The Sun.
London, England, 1859-12-24 00:00:00

which mechanism and eneniistry, ann
ledge derived from geology and natural history,
has yielded to modern science. As a consequence,
it may be both _natural and praiseworthy to
mount with equal rapidity the steps of the ladder
of social progress and refinement, and to repro-
duce with such fidelity as circumstances will per-
mit, in regions but lately redeemed from the
wilderness, the institution of the colonists' early
home. In the conflicts of wits and intelligences
to which such a combination necessarily gives
rise, who can doubt the advantage which must
accrue to the competitor who enters the lists with
his understanding fortified, his judgment matured,
and his memory stored with the treasures sup-
plied by the education which you receive in this
place ? (Cheers.) But, gentlemen, you must al-
low me also to say that, in my opinion, oppor-
tunities of civilisation, hardly less attractive, in-
volving the obligations of duty perhaps even more
imperatively, are furnished by the relation in.
which, I must venture to say, we are providen-
tially placed to that class of dependencies which I
have named in the second of the two categories
I have mentioned. When we reflect on the risk
which we run of misconceiving and misinterpre-
ting the acts and the motives of human beings,
with er fee tly ac-
ciat e of ea
thought reimperfectly
altogether
strange to us, and the complications and difficul-
ties, and, I must add, sometimes the injustices to
which these misconceptions and misapprehen-
sions may give rise, we may well, I think, con-
template with anxiety and awe the responsibi-
lity which the dominion over inferior races im-
poses on our country and on ourselves as indivi-
duals. No doubt, gentlemen, the best security
against error in the discharge of the duties inci-
dent to this relation is to be found in the sincere
acceptance of the belief that all branches of the hu-
man family are derived from the same parentage, and
alike interested in that Divine sacrifice which was
offered for the purpose of restoring the image,
everywhere, alas ! so sadly defaced, in which man
was originally created. (Cheers.) That this belief,
when sincerely entertained, is hardly compatible
with the systematic oppression and degradation of
any portion of our species by another, may be in-
ferred from the fact that the philosophy and na-
tural history which contradict it have been set up
to quiet uneasy consciences in the only country in-
habited by our race where slavery is permitted to
exist. (Cheers.) But although this be our best
security we need not therefore forget that secular
education in its highest development has likewise a
tendency to liberalise the mind, to enlarge the
sympathies, and to chasten and purify the heart,
and that we ought to learn a lesson of humility
from the history which tells us of our own modest
beginnings, and of the lapse into barbarism of Ra-
tions which had attained a height of civilisation
hardly inferior to that which we have reached,
from the study of the languages and metaphysics
which discovers to us the deep wells of thought
from whence are drawn many of those traditional
beliefs, dear to primitive nations, which the igno-
rant and superficial arc wont to spurn as simply
puerile and frivolous, and from modern science
which reveals to us how slight and partial are the
inroads which our boldest and most successful ad-
vances have as yet enabled -us to make into the
vast expanse of the unknown by which we are on
every side surrounded. Be assured that if it should
be the lot of any of you to pass a portion of your
lives either in official employment or in pursuits of
commerce, or in missionary labour in this distant
land, or among barbarous tribes that own the sway
of Britain, or are connected with us in international
obligations, you will never have cause to regret the
hours you have devoted to your studies in this place,
but, on the contrary, you will find that you will be
the better fitted for the discharge of the noble task
which Providence seems to have imposed upon us—
a task which will hasten the coming of the day
when the light of Christian civilisation shall over-
spread the earth, by exhibiting in your persons, and
by the force of your example, the constancy of
Christian patience, and the comprehensiveness of
Christian charity, and the purity of Christian morals.
(Applause.) Gentlemen, I have only to thank you
for the extreme—l cannot help mentioning it—the
extreme kindness with which you have listened to
me, reminding me of what was said to Inc a shoitt
time ago by a French gentleman, who, upon at-
tending a debate in the House of Commons, said he
had found out the secret of eloquence in this coun-
try, and that it consisted in the indomitable patience
of the auditory. (Loud cheers.) There is one an-
nouncement which you will allow me to make before
concluding—namely, that it is my intention to fol-
low the example of my distinguished predecessor,
and offer some prizes for the competition of the
students. (Applause.) As I have not had time to
consult my learned friends upon the subject you
must allow me to take some other opportunity and
other means of announcing what these prizes are.
(His lordship sat down amid loud and continued
cheering.)
After consultation with the principal and several
of the professors,
His LORDSHIP announced that a holiday would
be given to the students on a day to be afterwards
fixed, an announcement which was received with
the usual demonstrations; and, after the benedic-
tion had been pronounced, the assembly broke up.