vention which met that year for the revision of the Virginian Code. I have read this plea for free schools to educate the "mean whites," and can only wonder that a lad of eighteen should have had the ability or patience to produce so masterly an appeal. The effect was, nevertheless, most disappointing. He was virulently attacked by the journals as one who, by advocating a "mob road to learning," was jeopardizing the very existence of Southern society. The mean whites, like the servile blacks, must be kept in ignorance. It is not, however, so long since representatives of our own "agricultural interests" were in the habit of giving expression to views equally enlightened. But Mr. Conway was not thus to be put down. Reason, conscience, compassion, told him that the cause he had espoused was just and beneficent. He had not taken it up, as he had taken slavery, on trust. He had thought out the problem for himself, and he remained unshaken in his convictions. Whether he knew it or not, he had taken a distinct step away from the slaveholding oligarchy in the direction of freedom. In order to promote his laudable object, he threw up the law and took to the gospel. He became a Methodist preacher as the likeliest means of reaching the hearts and heads of the people whom he desired to benefit. The Baltimore Methodist Conference speedily appinted him to the charge of some twelve congregations. One of these happily lay in a section of country settled by Quakers, and consequently unpolluted by any taint of slavery. He saw prosperous agriculturists and happy, free, educated negro laborers, and the scales began to fall from his eyes. He had never dreamed of such a state of society. At first he was bewildered; but an aged
