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that "it pursues its quiet way, neither turning aside on the
one hand to urge disturbing political privileges, nor
on the other, to directly oppose them; but devoting itself
to moral and social improvement, and ready to aid all
proper benevolent enterprises for feeding and clothing
the destitute at home and in the far West."

Your Association may not have accomplished
great or dazzling achievements. Life is not made up
of great, but of small things. The Poet is right in
considering us "the best portion of a good man's life,

"Those little, nameless, unremembered acts
of kindness and love."

Such acts it is, that daily and hourly repeated, tear up
the noblest moment: and such, I believe, you endeavor
to keep in view.

But lest these prefatory remarks may seem to run into
that grievious fault of flattery, so common in other Dedications,
I must bring them to a close; only venturing to express the
hope that the famous year of 1876, may be distinguished
also in the annals of your Association, by the discovery of new
methods for promoting your great object, and by still
more satisfying results of Mutual Improvement.

W. H. F. [William Henry Farquhar]

"that it produced its quiet way, neither turning aside on the
one hand to urge disturbing political privileges, nor
on the other, to directly oppose them; but devoting itself
to moral and social improvement, and ready to aid all
proper benevolent enterprises for feeding and clothing
the destitute at home and in the far West."

Your Association may not have accomplished
great or dazzling achievements. Life is not made up
of great, but of small things. The Poet is right in
considering us "the best portion of a good man's life,

"Those little, nameless, unremembered acts
of kindness and love."

Such acts it is, that daily and hourly repeated, tear up
the noblest moment: and such, I believe, you endeavor
to keep in view.

But lest these prefatory remarks may seem to run into
that grievious fault of flattery, so common in other Dedications,
I must bring them to a close; only venturing to express the
hope that the famous year of 1876, may be distinguished
also in the annals of your Association, by the discovery of new
methods for promoting your great object, and by still
more satisfying results of Mutual Improvement.

W. H. F. [William Henry Farquhar]