[Footnote 1: This statement is based on the testimonies of ex-slaves.]
[Footnote 2: Jones, _Religious Instruction_, pp. 114, 117.]
[Footnote 3: While the laws in certain places were not so drastic as to prohibit religious assemblies, the same was effected by patrols and mobs.]
[Footnote 4: The Constitution of the Liberty County Association for the Religious Instruction of Negroes, Article IV.]
Directing their efforts thereafter toward mere verbal teaching, religious workers depended upon the memory of the slave to retain sufficient of the truths and principles expounded to effect his conversion. Pamphlets, hymn books, and catechisms especially adapted to the work were written by churchmen, and placed in the hands of discreet missionaries acceptable to the slaveholders. Among other publications of this kind were Dr. Capers's Short Catechism for the Use of Colored Members on _Trial in the Methodist Episcopal Church in South Carolina; A Catechism to be Used by Teachers in the Religious Instruction of Persons of Color in the Episcopal Church of South Carolina_; Dr. Palmer's _Cathechism_; Rev. John Mine's _Catechism_; and C.C. Jones's _Catechism of Scripture, Doctrine and Practice Designed for the Original Instruction of Colored People._ Bishop Meade was once engaged in collecting such literature addressed particularly to slaves in their stations. These extracts were to be read to them on proper occasions by any member of the family.[1]
[Footnote 1: Meade, _Sermons of Rev. Thomas Bacon_, p. 2.]
Yet on the whole it can be safely stated that there were few societies formed in the South to give the Negroes religious and moral instruction. Only a few missionaries were exclusively devoted to work among them. In fact, after the reactionary period no propaganda of any southern church included anything which could be designated as systematic instruction of the Negroes.[1] Even owners, who took care to feed, clothe, and lodge their slaves well and treated them humanely, often neglected to do anything to enlighten their understanding as to their responsibility to God. [Footnote 1: Madison's Works, vol. in., p. 314; Olmsted, _Back Country_, p. 107; Birney, _The American Churches_, etc., p. 6; and Jones, _Religious Instruction_, etc., p. 100.]