’I rejoice, because their presence enables me to take a personal farewell of so many of those who will in the next generation be the planters, the merchants, the official and professional men of Trinidad.  By the time that you are men all the petty jealousies, all the mean resentments of this our day, will have faded into the oblivion which is their proper bourn.  But the work now accomplished will not, I trust, so fade.  They will melt and perish as the snow of the north would before our tropical sun:  but the College will, I trust, remain as the rock on which the snow rests, and which remains uninjured by the heat, unmoved by the passing storm.  May it endure and strengthen as it passes from the first feeble beginnings of this its infancy to a vigorous youth and maturity.  You will sometimes in days to come recall the inauguration of your College, and perhaps not forget that its founder prayed you to bear in mind the truth that you will find, even now, the truest satisfaction in the strict discharge of duty; that he urged you to form high and unselfish aims—­to seek noble and worthy objects; and as you enter on the world and all its tossing sea of jealousies, strife, division and distrust, to heed the lesson which an Apostle, whose words we all alike revere, has taught us, “If ye bite and devour one another, take ye heed that ye be not consumed one of another.”

’Here, we hope, a point of union has been found which may last through life, and that whilst every man cherishes a love for his own peculiar School, all alike will have an interest in their common College, all alike be proud of a national institution, jealous of its honour, and eager to advance its welfare.

’It is a common thing to hear the bitterness of religious discord here deplored.  I for one, looking back on the history of past years, cannot think, as some seem to do, that it has increased.  On the contrary, it seems to me that it has greatly diminished in violence when displayed, and that its displays are far less frequent.  Such, I believe, will be more and more the case; and that whilst religious distinctions will remain the same, and conscientious convictions unaltered, social and party differences consequent on those distinctions and convictions will daily diminish; that all alike will more and more feel in how many things they can think and act together for the benefit of their common country, and of the community of which they all are members; how they can be glad together in her prosperity, and be sad together in the day of her distress; and work together at all times to promote her good.  That this College is calculated to aid in a great degree in effecting this happy result, I for one cannot entertain the shadow of a doubt.  “Esto perpetua!"’