Let us direct attention to what the Negro slave found in America, a Christian atmosphere. With their various groups broken into fragments and scattered by the American slave-trade, as the slaves here learned the English language, they were more able to assimilate the elements of Christianity found in American life. Sold into Christian homes, but gathered with their masters around the family altar, they became actual participants in the singing and praying that broke the morning and evening silence of those eventful days. The old records show that from the very beginning of American slavery[10] slaves experienced Christianity through the conscious help of some masters, and later, as the whites saw that the Christian religion made the Negroes better slaves and did not set them free, the blacks secured more favorable opportunities for religious instruction. In some States masters were required even by legislation to look after the religious education of their slaves.[11] In Louisiana, for example, planters were obliged by the Code Noir to have their Negroes instructed and baptized, to give them Sundays and holidays for rest and worship. But, even when not required by law, a few owners established schools for their slaves, and either taught or hired others to teach them "the way of eternal life." So it is reported that by the 19th century: "Few Negroes escaped some religious instruction from those good people. Usually on Sunday afternoons, but sometimes in the morning, the slaves would be gathered in the great house and lessons in the catechism had to be learned. The Apostles' Creed, the Lord's Prayer, and the Ten Commandments were also taught. Hymns were sung and prayers rose to Heaven. Many good masters read sermons to their slaves. Other masters hired ministers.... Others preached themselves."[12] Another source of contact with Christianity was that resulting from the attitude of persons who worked, not for the religious development of their own slaves alone, but who, with a larger human interest, unmindful of the benefits that might come to their individual households, gave their lives to bless all slaves. One of the very purposes of American slavery being to benefit the slaves, one can readily see how missionary work among them grew with the system of slavery itself. "After 1716," Woodson tells us, "when Jesuits were taking over slaves in large numbers, and especially after 1726, when Law's Company was importing many to meet the demand for laborers in Louisiana, we read of more instances of the instruction of Negroes by the Catholics. ... Le Petit spoke of being 'settled to the instruction of the boarders, the girls who live without, and the Negro women.' In 1738 he said, 'I instruct in Christian morals the slaves of our residence, who are Negroes, and as many others as I can get from their masters.'"