Page:Twelfth annual report of the Association for the Religious Instruction of the Negroes, in Liberty County, Georgia.djvu/21

 which is to come, as they are enjoined upon us in God's holy word? Shall we not awaken a just emulation in this department of duty? I have confidence in the good character, generally, of the citizens of this county and in the Christian profession which so many of them have assumed and which some of them so highly adorn: and in the interest which they almost universally express in the religious instruction and improvement of our coloured population. Whatever may be the differences in their religious creeds or political principles; whatever local divisions or collisions exist among them, yet these things do not affect the essential unity and general harmony of the whole. They dwell together as one people and all the great ends for which communites exist, are in the main, steadily pursued and successfully secured. May such be the fact in all time to come.

Entertaining these views, I feel assured that the subject now presented will meet with candid consideration : and no one will suppose that I have gone beyond my sphere, since the physical improvement of the Negroes is not only our duty, but it stands in immediate connection with their moral and religious improvement, which is the great object aimed at by our Association : —and moreover, the physical condition of the negroes is an outward evidence of our interest in their spiritual state which others will immediately inquire into and judge us by.

Conclusion

In my last report 1 gave a view of the religious instruction of the negroes in the United States, and adduced much evidence to show the steady and great progress of that work. I shall now, from the observation of the past year and from my own correspondence, content myself with the assertion, that the work still continues to advance; and one pleasant feature in the movement in the minds of its friends is the conviction that the people need larger accommodations for the public worship of God : a greater amount of catechetical instruction: the employment of missionaries expressly for their service, and above all that they are entitled to, and should claim, more of the attention and labours of the settled Ministry than they have heretofore enjoyed. I give you an extract from the minutes of the Presbytery of Harmony, S. C. which may be