144 The Sixteenth General Meeting. 



matters around their homes, and as giving to the clergy an intelligent 

 interest in the things about them. On the' other hand, Mr. 

 Goldney had spoken of the interest which a study of archseology 

 gave to travels abroad, vpith which he entirely concurred. He did 

 not wish to throw a stone into the smooth waters, but he must be 

 allowed to observe that poor as was the architecture of the begin- 

 ning of the present century, there was something to be attributed 

 to change of taste. When he was a young man, the grave majesty 

 of Covent Garden Theatre, and the exceeding grace — the Grecian 

 grace and beauty — of the front of Carlton House, made a great 

 impression upon him. Both had gone to the dust. He did not 

 speak of the colonnade, but of the structure itself ; and if it had 

 stood upon a gentle eminence, instead of a depression, as it did, it 

 was, to his eye, one of the most beautiful buildings he had ever seen. 

 There may have been a want of wealth, and probably of taste in 

 those days ; but our taste had gone off into mediaeval instead of 

 classical inclination ; and in some instances a great deal more than 

 mediaeval taste had followed. These studies instead of being mere 

 amusements had been brought to bear upon the gravest questions, 

 until the origin of man had been called in question. This however 

 he would say, that no man's faith need be in the slightest degree 

 shaken by anything he had yet observed. It seemed to him that 

 the one great fact, which it was the object of the first chapter of 

 Genesis to disclose, was confirmed by the failure of those who had 

 been so anxious to find that man was more ancient than the date 

 ascribed to his creation. That some animals co-existent with the 

 earliest creation of man had died out was more than possible. Of the 

 great animals, some had been killed for the value of their flesh, some 

 as dangerous to man ; and when they began to die out, it was likely 

 from their smaller numbers that they would die out more rapidly than 

 the smaller animals. But look at the multitude of plants and animals 

 to which our altered courses of husbandry had rendered the soil 

 unsuitable ; many of them had become extinct : and we ourselves 

 should find it a curious object of interest, if we would watch things 

 which were going by, and observe the passing off of one race after 

 another from the face of the country. All this was consistent with 



