THE president's ADDRESS. 15 



dominion, or gentler thoughts of preeminence in those Arts that delight 

 the eye and elevate the soul, will hardly forget that the year just past 

 has witnessed the death of Camille Cavour. 



** It is a pleasant thought," says Charles Kingsley, " to feel surer, day 

 by day, that one is not needed — that science moves forward swift and 

 sure under a higher guidance than our own — that the sacred torch-race 

 never can stand still, that He has taken the lamp out of old and 

 failing hands, only to put it into young and brave ones who will not 

 falter till they reach the goal." 



Yet a few words more and I have done. The war-cloud that has 

 risen so threateningly in our southern horizon has lately, in some 

 degree " turned out a silver lining on the night," and the mild arts of 

 peace may perhaps still be allowed to flourish, unchilled by the breath 

 of War. The rising cloud may somewhat dim the cheering sunshine 

 of our prosperity ; but its shadow will fall upon a land alive with 

 citizen-soldiers prepared to defend its soil to the last ; satisfied 

 with its political position, unprepared for changes in its allegiance. 

 We have live.l long enough to refuse to turn from the chaste and 

 gracious form of our Constitutional Liberty to the worship of the 

 base counterfeit which has been raised on this Continent in the stead 

 of the veritable Goddess. 



Know ye not then the Harlot ? Know ye not 

 The shameless forehead, the obdurate eye, 



The meretricious mien, 

 The loose, unmodestgarb with slaughter foul? 

 Your Fathers knew her ! When the nations round 

 Received her maddening spell. 

 And called her — Liberty— 

 And in that name proclaim'd 

 A jubilee for Guilt I 



Listen to some memorable words written sixty years ago : — 

 " Thanks to our sullen resistance to innovation — thanks to the cold 

 eluggishness of our national character, we still have the stamp of our 

 forefathers — we have not lost the generosity and dignity of thinking 

 of the 14th century, nor as yet have we been subtlelized ourselves into 

 savages — we are not the converts of Rousseau — we are not the 

 disciples of Voltaire — Helvetius lias made no progress amongst us — 

 atheists are not our preachers — madmen are not our lawgivers — we 

 know that we have made no discoveries, and we think that no discov- 

 eries are to be made in morality — not many in the great principles of 

 government nor in the ideas of liberty, which were understood long 

 before we were born, as well as they will be after the grave has heaped 



