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AN AGRICULTURAL SHOW.

SOME years have elapsed already since I last dined with you in this migratory pavilion, and I am glad that you should have pitched it this day under the walls of Windsor Castle, and that I should myself have an opportunity of bidding you a hearty welcome in the Home Park.*

Your encampment singularly contrasts with that which the barons of England, the feudal lords of the land, with their retainers, erected round old Windsor Castle on a similar mead, though not exactly in the same locality. They came then clad in steel, with lance and war-horse; you appear in a more peaceful attire, and the animals you bring with you are the tokens of your successful cultivation of the arts of peace. King John came trembling amongst his subjects, unwillingly compelled to sign that great charter

* From the speech at the Royal Agricultural Society's Show, July 16, 1851.

which has ever since been your birthright. Your sovereign came confiding among her loyal and loving people; she came to admire the results of their industry, and to encourage them to persevere in their exertions.

And the gratification which the Queen has felt at the sight of your splendid collection must, I am sure, be participated in by all who examine it.

THE CLERGY AS HUSBANDS AND FATHERS.

WHEN our ancestors purified the Christian faith, and shook off the yoke of a domineering priesthood, they felt that the key-stone of that wonderful fabric which had grown up in the dark times of the middle ages was the celibacy of the clergy, and shrewdly foresaw that their reformed faith and newly-won religious liberty would, on the contrary, only be secure in the hands of a clergy united with the people by every sympathy, national, personal, and domestic.

The Clergy as Husbands and Fathers. 93

This nation has enjoyed for three hundred years the blessings of a Church establishment, which rests upon this basis, and cannot be too grateful for the advantages afforded by the fact that the Christian ministers not only preach the doctrines of Christianity, but live among their congregations an example for the discharge of every Christian duty, as husbands, fathers, and masters of families, themselves capable of fathoming the whole depth of human feelings, desires, and difficulties.

Whilst we must gratefully acknowledge that they have, as a body, worthily fulfilled this high and difficult task, we must bear in mind that we deny them an equal participation in one of the actuating motives of life—the one which, amongst the "children of this generation," exercises, perhaps of necessity, the strongest influence-I mean the desire for the acquisition and accumulation of the goods of this world.

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The appellation of a "money-making parson is not only a reproach, but a condemnation for a clergyman, depriving him at once of all influence over his congregation. Yet this man,

who has to shun opportunities for acquiring wealth open to most of us, and who has himself only an often scanty life-income allotted to him for his services, has a wife and children like ourselves; and we wish him to have the same solicitude for their welfare which we feel for our own.

MERITORIOUS “BORES.”

I WILL merely express my satisfaction that there should exist bodies of men who will bring the well-considered and understood wants of science before the public and the Government; who will even hand round the begging-box, and expose themselves to refusals and rebuffs to which all beggars are liable, with the certainty besides of being.considered great bores. Please to recollect that this species of bore is a most useful animal, well adapted for the ends for which Nature intended him. He alone, by constantly returning to the charge, and repeating the same truths and

Meritorious "Bores."

95

the same requests, succeeds in awakening attention to the cause which he advocates, and obtains that hearing which is granted him at last for selfprotection, as the minor evil compared to his importunity, but which is requisite to make his cause understood. This is more particularly the case in a free, active, enterprising, and self-determining people like ours, where every interest works for itself, considers itself the all-important one, and makes its way in the world by its own efforts.

GROWTH OF LONDON.

A CERTAIN dislocation of habits and interests must inevitably attend the removal of the great City market from the site it has occupied for so many centuries, and this may possibly retard for the moment the fullest development of the undertaking; but any opposition arising from such

* From the address on the opening of the Metropolitan Cattle Market.

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