Exactly how much Ryland accomplished at the First African Baptist Church is not known. Referring to his communicants, Ryland recorded that their general appearance was that of serious, intelligent worship. It is certain that many Negroes, who became impressed with Christianity and endeavored to embrace it, looked upon it as an opportunity and a privilege to belong to this church, and inasmuch as he emphasized consistent Christian conduct, it certainly forced a number of them to live more righteously than they would have, if these rules had not been rigidly enforced. The attitude here might be criticised in that the church was accepting merely those who were known to be persons of good conduct and did not seemingly go out to stir up and reform those who made no pretense to be Christians. When a person made a profession of faith and wanted to join this church he was required to present a certificate of good conduct.[9] In this work Ryland had the cooperation of Joseph Abrams, a Negro who had been licensed to preach and ordained but had been prohibited from the exercise of his gifts by the hostile legislation proscribing Negro preachers after Nat Turner's insurrection. During the days prior to this reaction Abrams had been a preacher of much success among the Negroes of the First Baptist Church. Afterward he could take no more conspicuous part in the Sunday exercises than to pray a long prayer, into which he sometimes worked a short sermon. "As he enjoyed, however, the confidence of the citizens," says a writer in the _American Baptist Memorial_ of 1853, "he was tolerated in preaching funerals at private houses, and was sparingly invited to close the worship in the church by words of exhortation." "He was heard with far more interest than I was," said Ryland, "and on this account I should have often requested him to speak but for the fear of involving him and the church in legal trouble." Abrams died in 1854. From the same pulpit which he had once occupied, his former pastor, John Bryce, delivered to a large crowd of grieving persons within and as many more without one of the most eloquent eulogies in keeping with the life of the man. A long procession of hundreds of persons followed him to his grave, over which the people erected a beautiful monument in the form of an imposing obelisk.