The next morning I addressed a breakfast meeting of about 400 people, in a room connected with the Tabernacle.  This was a new thing in the New World.  It was, moreover, an anti-slavery breakfast, under the presidency of Lewis Tappan.  It was charming to see the whites and the coloured so intermingled at this social repast, and that in the very heart of the great metropolis of America.

At 10 the same morning a meeting of the American Tract Society was held at the Tabernacle.  I had been engaged to speak on that occasion, but was obliged to go and see about the vessel that was to take us away.

In the evening I was pressed, at half an hour’s notice, to speak at the meeting of the American Home-Missionary Society.  The Rev. H.W.  Beecher of Indianapolis, one of the sons of Dr. Beecher, made a powerful speech on the claims of the West and South-west.  In my own address I complimented the Directors on the ground they had recently taken in reference to slavery, and proceeded to say that there was an important sense in which that society should be an anti-slavery society.  This elicited the cheers of the few, which were immediately drowned in the hisses of the many.  The interruption was but momentary, and I proceeded.  The next morning one of the Secretaries endeavoured to persuade me that the hisses were not at myself, but at those who interrupted me with their cheers.  I told him his explanation was ingenious and kind; nevertheless I thought I might justly claim the honour of having been hissed for uttering an anti-slavery sentiment at the Tabernacle in New York!

This society has an herculean task to perform; and, in consideration of it, our American friends might well be excused for some years, were it possible, from all foreign operations.

  “Westward the star of empire moves.”

Ohio welcomed its first permanent settlers in 1788, and now it is occupied by nearly 2,000,000 of people.  Michigan obtained its first immigrants but fourteen or fifteen years ago, and now has a population of 300,000.  Indiana, admitted into the Union in 1816, has since then received a population of more than half a million, and now numbers nearly a million of inhabitants.  Illinois became a State in 1818.  From that date its population trebled every ten years till the last census of 1840, and since then has risen from 476,000 to about 900,000.  Missouri, which in 1810 had only 20,800 people, has now 600,000, having increased 50 per cent. in six years.  Iowa was scarcely heard of a dozen years ago.  It is now a State, and about 150,000 people call its land their home.  Wisconsin was organized but twelve years ago, and has now a population of not less than 200,000.  One portion of its territory, 33 miles by 30, which ten years before was an unbroken wilderness, numbered even in 1846 87,000 inhabitants; and the emigration to the “Far West” is now greater than ever.  A giant is therefore growing up there, who will soon be able and disposed to rule the destinies