declarations by the Bishop of London to the effect that conversion did
not work manumission.[1] After the solution of this problem English
missionaries urged more vigorously upon the colonies the duty of
instructing the slaves. Among the active churchmen working for this
cause were Rev. Morgan Goodwyn and Bishops Fleetwood, Lowth, and
Sanderson.[2]

[Footnote 1: _Special Report of the U.S. Com. of Ed._, 1871, p. 352.]

[Footnote 2: On observing that laws had been passed in Virginia to
prevent slaves from attending the meetings of Quakers for purposes of
being instructed, Morgan Goodwyn registered a most earnest protest. He
felt that prompt attention should be given to the instruction of the
slaves to prevent the Church from falling into discredit, and to
obviate the causes for blasphemy on the part of the enemies of the
Church who would not fail to point out that ministers sent to the
remotest parts had failed to convert the heathen. Therefore, he
preached in Westminster Abbey in 1685 a sermon "to stir up and
provoke" his "Majesty's subjects abroad, and even at home, to use
endeavors for the propagation of Christianity among their domestic
slaves and vassals." He referred to the spreading of mammonism and
irreligion by which efforts to instruct and Christianize the heathen
were paralyzed. He deplored the fact that the slaves who were the
subjects of such instruction became the victims of still greater
cruelty, while the missionaries who endeavored to enlighten them were
neglected and even persecuted by the masters. They considered the
instruction of the Negroes an impracticable and needless work of
popish superstition, and a policy subversive of the interests of
slaveholders. Bishop Sanderson found it necessary to oppose this
policy of Virginia which had met the denunciation of Goodwyn. In