66.] [Footnote 4: Weeks, _Southern Quakers_, p.

232.] [Footnote 5: _Ibid_., 232.] In the course of time, however, these philanthropists met with some discouragement.

In 1821 certain masters were sending their slaves to a Sunday-school opened by Levi Coffin and his son Vestal.

Before the slaves had learned more than to spell words of two or three syllables other masters became unduly alarmed, thinking that such instruction would make the slaves discontented.[1] The timorous element threatened the teachers with the terrors of the law, induced the benevolent slaveholders to prohibit the attendance of their Negroes, and had the school closed.[2] Moreover, it became more difficult to obtain aid for this cause.

Between 1815 and 1825 the North Carolina Manumission Societies were redoubling their efforts to raise funds for this purpose.