In South Carolina. 469 



In 1784 the following: 



Ques. 12. What shell we do with our friends that will buy and 

 sell slaves ? 



Ans. If they buy with no other design than to hold them as 

 slaves, and have been previously warned, they shall be expelled 

 and permitted to sell on no consideration. 



Ques. 13. What shall we do with our local preachers who will 

 not emancipate their slaves in the States where the laws admit it? 



Ans. Try those in Virginia another year, and suspend the 

 preachers in Maryland, Delaware, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey. 



The following rules were adopted at the Christmas 

 Conference in 1784: 



Ques. 41. Are there any directions to be given concerning the 

 negroes ? 



Ans. Let every preacher, as often as possible, meet them in class. 

 And let the assistant always appoint a proper white person as their 

 leader. Let the assistants also make a regular return to the Con- 

 ference of the number of negroes in society in their respective 

 circuits. 



Ques. 42. What methods can we take to extirpate slavery ? 



Ans. We are deeply conscious of the impropriety of making new 

 terms of communion for a religious society already established, ex- 

 cepting on the most pressing occasion; and such we esteem the 

 practice of holding our fellow-creatures in slavery. We view it as 

 contrary to the golden law of God on which hang all the law and 

 the prophets, and the unalienable rights of mankind, as well as 

 every principle of the revolution, to hold in the deepest debase- 

 ment, in a more abject slavery than is perhaps to be found in any 

 part of the world except America, so many souls that are all capa- 

 ble of the image of God. 



We therefore think it our most bounden duty to take immediate- 

 ly some effectual method to extirpate this abomination from among 

 us, and for that purpose we add the following to the rules of our 

 society, viz.: • 



1. Every member of our society who has slaves in his possession, 

 shall, within twelve months after notice given to him by the assist- 

 ant (which notice the assistants are required immediately, and with- 

 out any delay, to give in 'their respective circuits), legally execute 

 and record an instrument, whereby he emancipates and sets free 



