Excerpt from An Address Delivered in the First Parish: Beverly, October 2, 1867, on the Two-Hundredth I could have wished that it might have been committed to some one abler and worthier to meet the demands of this occa sion. The invitation to do so came to me when not quite in my usual health and strength, and when other engagements left me but brief space for complying with it. But coming as it did, with the unanimous vote of the parish to which I had so long, and so pleasantly to myself at least, sustained the pastoral re lation, and accompanied with the expressed wish of the present pastor, it had to me the force of a mandate which I could not hesitate to obey. I confess also the desire to lay one more offering, humble though it be, on this altar, at which my early freshness and vigor were consecrated to the service of this an cient and honorable religious society. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.