ADDRESS. 



BY CALEB GUSHING 



Mr. President and Gentlemen of the 



Essex Agricidtural Society: — 

 It would be presumptuous ou my part, to think of ad- 

 dressing you on matters of practical agriculture. I choose 

 rather to invoke your indulgence for some appropriate reflec- 

 tions of another class. 



Allow me, however, in the outset, whilst congratulating 

 you on the happy reunion here of so many members of the So- 

 ciety, to give utterance to a common grief, in view of the ab- 

 sence of one, who, honored and esteemed by the community 

 at large, was more especially dear to you, both as an associate 

 and as a friend. I allude, of course, to your deceased Vice 

 President, the Hon. Daniel P. King. 



I have known Mr. King well as a public man, and in that 

 respect can speak of him with the precision of personal obser- 

 vation. As a statesman, indeed, his memory now belongs not 

 to our own Commonwealth only, but to the whole Union. 



He owed to the accidents of birth and of circumstances but 

 this, — that he was enabled to pass into the public service with- 

 out going through that apprenticeship in active life, or training 

 in the learned professions, which, though it sharpen the facul- 

 ties, and enlarge the sphere of knowledge, yet has a tendency 

 to leave the heart hardened in the conflict of human passions, 

 and interests, and the mind sophisticated by the habit of seek- 

 ing for arguments to maintain an assumed opinion or side, 

 in the stead of the unprejudiced exploration of the depths of 

 supreme and eternal truth. 



In this, he was favored by fortune : the rest was all his own : — 



