The
council shall compile a proper school book to teach them learning and
piety."--Rev. Charles Elliott's _History of the Great Secession front
the Methodist Episcopal Church_, etc., p. 35.
A PORTION OF AN ACT OF THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF THE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH
IN 1800.
The Assembly recommended:
"2. The instruction of Negroes, the poor and those who are destitute
of the means of grace in various parts of this extensive country;
whoever contemplates the situation of this numerous class of persons
in the United States, their gross ignorance of the plainest principles
of religion, their immorality and profaneness, their vices and
dissoluteness of manners, must be filled with anxiety for their
present welfare, and above all for their future and eternal happiness.
"3. The purchasing and disposing of Bibles and also of books and short
essays on the great principles of religion and morality, calculated
to impress the minds of those to whom they are given with a sense of
their duty both to God and man, and consequently of such a nature as
to arrest the attention, interest the curiosity and touch the feelings
of those to whom they are given.
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