Is it consistent, therefore, with these opinions, to maintain that the Ministers of a Christian Church, who interpret to us the _word_ of God, should receive payment for their labour, rank for their exertions, and, in some instances, even the very ribbons[27] so contemned: whilst those who make us intimately acquainted with the _works_ of the Almighty, who discover to us the laws which he has impressed on matter, and thus add to the physical comfort, the intellectual pleasure, and the religious feeling of mankind, should be compelled to exercise those rare endowments, only by the sacrifice of fortune and the renunciation of all those enjoyments, rewards, and honours, which the ministers even of the purest creed receive without reproach? But these are the opinions of the shallow and the thoughtless. The pursuits of mind may modify, they can never obliterate the instincts, the feelings, or the passions of man. The consciousness of power, and the conviction of its successful exertion, exist undiminished by the neglect or the ingratitude of the country he inhabits. The certainty that a future age will repair the injustice of the present, and the knowledge that the more distant the day of reparation, the more he has outstripped the efforts of his cotemporaries, may well sustain him against the sneers of the ignorant, or the jealousy of rivals. It is possible that in some rare instance such a man may feel personally little ambition to attain what all others covet; still, however, he may be bound by other ties which link him inseparably to the present. He may look with fond and affectionate gratitude on her whose maternal care watched over the dangers of his childhood; who trained his infant mind, and with her own mild power, checking the rash vigour of his youthful days, remained ever the faithful and respected counsellor of his riper age. To gladden the declining years of her who with more than prophetic inspiration, foresaw as woman only can, the distant fame of her beloved offspring, he may well be forgiven the desire for some outward mark of his country’s approbation. If such a relative were wanting, there might yet survive another parent whose less enthusiastic temperament had ever repressed those fond anticipations of maternal affection, but who now in the ripeness of his honoured age, might be compelled, with faltering accents, to admit that the voice of the country confirmed the predictions of the mother.