from those natural advantages which are conferred upon ourselves.

But farther, whether it has been the will of the Deity to give us a greater portion of wealth, or power, or knowledge, than he has granted to other men, each of these advantages carries with it the properties of a trust-each is designed for something more than the benefit of individuals-each will conduce to the aggregate happiness of the human raceand for the proper use of each a recompence is reserved at that awful season, in the issue of which the possessor of each is deeply interested, and upon the arrival of which every man shall reap according as he hath sown.

Permit me to suggest to you that the labour of love, in which as supporters of an Hospital we are engaged, is productive of advantages which do not present themselves to the minds of superficial observers, and that in the stewardship thus committed to us there is a diversity of gifts, by the judicious and upright use of which we confer many remote as well as many near benefits upon a Christian community.

In a country so distinguished as our own by the wide diffusion of property, and the multiplied means of accumulation, the united endeavours of individuals have provided that protection for the indi gent, and those comforts for the afflicted, which in other nations have been supplied, sometimes by the munificence of Sovereigns, and sometimes by the bounty of persons who were at once wealthy, humane, and pious. The free and noble spirit of

our constitution has extended its auspicious influence far beyond the circle of disputed and undisputed questions upon the government of states. It has introduced a kind of moral and religious equality far more intelligible and far more salutary, than that political equality which has sometimes been extolled with designs alike unfavourable to the real well being of society, and unjustifiable upon any solid grounds of philosophy. It has brought the distresses of the poor more nearly within the view of their superiors, and invigorated the sympathy of the higher with the lower classes of the community. By the wise and happy order of things in the moral world, these measures, which have been taken more immediately for the benefit of the poor, have ultimately recompensed the liberality of the rich, by facilitating and increasing various advantages, in which both of them have an equal interest. All are subject to the pains of disease, all are exposed to casualties, all may be indebted for life or health to the aid of professional men ; and the skilfulness of such men is increased by institutions such as that which I am this day recommending to your protection. Within the walls of an hospital almost every kind and every degree of those maladies which flesh is heir to are brought into notice. The assistance given to the sick and the maimed is free from many of the inconveniences to which caprice, or rashness, or ignorance, may give rise in the private practice of medical

men.

As it has been observed, that for the pure

administration of our laws we are much indebted to the watch which is kept over the conduct of judges, by the presence of men who belong to the same profession and pursue the same studies, so it deserves to be remarked, that within these hospitals every physician and every surgeon acts under the inspection of men who are qualified to form a correct judgment upon the regularity of their attention and the propriety of their advice. That judgment too is generally impartial as well as correct, for it is happily exempt from those jealousies which may sometimes operate upon other occasions, when the personal profit of individuals is connected with the management of diseases. Every person employed in these institutions is an observer as well as an agent. Every man is a teacher as well as a learner, and the separate experience of each contributes to the aggregate stock of knowledge in all. The information which is acquired-the discoveries which are made-the success, and even the failure of well intended experiments, are additional qualifications for professional men, in the exercise of those duties which they may be called upon to discharge in the general course of their practice. He, therefore, who contributes to the support of these institutions with a most direct view to the benefit of his fellow creatures, may eventually reap the fruits of his liberality, when, by the providence of God, he himself becomes assailed by such maladies as in hospitals have been treated with that accuracy, which the opportunities furnished by hospitals could alone have enabled a practitioner

to attain. Let it be further remembered, that by a generous emulation in extending the boundaries of useful science, it has been the custom in many large towns to communicate the peculiar modifications of disease, and the results of various means which have been adopted to investigate its causes, to discriminate its symptoms, to shorten its duration and to assuage its malignity.

By the light which in places of this kind has been sometimes unexpectedly thrown upon the primary sources or the complicated properties of disease, they who dwell in the humble cottage, and they who inhabit the stately mansion, may find relief, hitherto denied to their forefathers through The faithful friend of your many successive ages. bosom-the beloved partaker of your duties, your joys, and your sorrows in conjugal life--the son, perhaps the only son, over whom you watch with anxious care, as destined to inherit the ample stores of wealth that have descended to you from remote generations, and to support the ancient name and the ancient honours of an illustrious family-yes, my brethren, each of these persons thus endeared to you may be rescued from destruction by the measures that were first employed for some lowly peasant from the sequestered hamlet-some helpless and pennyless Lazarus lying at the gate of the rich man full of sores-some forlorn traveller who on the trackless heath or in a dark recess had fallen among thieves, and who there must have perished if the chambers of an hospital had not been open for his reception, and reserved for him that succour, which had been often sought in vain

by heroes bleeding in the field of victory, or by monarchs languishing on the bed of sickness in gorgeous palaces.

But farther, in regard to patients, they, it is well known, are preserved from many embarrassments and many dangers to which, in other situations, they are alike liable from the temerity and the timidity-from the limited practice and the theoretical refinements of medical attendants-from the negligence and unfeelingness of servants-from the injudicious tenderness of near relations and from the froward reluctance of sick persons to submit to those restraints, in which they are here disposed to acquiesce by the authority of skilful physicians and surgeons, by the example of fellow sufferers, and by their own immediate observations of the good effects, which flow from established regulations for caution in diet and for the use of medicine. Here also they are preserved from many evils by which disorders are generated or aggravated from the corrosions of helpless and cheerless solitude - from frivolous or corrupt society-from temptations to coarse and destructive de bauchery—from the noxious effects of an impure atmosphere-from the obstructions which disregard to personal cleanliness throws in the way of recovery among the poor-and from fruitless, or I should rather say, from perilous reliance upon the deceitfulness and presumption of empiricism.

Such too are the circumstances attendant upon these institutions, that while the miseries of men are alleviated, their delicacy is not wounded. They see not the hand which is stretched out for their