d as a real moral agent in the community and to the people of
this city. And, as my respected friend has suggested, perhaps the people
would rather go out in the park than to stop and hear our dull sermons.
But I would run even that risk; for the Lord's Day, you know, is a day
of rest; and, after we pay our homage to our Creator, I think it would
be pleasant even to Him to go and take your family, and take a stroll
out into these pleasant parks that are proposed for your health.
[Applause.]

And then there is another feature which pleases me very much. You know,
in the olden time, the lords and nobles, and those who possessed the
landed estates, they felt it their duty to provide for the welfare of
the laboring classes, upon whom they depended really for their riches;
for they tilled their lands, and brought them in their incomes and the
returns from their estates: and so they watched over them with a kind of
a paternal care; and, when they were sick, they provided for them
hospitals, and they watched over them as a father would over his family.
Now, we live in a little somewhat different order of society; but still
there remains the same common duty for the men of wealth, for the men
who possess capital, to look out and provide for the wants and
necessities of the poor, on whom they depend to a great extent; for
capital cannot be independent of labor. [Applause.]

Now I see around me, I may say, the nobility of this city. They may not
have long, sounding titles; but they have the wealth, they have the
philanthropy; and their presence here to-night shows you that they have
those same generous impulses toward the whole of this city's population.
They have come here as a unit: they are willing to pay whatever is
required to build this magnificent system of parks, that all the people
of every class may enjoy its benefits. I say they are acting the part of
the nobles of old; and they are taking care of the people of this city
as though they had a certain paternal influence and responsibility
toward them [applause], and it rejoices my heart. And in another point
of view, we know that the safety of any community and society depends
upon the contentment and happiness of all classes of its people.

If there is one class that is ground down, and unhappy, and living under
unworthy conditions, they are, of course, immediately a dangerous
element. I say that it is a matter of good policy, as a stroke of
political economy, to prov