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of Edinburgh, Session 1875 - 76 . 
others. Mr Thackeray was amused, and said, (c Well, if I am alive, 
I will come to your meeting.” The handbills were accordingly 
issued with Thackeray’s name in them. A great crowd assembled. 
Mr Thackeray appeared on the platform. He found when there 
he could not avoid saying something. His words were few but 
telling, and they were received with enthusiasm. Mr Sinclair 
adds, that this was the only time that the rhetorical powers of the 
great novelist were proved at a public meeting. 
It was not merely in London that Mr Sinclair was of use. 
During general periods of great distress in the manufacturing and 
mining districts of Wales and Lancashire, the bishops of these 
dioceses obtained his services to enable them to raise funds and 
devise measures of relief ; his services in these respects being 
thought of, on account of his well-known business habits, and also 
his sympathy with the working classes. 
In the year 1853 he was sent out to the United States as one of 
a deputation from the Church of England to the General Conven- 
tion of the Protestant Episcopal Church in New York. When 
there, he made acquaintance with Mr Washington, the nephew of 
the great man who had founded the American Republic, and with 
whom his father, Sir John Sinclair, had corresponded. 
I have had sent to me a long list of pamphlets, books, and 
sermons, published by the Archdeacon. The largest work is one 
in two volumes, published in 1837, on the Life and Times of his 
father. 
From what I have said, it will be perceived that Mr Sinclair, by 
the energy with which he threw himself into every work he under- 
took, justified Dr Chalmers’ opinion, that he was an enthusiast. 
But his enthusiasm was — which is rarely the case — tempered with 
great good sense and sound judgment. His untiring industry, his 
practical usefulness, and his benevolence of character, showed that 
he was no unworthy son of a most excellent and patriotic Scotchman. 
Having concluded all that it has occurred to me to state 
regarding ourselves — I mean regarding the work we are doing, and 
our means of doing it — I proceed to submit to you a few remarks 
regarding the present state of science generally in our own country. 
It appears to me that a great educational movement, amounting 
