Richard H. Parker who was enslaved in Virginia as a minister was interviewed in 1866 at age fifty-eight in Virginia by Miss S. F. Goodell. The first chapter he ever read in the Bible, was the fifth of Mathew.  “Oh!” he says, “how I do love that chapter.”  By reading the Bible he was led to seek the salvation of his soul, and after he became a Christian he was very anxious that his young mistress, who had so nobly braved her father’s displeasure in teaching him, should also become a subject of renewing grace.  So he began to pray for her and gave himself no rest till he saw her gathered within the fold of Christ.  She wished to unite with the Presbyterian church, but he, in answered to whose prayers she gratefully attributed her conversion, was a Methodist, and she feared she might wound his feelings if she did not join his order; she therefore consulted him, and he told her he was perfectly willing she should join the Presbyterian church.  She then went to her pastor and told him that she wished Richard to be present and partake of the sacrament with her.  Her request was granted, and they sat down together at the table of our common Lord and Savior.  Never before was such a sight seen as that of a colored person sitting down to the communion table with the first families of Virginia.