CHAP. XLX.] CONVERSION OF NEGROES. 269 



spiritual development, as the African negro, must depend not on 

 learning to read and write, but on the amount of familiar inter 

 course which they enjoy with individuals of a more advanced 

 race. So long as they herd together in large gangs, and rarely 

 come into contact with any whites save their owner and over 

 seer, they can profit little by their imitative faculty, and can 

 not even make much progress in mastering the English language, 

 that powerful instrument of thought and of the communication 

 of ideas, which they are gaining in exchange for the limited vo 

 cabulary of their native tribes. Yet, even in this part of Georgia, 

 the negroes are very far from stationary, and each generation is 

 acquiring habits of greater cleanliness and propriety of behavior, 

 while some are learning mechanical arts, and every year many 

 of them becoming converts to Christianity. 



Although the Baptist and Methodist missionaries have been 

 the most active in this important work, the Episcopalians have 

 not been idle, especially since Dr. Elliott became Bishop of 

 Georgia, and brought his talents, zeal, and energy to the task. 

 As he found that the negroes in general had no faith in the effi 

 cacy of baptism except by complete immersion, he performed the 

 ceremony as they desired. Indeed, according to the old English 

 rubric, all persons were required to be immersed in baptism, ex 

 cept when they were sick, so that to lose converts by not com 

 plying with this popular notion of the slaves, would hardly have 

 been justifiable. It may be true that the poor negroes cherish a 

 superstitious belief that the washing out of every taint of sin de 

 pends mainly on the particular manner of performing the rite, 

 and the principal charm to the black women in the ceremony of 

 total immersion consists in decking themselves out in white robes, 

 like brides, and having their shoes trimmed with silver. They 

 well know that the waters of the Altamaha are chilly, and that 

 they and the officiating minister run no small risk of catching 

 cold, but to this penance they most cheerfully submit. 



Of dancing and music the negroes are passionately fond. On 

 the Hopeton plantation above twenty violins have been silenced 

 by the Methodist missionaries, yet it is notorious that the slaves 

 were not given to drink or intemperance in their merry-makings. 



