ANNIVEllSARY ADDEESS 15 



and whose reverence they had ceased to inspire. Disunion 

 and corruption within, fraud and violence without, soon 

 brought about the inevitable end. At the great upheaval 

 in the sixteenth century which we call the Reformation, 

 an upheaval that marked the culmination of influences 

 which had been at work from at least the close of the 

 thirteenth, the old institutions were ruthlessly swept 

 away, and a new act of the drama of our history opened, 

 with different actors and fresh scenery. How many acts 

 have still to be rehearsed before the play is played out, 

 and the curtain falls, who shall say ? 



There is much that is fascinating in the study of the 

 slow evolution of man and his history in whatever depart- 

 ment we take it up, and the limited fleld we have so hur- 

 riedly surveyed is no exception to the rule. There is 

 much likewise that, in the present state of our knowledge, 

 is baffling and mysterious. 



" For the drift of the Maker is dark, an Isis hid by' 

 the veil. 

 Who knows the ways of the world, how God will 

 bring them about ?" 



We seem to catch only partial, fitful glimpses of the design 

 of the Unseen Artist, who sits behind what Goethe calls the 

 " noisy loom of Time " slowly fashioning all, amid much 

 apparent confusion and delay, and with frequent seeming 

 destruction of the fabric He is ever weaving. But we are 

 sure that the ultimate result will, when achieved, fully 

 justify the Worker and His methods ; and we m.a,y well 

 believe that when future happier generations are permitted 

 to see more of the finished design than we, they will also 

 be enabled to understand much that to us is enshrouded 

 in mystery. Meanwhile, we have our work laid to our 

 hand, and our duty is plain. One of the main functions 

 of an Association like the Berwickshire Naturalists' Club, 

 which is devoted to the study of the antiquities as well as 

 of the natural history of the Eastern Borders, is now re- 

 cognised to be the collection and arrangement, in our special 



