And I say to all of you, not only to the leaving ones:  Do not lounge through the day just because it is holidays.  You are not a little child who has to be made to do things:  you are a sensible, reasonable being, who wants to grow.  You do not leave off eating for a month, you do not leave off growing for a month; then do not leave off growing in other ways.  Do not be worthless at any time.

Some of you seem to think you will not have to give account of holidays to God—­I think you will be more called to account for them, for then you have a chance of showing your real stuff.

And when you are grown up, and quite free, feel that you are still more responsible.

Enjoy yourself to the top of your bent, but see that each day you gain new power to do what you ought, and what you make up your mind to do; and remember that this power is only gained in the using—­and dies out if we do not use it.  I shall be horribly disappointed if you do not gain this power, and if you do not use it well, “to the Glory of God and the Relief of Man’s Estate.”

Be ambitious—­be all you were meant to be; make the world different; be generous—­freely you have received, freely give.

Some one said to me the other day, “Girls are younger nowadays, and they go on being young till they are well through middle life.  At sixteen we had to look after other people, but they shirk responsibility, till women of thirty are content to be like birds of the air, just amusing themselves, and feeling no call to be of any serious use.”

I said, “Well, I do not like to see even a girl of eighteen with no raison d’etre, ‘living like a prize animal!’”

Why were you born?  God thought about you, and took trouble about you, and has something you can do for Him.  To exist beautifully is not enough!  Have you definite duties, which you stick to even though they bore you, e.g., house duties, or reading aloud, or lessons with the younger ones?  If not, find some!

Marcus Aurelius counted each day lost in which he could not at night look back on something he had done for others.

Jeremy Taylor, in the “Golden Grove,” says:—­“Suppose every day to be a day of business:  for your whole life is a race and a battle; a merchandise, a journey.  Every day propounds to yourself a rosary or chaplet of works, to present to God at night.”

I have given you three pieces of advice—­

      I.—­Vote on the right side in conversation. 
     II.—­Show that you love your mother. 
    III.—­Put salt into every day.

I would end with one more.  I take it from Saint Simon, that clever on-looker at the Court of Louis XIV. whose memoirs are famous.  His morning greeting to himself was—­

"Get up, M. le Comte! you have great things to do to-day."

You will all of you go out to lives that you can make empty and self-indulgent and narrow if you like; you can shirk duties and eat capriciously or intemperately, and lie in bed too long; you can idle about all day amusing yourself, and fill your mind with dress and gossip and spite;—­perhaps you would feel there was “no harm” in such a life!