ool life, there is sure to rise up in many minds
the thought of what this life has done for them or failed to do, and of
what the memory of it is likely to be in all their future years as they
pass from youth to age.

And it should be our aim and desire, as need hardly be said, that from
the day when each one comes amongst us as a little boy to the day when he
offers his last prayer in this chapel before he goes out into the world,
his life here should be of such a sort that its after taste may have no
regrets, and no bitterness, and no shame in it, and the memories to be
cherished may be such as add to the happiness and strength of later
years. And if, as we trust, this is your case, your feeling for your
school is almost certain to be in some degree like that which is
expressed in this pilgrim psalm. Its language of intense patriotism,
steeped in religious feeling, which is the peculiar inspiration of the
Old Testament Jew, will seem somehow to express your own feelings for
that life in which you grew up from childhood to manhood.

Indeed, the best evidence that your school life has not failed of its
higher objects is the growth of this same sort of earnest patriotic
enthusiasm. Do you feel at all for your school as that unknown Jewish
pilgrim who first sung this 122nd Psalm felt for the city of his fathers
and the house of God? "Pray for the peace of Jerusalem: they shall
prosper that love thee. For my brethren and companions' sakes I will
wish thee prosperity. Yea, because of the house of the Lord our God I
will seek to do thee good."

Experience shows us that those English schools have been the best in
which this feeling has been strongest and most widely diffused; and that
those are the best times in any school which train up and send forth the
largest proportion of men who continue to watch over its life, and to
pray for it in this spirit: "For my brethren and companions' sakes I will
wish thee prosperity. Yea, because of the house of the Lord our God I
will seek to do thee good." On the other hand, if this feeling is weak
in any school, or among the former members of it, or if it assumes
debased forms, as sometimes happens, we see there a sure sign of
degeneration. He who, having grown up in any society like ours, is
possessed by no such love for it, and stirred by no enthusiasm for its
good name, and no desire to do it good, and to see good growing in every
part of it, such an one has somehow missed