81 
being present when your Lordship has presided. I believe that almost on 
the first occasion when your Lordship did so I was one of the audience, and 
very grateful we were that you had the courage to stand forward in defence 
of that which is dearer to you than life— the truth of the Gospel of our 
Lord and Saviour at a time when there was little of worldly success to 
expect, and when our future as an institute was extremely uncertain. 
(Hear, hear.) But, my Lord, you did not wait until we wei’e successful 
before you condescended to preside over us ; but more than that, we know 
that when the Institute began to be prosperous, then it was that you 
expressed your willingness to yield your chair to some one whom you so 
gracefully believed would more fitly occupy it. But we could not consent 
to that. We urgently requested you to remain where you were. We felt, 
and we still feel, that if you had retired we should have sustained a loss 
which could not easily, if at all, have been supplied ; and now, while we 
thank you for your services to us, I trust that you will believe we are all 
aware that we cannot do so in anything like an adequate manner. You 
have presided over this Institute so equitably while you have been among 
us, and with so much geniality and forbearance, that those who at times may 
have feared you could scarcely have sympathized with their course of argu- 
ment, must have admired your equanimity, and the fairness with which you 
have administered the duties of your office (hear, hear) : on more than 
one occasion I have seen this. It would be wrong on my part, after Dr. 
Thornton s observation that we ought not to detain you with long speeches, 
to prolong these observations, but I could not have done justice to my own 
feelings if I had supposed the audience could be at all impatient of this vote 
of thanks. Not one has left the room since it began to be proposed, the 
general rule being that the people are all going out of the door as the vote of 
thanks is being moved. It is not so, however, to-night ; and I trust that 
you will be aware, from the unanimity and silence which prevails amongst us, 
that we are most hearty and sincere in giving you our deepest thanks for all 
your care and attention to the interests of this Institute. As you cannot 
put this motion yourself, I will put it for the meeting to signify in its own 
way the expression of the hearty thanks of this Institute for your Lordship's 
conduct of our proceedings in the office of President. 
The vote was accorded amid general cheerinc. 
The President. — First, let me thank you all very sincerely for the manner 
in which this vote ot thanks has been proposed and received, and then let 
me assure you that in the rest I have to say my words shall be “ wary and 
few. I know the jeopardy in which I stand, and the slippery position I 
hold, and I shall take care not to lose myself in any scientific discourse. But 
I will say that if ever before I doubted the necessity for the existence of such 
a society as this, that doubt would have been removed by the address we 
have just heard. I do not know what we non-professional men would do, 
we who are engaged in the busy activities of life — I do not know how we 
should be able to turn to the right or the left, how we should help being lost 
VOL. XI. 
O 
