II - ‘THE MEMORY OF OUR BENEFACTORS’

Summary

I have been deputed to propose a Toast, or rather a Memory, of the kind usually drunk in silence; for, of the many included within its scope, few indeed are within our present reach:—to be encouraged by our praise, or warmed by our thanks. It is the Memory of our Benefactors: of that great cloud of witnesses,—witnesses to the nearness of the present and the past,—which compass us about in every ancient English Institution, whether religious, civic, or academic. They are a very numerous body, and include almost every rank and station in life. Our Commemoration Service, long as it may seem, literally does not contain a tithe of those who “in their day bestowed charitably for our comfort of the temporal things given to them.” The small and the great are there.

Take a few representative cases to illustrate the variety of age, condition, and motives, under which these gifts have been made. Here is a broken-hearted mother, in despair at the sudden and violent death of her only son. Dean Nowell, of St. Paul's, gives the account, and I should spoil it by repeating it in any words but his own. He says: “The mother fell into sorrows uncomfortable; whereof I, being of her acquaintance, having intelligence did with all speed ride unto her house near to Hoddesdon, to comfort her the best I could.