292 PROCEEDINGS OF PROVINCIAL SOCIETIES. 



seed. Complain not that the sun which shall cheer the future 

 reapers must shine upon your graves." — Mr. Charles Bray, in se- 

 conding the resolution, stated that " the principles upon which the 

 Institution was founded were well known to the public ; it was 

 known to be neutral ground, upon which all parties in religion and 

 politics might meet for the study of science and in the search of 

 truth ; where all sectarian feeling might be laid aside, and where 

 that charity and benevolence might be cultivated which was the very 

 essence of Christianity." After alluding to another institution, of 

 a somewhat similar character, recently established in Coventry, 

 which he considered more in the light of an auxiliary than an op- 

 ponent, as its object was to advance the cultivation of useful know- 

 ledge, Mr. Bray very justly and eloquently remarked that " the 

 knowledge a man might acquire at a Mechanics' Institution, 

 (however much despised by those who did not advocate them) was 

 sufficient to give a different face to the whole of nature, disclosing 

 endless beauties of which the man who was deprived of it had no 

 conception. What a different appearance did the spangled heavens, 

 the starry night, present to him who was but acquainted with the 

 very first truths in astronomy, knowing each bright point to be a 

 sun, and justly conceiving, therefore, that it was the centre of a 

 system as vast and splendid as the one we inhabit, and equally the 

 mansion of life and intelligence : how different, he said, was this 

 appearance to that which was presented to him who looked upon it 

 but as shedding a feeble glimmering over this little world, or even, 

 with the simplicity of the child, conceiving the stars to be ' little 

 gimblet holes to let the glory through/ If we would teach reli- 

 gion, it was here that its foundation might best be laid — it was 

 here that the reverence and love due to the Father of all might be 

 taught; for it was here, as Dr. Chalmers beautifully expressed it, 

 ' that the ^Divinity reigned in all the grandeur of His high attri- 

 butes — where He peopled immensity with His wonders, and tra- 

 velled, in the greatness of His strength, through the dominion of one 

 vast and unlimited monarchy.' The same effect that even so little 

 knowledge had upon the face of the heavens it had upon the whole 

 of nature; every object became a source of pleasure and delight 

 when we were acquainted with its properties and relations ; and 

 this knowledge was now so systematized and arranged that it was 

 of easy acquirement. How beautiful the truths that lie upon the 

 very surface of the fields of philosophy ! We know that the power 

 (called attraction) that draws the stone and feather to the earth is 

 the same that wields the planets in their spheres ; that, justly aw- 

 ful as the lightning may appear, yet Franklin dared to send his kite 

 into the clouds, and bring it down to subject it to his analysis ; that 

 the ocean, slumbering and peaceful as a little infant, yet contains a 

 power that, employed as Watt employed it, would be sufficient to 

 rend in twain the universe. All departments of science revealed 

 equal wonders and supplied equal pleasures — and pleasures, O ! 

 how much more pure and delightful than those proceeding from 



