3G 
The Rev. Prebendary W. J. Irons, D.D. — I beg to second the resolution. 
I n taking a retrospect of the past year, it is dne to the memory of our late 
Vice-President, the Rev. W. Mitchell, that we should acknowledge his 
services to this Institute and to the cause of Christianity. He was long 
with us in our arduous work, and laboured to the last, heart and soul, with 
simplicity, knowledge, and truthfulness. During the past year we have lost 
another scientific name, — in his own department inferior to few, — I mean 
Richard Thomas Lowe, who was shipwrecked last month in the Liberia, 
in the Bay of Biscay. He was one who, in his Lincolnshire Parsonage, 
regularly waited for our papers, and read them with interest ; one whose 
life, from the time he was a youth at Cambridge till his dying day, 
was a life of science as well as a life of purity and piety. His record 
is to be found not merely in the Church, but in the scientific history 
of this country ; and his cabinets, which I trust will be carefully pre- 
served, will testify to those who come after, the definiteness, the minuteness, 
the honesty, the zeal, of his life-long effort in the cause of Science. When 
I spoke to him not long ago, in the presence of others, on some topics 
bearing on the great objects of this Institute, and while listeners were 
in some consternation at certain scientific results, he replied with his 
usual great modesty, — “ At present we are but tabulators of facts. I am a 
collector and nothing more. A future generation must fix the theories ; we 
will provide them with the materials.” He was anxious to the last to 
testify his unshaken faith in God and Christianity. He devoted all the 
leisure he could command, to furnishing to his countrymen that which I hope 
will be fully appreciated by many, as I know they are by the few to whom 
they are accessible, — those carefully - manipulated notes, which even now 
surprise one in looking over his subjects. This testimony is due to one who 
if not recognized as a great man, only failed of that recognition through his 
intense retirement and modesty. We should feel thankful that God has 
granted to this Institute such a measure of success that noble hearts and clear 
heads and scientific understandings like his, have come to us from the 
beginning, and have remained with us to the close of their career. There is 
yet one other topic which I will refer to, arising out of Dr. Thornton’s 
admirable Address, it is this; — I am quite sure Dr. Thornton has hit the 
right point when he tells us that the battle of the future in this country will 
not be a battle for any of the mere externals of our religion ; but it will have 
to be, on our side, a defence of the very personal existence of God. We 
must gird ourselves for that. I hold that implies, at length, the Creeds of the 
Church. It implies more, no doubt, than that acknowledgment which suffices 
for a Membership of this Institute. I do not desire to intrude on the special 
thoughts, feelings, or distinctive opinions of any member of the Institute ; but 
I am bound to say that here, in this Institute, though we admit all who are 
professing Christians, and would hinder no man from the proper discussion 
of any truth connected with the Gospel of God ; and although we should not 
wish to force anything on the attention of any man, to a larger extent than 
fair reason and earnest argument would justify ; yet, in the future, we 
