Whereas some doubts have risen whether children that are slaves by birth, and by the charity and piety of their owners made partakers of the blessed sacrament of baptisme, should by virtue of their baptisme be made free; _It is enacted and declared by this Grand Assembly and the authority thereof_, that the conferring of baptisme doth not alter the condition of the person as to his bondage or freedom; that diverse masters, freed from this doubt, may more carefully endeavour the propagation of Christianity by permitting children, though slaves, or those of greater growth if capable to be admitted to that sacrament. The question was settled likewise throughout all the slave-holding colonies of England, and human slavery was written into the laws of the various colonies of the British empire, there to remain until the ideals of the nineteenth century eliminated it from the constitution and the laws of every English-speaking nation. The following incidents, although they occurred in the first half of the eighteenth century, outside the period covered by this booklet, are yet of such interest in the continuing story of Negro slavery as to be worth recording here. In 1724 the Bishop of London, Edmund Gibson, sent a questionary to the incumbent minister of every Anglican parish in the American colonies. Among the questions he asked were two; one inquiring how many "infidels," either Indians or Negroes, there were in each parish; and two, what efforts were being made to convert them to the Christian faith. The answers revealed a serious situation, and the need of more definite and better organized efforts to convert the Negroes. The first effort made by the Bishop of London was as strong a pastoral letter as he could write upon the need of more earnest effort to bring the Negro slaves into the Christian faith. He also prepared a pamphlet to be used for the instruction of Negroes. His pastoral letter and his pamphlet were sent to every incumbent minister, and copies were given to the heads of families. Another effort was the organization in England in 1723 by the Rev. Thomas Bray of a company called "Dr. Bray's Associates." Dr. Thomas Bray was the bishop's commissary to the province of Maryland. The purpose of Dr. Bray's Associates was to establish in the colonies schools for the education and Christian instruction of Negro children, and it did a useful work. It did a notable work in the City of New York, and it conducted schools in other places; one of them at Williamsburg, in Virginia.