
Daunting obstacles-climate, hazardous travel, an ethnically and religiously heterogeneous population, dispersed settlement, cultural impoverishment, and social and political instability-meant that the hopes of a flourishing and encompassing Anglican Church in North Carolina were often dashed. John Urmston, an early missionary, graphically described the colony as "this hell of a hole." But what success there was in forming and sustaining Anglican congregations came largely through the efforts of the SPG and its clergymen.