In these manifestations the negroes merely followed and enlarged upon the example of some of the whites.  The similarity of practices, however, did not promote a permanent mingling of the two races in the same congregations, for either would feel some restraint upon its rhapsody imposed by the presence of the other.  To relieve this there developed in greater or less degree a separation of the races for purposes of worship, white ministers preaching to the blacks from time to time in plantation missions, and home talent among the negroes filling the intervals.  While some of the black exhorters were viewed with suspicion by the whites, others were highly esteemed and unusually privileged.  One of these at Lexington, Kentucky, for example, was given the following pass duly signed by his master:  “Tom is my slave, and has permission to go to Louisville for two or three weeks and return here after he has made his visit.  Tom is a preacher of the reformed Baptist church, and has always been a faithful servant."[7] As a rule the greater the proportion of negroes in a district or a church connection, the greater the segregation in worship.  If the whites were many and the negroes few, the latter would be given the gallery or some other group of pews; but if the whites were few and the negroes many, the two elements would probably worship in separate buildings.  Even in such case, however, it was very common for a parcel of black domestics to flock with their masters rather than with their fellows.

[Footnote 7:  Dated Aug. 6, 1856, and signed E. McCallister.  MS. in the New York Public Library.]

The general regime in the fairly typical state of South Carolina was described in 1845 in a set of reports procured preliminary to a convention on the state of religion among the negroes and the means of its betterment.  Some of these accounts were from the clergy of several denominations, others from the laity; some treated of general conditions in the several districts, others in detail of systems on the writers’ own plantations.  In the latter group, N.W.  Middleton, an Episcopalian of St. Andrew’s parish, wrote that he and his wife and sons were the only religious teachers of his slaves, aside from the rector of the parish.  He read the service and taught the catechism to all every Sunday afternoon, and taught such as came voluntarily to be instructed after family prayers on Wednesday nights.  His wife and sons taught the children “constantly during the week,” chiefly in the catechism.  On the other hand R.F.W.  Allston, a fellow Episcopalian of Prince George, Winyaw, had on his plantation a place of worship open to all denominations.  A Methodist missionary preached there on alternate Sundays, and the Baptists were less regularly cared for.  Both of these sects, furthermore, had prayer meetings, according to the rules of the plantation, on two nights of each week.  Thus while Middleton endeavored to school his slaves in his own faith, Allston encouraged them to seek salvation by such creed as they might choose.