With regard to the religious instruction of slaves, widely
different practices of course prevail. There are some
slaveholders, like Bishop Polk of Louisiana, who oblige, and many
others who encourage, their slaves to engage in religious
exercises, furnishing them certain conveniences for the purpose.
Among the wealthier slave owners, however, and in all those parts
of the country where the enslaved portion of the population
outnumbers the whites, there is generally a visible, and often an
avowed distrust of the effect of religious exercises upon slaves,
and even the preaching of white clergymen to them is permitted by
many with reluctance. The prevailing impression among us, with
regard to the important influence of slavery in promoting the
spread of religion among the blacks, is an erroneous one in my
opinion. I have heard northern clergymen speak as if they
supposed a regular daily instruction of slaves in the truths of
Christianity to be general. So far is this from being the case,
that although family prayers were held in several of the fifty
planters' houses in Mississippi and Alabama, in which I passed a
night, I never in a single instance saw a field-hand attend or
join in the devotion of the family.--See Olmsted's _Cotton
Kingdom_, II, 212-213.