want you to have your
own definite religious life, an inner life of rules and duties: dress like
other people, but keep a hair shirt underneath, as the Saints did.

And when I talk about this and that piece of advice (advice which is often
worldly wisdom; for goodness and worldly wisdom are closely
allied),--always remember that I pre-suppose the life of prayer and rule
about which I so often speak--only _there_ can you gain strength to follow
such advice.

But now (pre-supposing the inner religious life--the effort after the
Practice of the Presence of God)--what shall I pick out as practical
advice for a closing lesson to those who are going into the world?

I.--Always _vote on the right side_ in conversation.

Very often the lower side, or the _un_religious side in talk (or in
doings, such as not going to Church) is the easier side to take. It seems
obtrusive to show what you feel to be right; and very often the one who
takes the religious side is narrow-minded and tiresome compared to the
others. Goodness is very often tiresome, and non-religion broad-minded and
amusing. (Gallio is often a most attractive person!) It takes courage then
to side with the tiresome one, instead of saying something rather clever.
In youth one has a great horror of belonging to the tiresome side.
Cleverness counts for so much, and it is hard in early life to put
goodness first! One does not realize the beauty of the strength and
principle shown by the tiresome people, and it takes real principle to
show one's colours in ordinary talk.

I once heard of an earnest religious girl who was asked to a pleasant
country house, and who thought she might lawfully take a holiday, as it
were, and be like other people while away from home; so she laughed and
talked with the rest and kept her real life to herself. On the last night,
a girl she had taken a fancy to came into her room, and, after a little
time, said, "It has been so nice meeting you, but I rather wish your
sister had come too." "But I have no sister." "Why, I have heard so much
of her, and of how good she is, and though you wouldn't think it, I have
been bothered about things lately, and when I heard your name, I thought
it was she who was coming here, and I planned to have a talk with
her:--you're awfully nice, but of course one wouldn't talk about those
things to you any more than to any of the rest of us."

I leave you to fancy the resolutions that girl made, to show her colours