I. THE FIRST ADDRESS, TO THE GRADUATING CLASS AT ST. MARY'S HALL. A PERFECT WOMAN NOBLY PLANNED. My children, you can never know, your friends and parents do not know, only God knows, the mingled feelings which crowd in upon my heart, to-night. It is much to be the parent of a child. To receive from God a soul, to be trained up, and nurtured, and accounted for to Him. To know, that as that trust shall be discharged, one shall be added to the throng, that evermore surround the Throne, with songs of joy and praise; or else go, howling through eternity, in hopeless and unutterable woe. Oh, it is very much to be the parent of a child! But there are compensations, too. The sense of being towards it, as God. The power which lies in undivided, undisputed right. The more than magnetism of nature's sacred spell. The daily avenues * September, A. D. 1845. These Addresses did not begin with the first Class; nor were they delivered to every class, regularly, until A. D. 1851. At that time, the graduations were yearly, instead of at the end of each term; and the addresses, annual. that open, heart to heart. The hourly opportunities, that knit and mould them into one. The confidence, that cannot know a doubt. The sympathy, which none beside can share. And, more than all, God's unconditioned pledge, that due parental care shall never fail of its reward. "Train up a child, in the way he should go; and when he is old, he will not depart from it." These are the compensations, which relieve, and crown, and bless, the parent's awful charge; and justify the Psalmist, when he says, that "children" "are a heritage and gift," that comes to us, direct from God. But, now, there come to us twenty, or fifty, or an hundred children; to sit about our feet, to be gathered round our knees, to grow up to our hand, to have us in the place to them of parents. They are far from home. They are of tender age. They are to be cared for in their bodies. They are to be cared for as to their minds. Their hearts are to be cared for. Above all, they have immortal souls, which must be cared for, with our utmost care. Daily, they gather at our board. Daily, they sport about our paths. Daily, we aid them in their intellectual developement. Daily, we minister the varied store of knowledge, to their minds. Daily, with dawning and declining day, they kneel with us in prayers. We occupy, towards them, whatever in the social nature with which God has framed us, is most responsible and most endearing, in office and relation. We are their nurses. We are their teachers. We are their next friends. We exercise, in their behalf, at once, the PASTORAL and the PARENTAL duties. As, in that sweetest sacred picture, "the one little ewe lamb," which the 99.66 poor man "nourished up, grew up together with him, and with his children; it did eat of his own meat, and drank of his own cup, and lay in his bosom, and was unto him as a daughter." Can we be human, and not feel these things? Can we have hearts, and all the tendrils of these living plants not find them out, and fill them with their love? And when they have thus grown to us, as ivy to the wall, and wound themselves all in with our "most dear heart-strings," how could we be so much as human, and not feel, at such an hour, when they come up here, for the last time, to receive our counsels and our blessing, that we are parting with a portion of our life ?—No, my dear children, you can never know, your friends and parents do not know, only God knows, the mingled feelings which crowd in upon our hearts, to-night. But we too have our compensations, we have looked upon these children, week by week, as they have grown in stature and in wisdom. We have watched the opening bud, as it gave out new fragrance and new beauty. We have felt-what language cannot utter-the responsive pulse of their young hearts, in all the fulness of its unreserving and undoubted confidence. We have marked the tottering step, as it grew more elastic, and more firm. We have marked the stammering tongue, as it grew more distinct and full. We have beheld the expanding mind. We have beheld the improving taste. We have beheld the ripening judgment. We have be held the increasing store of knowledge. We have be held the advancing work of grace. We have gone with them to the house of God. We have received their youthful vows. We have signed them with the sacred Cross. We have laid our hands upon their trembling heads. We have broken for them the bread of life, and given them drink from the cup of salvation. And, if we are now to part with them, it is to send them, in the purity and freshness of their youth; improved in health, improved in manners, and improved in mind; grown, as we trust, in grace, even more than they have grown in stature, to be the pride of parents, and the joy of friends, and the delight of home; to repay, a thousand fold, in gifts of learning, and in graces of deportment, and in the riches of all virtue, the care and cost, the longings and the yearnings, of their absence. To be, to younger brothers, and to younger sisters, kind protectors, patient teachers, exemplary guides; to be, to father, and to mother, stays of their age, lights of their hearth, the charmers of their hearts; to adorn and dignify society; and to be "polished corners" in the house of God. These are the compensations of our lot, which reconcile us to the pangs of parting, and the pains of loss. And, for these, we feel that we can smile now, through our tears; and say, to these young daughters of our heart, Go, and the Lord be with you! Beloved ones, as the best parting words that I can utter-the memory, which I would have you bear from me, and bear about with you, through life-accept, to-night, as from the hand of one whom I may call my friend, the solace and the glory of our dry and dusty age, the Poet WORDSWORTH,* this breathing portraiture of what a woman ought to be, what I would have you be, what each of you, through grace, may be: "She was a Phantom of delight, When first she gleam'd upon my sight; A lovely Apparition, sent To be a moment's ornament; Her eyes as stars of Twilight fair; But all things else about her drawn A dancing shape, an Image gay, "I saw her, upon nearer view, A Spirit, yet a Woman too! A countenance in which did meet For human nature's daily food; For transient sorrows, simple wiles, Praise, blame, love, kisses, tears, and smiles. "And now I see with eye serene The very pulse of the machine; A Being breathing thoughtful breath, A Traveller between life and death; The reason firm, the temperate will, *Moxon's London edition, 1840, ii. 88. |