The Sun.
London, England, 1857-05-05 00:00:00

HONOURABLL CONDUCT.

TESTIMONIAL TO DONALD MACDOUGALL,
ESQ., OF INVERNESS.
(From the Caledonian Mercury.)

A large assemblage of the personal and business
friends of Donets Macdooga 1, Esq , of Inverness, met
within Carrick's Royal Hotel, on Thursday last, for the
purpose of presenting to him a testimonial of respect.
The more immediate object of the testimonial Will be
learned In m the proceedings at the meeting.
Among the company present were—the Hon. the
Lord Provost ; Sir James Campbell of Stracathro ;
Bailie Wright; John Gilmour, ; James Gourley,
E-q. ; A n•lrew Wingate, jure, Esq. ; William Wingate,
E-q. ; John MiDonald, Esq. ; John Anderson, Esq ;
John Harvey, ; John Wilson, Esq. ; James
Arthur, Esq ; Walter Scobie, Esq. ; John Robertson,
Esq. ; William Weitheari, Esq. of Edinburgh;
Valiance, Esq , of Edinburgh ; Robert Forrester,
E4q., &c , &o.
Sir J. CAMPBELL, addressing Mr. Macdougall, said—
It is my pleasing duty, sir, in compliance with the re-
quest of the gentlemen who have taken the mere imme-
diate charge of the arrangements for the present occasion,
to beg your acceptance of the articles of silver plate now
before me, in testimony of the high respect of a number
of mercantile names and firms in England and Scotland,
who have benefited by your most creditat le, honourabl-,
and self-denying conduct in paying the balance of your
obligations of 1837, for which You were no longer legally
I:able. It is within the knowledge of the gentlemen
present, sir, that upwards of twenty years ago, when
you were but a young man, and little more than entered
upon your career in business.on your own account, hav-
ing met with disappointments and losses, to which mer-
cantile pursuits are always liable, you found yourself in
such pecuniary difficulties as made it prudent and neces-
sary, while at the 'same time most honourable on your
part, to submit your affairs to your creditors. Tne re-
sult was an arrangement made to the entire satisfaction
of your creditors, by Which you were to pay a compo i•
tion on your liabilities, which was acknowledged to be
the ample value of the assets of your estate. That '
composition was punctually and honourably paid,,and
although your means were thus but limited, the confi-
dence of your friends was not denied you—your credit
was completely restored. Since that period, sir, you
have applied yourself to the prosecution of your business
with great energy, industry, and skill, and with most
praiseworthy economy. But you have had great mo-
tives to encourage you onward. With the ordinary am-
bition for success, without which there seldom is progress
in any work, you have had an interesting family to pro-
vide for, and you have had also, sir, the noble aspira-
tions for independence—you would " owe no man any-
thing" by any interpretation, legal or moral. We are
rust here to-day to acknowledge the practical result of
your exertions, and to testify our mote of your merito-
rious and honourable conduct by presenting to you these
articles of plate. We beg you will accept them, sir,
with our earnest prayer that you may long live to enjoy
them, with all the pleasing associations they wilt ratur
ally carry with them ; and that they may go down
through generations in your family, as a testimony to
your weeth, and to the estimation in which you have
been held by all who knew ycu.
Mr. MACDOUGALL in reply said —Sir James Campbell,
your kind and flattering remarks have so overpowered
me, that I fear I shall scarcely find words adequate to
the expression 4 what my full Highland heart at pre-
sent feels. It is to me a source of no ordinary gratifica-
tion, I will net say pride, to have the honour of meeting
so many honourable men ; but instead of glorifying my-
self on this occasion, I ought to give humble and devout
thanks to the Source whence all blessings flow, that He
bas so preserved my health and nerved my arm as to
enable me, though with a severe struggle, to do a simple
act of justice, and to pay each man his own. Sir James
and gentlemen, or I may be permitted to say kind j
friends, a sense of u-tice ought to compel me to acknow-
ledge that I am utterly undeserving of this magnificent
testimony of your approval and good fteing. I ought
rather to have presented each of you with some tangible
expressi pi, of my ratitude and respect for the kind for-
bearance you exemplified when circumstances over which
I bad no control necessitated me to deprive you of a con-
siderable portion of what you were justly entitled to re-
ceive, and which I have been so tardy in repaying. Had
it not been for your kind consideration upon that occa-
sion, I ni.ght possibly, at the present moment, have been
a poverty-stricken and heart broken outcast, instead of a
prosperous man. It is to you, then, I owe. my present
I POSiticn ; for since the first moment the idea of pay-

ing all in full entered my mind, till the present time, I
Providence seems to have prospered me ; and if it is an I
unwonted occerrerice tor a man to do this, sorely there
ought to be no merit attached to the act, it being a
simple one of dirty. Even in performing that duty, if
merit be attached to it, I must give the credit not to
myself, but to the excellent szat-nple I had in early life
set before me, by the single-hearted Christian whom I
ever revered as the best of fathers, and who, like myself,
was beset with difficulties:, compounded, but lived to do
as I have done now. His honesty of principle was a►l
be had to bequeath me—all I inherited from him. Thack
God, my practice in this case has not disgraced the
memory I venerate. However, t y this act I have gained
what is precious to me—your approbation ; and I beg
your acceptance of my more than thanks, from an over
flowing warm heart, for those beautiful, useful, and
costly specimens of the silversmith's art. I can assure
you the recollection of this day will be engraved on the
tablets of my memory ; and should it be God's good pro-
viderce to spare toy dear children, I shall band these
down as an heoloom to them, and should any of them be
at any time what their father was—unfortunate—this
example of their forefather. shall, in language not to be
misunderstood, teach them the wise and glorious lesson,
" Go ye and do likewise "
Tue testimonial consisted of a silver tea service, and
several other articles of plate, atnong which was a superb
silver salver, bearing the following inscription :—" Pre-
sented, with a tea service and other articles of silver plate,
to Donald Macdougall, Esq , Inverness, by a ❑umerous
circle of commercial friends, as a testimonial of their re•
epect, and more particularly as an expression of their
sense of his honourable conduct in paying the balance of
his obligations of the year 1837, frein which he had been
fully discharged.-30th April, 1857."
After presentation of the testimonial, the company
dined together in the hotel—Sir James Campbell in the
chair, and John Gilmour, E q., croupier. Appropriate
and «xcellent speeches were delivered by the Chairman,
the Lord Provost, and ether gentlemen ; and the even-
ing was spent in the most harmonious and happy
manner.

A COURT SERMON AT THE TUILERIEI

A Paris correspondent of Le Nord says :
The sermons preached during Lent by the Reverend
Father Ventura, in the chapel of the Tuileries, before
the Emperor and Empress, have obtained great celebrity,
and are much spoken of, though the, text has not yet
appeared, to make us acquainted with what was really
delivered by the celebrated preacher. Whilst awaiting
the publication, which is being prepared by Father
Ventura, the following is an analysis of the sermon he
pr4acheri on Easter day, only a few days subsequent to
the ,entene9 pronounced by the Council of State against
the Bishop of Moulins. I think tha analysis will be no
unacceptable novelty to your r ad,rs
" Crucifixes in iogrotitate, vivit in rirtute Dei.
" One of the most touching prophecies of David is
that wherein he aenounces that the flesh of the Messiah
shall live and flourish again. In fac,,, death and corrup-
tion could not detein that fl sh, united substantiaby
with the Word, which is the life and the vivifying prin-
ciple. We have been witnesses in our day of a fact
anal igous to this grand and divine event. allowing for
the distance, however, between the finite and the in-
finite.—l mean the fell and restoration of the empire.
"As Jesus Christ was condemned by the justice of
Pagan R nne, so EurOpean diplomacy had surrounded
the empire with its prseteriane and sealed its rein with
an official seal. They bad even dem eed that not one of
the members of the imperial family should ever be able
to ascend any European throne. They had forgotten
only one thing, which was to affix to the act the signa-
ture of God. And I I the empire rises anew at a mo-
ment when nothing permitted ,stich an event to be fore-
seen, when any one predicting it might have passed for
a =Oman.
" I. Tne cause of the restoration of the Empire.
"The French nation is the eldest daughter of the
Church, not because its members were the first to
profess Christianity, since Italy was Christian be-
fere France, but because France was the first to consti-
tute herself as a Christian nation, in her laws, in her
political Existence. She has also been the set tier of the
church. Therefore the great and holy pontiff Zacharias
gave to Charlemagne the Latin empire, the empire of the
west, the Christian empire. Through the fault of that
monarch's successors, the successors of him the greatest
of Christian princes, the empire passed from France to
Germany.
" But as St. Thomas teaches—Niltil quod per acci-
dens proceditur is durable. The empire is essentially
French. At an epoch when the German fen-
pire had long since ceased to be, when there was,
as has been so well said, neither empire, nor
saint, nor Ronan, Pius VII., the worthy successor
of St. Zacharias, restores the empire to France. It
was not merely that he caused the sacred unction to
flow upon man, he raised up an empire from its ruins.
Diplomacy, joining in chorus with heresy and leer du-
lite, laughed at the ineffiacy of this unction Bit Go•i,
in His turn. made a laughing-stock of it. Q,a habitat in
coelis irridebit eos, et Dominus subaannabit eos. The
empire is reborn. But as Jesus Christ again rises from
the tomb with a better life, so the secood empire is
more beautiful than the first. The first was the terror
of nations, the second is their hope. Tne first
reigned by the reason of force, the second reigns by
the force of reason ; the first made war only in order
that war might better be recommenced ; that empire
was war. The second makes war solely to attain peace ;
the second empire is peace. Proud Alhien, who had
laboured so powerfully to overibrow the first, has be-
come the most faithful ally of the second. The mercer)
tile genius o Eegland has glowed with admiration for
the warlike genius of France displayed in the Crimea.
We have seen the great power of the north come to Wee
shelter under the shadow of France in the congress of
Paris, and consign to her the care of her interests and
dignity. The French may well be proud to see their
country again placed at the head of the world.
."11. The condition of the E.npire's duration.
" Christus resurgent jam non moritur ; mors illi ultra
non dominabitar. Tne Christian empire shall not perish
so long as it shall continue what it is.
" The condition of its duration is that it shall preserve
the christian sap infused into it by the holy pontiff
Zacharias. The mission of the present empire is to re-
move with prudence, and by degree?, but with firmness.
the pagan elements which are in the bosom of society.
and to cause Jesus Christ to reign throughout the world.
"The cepituleries of Charlemagne always bear these
words : Domino nostro Tem Christo. It was less the
reign of a man than the reign of Jesus Christ.
" It appertains to no one to give advice to the Em-
peror, His disposition is so religious, his prudence so
exalted, that we may answer for the future from the
past. We are assured that he will not quit the path ID
which be has hitherto walked. Not only has he
restored Franca to her rank among nations, restored
to Europe her equilibrium, and has preserved the
lesser nationalities, but in tha religious sphere espe•
cially he has fulfilled his mission. lie has de-
livered two-thirds of the French youth from the oh
ligation of passing under the yoke of a pagan instruc-
tion ; he has just enacted a law the full effect of
which few persons yet comprehend, and which will have
the happiest influence over families (.he bifurcation of
studies). Whilst the Empress fulfils the mission con-
fided to in causing practical catholicism to
reign at her
the curt, tte Emperor will perform his proper
mission by establishing this same catholicism in the laws.
Thus his crown will descend and touch the brow of hie
son, that child of blessedness. The Emperor will be the
happiest of husbands and the most fortunate of fathers,
as he is the mo-t powerful of monarchs, and his glory iu
hla present time will the prelude ef &Arms eta., glory."