186 



The Ladies of Norfolk — Give tlieni their righta, and they will ask no 

 higher compliments. 



The Chair next called on the Clergy, and for whom the Rev. 

 Mr. Babcock, chaplain of the day, answered as follows : — 



I am glad, Mr. President, that the Clergy have a place in the associations 

 and memories of this day. There is something congenial between the callings 

 of the husbandman and the clergyman. Each is eminently pacific in his 

 nature ; and the care of the field is particularly suggestive of the duties of him 

 appointed to serve in the field of moral and religious culture, under the eye of 

 the Great Husbandman. The tiller of the soil prepares the furrow, and looks 

 for a reward of his labors — first, the blade, then the ear, and afterwards the 

 full corn in the ear. It is the divinely appointed order. He has a right, under 

 the favoring influences of the genial sunshine and the early and latter rain, to 

 expect his harvest. 



He to whom the care of souls is given, learns his lesson from the field. He 

 sows the word of divine truth, and, under the divine blessing, looks also for, 

 first, the blade, then the ear, and then the full corn in the ear, in the result of 

 a Christian life. Nay, Sir, he does more than this, and looks for a more glorious 

 harvesting than that of a merely Christian life. 



Your own peculiar sorrows at this time, Mr. President, give more than ordi- 

 nary point to my thoughts. With your young and beautiful son, poising perhaps 

 between life and death, perhaps in God's all-wise providence soon to make the 

 change appointed to all men, we are peculiarly urged to think of the sad office 

 belonging to our profession ; for in sadness and sorrow we commit how many 

 — " dust to dust, ashes to ashes" — a glorious planting in the garden of graves. 

 How gladly, Sir, do we sow, in hope of the joyful resurrection, when " the 

 mortal must put on immortality, and the corruptible must put on in corruption." 

 May the blessings of pure and undefiled religion crown the toils that belong to 

 earth ; and all that men do under the good providence of God, be done to the 

 glory of his name. I thank you. Sir, for remembering the Clergy of the land, 

 and yield my place to others who may address us on this pleasant and interesting 

 occasion. 



The President then announced the following Song : — 

 THE HARVEST HOME. 

 (Written for the Agricultural Celebration at Dedham, Sept. 28, 1853.) 



BY MRS. JANE E. LOCKE. 



The sheaves are bound, the gleaning o'er, 



"We to the gathering come ; 

 Where Ceres brings her golden store, 



To sinsj the " Harvest Home ; " 



