The resolution ran as follows:--"That this meeting, while fully recognising the great steps made by nearly all civilised nations in the path of human freedom, has yet to contemplate with feelings of the deepest sorrow the vast extent of Slavery still maintained among Mohammedan and heathen nations, producing, as its consequence, the indescribable horrors of the Central and East African Slave-trade, as fatal to human life on shore as the dreadful Middle Passage formerly was at sea; in view of this appalling state of things, this meeting pledges itself to support the British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society in its efforts to urge the Governments of all Slave-holding countries to put an end to Slavery as the only certain method of stopping the Slave-trade." Mr. Forster said that this resolution had been drawn with a temperance of language which he feared he would not have been able to command. He thought that the services which England had rendered to some nations still encouraging Slavery and the Slave-trade, entitled her voice to be raised with great authority. But he recognised the difficulties, which should nerve them to greater earnestness in strengthening public opinion in this country on the subject. "I greatly rejoice," said Mr. Forster, "to see this meeting, and I believe this means a new departure, and a determination to carry on the work, and to strengthen the hands of this Society for what it has yet to do." Cardinal Manning, in an earnest and eloquent appeal, also urged the claims of the Society. "The reports published by it, as to the actual state of Slavery and the Slave-trade, are too sadly true. We are told that Livingstone, whose name cannot be mentioned in this hall or anywhere without awaking the sympathy of all Christian men, has left it on record as his belief that half-a-million of human lives are annually sacrificed by this African Slave-trade. This horrible traffic runs in three tracks, marked by skeletons, from the centre of Africa towards Madagascar, towards Zanzibar, and towards the Red Sea. Also, we are told, that of those who are carried away by force, some are so worn by fatigue as to die, others falling by the way are slaughtered by the sword, so that of this great multitude only one-third ever reaches the end of their horrible destination. It would seem to me that never in the Middle Passage was murder and misery so great."