I had several conferences with “Friends” who were interested in the cause, to discuss the best mode of engaging the members of the Society to unite their efforts on behalf of the oppressed and suffering slaves; and though no immediate steps were resolved on, yet I found so much good feeling in many of them, that I cannot but entertain a hope, that fruit will hereafter appear.  I had spent much of my time and labor in Philadelphia, particularly among that numerous and influential body with whom I am united in a common bond of religious belief, and I trust of Christian affection.  Of the kindness and hospitality I experienced I shall ever retain a grateful recollection; yet I finally took my leave of this city, under feelings of sorrow and depression that so many of the very class of Christian professors who once took the lead in efforts for the abolition of slavery, efforts evidently attended with the favor and sanction of the Most High, should now be discouraging, and holding back their members from taking part in so righteous a cause.  Among the warmest friends of the slave, sound both in feeling and sentiment, are a few venerable individuals who are now standing on the brink of the grave, and whose places, among the present generation, I could not conceal from myself, there were but few fully prepared to occupy.  I had found in many Friends much passive anti-slavery feeling, and was to some extent cheered by the discovery.  May a due sense of their responsibility rest upon every follower of Christ, to remember them that are in bonds, and under affliction, not only with a passive, but with an active and self-denying sympathy, a sympathy that makes common cause with its object.

Apart from the fact, that Philadelphia is one of the most beautiful cities in the world, to a member of the Society of Friends it must ever be an object of peculiar interest.  Here William Penn made his great experiment of a Christian government.  Here, to the annual assemblies of Friends, came Warner Mifflin, and John Woolman, and James Pemberton, and George Dillwyn, and other worthies of the past, who have now gone from works to rewards.  A few miles distant, in Frankford, is still to be seen the residence of the excellent Thomas Chalkley.  Here Benezet exemplified, in the simplicity, humility, and untiring benevolence of his daily life, the lessons inculcated in his writings.  And here, at this day, are a larger number of members of our religious society than can be found congregated elsewhere, within an equal space of territory.  They are, in general, in easy circumstances, many of them wealthy, and occupying a high rank in the community.

Who can recur, without a lively feeling of interest, to the hopes and prayers of the benevolent founder of the city, as expressed in affecting terms in his farewell letter, written as he was about taking his final departure for England.