"Get up, M. le Comte!"

You have all been considering what qualities are most necessary in family life and what qualities are most to be deprecated—you have, in short, been considering Dr. Johnson\'s question as to what makes "a clubbable person." I find, on comparing your suggestions, that there are thirty-eight things to avoid in home life (which suggests complexity); however, each of you was to confine her attention to three virtues and three failings, so in giving you my own likes and dislikes, I will not dwell on more than three.

I will not take manifest faults like irritability or selfishness—we all strive against those, but I would suggest turns of mind that are often not realized as faults:—

I.—The Benevolent Despot who takes infinite trouble for your help or pleasure, but insists on your enjoying yourself in her way. (The young very often do this to the old or to the invalid, quite forgetting that one\'s own way loses none of its charm, even in age or illness!)

II.—Then there is the Peter Grievous who cannot stand a word of reproof; she is aggrieved or huffy or sulky in a minute—she thinks that she has a delicate sense of justice, and that she does well to be angry; she feels as if her mother took a curious and selfish enjoyment in finding fault with her,—whereas the poor mother has to take her courage in both hands before saying anything calculated to bring on those black looks.

III.—And then there is The Snail, always slow, generally late, and frequently a martyr—she has to be spoken to so often that her case usually develops into the Peter Grievous disease as well. For if a mother speaks, let us say, six times—in the daughter\'s mind it ceases to be reproof, and becomes Nagging. It never occurs to the daughter that she sinned six times (or even shall we say eight or ten?); she feels that she is being nagged at, and may therefore cease to attend, and may enjoy a grievance into the bargain!

Now, I have slow friends who really suffer from a sense of their failing, and who realize acutely what they make others suffer; they were not trained at first to pull themselves together and to collect beforehand any materials they were likely to want (as you can train yourselves by settling in properly to do your preparation)—and they did not teach themselves to start five minutes sooner instead of leaving things to the last moment. (They think that the consequent family thundercloud is their sad fate from their being of a slow constitution.) But if you have only one horse and your neighbour two, and you are to dine at the same house, it only means that you must order yours earlier. Do not start together and then bewail your sad fate; nothing condemns you to be late except your own bad management.

Especially be careful to be up early when you are going to early service with your mother; it fidgets her to wait—she recalls all your many previous sins of the same kind—and just when you both want to feel at one, you start off together (rather, I should say, you overtake her), both feeling very much at two. And yet you made an effort to go! and you feel she ought to be pleased with you—do not spoil it by that fly in the ointment of being late.

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It seems to me that the Benevolent Despot, the Peter Grievous, and the
Martyred Snail, are people to avoid in choosing your family!

Now, the people to choose for your family party are, first, the Reliable Person. I know one person who is a perfect tower of strength, she is full of common sense: if you give her a commission she is sure to get the right thing and to do it reasonably; she knows exactly what she paid, and she tells you! If she undertakes to do a thing it is certain to be done in good time; she does not wait till the very day the thing is wanted and then find that it cannot be got.

Now, you often let yourselves do a stupid thing, or a forgetful thing, and then say, "Oh, I\'m so sorry!" and feel as if you had wiped it out. Not at all! You have lost one chance of growing into a reliable woman. In all your life you will only have a certain limited number of chances, and should use every one you have—to be reliable is worth all the genius in the world for comfort to others, and you can each win this crown if you care to do so.

One other person I would choose if I were fated to have sisters, would be the one who purrs when she is pleased. It takes all the colour and air out of life when people gaze impassively at beautiful things, or hear lovely things and never seem to have taken them in; or meet kindness and look as if it was not there. You do not need to gush, but do purr!

And thirdly I want a magnanimous nature;—one that takes slights and neglects in a large-minded way, and does not believe people meant them and, if they did, does not fret: one who is serene when little things go wrong, and does not fuss or worry: one who accepts generously as well as gives generously, and who is keenly alive to people\'s good points and good intentions. Little petty motives and small spites and jealousy die away in the light of a nature like that. It keeps the family atmosphere sweet and wholesome.

* * * * *

Now, my lessons are generally about the things that can be carried out at home, or else about the beliefs that underlie them. You know that my ambition for you is that you should go out into the world and lead the ordinary small social life, but that you should live it in a great way and bring great beliefs to bear on it.

This is a special lesson—the last of all to some of you—the last in this year to all of you.

How long have you been at school, each of you? How many times have we come together here, and thought over together, point after point, the things that really matter to us?

Week after week we are reminded by these talks to pull ourselves together, first in one way, then in another, and I do believe we have all tried.

Have the suggestions I made and the Resolutions we made, soaked into our lives and altered the stuff of which we are made? That is the Responsibility for me who speak and for you who hear: "To him that knoweth to do good and doeth it not, to him it is sin."

A Bible lesson written for you and dwelling on your special life and dangers is a more pointed reminder to you than a general sermon, and when you leave you will not get these reminders: one is hardly ever spoken to religiously after being grown up. It is no one\'s business afterwards (as it is mine now) to speak to you.

Therefore I want you always to keep some religious book on hand that is likely to speak to you. For instance, Bishop Wilkinson\'s books speak, so do Dean Paget\'s and Law\'s "Serious Call," and "Christian Perfection." Read a little of such a book every day, and a longer bit on Sunday. If you only say your prayers and go to church, it is apt to become an outside thing; you want stirring up!

When you go out into the world you may drift into the ways of each household you are with for the time being; whereas I 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 s............