ADDRESS. 



2lr, President, — Ladies and Gentlemen : 



How appropriate on this anniversary occasion, after 

 a bountiful harvest has been gathered in, and the tillers 

 of the soil of this goodly land have come up to their 

 yearly jubilee, to have a proper sense of our obligation 

 to our Heavenly Father, while we remember the mercies 

 that have been strewed along our pathway the past 

 year, — for returning Spring, Summer and Autumn ; 

 for sunshine and showers, seed-time and harvest ; for 

 preservation of life ; for prosperity, benefit of friends, 

 and social enjoyments ; for the soft and gentle influences 

 of civil and religious liberty, and the innumerable bles- 

 sings that flow from our invaluable institutions, the glory 

 of our Commonwealth. 



In the returning spring what beauty opens to our 

 vision, after the long cold winter, in which the earth was 

 locked in chains of ice in deep repose, resting after a 

 draft from her resources in producing a bountiful harvest, 

 when vegetation was inanimate, as without life. The 

 cold bleak winds have swept over our fields, purified the 

 air, invigorated man and beast, preparatory to the 

 approaching spring-time, when nature calls the hus- 

 bandman to action. The tiller of the soil, in the full 

 exercise of faith " in seed-time and harvest," went forth 



