184 
TESTIMONIAL TO DK. EDWARDS AT LIVERPOOL. 
After reading the above, the Chairman, in the name of the subscribers, presented the 
timepiece, etc., and a purse of gold to Dr. Edwards, accompanied with their best wishes, 
for his welfare. 
An inscription, engraved on a gold plate and fixed in front of the timepiece, was as 
follows: — 
“ Presented to John Baker Edwards, Ph.D,, F.C.S., on the occasion of his removal 
from Liverpool, by a few friends in token of their estimation both of his private cha¬ 
racter and of his eminent scientific abilities. 
“ Liverpool, September, 1866.” 
Dr. J. Baker Edwards, in response, said,—I feel very grateful to you all for the very 
handsome and munificent present you have made me, and also for the form in which 
you have made it. Of course it is with a very mixed feeling that I meet you on such 
an occasion as this. On the one hand, I have the pleasure which your kindness cohveys 
to me; on the other, I am continually reminded that it is a parting pleasure, and that 
it is one which may in all probability never occur to me again. With respect to the 
testimonial itself, it is extremely beautiful. I cannot say that it is with great surprise 
that I see it on this occasion, for the Committee were kind enough to consult me with 
respect to its purchase. It is one of the most beautiful specimens of mechanism that I 
have ever seen, and certainly I think there is a great deal in it appropriate to the present 
occasion, aud I will just make it a peg on which to hang a few fragmentary remarks. 
It is a wonderful thing that human ingenuity could construct the idea of such a thing 
as this, and it is perhaps even more wonderful that human ingenuity should be able to 
complete the mechanical details of it. Here we have an instrument which shows us 
every passing second, and while it does so it records to a certain extent the result of that 
second. It passes on to chronicle the minutes as they fly, and the hours as they roll 
by. It tabulates the days, the weeks, the months, and the years. I am told that it does 
not even omit leap-year in its wonderful mechanical powers. In the mechanical passing 
moments we are reminded that every moment and every second that is going away is a 
part of one great organization, and that we are called upon to recall these moments and 
think upon them. At the same time we see that there is what Mr. Groves, President of 
the British Association, calls a continuity in all. Not only does it record the move¬ 
ments of the heavenly bodie.s, but it also reminds us of the changes of life, for there is 
a barometer there, and storms pass over us occasionally. We have sometimes fair and 
sometimes foul weather in this world; and we are reminded here that such must be our 
fate also—that we must have moments of high temperature and of low temperature— 
sometimes a breeze and sometimes equinoctial gales ; but still there is a unity about all 
this, aud there is but one movement here which works the whole. It also reminds us 
that there is a chronicle of these fleeting moments. It would be but a very poor piece 
of mechanism if it recorded but the moments; but each moment, as it passes, is but a 
portion of each hour, and each hour is a portion of the month, and each month a por¬ 
tion of the year. Each moment is a portion of our lives, the results of which we hand 
down to posterity. It is but a moment, and will soon be past. There will be a chronicle 
of this moment in my life which I hope will never be effaced, and which in the course 
of my history may bring kindness to others, and so may form a portion of my future 
life. I came to Liverpool with only one friend in it. That kind friend brought me to 
Liverpool as a stripling, 19 years of age, and he placed me in the charge of a friend 
whom I deeply honour,—Mr, Abraham. He and others encouraged me to improve, and 
they remain now my dearest and best friends. I should be very sorry to think that 
any friends I had formed in Liverpool should have turned away from me. I do hope 
that, whatever friends I have had the pleasure and honour of making in my stay in 
Liverpool, I should never lose. I may part with them, may never see them again, but 
it would grieve me very much to lose their friendship. If I ever had an enemy, I should 
like to take him by the hand to-night aud pray to be forgiven, as I forgive him. The 
chairman has referred in very complimentary terms to my scientific position here; but I 
would prefer, among such cordial friends as these, to tell you that my real position is 
nut that of a scientific man, that I was apprenticed to a trade, and that I have exercised 
. that trade the whole time that I have been resident in this commercial community. In 
such an aspect as that, it is no very great matter for surprise that I should seek a 
market more productible. Also, as a manufacturer of that which the public require, if 
