Among the Methodists who directed their attentions to mission work among Negroes no one was more prominent than Bishop William Capers of South Carolina. He had no idea of preparing Negroes for manumission, but looked to the edification of their souls as a preparation for the life to come, justifying the relation of slave and the master by the Bible in keeping with most ministers of his time. He emphasized, on the other hand, the necessity of the masters' being kind to their bondmen and especially in providing for their spiritual needs. After preaching a number of sermons to this effect, he devised a scheme for adapting the teaching of the Christian truth to the mental condition of the slaves. He planned to have the old Negroes instructed by preachers and the children through catechists by the memory method, while their minds were in a plastic state, always remembering, however, that any minister who did not believe in the southern religion of the relation of master and slave as sanctioned by his sort of Christianity should not enter upon this work. With the support of a number of leading men in that commonwealth Bishop Capers established two missions in 1829 and two additional ones in 1833. Thereafter one or two others were added every year until 1847, when there were seventeen engaging the attention of twenty-five preachers. When Bishop Capers died in 1855 he saw his work, according to his plan, very well done. The Methodists then had 26 missions manned by 32 preachers, having in their churches 11,546 communicants. The cost of this religious instruction had, during the Bishop's time, increased from $300 to $25,000 a year. The work of the Baptists here and there was almost as effective, but because of their lack of a national body to concentrate the effort of the various local churches, such good results did not always follow. In certain communities, however, especially in the State of Virginia, there were obtained unusually desirable results. This was the case in the cities of Portsmouth, Norfolk, and Petersburg; and still better success was achieved in Richmond through the well organized work of the First African Baptist Church, which, under the direction of the Rev. Robert Ryland, President of Richmond College, served not only to benefit the Negroes of that community, but also to inspire other white churches to make similar provisions for the instruction of the blacks. Lott Cary himself speaks of religious instruction in this church at an early period. He said: "I was, during the years 1815, 1816, 1817 and 1818, engaged for the benefit of the leading colored members of the church" (referring to the First Baptist Church) "in a gratuitous school at the old Baptist meeting house ... at first in connection with Rev. David Roper ... and subsequently with Rev. John Bryce, co-pastor of the church."