The Sun.
London, England, 1850-12-31 00:00:00

TESTIMONIAL T') THE DEAN OF RIPON BY
THE YORKSHIRE: ME ILINICS' INSTITUTES.

(Abridged from the Darlington and StJabn Tidies.)
The Annual Some.) of the flourishing aad excellent
Mwhauics' Institute which has now for twenty year.'
been established in the good old town of Ripon, was
celebrated ;vita much feasting and rejoicing, on Tues-
day last, the 17th inst., at the Public Rooms, Low Skell-
gate. The eutertaincant then offered to the members
and friends of the Institute, highly gratifying and de-
lightful as it was in every respect, derived additional
attraction and importance from its being made the occa-
sion of the presentation to the venerable and long-tried
friend and apostle of Mechanics' Institutes—the Hon.

and very Rev, the Dean of Ripon—of the testimonial
subscribed for by the Institutes of Yorkskire, as a mark
of their appreciation of the benefits they have received
from his devoted and arduous services is their behalf.
The contributions for the testimonial, which were sub-
scribed by about seventy Institutions (and so liberally
subscribed that, we understand, a balance still remains,
after payment of all expenses, to be added to the funds
of the Union), were devoted to the production of a
work of art highly valuable and tasteful in itself, and,
moreover, peculiarly appropriate as an embodiment of
the respect and esteem of the subscribers. It consisted,
of a splendidly executed full-length portrait of the Dean
(the dimensions of the canvas being about seven feet by
five) surrounded by a massive, but at the same time
chaste and elegant gilt frame, which, whilst it greatly
added to the intrinsic value of the picture, did not de-
tract from its beauty by the slightest approach to a want
of taste or of keeping. The painting was in the highest
degree creditable to the talents and skill of the artist,
Mr. I). A. Williamson, of London. The extreme
modesty of the frame-maker precludes us from men-
tioning his name.
At five o'clock, several hundred persons sat down in
the large room (at the upper end of which the picture
was hung) to a most excellent and plentiful repast of tea
and cakes, &c. After the repast, and at intervals during
the remainder of the evening, a concert was performed,
in excellent style, by the members of the music class.
The first part of the concert having been concluded,
the more strictly business portion of the evening's pro-
ceedings commenced, and the Dean and other gentlemen
who were to partake therein mounted the platform
amidst enthusiastic cheering. Edward Baines, Esq.,
president of the Yorkshire Union of Mechanics' Insti-
tutes, was unanimously voted into the chair, the Dean
being seated at his left, hand. The following gentlemen
were also on the platforms—Revs. Mr. Wray, T. C.
Wilson, of Kirby Malzeard; T. Morris, of Knapperton,
East Riding; S. H. Atkin, of Studley; and W. Milton,
of Manningham; Messrs. A. Erskine (son of the Dean);
W. Williamson, president of the Ripon Institute; J.
Norman, vice-presid?nt; Alderman T. Williamson;
Robert irilliamson, Robert Pollock, and J. H. Shaw,
Esqs., of Leeds; G. Linnzus Banks, Boucher, of
York; and T. J. Pearsall, agent and lecturer to the
Union, &c., &c.
The CHAIRMAN, having expressed his sense of the
honour he received in being called on to preside over
this meeting, and the pleasure he enjoyed in speak-
ing, as a friend, to those who were friends of me-
chanics' institutes, and in joining with them, as a
representative of the Yorkshire Union of Insti-
tutes, to pay a just and most deserved tribute for
kind and valued services, proceeded thus:—And
now Mr. Dean let me at once relieve you by
saying that it is by no means my intention to distress
your feelings by pronouncing to you any high-flown or
elaborate panegyric. I know that, however I might
gratify the feelings of those present, if I stated the
whole truth in regard to your merits and character, I
should by so doing inflict much pain on yourself. I will
convey to you that which you will not hesitate to re-
ceive, —the language of the hearty gratitude which we,
the members of the Mechanics' Institutes of Yorkshire,
feel to you as our distinguished friend.—(Applause.)

It has pleased Providence, air, to place you in the pos-
session of many talents, of an honoured name, intellec-
. .

tusl power, ministerial office, and a high position; and
you have employed those talents not only for that great
cause for which you live—the cause of religion—but also
in the substantial advancement of the moral and mental
condition of your fellow-men in the humbler walks of
life.—(Loud applause.) You have seen rising up a class
of institutions, popular in their character, capable of
adapting themselves to the largest city and the
smallest village—institutions which bring together
the high and the low, the rich and the poor, the
Churchman and the Dissenter, the Tory and
the Whig, and cause them to see in each other that
which is amiable and admirable, and not to see
those things in which they differ.—(Loud applause.)
You found these institutions often in a feeble and lan-
guid condition, not sufficiently regarded by the hum-
bler classes, or looked down upon by the higher as
having a tendency adverse to the cause of religion.
Having considered well the claims of these institutions,
you have acted generously and truly towards them by
throwing yourself heartily into the movement, by doing
that which tended to remove the reproach under which
they lay; and if they had been (which I solemnly be-
lieve they were not) liable to that reproach, you have
taken the very step to counteract that evil tendency.—
(Hear, hear, and applause.) What you have done, Sir,
you have done with your heart. You have not stayed at
home, or attended once a year, or once in half a dozen
years, to grace a meeting with your patronage; but yen
have traversed the length and the breadth of this great
country. You have not merely s.ttenied where there
were high names to attract and a large population to
greet you, hut you have given your sanction and aid
more especially to those humble village institutes which
most needed it.—(Load applause.) Wherever you have
been you have left behind you a deep impression of seal,
of liberality-, of large-heartedness, and of tharough kind-
ness; and you have brought over to the cause many who
were before indifferent or hostile. You have doubtless,
sir, in your many perambulations, sustained consider-
able inconvenience and desagrement, but you have largely
tasted the luxury of doing good. I cannot but express
my admiration and gratitude at your having always
placed yourself on a level with those you addressed, and
addressed them as friends, and in the languaue of whole-
some and friendly stimulas.—(Applause.) Referring to
the late lectures of the Earl of Carlisle at Leeds, the
chairman proceeded thus:—Judge, Sir, of the satisfaction
with which those who witnessed the struggling infancy
of Mechanics' Institutes see now a Minister of the
Crown delivering lectures to them, an Archbishop of
Canterbury subscribing to their funds, a Professor Sidg.
wick promising to come down from Cambridge Univer-
sity to preside at a soil*, and a Dean of Ripon bestow-
ing on them his time, his talents, his influence, and his
_ _

heart.—(Loud applause.) I hope I may truly say the
Mechanics' Institutions of Yorkshire are grateful to and
appreciate their friends. I will not say that in their gra-
titude there may not be some admixture of that which
has been defined as "a lively sense of future favours."
—(Laughter.) But they have, nevertheless, a genuine
appreciation of the past.—(Appleuse.) It was to
your own neighbours, who love you most because
they know you best, that the happy idea
first occurred of presenting to you a portrait
which might go down as an heir-loom in
your family; and it was with true delight that the other
institutes joined in rendering that tribute which had
been so well devised here at Ripon.—(Cheers.) I re-
joice, Sir, to think that the noble portrait behind me is
worthy to be presented to you. I think the artist has
d me honour to his art, and that his work conveys the
expression of the dignity and mildness of the original.—
(Hear, hear.) We, the Torkshire Institutes, have now
unfeigned pleasure in presenting this portrait to you
and to your family. When I look at it, I cannot but see
the lineaments of one whom I have been accustomed to
reverence as one of the illustrious champions of the con-
stitutional liberties of England.—(Enthusiastic ap-
plause.) And when, at a day which I hope may be very
remote, this memorial s hill be handed to your de-
scendants as a memorial of the past, it will remind them
of one who has added fresh lustre to the name of
Erskine, and who has, among his many claims to be
considered a benefactor of his species, been recognised
in his day as the apostle and friend of the working
man's institution.—Mr. Baines concluded amidst un-
bounded applause, which was resumed with redoubled
spirit when
The DEAN rose to respond—He said, Mr. Baines,
Mr. President Williamson, ladies, and gentlemen,—You
will readily understand that the present occasion is one
of very mixed and anxious feelings to myself. I hope I
am not wanting in thankfulness for this interesting
mark of your kindness, conscious as I am, Sir, however
favourably you may have spoken of me, of having utterly
undeserved it. I am in a very peculiar position this
day; and none but myself can properly and duly feel it.
I will illustrate that position by the fact that two ques-
tions present themselves to my mind; and they are
natural questions, prompted by sincere humility and
self-respect. I ask in the first place—What am I that I
should be thus singled outf or such an honour?jand in
the next place, What have I done to deserve it? These
inquiries, I deeply feel, are necessary in some degree to
my character. I am a clergyman, a minister of the
Gospel; and I find myself on the present occusion
honoured, greatly honoured, by the members of a purely
secular institution, many of them not at all connected
with nay own Church, but associated with all denomina-
tions of Christians, and some of them, possibly, not
attached to any denomination of Christians whatever;
the design of all, in their united condition, being to
Promote objects of a worldly character. The world
may say to me when it shall hear of what has taken
place here this evening, How is it that you, not cring-
ing for and not receiving high distinction from the
patrons of your own calling, are receiving distinction
from a mere secular body, the object for which you are
associated with them having no direct design to pro-
mote the Christian religion? I admit the furce of such
questions; but if, Sir, I could not meet such sugges-
tions as these with a satisfactory reply, I should feel
deep shame instead of pleasure at being amongst you
on the present occasion.—(Applause.) If my conscience
accused me of having grown cold in the sublime and
sacred duties of my calling, and of being disposed to
substitute for them the inferior interests of merely secu-
lar matters; if I felt that the love of divine truth was
giving way to the more attractive questions of popular
progress in scientific recurircments; if I could apply to
myself the apostolic rebuke, that " having begun in
the spirit, I now de sire to be made perfect in the
flesh," and had any misgiving that I bad more sa-
tisfaction on the platform than in the pulpit,—l should
feel that I was invited here to witness my own dis-
honour, rather than to enjoy the kind sympathies you
have expressed towards me. But, Sir, I have no
such misgivings, thank God.—(Loed applause.) My prin-
ciples and tastes have suffered, I believe, no depreciation
in this respect. These remarks may, perhaps, appear
like boasting; but, if so, I can only add with St. Paul,
" I will not give up my boasting; no, not for all the re-
gions of Acahic." Such then, Sir, is my position. I
am well aware of the force of this important Scripture,
" Let no man that warreth entangle himself with the
affairs of this life, that he may please him who bath
chosen him to be a soldier. If a man strive for mastery
yet is he not crowned except he strive lawfully;" and I

have endeavoured to bear this great principle in mind
throughout a long professional life. But, Sir, all persons
are well aware that we arc subjected to the difference
made upon us more or less by accidental circumstances.
These circumstances, in one instance, bring the
amiable Lord Ashley, a Member of Parliament, into con-
nexion with the ragged schools and model lodging-
houses. In another case they invite an Earl, a Cabinet
Minister, to lecture for the improvement of a popular in-
stitution.—( Applause.) In your case, Sir, they induce
you, a distinguished public journalist, to become a de-
voted teacher in a Sunday-school, and a presiding mem-
ber of a mechanics' institute.—(Continued applause.)
In my owl case, these circumstances lead the Dean of a
people to become an advocate—l may say an itenerant
advocate—of these institutions. All I say in application
of tbat truth is, let every man be persuaded in his own
mind, and let him pay very little attention, therefore, to
what Mrs. Grundy may say.—(Laughter.) Having ex-
pressed his great satisfaction in having, in the many
institutions he had visited, received much kindness and
co-operation from his fellow-clergymen, whom he had
ever found to be actuated, even when fears, too hastily
entertained, in relation to these institutions, prevented
their co-operation—by high principles, and not by low
and narrow prejudices—by warm charity in its highest
aim and end, and not by cold indifference—he proceeded:
If, Sir, I should undertake to answer the secand ques-
tion which I proposed to myself, What have I done to
entitle me to this distinction? I should feel precluded
entering upon that subject from its very nature.
Suffice it, then, to say, and I say it most sincerely,
I have only done what all ought to do at all times
and under all circumstances I have followed
the guidance of my understanding and the
conviction of my heart. (Loud applause.) I
have endeavoured to use whatever talents 1
may have possessed, to farther the interests of that ob-
ject which I felt I ought to aim to promote. I would
say, in relation to the present subject, that I accept,
most respectfully and most gratefully, the present which
you have now offered on behalf of the Mechanics' Insti-
tutes of Yorkshire. I feel that it will give them an ad-
ditional claim to my exertions in their behalf; but I also
feel that it can add nothing to the assurance which I had
previously entertained that their institutions are founded
upon wise principles, that they are governed by whole-
some regulations, and that if persevered in in strict ad-
herence to those principles, they must be productive of
lasting good to the successive generations of the people.
The CHAIRMAN having read a note from the Rev. Mr.
Lewis, of Trinity Church, whose absence was caused by
indisposition, called on
J. H. SHAW, Esq., who spoke at some length on the
subject of the value and importance of popular institu-
tions in the elevation and improvement of the working
classes. _ _

The Rev. Mr. ATKINS in a very eloquent, and fre-
quently applauded speech, advoczted the claims of lite-
rature as a chief means of civilizing, refining, and
elevating the human race.
The Rev. F. MORRIS followed, and, taking warning
by the fate of the Doncaster Lyceum, and of an insti-
tution which had been under his own care, but which
had gradually dwindled away, he earnestly recom-
mended the study and cultivation of natural history,
and of music, as a means of preserving institutes in a
permanently successful condition.
Mr. PEARSALL next addressed the meeting on some
of the means which might be adopted of advancing
these institutions.

Mr. Poi.Locx, of Leeds, having been announced by
the chairman as " burning with desire to give a toast,"
moved, in a highly eulogistic speech, a vote of thanks to
those ladies who had kindly and gratuitously furnished
and presided over the trays.
Mr. BANKS was the " lucky being" selected to second
the motion; and having performed his duty in that re-
spect, in appropriate terms, he proceeded to make the
following observations:—l admire the wisdom which has
dictated the proceedings of this night—the spirit of jus-
tice, interwoven with a high sense of gratitude, so strik-
ingly exhibited in this spontaneous tribute of the asso-
ciated Institutes of Yorkshire—because, forsooth, it re-
verses the old, and I wish I could add bsolete axiom—
" Do fifty good deeds, you'll hear of them never,
Do one bad deed, and you'll hear of it over."
Shakspere might well say—
" The evil that men do lives after them,
The good is oft interred with their bones—"
feeling, in the extent and profundity of his grasp the
truth of what he uttered; for history and experience
unite to show that one-half of human life is wasted in
exorcising the good and invoking the bad—in perse-
cuting the divine instincts of our nature, and bringing
out those terrible lineaments which, in proportion to the
exact ratio in which they are developed, dwarf man to
the standard of the fiend. How many noble and heroic
natures, how many pure and brave acts, which to this
hour influence every throb of the universal heart, have
passed away not only unrecorded but undreamt of—how
many angels disguised by poverty or veiled with a timid
reserve have been riched and buffetted in the highways
of the world, by natures too corrupt or self-interested
to comprehend or appreciate the god-like efforts of which
they were capable; and yet since our first parents
sinned in Paradise, down to the much-bandied aggres-
sion of the Pope of Rome, when ever was there a bad or
foolish deed committed but it was trumpeted to the
winds of heaven, on the key-note of merciless censure.
The rule has been, if a man wanted to go down to the
grave unknown let him do well; but if he wished to
make a noise and create a sensation in the course of life's
fitful fever, let him do ill—good deeds alone being re-
corded in heaven, and bad ones only on earth. There-
fore in this era of cenotaphs and testimonials, deserved,
and undeserved, I discover the far and gradually increas-
ing indication of that better spirit which teaches us to
honour those to whom honour is due.—(Loud cheers.)
Though many a man has been crowned with the laurel
wreath and had his name perpetuated in brass and
marble, for whom " a halter gratis," as Gratiano says,
and a page in the " Newgate Calendar," would have been
more befitting tributes, still I would rather see every
building in the land converted into a monumental tablet,
and engraven with the story of many and virtuous ex-
ploits, than make a rolling ball of evil to pick up the
slime and filth through which it passes. If Mechanics'
Institutions only teach men to be more charitable and
grateful—to revere rather than persecute the world's be-
nefactors—to think less of Dives and more of Lasarus—
less of king-making victors, and more of those peaceful,
quiet world-reformers whose works as far transcend
the loftiest pretensions of wealth or ambition, as the sun
in lustre surpasses the taper before me, then we have
good reason for increased seal and perseverance, and
Mr. Baines may long continue to preside over, and give
the benefit of his influence to the Yorkshire Union of
Mechanics' Institutions.—(Cheers.)
The Rev. Mr. WILSON, conceiving he had in a manner
been " robbed of his birthright" by the substitution of
Mr. Banks' name for his own as the seconder of the pre-
ceding motion, nevertheless added his quota in its sup-
port, and the motion was carried with unanimous and
cordial applause.
Mr. W. WILLIAMSON then proposed, and Mr. JAMES
NORMAN seconded a vote of thanks to Mr. Baines for the
efficient manner in which he had filled the chair, as
also to the other gentlemen who had assisted in the
proceedings; and the motion having been put to the
meeting by the Dean, was carried with three hearty
cheers.

Mr. auras, on behalf of himself and th 6 other
speakers, havidg returned thanks, some more musical
pieces were performed by the band, and, at the ad-
vanced hour of eleven o'clock the meeting unwillingly
broke up.

STEAM COMMUNICATION WITH THE
SOUTHERN PACIFIC.

'\Ve are assured from an accredited source, and
have great pleasure in vouching for the authenticity
of our information, that the long-pending and hitherto
perplexing and provoking negotiations between the
Chancellor of the Exchequer and the promoters of
steam communication with our colonies in the
Southern Pacific have once more been energetically
renewed, and with every prospect of a speedy and
satisfactory issue. The East India Company, we
learn, have agreed to remove the great stumbling-
block that has so long stood between the desire of
Government to do what their sense of duty to Aus-
tralia in this matter prompted end what their obliga-
tions under the Leadenhall-street immunities de.
mended. The company consent to the almost imme-
diate surrender of their monopoly of the Bombay and
Suez line, thus leaving the hands of the executive free
to deal with the subject on its own merits, and to
enter into such contracts with private individuals as
may seem best to meet the exigencies of the case.
in thankfully accepting this important concession
to public convenience, we shall not too curiously
speculate how far its very obvious prudence may
have become apparent to the mercantile mo-
narchical directorate from their contemplation of the
fast approaching expiration of the steam charter,
namely, in 1852, and of the great charter itself in
1854; nor shall we seek to analyse how far a renewal
of the latter tenure may, in their calculation, be ren-
dered probable by their yielding this boon with the
good grace they certainly have done, especially as
there was a degree of temper displayed both in
Cannon-row and Downing-street that might have
justified a good deal of obstinate adhesion to the letter
of their privilege. Doough for us that private consi-
derations no longer impede the well-being of the
community in this particulai.,-and that Government
are now at liberty to act upon their convictions,
which, it seems generally understood, are in favour of
the route cid Singapore and the Peninsular and Ori
ental steamers. We trust that this will ba but the
speedy precursor of steam communication also by
the Cape and Panama ; as the rapidly growing im-
portance of our trade with Australia and New Zea-
land, as shown even in the emigration from Liver-
pool, though but the growth of a day as it were, not
only warrants but requires the extension of every,
facility for intercourse with these magnificent de-
pendencies, the more so as the importance has been
infinitely enhanced in the relationship to the new
world of California and the adjacent limitless territo-
ries on all sides now springing up into inevitable pro-
gressive prosperity.—Liverpool Albion.

TilE NEW BARONET, SIR RICHARD TM-TON.—
In creating this gentleman a baronet, her Majesty has re-
vived a title formerly held by the family. John Tufton was
knighted by King James in 1603, and was made baronet by
the same in a subsequent year of his reign. His son and
heir was Sir Nicholas Tufton, Bart., who, in the second year
of the reign of King Charles (1626), was made Lord Tufton,
of Tufton, in Sussex, and two years after that was created
Earl of Thanet. He was succeeded by his eldest surviving
son, John Tufton, who was the second Earl of Thanet. This
Earl married Margaret, daughter and sole heiress of Ann
Cliflbrd, Countess of Pembroke, in 1629, and was the first of
the Tallow in Westmoreland.