENJAMIN FAWCETT'S "ADDRESS TO THE
CHRISTIAN NEGROES IN VIRGINIA"

"The first Account, I ever met with, of any considerable Number of
Negroes embracing the Gospel, is in a letter written by Mr. Davies,
Minister at Hanover in Virginia, to Mr. Bellamy of Bethlehem in New
England, dated June 28, 1751. It appears that the Letter was designed
for Publication; and I suppose, was accordingly printed at Boston
in New England. It is to be seen in vol. ii., pages 330-338, of the
_Historical Collections_ relating to remarkable Periods of the Success
of the Gospel, and eminent Instruments employed in promoting it;
Compiled by Mr. John Gillies, one of the Ministers of Glasgow: Printed
by Foulis in 1754. Mr. Davies fills the greatest part of his Letter,
with an Account of the declining State of Religion in Virginia, and
the remarkable Means used by Providence to revive it, for a few Years
before his Settlement there, which was in 1747; not in the character
of a Missionary, but that of a dissenting Minister, invited by a
particular People, and fixed with them. Such, he observes, was the
scattered State of his Congregation, that he soon found it necessary
to license seven Meeting-Houses, the nearest of which are twelve or
fifteen Miles distant from each other, and the extremes about Forty;
yet some of his People live twenty, thirty, and a few forty Miles from
the nearest Meeting-House. He computes his Communicants at about three
Hundred. He then says, 'There is also a Number of Negroes. Some times
I see a Hundred and more among my Hearers. I have baptized about Forty
of them within the last three Years, upon such a Profession of Faith
as I then judged credible. Some of them, I fear, have apostatized; but
others, I trust, will persevere to the End. I have had as satisfying
Evidences of the sincere Piety of several of them, as ever I had from
any Person in my Life; and their artless Simplicity, their passionate
Aspirations after Chri