[Footnote 1: Orr, "An Address on the Need of Education in the South, 1879."]
[Footnote 2: This statement is made by several of General Coxe's slaves who are still living.]
[Footnote 3: _School Journal_, vol. lxxx., p. 332.]
Further interest in the cause was shown by the Evangelical Society of the Synods of North Carolina and Virginia in 1834.[1] Later Presbyterians of Alabama and Georgia urged masters to enlighten their slaves.[2] The attitude of many mountaineers of Kentucky was well set forth in the address of the Synod of 1836, proposing a plan for the instruction and emancipation of the slaves.[3] They complained that throughout the land, so far as they could learn, there was but one school in which slaves could be taught during the week. The light of three or four Sabbath-schools was seen "glittering through the darkness" of the black population of the whole State. Here and there one found a family where humanity impelled the master, mistress, or children, to the laborious task of private instruction. In consequence of these undesirable conditions the Synod recommended that "slaves be instructed in the common elementary branches of education."[4]
[Footnote 1: _African Repository_, vol. x., pp. 174, 205, and 245.]
[Footnote 2: _Ibid._, vol. xi., pp. 140 and 268.]
[Footnote 3: Goodell, _Slave Code_, pp. 323-324.]
[Footnote 4: _The Enormity of the Slave Trade, etc_., p. 74.]
Some of the objects of such charity turned out to be interesting characters. Samuel Lowry of Tennessee worked and studied privately under Rev. Mr. Talbot of Franklin College, and at the age of sixteen was sufficiently advanced to teach with success. He united with the Church of the Disciples and preached in that connection until 1859.[1] In some cases colored preachers were judged sufficiently informed, not only to minister to the needs of their own congregations, but to preach to white churches. There was a Negro thus engaged in the State of Florida.[2] Another colored man of unusual intelligence and much prominence worked his way to the front in Giles County, Tennessee. In 1859 he was the pastor of a Hard-shell Baptist Church, the membership of which was composed of the best white people in the community. He was so well prepared for his work that out of a four days' argument on baptism with a white minister he emerged victor. From this appreciative congregation he received a salary of from six to seven hundred dollars a year.[3]