TO COL. WILLIAM SCHOULER,

BOSTON, OCTOBER 10th, 1848.

DEAR SIR-At a meeting of our Association on the day of the FOURteenth TriENNIAL FESTIVAL CELEBRATION, the undersigned were appointed a committee to transmit the following Vote of Thanks, in the sentiments of which permit us, as individuals, to express our entire concurrence, and hope you will grant the request therein contained.

We remain,

Very truly your friends,

HENRY N. HOOPER,
BILLINGS BRIGGS,

OSMYN BREWSTER,
JOHN KUHN,

COMMITTEE.

At a meeting of the MASSACHUSETTS CHARITABLE MECHANIC ASSOCIATION, held October 5th, 1848, on motion of the Honorable JOSEPH T. BUCKINGHAM, it was unanimously

VOTED, That the thanks of the Association be presented to our friend and brother, WILLIAM SCHOULER, for his beautiful and very acceptable Address delivered by him this day. VOTED, That the President, Vice President, Treasurer, and Secretary, be a committee to communicate the preceding vote to Col. Schouler, and request a copy for publication.

BOSTON, OCTOBER 17th, 1848.

To Messrs. HENRY N. HOOPER, BILLINGS BRIGGS, OSMYN BREWSTER, and JOHN KUHN, Esquires.

GENTLEMEN-I have received your kind and friendly letter of the 10th inst. transmitting the votes passed on the 5th inst. by the MASSACHUSETTS CHARITABLE MECHANIC ASSOCIATION, requesting a copy for publication of the Address made by me on the occasion of our late Triennial Anniversary.

I feel highly honored by the votes of the Association, and am sincerely gratified by the kind manner in which you have conveyed them to me. No one can have a more humble opinion of my Address than myself, yet I cheerfully comply with the request of the Association, and transmit herewith a copy of it for publication.

I am, Gentlemen, your friend and brother,

WILLIAM SCHOULER.

ADDRESS.

UPON me, an humble and comparatively new member, has fallen the pleasant duty of addressing this association at this time.

Three years have passed since, upon an occasion like the present, we met to mingle our hearts and our affections, and to devote one day in commemorating the objects for the advancement of which our society was formed.

In the eye of Omnipotence, these three years are but as a moment of time. To us, the creatures of his breath, they are a goodly span.

Nor have these three years been unimportant in the history of nations, or in solving the problem of the true character and condition of man. Many and mighty have been the changes they have witnessed. Thrones and

dynasties, which were believed to have their foundation on an eternal basis, and systems of government, which had grown venerable with age, around which the ivy of centuries had become entwined, have tottered and fallen.

Revolution after revolution has swept over the older nations of the earth, and kings and princes have become outcasts from their countries, and exiles from their homes.

War, with its countless miseries, at home and abroad, we have witnessed. The streets of cities have run red

with blood; and blackened walls, and broken roofs, and pr.strate dwellings, have marked the advance of hostile armies. These, and the spreading fields of yellow grain, trampled into mire by the foot of horse and the march of man, remain, Desolation-like, to tell of battles lost and

Famine, likewise, with her gaunt and ghastly brood, has fled her charnel-houses with victims from among the children of the poor. A mysterious disease, of whose crigin or character no man knoweth, has blighted and destrored the food of a nation. When harvest-time came round, in place of an expected increase, a putrid mass was found. The earth withheld her accustomed bounty, and Flank despair laid hold of the people's hearts. Literally were the words of Scripture fulfilled, "Blessed shall he be who taketh thy children and throweth them against

the stones."

It has been our fortune to be only witnesses at a distance, not living actors in these scenes. Few, few indeed, have been our sufferings; many our blessings. The seat of war has been far distant from us, and the broad ocean, with its ever-moving flood, has separated our country from the abodes of famine.

It is proper, for these and for other reasons, that we should meet and rejoice, not, indeed, in the spirit or with the purpose of the Pharisee, to thank God that "we are not as other men are," but in that true spirit of Christian love and thankfulness, that our lines have been cast in pleasant places; that seed-time and harvest have been blessed to us an hundred-fold; that the labors of the husbandman and of the mechanic have been so abundantly crowned that we have had whereof to eat and to drink and wherewithal to be clothed. We should rejoice that

the government, which our fathers in their wisdom established, is one which seeks its support, and derives its vitality, from the people. Thus established, it is healthy, strong, and vigorous, having no enemies within, and fearing none from without.

Our fair and beautiful city, the home of our choice and of our affections, has made, since last we met, an advance movement. Her portals have been enlarged, and her whole appearance improved. New blocks of buildings rear their granite fronts, and new habitations stretch out on every side, and have become the pleasant homes of a new population. School-houses, those nurseries of the youthful mind, and churches, with lofty spires, which point eternally to the home of God beyond the skies, have risen with them. Our wharves are thronged with vessels, which bear upon the bosom of Old Ocean a successful and prosperous commerce. New lines of railroads, stretching into the rich interior, awakening the deep solitudes of nature with the shrill whistle of the locomotive, bring the wealth of teeming fields and of fertile valleys to our very doors. And water, that "nectar of the gods," man's best beverage, we are soon to have in happy abundance distributed to every dwelling.

The massive reservoir which crowns our highest summit, resembles the heart of a healthy man, while the mains and pipes, radiating therefrom through every street, and lane, and court, are the veins and arteries through which is soon to flow a new life-current of our people.

These are a few of the improvements in the blessings of which we all partake, and in which the mechanics of Boston may feel an honest pride. They represent, in some degree, the glories of our arts, and the munificence of our labor and enterprise.