LECTURES. AN ADDRESS DELIVERED BEFORE THE HALIFAX MECHANICS' INSTITUTE, ON THE FIFTH OF NOVEMBER, 1834. After a season of unexampled trial to this community,* and of anxious solicitude to us all, it is with no ordinary feelings of pleasure that I open the fourth course of lectures to this Institute. Although since we last met, some of us may have have lost relatives and friends; still, when I find so full an attendance of my brother members - when I see around me so many familiar faces I cannot but feel that the most appropriate sentiment for me to utter, and that to which your hearts will most cheerfully respond, is one of gratitude to Him, through whose sparing mercy we are again permitted to assemble to tread the paths of science; and attain, through a right use of the means which he has placed within our reach, some knowledge of the wonders created by his hand, and of the laws by which they are controlled. It is our practice, in these opening addresses, without confining ourselves to any particular subject, to touch upon the past history and future prospects of the Institute; to take a discursive range over the wide fields of literature and science, for illustrations of the value of such societies; to build each other up in the love of knowledge; to cheer each other on in that course of improvement which has been so successfully commenced. As this duty usually devolves upon your office-bearers, and as, for many reasons, it is my wish and my intention to fall back into the ranks at the close of the present year, I shall avail myself of this occasion, to impress strongly upon your minds some general views that have long been forming in my own, and which I would fain leave among you ere I retire from the chair. The abstract or cosmopolitan idea of Knowledge is, that it is of no country; the world of Science and of Letters comprises the learned and the ingenious of every clime; whose intellects, reflecting back the light *From the Cholera, and commercial embarrassments. which each in turn bestows, serve to illuminate and cheer the dark places of the earth, and roll off the mists which ignorance and prejudice have gathered around the human mind. To benefit his whole race, and to earn universal applause, are the first great stimulants of the student and philosopher; but the all wise Being, who divided the earth into continents, peninsulas and islands who separated tribes from each other by mountain ranges and unfathomable seas; who gave a different feature and a different tongue, evidently intended that there should be a local knowledge and a local love, binding his creatures to particular spots of earth, and interesting them peculiarly for the prosperity, improvement and happiness of those places. The love of country, therefore, though distinguished from this universal love, boasts of an origin as divine, and serves purposes scarcely less admirable. It begets a generous rivalry among the nations of the earth, by which the intellectual and physical resources of each are developed, and strengthened by constant exercise; and although sometimes abused by ignorance or criminal ambition, has a constant direction favorable to the growth of knowledge, and the amelioration and improvement of human affairs. Is that feeling alive in your breasts? Is it abroad in this country? Has Nova Scotia received the power to attach her children to her bosom, and make them prouder and fonder of her bleak hills and sylvan valleys, than even of the fairer and more cultivated lands from which their parents came? I pause for no reply; the unerring law of nature is my answer; and though addressing an audience composed of all countries, it is with the conviction that their children are already natives of Nova Scotia, and that their judgments will approve of the direction I wish to give to those feelings of patriotism which that circumstance will inevitably inspire. You who owe your origin to other lands, cannot resist the conviction, that as you loved them, so will your children love this; and that though the second place in their hearts may be filled by merry England, romantic Scotland, or the verdant fields of Erin, the first and highest will be occupied by the little Province where they drew their earliest breath, and which claims from them filial reverence and care. Far be it from me to wish, on this occasion, to draw national distinctions. I desire rather to show you how the certainty that your descendants will be one race, having a common attachment to Nova Scotia, and knowing no higher obligation than to love and honor her, ought to draw you closer to each other in friendly union, and make you solicitous to give that direction to their minds which shall best secure their happiness, and promote the welfare of their common country. |