Page:The Under-Ground Railroad.djvu/18

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xii.

From Wm. Howard Day, Esq., M.A., of Chatham, Kent County, Canada West.

4, America Square, Minories, London, E.C.,
August 20, 1860.

Rev. William M. Mitchell.

Dear Brother,

I am happy to add a word to the numerous endorsements already given you, as to the necessity of the work in which you are engaged in Canada, and as to the earnestness which, from personal knowledge, I can testify you exercise in that work.

More or less, since 1843, I have been in Canada among the Fugitive Slaves, teaching and labouring otherwise for their benefit. I have even travelled for three hundred miles on foot from house to house, to visit these people in their homes. For the last five years I have been a permanent resident among them; and think, therefore, I know the people and their instructors. And to you, who know me, I think I can say, without being liable to the charge of attempting to flatter you, that among the Ministers in Canada in direct contact with the coloured people, I know of none who are preaching with more effect, and labouring otherwise with more earnest desire to do good, than you.

Meeting you here, providentially, I have been pleased to attend upon your meetings lately held, and in my humble way otherwise to evince my earnest desire that you succeed in your excellent object, viz., to rear a Chapel in the city of Toronto, for the benefit of the Colonial people, for the worship of the Living God.

As a labourer in Canada, I may be permitted to say I do earnestly hope that you may be soon enabled to return to your interesting field of labour, laden with the practical sympathy of this great country for the Fugitive Slave. The fewness of the labourers render this the more necessary, and your position in the city of Toronto renders it more urgent still.

The book which you now bring forward as a means to enable you to accomplish your object, I have read and re-read with great interest, not merely because it is full of thrilling facts, but