possible is the same, tempered through the ages, by the benign influence of Christianity. Among the ancients, many had risen to the idea of forgiveness of enemies, of patience under wrong doing, and even of the brotherhood of man; but the spirit of Love only received its incarnation with the ever memorable reply to the ever memorable question, Who is my neighbour?-a reply which has changed the attitude of the world. Nowhere in ancient history, sacred or profane, do we find pictures of devoted heroism in women such as dot the annals of the Catholic Church, or such as can be paralleled in our own century. Tender maternal affection, touching filial piety were there; but the spirit abroad was that of Deborah not Rizpah, of Jael not Dorcas.

In the gradual division of labour, by which civilization has emerged from barbarism, the doctor and the nurse have been evolved, as useful accessories in the incessant warfare in which man is engaged. The history of the race is a grim record of passions and ambitions, of weaknesses and vanities, a record, too often, of barbaric inhumanity, and even to-day, when philosophers would have us believe his thoughts had widened, he is ready as of old to shut the gates of mercy, and to let loose the dogs of war. It was in one of these attacks of race-mania that your profession, until then unsettled and ill-defined, took, under Florence Nightingale-ever blessed be her name its modern position.

Individually, man, the unit, the microcosm, is fast bound in chains of atavism, inheriting legacies of feeble will and strong desires, taints of blood and brain. What wonder, then, that many, sore let and hindered in running the

AE.

17

C

race, fall by the way, and need a shelter in which to recruit or to die, a hospital, in which there shall be no harsh comments on conduct, but only, so far as is possible, love and peace and rest? Here, we learn to scan gently our brother man, judging not, asking no questions, but meting out to all alike a hospitality worthy of the Hôtel Dieu, and deeming ourselves honoured in being allowed to act as its dispensers. Here, too, are daily before our eyes the problems which have ever perplexed the human mind; problems not presented in the dead abstract of books, but in the living concrete of some poor fellow in his last round, fighting a brave fight, but sadly weighted, and going to his account "unhousell'd, disappointed, unanel'd, no reckoning made." As we whisper to each other over his bed that the battle is decided and Euthanasia alone remains, have I not heard in reply to that muttered proverb, so often on the lips of the physician, "the fathers have eaten sour grapes," your answer, in clear accentsthe comforting words of the prayer of Stephen?

But our work would be much restricted were it not for man's outside adversary-Nature, the great Moloch, which exacts a frightful tax of human blood, sparing neither young nor old; taking the child from the cradle, the mother from her babe, and the father from the family. Is it strange that man, unable to dissociate a personal element from such work, has incarnated an evil principle-the devil? If we have now so far outgrown this idea as to hesitate to suggest, in seasons of epidemic peril, that "it is for our sins we suffer "—when we know the drainage is bad; if we no longer mock the heart prostrate in the grief of loss with the words "whom

the Lord loveth He chasteneth "-when we know the milk should have been sterilized-if, I say, we have, in a measure, become emancipated from such teachings, we have not yet risen to a true conception of Nature. Cruel, in the sense of being inexorable, she may be called, but we can no more upbraid her great laws than we can the lesser laws of the state, which are a terror only to evildoers. The pity is that we do not know them all; in our ignorance we err daily, and pay a blood penalty. Fortunately it is now a great and growing function of the medical profession to search out the laws about epidemics, and these outside enemies of man, and to teach to you, the publicdull, stupid pupils you are, too, as a rule-the ways of Nature, that you may walk therein and prosper.

It would be interesting, Members of the Graduating Class, to cast your horoscopes, To do so collectively you would not like; to do so individually—I dare not; but it is safe to predict certain things of you, as a whole. You will be better women for the life which you have led here. But what I mean by "better women is that the eyes of your souls have been opened, the range of your sympathies has been widened, and your characters have been moulded by the events in which you have been participators during the past two years.

Practically there should be for each of you a busy, useful, and happy life; more you cannot expect; a greater blessing the world cannot bestow. Busy you will certainly be, as the demand is great, both in private and public, for women with your training. Useful your lives must be, as you will care for those who cannot care for themselves, and who need about them, in the day of tribulation, gentle

hands and tender hearts. And happy lives shall be yours, because busy and useful; having been initiated into the great secret-that happiness lies in the absorption in some vocation which satisfies the soul; that we have here to add what we can to, not to get what we can from, life.

And, finally, remember what we are-useful supernumeraries in the battle, simply stage accessories in the drama, playing minor, but essential, parts at the exits and entrances, or picking up, here and there, a strutter, who may have tripped upon the stage. by the dark river so near to us

You have been much all - and have seen so

many embark, that the dread of the old boatman has almost disappeared, and

When the Angel of the darker Drink

At last shall find you by the river brink,
And offering his cup, invite your soul

Forth to your lips to quaff-you shall not shrink:

your passport shall be the blessing of Him in whose footsteps you have trodden, unto whose sick you have ministered, and for whose children you have cared.

III

TEACHER AND STUDENT