“The fourth of July,” the anniversary of the independence of the United States, fell this year on the first day of the week, and was therefore celebrated the day following.  It is still marked by extravagant demonstrations of joy, and often disgraced by scenes of intemperance and demoralization.  The better part of the community wisely counteract the evil, to a great extent, by holding, on the same day, temperance meetings, school examinations, opening their places of worship, et cet.  I accompanied my friend Lewis Tappan to attend an anti-slavery meeting at Newark, in which Theodore Weld was expected to take a part for the first time after an interval of five years’ discontinuance of public speaking.  Several years before, he had been carried away by the stream in crossing a river, and had very narrowly escaped drowning.  This accident caused an affection of the throat, and eventually disqualified him for public labor except with the pen, to which, though deemed a great loss at the time by his fellow-laborers in the anti-slavery cause, we probably owe the invaluable works before referred to.  It was on the same anniversary, five years ago, that he had spoken last, a circumstance to which he made a touching allusion:  he spoke very impressively for more than half an hour without serious inconvenience, and I hope it may please Providence to restore his ability to plead, as he was wont to do with great power, for the cause of the oppressed.

In the afternoon there was a public examination of the scholars belonging to the place of worship in which the preceding meeting was held, and in connection with this a little incident occurred, which may serve to illustrate the state of public feeling.  Newark, from its extensive trade with the south, is much under pro-slavery influence.  But the congregation of this chapel are generally anti-slavery, and have several colored children in their school.  One of these, a little black girl, was qualified to take part in the public examination; but this, in the estimation of some of the parents of white scholars, and several even of the trustees, could not be borne.  Others, on the contrary, resolved to battle with the prejudice of caste, and to call for her, if she were not brought forward; and, finally, I suppose, by way of compromise, she was brought on the platform to recite alone, after the little scholars who could rejoice in the aristocratic complexion had performed their parts, without suffering the indignity of a public association with a colored child.  Even this was, however, considered a victory by the anti-prejudice party.

I left on the seventh for Niagara, being desirous to see the celebrated Falls, and to visit some friends living in the western part of this State, as well as to find relief from the oppressive and tropical heat.  I hoped also to fall in with my friends and fellow laborers, J. and M. Candler, who had gone with a party in the same direction.  I need not describe a route so often traversed by Europeans.