ANNUAL MEETING. 



9 



[The Honorary Secretary (Captain Francis Petrie, F.G.S.) 

 in reading the Report specially called attention to the presenta- 

 tion of £500 to the Institute by one of the members of the Council, 

 His Excellency Dr. Gunning, who desired that the interest of this 

 sum should be devoted to furthering the Institute's work; to the 

 improved arrangements for enabling colonial and foreign members 

 to contribute papers or take part in considering the subjects 

 brought forward ; to the increased disposition that was manifested 

 by members residing abroad to translate and publish the Institute's 

 papers and discussions for the benefit of those in their neighbour- 

 hood, and quoted the remarks made at the last Annual Meeting 

 by the Archdeacon of Mid-China in regard to such work. He 

 concluded by referring to the loss of 103 members by death, during 

 the late epidemic, a loss involving only too many of the Institute's 

 most valued and loyal adherents, whose places could best be filled 

 by existing members introducing new supporters.] 



The Chairman. — I have been called upon to take the Chair in the 

 unavoidable absence of the President, who greatly regrets that a 

 prior engagement has deprived him of the pleasure of presiding 

 at our Annual Meeting. 



Before the first resolution is moved I wish to say one or two 

 words. I am quite sure that you have all listened with satisfaction 

 and with pleasure to the Report that has been read. It is very 

 gratifying to find that in spite of the heavy mortality among its 

 members during the late e^^idemic the progress of the Victoria 

 Institute is so satisfactory, that its sphere of influence is widening 

 and extending into different quarters of the globe, and that its 

 proceedings have given pleasure and instruction to a large number 

 of people. 



It seems to me that the purpose for which this Institute was 

 founded is one at which scarcely anyone could cavil. It is quite 

 true that a very large number of educated people of the present 

 day admit that there can be no conflict between Science and Revela- 

 tion properly understood, but there are an enormous number of 

 persons who are not in that happy position. There are people, for 

 instance, who confound dogmatic theology with religion, and who 

 do not appreciate what science really is. There are those who are 

 neither capable of understanding the one nor of comprehending the 

 other, and so I presume those mistakes and those inaccuracies 

 which have always existed, still exist, and will continue to exist ; 



