These reformers hoped to do this by holding up to the members of the Anglican Church the praiseworthy example of the Catholics whom the British had for years denounced as enemies of Christ.

The criticism had its effect.
But to prosecute this work extensively the English had to overcome the difficulty found in the observance of the unwritten law that no Christian could be held a slave.

Now, if the teaching of slaves enabled them to be converted and their Christianization led to manumission, the colonists had either to let the institution gradually pass away or close all avenues of information to the minds of their Negroes.

The necessity of choosing either of these alternatives was obviated by the enactment of provincial statutes and formal declarations by the Bishop of London to the effect that conversion did not work manumission.[1] After the solution of this problem English missionaries urged more vigorously upon the colonies the duty of instructing the slaves.

Among the active churchmen working for this cause were Rev.Morgan Goodwyn and Bishops Fleetwood, Lowth, and Sanderson.[2] [Footnote 1: _Special Report of the U.S.Com.