They thought, too, that missionaries from the free States would thereby be afforded an opportunity to come South and inculcate doctrines subversive of the interests and safety of that section.[2] It would then be only a matter of time before the movement would receive such an impetus that it would dissolve the relations of society as then constituted and revolutionize the civil institutions of the South.
[Footnote 1: Jones, _Religious Instruction_, p.

192; Olmsted, _Back Country_, pp.

106-108.] [Footnote 2: _Ibid_., p.

106.] The black population of certain sections, however, was not reduced to heathenism.

Although often threatening to execute the reactionary laws, many of which were never intended to be rigidly enforced, the southerners did not at once eliminate the Negro as a religious instructor.[1] It was fortunate that a few Negroes who had learned the importance of early Christian training, organized among themselves local associations.