4S TJie Albany Institute. 



Albany has not been without distinction for the ability and ardor 

 of its friends of literature and science. Candor compels me to say 

 that the Young Men's Association has not among similar associations 

 so high a rank as is desirable, and that it is very probable that a free 

 public library would be of service to the people and creditable to the 

 capital city of New York. 



The Dudley observatory is a just monument of high personal worth 

 and of the wifely appreciation of a generous, high-souled woman. Its 

 perfection and utility are largely due — if my memory err not — to the 

 gifts and personal services of gentlemen, whose names are graven on 

 marble in the observatory itself, but of whom I can now recall the 

 names only of the two whom 1 have especial cause to honor, and they 

 are Thomas W. Olcott and Erastus Corning. I have no imagination; 

 I cannot see the appositeness of the term "light-houses of the sky," 

 applied by John Quincy Adams to astronomical observatories. But I 

 do honor this benefaction of science as a proof of the munificence of 

 Albanians and a source of true honor to Albany. That fruitful 

 gift, the Dana society, and this honorable Institute, so far as I know, 

 are all that this great, rich and favored city can point to to prove it a 

 votary of science. Pardon me, my friends, for venturing to lay before 

 you, in all simplicity and with true humility, some reasons why 

 Albany ought to be more active than she seems in the diffusion of 

 knowledge here, and in the cultivation and extension of the arts and 

 sciences, true auxiliaries of Christianity, and therefore props of that 

 civilization on which our liberties and progress do all depend. 



In returning to Albany, how could I help thin king there was reason 

 to apply to myself dear Goldsmith's lines : 



" And as a liare wliom hounds and horns pursue, , 

 Pants to the place from whence at first he flew, 

 I still had hopes, my long vexations past, 

 Here to return, and die at home at last." 



The notion that science and religion are, or can be, brought into 

 opposition is absurd. Both are truth, but truth springing from dif- 

 ferent sources. As to religion, her source is heavenly, and " the eter- 

 nal years of Cod are hers." Science is true, but her duration is meas- 

 ured by time, and her existence in time is dependent on the will of 

 God. If it please Him, the laws which he has imposed upon matter 

 and upon forces and all the affinities and powers of the elements may 

 be wholly changed and yet life and order remain perennial. Science 

 consists wholly and only of facts ; they are the only truths in nature. 

 Our efforts to group them, to connect them, and to deduce from their 



