An Episcopal clergyman in the same parish with Allston wrote that he held fortnightly services among the negroes on ten plantations, and enlisted some of the literate slaves as lay readers.  His restriction of these to the text of the prayer book, however, seems to have shorn them of power.  The bulk of the slaves flocked to the more spontaneous exercises elsewhere; and the clergyman could find ground for satisfaction only in saying that frequently as many as two hundred slaves attended services at one of the parish churches in the district.

The Episcopal failure was the “evangelical” opportunity.  Of the thirteen thousand slaves in Allston’s parish some 3200 were Methodists and 1500 Baptists, as compared with 300 Episcopalians.  In St. Peter’s parish a Methodist reported that in a total of 6600 slaves, 1335 adhered to his faith, about half of whom were in mixed congregations of whites and blacks under the care of two circuit-riders, and the rest were in charge of two missionaries who ministered to negroes alone.  Every large plantation, furthermore, had one or more “so-called negro preachers, but more properly exhorters.”  In St. Helena parish the Baptists led with 2132 communicants; the Methodists followed with 314 to whom a missionary holding services on twenty plantations devoted the whole of his time; and the Episcopalians as usual brought up the rear with fifty-two negro members of the church at Beaufort and a solitary additional one in the chapel on St. Helena island.

Of the progress and effects of religion in the lowlands Allston and Middleton thought well.  The latter said, “In every respect I feel encouraged to go on.”  The former wrote:  “Of my own negroes and those in my immediate neighborhood I may speak with confidence.  They are attentive to religious instruction and greatly improved in intelligence and morals, in domestic relations, etc.  Those who have grown up under religious training are more intelligent and generally, though not always, more improved than those who have received religious instruction as adults.  Indeed the degree of intelligence which as a class they are acquiring is worthy of deep consideration.”  Thomas Fuller, the reporter from the Beaufort neighborhood, however, was as much apprehensive as hopeful.  While the negroes had greatly improved in manners and appearance as a result of coming to worship in town every Sunday, said he, the freedom which they were allowed for the purpose was often misused in ways which led to demoralization.  He strongly advised the planters to keep the slaves at home and provide instruction there.