day is spending fast with every one of us, and we had need to use diligence in the work of our day.  We know the high authority under which we are commanded to ‘love our neighbor as ourselves.’  It is our desire on our own account, and in this exercise of mind we believe, dear friends, that you are one with us, that in our efforts to discharge the duties laid upon us, we may watch against a hopeless and distrustful spirit in times of discouragement.  And O that in his great mercy and love towards his poor afflicted and helpless children, it might please Him to hasten the coming of that day, even to this generation of the enslaved in your land, in which every yoke shall be broken and the oppressed go free.

“If, in this righteous cause, we move in the leading of our Lord, we may humbly trust that he, with whom there is no respect of persons, who careth for the sparrows and feedeth the ravens, will grant to his dependent ones the help and support of his Holy Spirit, and enable them, in the face of every opposition, to do that which is made known to them as his will.

“With the enlarged views entertained by Friends of the mercy and love of our heavenly Father towards his children of every nation and tongue all the world over, we desire to press it upon you still to labor for the removal of all those unjust laws and limitations of right and privilege consequent upon the unwarrantable distinction of color—­a distinction which has brought so much suffering upon those settled in different parts of the Union, and which we think must conduce to the strengthening of the prejudices of former years, and to retard the work of emancipation.

“It is affecting to us to think with what astonishing rapidity slavery is extending itself upon the Continent of North America, and how from year to year the slave population is increasing among you.  Our spirits are oppressed with a sense of the magnitude of the evil; we tremble at the awful consequence which, in the justice and wisdom of Almighty God, may ensue to those who persist in the upholding of it.  We commend the whole subject to your most serious attention, and desiring that divine wisdom may be near to help in your deliberations upon it,

    “We bid you, affectionately, farewell.

    “Signed in and on behalf of the Meeting, by

    “GEORGE STACEY,

    “Clerk to the Meeting this year.”

APPENDIX B. P. 30.

EARLY EFFORTS OF “FRIENDS” IN BEHALF OF NEGRO SLAVES.