Upon the attainment of religious liberty they were free to win over the slaveholders who came into the Methodist and Baptist churches in large numbers, bringing their slaves with them.[2] The freedom of these "regenerated" churches made possible the rise of Negro exhorters and preachers, who to exercise their gifts managed in some way to learn to read and write.

Schools for the training of such leaders were not to be found, but to encourage ambitious blacks to qualify themselves white ministers often employed such candidates as attendants, allowing them time to observe, to study, and even to address their audiences.[3] [Footnote 1: The antislavery societies were at first the uniting influence among all persons interested in the uplift of the Negroes.
The agitation had not then become violent, for men considered the institution not a sin but merely an evil.] [Footnote 2: Coke, _Journal_, etc., p.

114; Lambert, _Travels_, p.

175; Baird, _A Collection_, etc., pp.

381, 387 and 816; James, _Documentary_, etc., p.