It would not be profitable to describe in detail the work of every Colony and Diocese in the period before Emancipation, where the sameness of method and result so inevitably blends with monotony. The work in South Carolina, completely illustrative of all, will serve as a sample, and others may be briefly summarized.
South Carolina illustrates, more completely than any other, the features of work employed by all the Southern States.[6] Happily, there is almost a continuous record from which to draw. The Chronicles of St. Mark’s Parish is especially valuable as a source-book. From it we learn that from the beginning, so soon as the Negroes were taught the language, Christian instruction and Baptism followed, wherever agreeable to the Negroes. This was provided for by Article 107 of The Code of Laws. No question was raised during the Proprietary Government. When the Royal Government was established, the question was raised as to the propriety of such instructions of the slaves, but the law stood as reaffirmed by the Legislature of 1712.[7]
In 1764, the Rev. Levi Durand of St. John’s Parish, baptized the first child recorded as born of negro Christian parents. This marks the beginning of a new era for the race; for until Christian faith, the instinct of prayer, and the habit of belief, come to be the heritage of a people, making the atmosphere of life, it is not possible to begin to build the generations into the great Temple as true and tried living stones. True, such habit, such atmosphere, may become in time but the empty shell of life that is dead; this is the danger against which Christians have had always to guard. Where Christian faith is surrounded by heathen superstition, it is thrown upon guard, if the faith be true. Its guard is apt to become increasingly relaxed as the atmosphere which surrounds it is of its own making. But this latter is, none the less, the very condition of progress, where faith is truly alive. Hence it was only when the Christian Negroes could make the Christian conditions in which to rear their children, that the conversion of the race could be said to have begun. From that year, 1764, the Christians of a second generation increased with their numbers, and vastly contributed to the better and more wholesome conditions to which their new brethren came.[8]
That the disposition to evangelize the Negroes gained complete ascendency with the success of efforts, is attested by the report of the “Committee of the Religious Instruction of Colored Persons,” published in The Gospel Messenger of May, 1838.[9]
“St. John’s, Colleton. The preaching upon the plantations has been continued, with increasing evidence of the benefit resulting, both to master and servant, from this branch of duty. The interest of the master in the religious instruction of his slaves, may be known from the fact that, on most, if not all, of the plantations visited, but half the usual task is given on the days on which Divine Service is appointed to be held. During the summer, a class of 44 colored children was regularly taught (orally) for an hour every day, by members of the Rector’s family.”
By the middle of the century such reports are the rule; there were fewer rectors of distinctly white parishes than of distinctly negro missions.
In 1849, Bishop Gadsden, after noting in his address to the Convention, thirteen visitations “having more especial reference to the class of servants,” adds this comment: “In my visitations, nothing was more gratifying to behold than the chapels which have been erected on plantations at central points for the more especial accommodation of the blacks. There are now at least ten such chapels. May they be greatly multiplied, and the day not distant when each large plantation, or two or more smaller ones, united, shall have a Chaplain and daily services!”
In that year, of the 430 communicants in St. Philip’s, Charleston, 138 were colored; in St. John’s, Colleton, of the 456, the colored numbered 401. These relative proportions of numbers represent fairly two types of mixed congregations. In 1850, the proportion of communicants in the Diocese was 2751 white and 3168 negro. In 1857, as though in answer to the fervent prayer of his predecessor, Bishop Davis reports to the Convention, “The whole number of persons confirmed since the last Convention is: white 245, colored 628. I have been endeavoring to collect statistics of our operations among the colored people, but they are yet imperfect. There are, in the Diocese, 45 Chapels and places of worship for the slaves. There are about 150 lay persons, male and female, engaged in giving to them catechetical instruction. There must be 150 congregations, and catechumens in proportion to these congregations and to the number of teachers. This is as near as I can now ascertain.” What an answer, in seven years, to Bishop Gadsden’s prayers!
But the increase in baptisms far surpassed other growth, and more and more Christian parents were bringing their children to the front. In 1858, here are some figures: In old St. Philip’s, Charleston, 1 colored adult baptized, 18 colored children, 27 white,—manifestly proportionate to the Christians of the two races. In St. Stephen’s, where the Church is not as long established and Services are less frequent, adults baptized, 119 colored; children, 11 white, 13 colored. In All Saints, Waccamaw, Mr. Glennie, the pastor of the Negroes for so many years, reports 52 colored adults baptized; children, white 10, colored 186. In his postscript, Mr. Glennie wrote, “Divine services for the Negroes on 19 plantations, 614 times; largest class of negro children 70, smallest 6.”