ery story somewhat of its kernel of
spiritual meaning. But again, to educate them truly we must
ourselves have faith; we must believe that in every one there is a
spiritual eye which can perceive those great principles when they are
once fairly presented to it, that in all there are some noble
instincts, some pure yearnings after wisdom, and taste, and
usefulness, which, if we only appeal to them trustfully through the
examples of the past, and the excitements of the present, will wake
into conscious life. Above all, both pupils and teachers must never
forget that all these things were written for their examples; that
though circumstances and creeds, schools and tastes, may alter, yet
the heart of man, and the duty of man, remain unchanged; and that
while

The old order changes, giving place to the new,
And God fulfils himself in many ways--

yet again

Through the ages one unaltered purpose runs--

and the principles of truth and beauty are the same as when the
everlasting Spirit from whom they come "brooded upon the face" of the
primeval seas.

But once more, we must and will by God's help try to realise the
purpose of this College, by boldly facing the facts of the age and of
our own office. And therefore we shall not shrink from the task,
however delicate and difficult, of speaking to our hearers as to
women. Our teaching must be no sexless, heartless abstraction. We
must try to make all which we tell them bear on the great purpose of
unfolding to woman her own calling in all ages--her especial calling
in this one. We must incite them to realise the chivalrous belief of
our old forefathers among their Saxon forests, that something Divine
dwelt in the counsels of woman; but, on the other hand, we must
continually remind them that they will attain that divine instinct,
not by renouncing their sex, but by fulfilling it; by becoming true
women, and not bad imitations of men; by educating their heads for
the sake of their hearts, not their hearts for the sake of their
heads; by claiming woman's divine vocation, as the priestess of
purity, of beauty, and of love; by educating themselves to become,
with God's blessing, worthy wives and mothers of a mighty nation of
workers, in an age when the voice of the ever-working God is
proclaiming through the thunder of falling dynasties, and crumbling
idols: "He that will not work, neither shall he eat."

GROTS AND GROVES {269}

This lecture is inte