Here and there in the South, however, there developed certain Negro preachers better known to fame. A striking example of this class was Lott Cary, who was born a slave in Virginia. When quite young he was hired out and thereby came under the influences which caused him to be a man given to profane and intemperate habits, although his parents were of the higher class of slaves. In 1807, however, he was awakened by hearing a sermon from the third chapter of John on the interview of Nicodemus with our Saviour, from the words: "Notwithstanding what I say unto you, you must be born again." So powerful was the preaching and so telling was the effect on the mind of this slave that he immediately secured a copy of the New Testament and almost miraculously learned to read by studying that chapter. Upon developing into a strong spiritual man, he was made superintendent of all the laborers in the tobacco warehouse in which he was working in Richmond. Not long thereafter he received permission to serve as an exhorter in the First African Baptist Church of that city, the membership of which, then being about 2,000, required the services of a number of assistant pastors. [Illustration: REV. LOTT CARY A missionary to Africa.] Lott Cary reached a new stage in his development in the fall of 1813, when Luther Rice, who had just returned from the East, appeared in that city preaching rousing sermons urging the Baptists to enter upon and to support the work of missions in foreign fields. In November of that year the Richmond Foreign Missionary Society was organized and delegates were sent to Philadelphia the following spring to participate in the organization of the Baptist Triennial Convention. As this new body had for one of its objects mission work in foreign fields, the national interest aroused therein excited also a deep interest among the Negro members of the churches in Richmond. Two years later, therefore, the Richmond African Baptist Missionary Society, with Lott Carey as the moving spirit, was formed with the sole object of sending the gospel into Africa. This society was composed of the Negro members of the First African Baptist Church and of other churches throughout the city. It held annual meetings and with their small donations accumulated as much as $700 during the first four years.