your closeness in life to those around you, and of the strong currents of
mutual influence, may have opened your eyes to what you owe to your
neighbour and to the claims of social duty. Some one of these causes, or
it may be some other cause, may have given you strength and power to walk
amongst us in the narrow way of good habit and good influence. And
wherever this is so, we thank God. But the question to-day is, What
assurance do you feel that this will continue? When we go elsewhere,
what habits, what tendencies, what fixed bent of spirit and character
shall we exhibit? Knowing as we do how strongly the forces of the outer
world will act upon us, it is never a useless warning which bids us take
care that in new spheres we do not forget our old principles, or lay
aside any good habits. "Blessed are ye that sow beside all waters."

We have learnt to look upon certain laws of conduct and feeling, certain
duties, certain standards of life, as beyond dispute, and fundamental. If
so, they are also of universal application; and we should hold them as
things which are altogether independent of the customs, traditions, or
tone of any society into which we may go.

It is probable that some of you may find this doctrine not altogether
free from difficulties before many weeks are over. You may find
yourselves young and apparently uninfluential members of some society in
which the standards of life are low, and you may be tempted to think,
under the pressure of surrounding opinion, that you are not called upon
to set up or display any standard of your own; and there is always a
chorus of voices ready enough to echo any such tempting suggestions.

But if ever you are tempted thus to let slip the things you have learnt
and accepted, the voice of Isaiah should prove a help and a safeguard.
And its exhortation is supported by the respect and admiration you feel